Plato's Phaedo - Reminiscence of Reality

For Plato all true learning rests on the truths which are already in the soul, awaiting their recovery through philosophy.

In Plato's Phaedo Socrates offers five arguments for the immortality of the human soul: this lecture will examine the second of these five, which explores the Platonic doctrine of "innate reasons".

In another dialogue (the Phaedrus) Socrates paints in inspired words an image of the soul as a winged chariot which takes flight through the highest heaven – a heaven in which it perceives eternal ideas – before falling to Earth and more or less forgetting these ideas. For Plato learning is, in fact, the recalling of these ideas which reside as reasons deep in the soul and which are only truly brought to mind by the attempt to live a philosophical life – a life which not only brings about knowledge of the ideas but also lives them. The very fact of the existence of these reasons to be recovered from the soul, says Socrates in this passage, indicates that the soul is not formed by the conception of the body, but pre-exists it.

The lecture will be a short one, and we will read together the four pages from the Phaedo which outline the argument: we expect to have at least 45 minutes for a collaborative discussion of the ideas which Plato enshrines in the passage.

No previous experience of formal philosophy is required.

Entrance in free, but donations between £3-5 will be welcomed.

More details on the Prometheus Trust's website: www.prometheustrust.co.uk on the "London Monday Evenings" page.

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