Reading room

Phaedo

Plato

Phaedo of Elis tells Echecrates of Socrates' last hours in prison: the conversation on why the philosopher does not fear death, the arguments for the immortality of the soul (from opposites, recollection, affinity with the invisible, participation in Forms), the closing myth on the fate of souls, and the calm death by hemlock. Here the theory of Forms appears explicitly, as does the definition of philosophy as practice for dying. Plato is said to have been absent through illness (59b).