The Phaedo Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Phaedo - Essay Example Those enemies would be a life wasted on the pursuit of pleasure at the expense of pain (pleasure withdrawn). This very duality of life, according to Socrates, is the bane of existence for all of mankind. If one spends much time caught in the illusion of earthly pleasures then faces a fear of death due to inattention to the betterment of the mind and soul, then that life is sorely wasted. Yet to Socrates, lightly embracing pleasure allows one to enhance pleasure and not fear its removal, for such a person knows that pleasure is merely ephemeral and not a constant. In succeeding to do this, one overcomes the fear of death, for the loss of pleasure is a death in itself. Fear of losing pleasure is fear of death. This is not to say that the form death may take is pleasurable, but Socrates explains that the true philosopher from early on chases death in life, seeks endings and depth, the essence of pleasure and pain and finds within this duality a richness that is exhilarating rather than frightening. To live with death every day, or in other words, living each day preparing to die, is the very stuff of the true philosopher. A life well lived should not be grieved; Socrates wonders why people who face death fear liberation from worldly burdens when life could be lived free of worldly burdens by recognizing them as symbols rather than literal things. In d In discussing the pleasure/pain principle, Socrates explains that the fear of loss during life is an endless exchange of one pleasure for another. He demonstrates this by stating that, like coins, people abstain from one pleasure only to replace it with another in order to be "temperate." Like coins, the balance of pleasures is kept in check, yet there is always the fear of them being removed, lost or taken. The philosopher sees the idiocy of such thinking and allows pleasure to come and go as it pleases, seeing it for what it is. Pleasure is not worth sacrificing one's worldly life to obtain and hold onto it, for it is evasive and fickle. The true coin, Socrates says, is Wisdom. Interestingly, Socrates says flat out that we are born from the dead (in other words, we are dead until we are born); therefore, why should we fear death We already have en existence before we enter this world and we will regain that existence upon leaving this world. As we find good people in this world, so we shall find them in the world from whence our souls came. From this conversation springs the key to the duality in the world through the example of forms; in this world, forms are objects that help us remember; for life is simply an attempt to recall what has been forgotten rather than to know anything. True knowledge and the attainment of wisdom is the synthesis of the formed and the unformed, the born and the unborn, the resolution of all dualities. As Socrates explains (and to put it in modern terms), forms are symbols of what we know and are ties to many memories, each evoking a feeling of pleasure or pain. There is no true learning, only remembering (which is another way of saying that the brain is limited to the mind, but the soul is independent of both). My brother's sweater reminds me of