Plato, Phaedo | The Myth of the Afterlife | Philosophy Core Concepts

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This is a video in my new Core Concepts series -- designed to provide students and lifelong learners a brief discussion focused on one main concept from a classic philosophical text and thinker.
This video focuses on Plato's work, The Phaedo, and examines the account of the afterlife which Socrates presents as a "likely story," a myth.
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[@GregoryBSadler]

new Core Concept video -- Plato has a number of different mythological accounts of the afterlife. Here's the one he has Socrates propose in the Phaedo

[@MrMarktrumble]

thank you very much. I believed this account as an allegory when I was younger, and based my life on an ardent desire to see the forms. A sound will is the domain of habit and practise and thus sainthood, while research, observation, reflection and reason is the domain of a rationalist. Plato would say the philosopher is the integration of both will and reason where reason leads the will.

[@Ramniir]

Thanks for the video. I have a midterm coming up and this is helping clarify

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Ramniir Glad it was useful for you

[@rustyjohnson5018]

I watch your videos along side my Philosophy class. Really helps to compare your ideas to my own, and those of my teacher. Thanks.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're quite welcome

[@puusch5332]

Great video, thank you for taking the time to go through these topics! It`s very helpful.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome

[@farldarkbeard]

This was new to me I always thought of the classic philosophers bucking the religious norm but this piece of Plato's work seems spiritual.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Actually, Plato's philosophy as a whole is intensely spiritual. And, some of the philosophers did depart from religious norms, while others rethought them -- the textbook oversimplication that philosophers broke with ancient religions is precisely that, an oversimplification

[@RussTShipp]

Solid, succinct video! Thanks for making this. Very helpful.

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome

[@ThePeaceableKingdom]

Cleombrotos of Ambracia said farewell, and lept from a high wall clear into hell. He had no real problems, as far as we know, but had just finished reading Plato's Phaedo... --- an epigram from the Hellenistic poet Callimachus

[@GregoryBSadler]

Cleombrotos must have skimmed over the early parts, where Socrates argues against suicide

[@ThePeaceableKingdom]

haha I think that's just Callimachos' often humorous sense of irony. The epigrams can be quite touching as well, though, if you know enough Greek (as I know you do) to recognize the meaning of the names in something like "He was twelve years old when his father laid him here, Philip's great hope, his son Nikoteles." (for readers who might not, Philip had named his son "far-conquering")

[@SaddamHussain-gx9nc]

Gregory B. Sadler Funny how later Socrates was forced into suicide.

[@SaddamHussain-gx9nc]

7:17 crazy how it’s very similar to the practice of meditation to achieve Nirvana.

[@ELLoveyou]

Where do the examples of the bees, wolves, donkeys and birds of prey come from? I did not find that he specifically mentioned them in the Republic. Did he refer to them by another name? Thanks!

[@GregoryBSadler]

They're in the text. This isn't on the Republic, now is it?

[@martincristian4567]

Now I get the last season from Game of Thrones. Daenarys always said she wanted to break the wheel. She obviously read Phaedo and by going to Tartarus as a mass murderer you actually break the wheel.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Probably not. . . .

[@dumpywhite]

I love that the philosophers say that philosophers go to the best place

[@GregoryBSadler]

Don't overgeneralize. A philosopher said SOME philosophers would.

[@FenolftaleinRE]

@@GregoryBSadler Did "philosopher" have the meaning it now has back then? I assumed it must have meant "lover of wisdom", where for Plato "wisdom" was a loaded concept for "knowledge of the good" or something close.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@FenolftaleinRE "Philosopher" doesn't have just one meaning at ANY point in time

[@FenolftaleinRE]

@@GregoryBSadler Fair enough. I was also mainly commenting on the semantic overgeneralization that can lead to the criticism in the first comment. Though, I don't think it's entirely pointless to try to approximate what Plato had in mind when he used the word. I sadly just don't know enough about the history of the word and whether it predates Plato and in what sense. Thanks for the video!

[@JocelynMarieIbarra]

Thank you! Your videos have helped me with my philosophy class.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad to read it!

[@HippieChick9]

Mythos: ‘story’; ‘account’ - not proven true - Souls of the dead - Judgement ------ Incurably bad ---> Tartarus (bad!) -----> bad animals (animals that harm people) Get put into ------ This circles on and on: OK-Decent -> People -> Other animals (that can get along with people) ------ Even better places! ^ Pure Abode Philosophers ^ Holy people ------ Plato thinks here that not everyone is in the cycle of reincarnation-those ‘incurably’ bad do not get to go around again.

[@Dproceeder]

Very interesting, However, I wonder if the notion of reincarnation rubs one of the chance to experience the thrills and the finitude of mortal life.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I don't think that has much to do with what Plato's saying

[@Dproceeder]

But if one can always rely on being revived in any form, the frustration caused by death and the experience of the absurd cannot be felt.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yeah... You want to actually look at the text, and not think about this along some generic lines. Plato's not saying this is a widespread belief. Nor in this account do most people get reincarnated right away, and not as humans. Life as a human still ends up being a very precious opportunity in this account

[@TheGuiltsOfUs]

A useful myth for inspiring people and keeping order

[@GregoryBSadler]

Indeed

[@davidholt1250]

Wow. So Christianity lifted this wholesale from Plato?

[@GregoryBSadler]

No

[@kath5018]

No. The ancients Greeks were just very wise,and knew a lot

[@mver191]

Yes. Christianity took a lot of stuff from the Greeks.

[@Kalahridudex]

Sounds a lot like Buddhism

[@GregoryBSadler]

Not really, except the feature of involving reincarnation. There's WAY too much to actual Buddhist doctrine to say that this is "a lot" like that.