Harmony Theory In Phaedo By Plato - 1498 Words

In Phaedo, by Plato, Phaedo recounts an incident with Socrates. The story starts with Socrates opening up saying that Philosophers should not only accept death, but welcome it. After all, although the body will pass, the soul is able to live on because it is immortal. He uses a lot of his intuition to back up his claim, but the main rationale is the Argument of Affinity. He claims that the world is very binary. Things are either incorporeal and invisible, or not. The body is physical, visible and corporeal. Things like the body that are visible are part of the sensible world and do not last. The soul however is not. It is invisible and incorporeal. That is why Socrates believes the soul is immortal. Simmias counters Socrates claim bringing†¦show more content†¦Clearly the harmony of the lyre is not immortal. Harmony doesn’t survive the lyre, but rather is dependent upon the lyre. The lyre is similar to the human body and soul. Harmony is divine and incorporeal. Howeve r, the human body is much like the lyre in that it is both corporeal and visible. Because the lyre is held together in the proper way and at the right degrees, it is able to exist just as the soul does only through the appropriate ways and make-up of the human body. This leads to the point that just because things are invisible and incorporeal does not necessarily mean they are immortal. We need to think of the soul as a different type of harmony. Socrates objects Simmias’ claims and refutes Harmony Theory many ways, but the one I find most notable is that Socrates believes that the soul is the master of the human body and directs and controls the body. Since the soul is eternal and the body is not, the soul controls the body throughout the entirety of its life. Socrates comments, â€Å"further, of all parts of a man, can you mention any other part that rules him than his soul, especially if it is a wise soul?† (Plato 132). Because it has this power, it tells the body what to do, where to move, and how to act. This is different than the harmony and the lyre. For example, â€Å"on the other hand, we previously agreed that if the soul were a harmony, it would never be out of tune with theShow MoreRelatedPlato: Immortality of the Soul1505 Words   |  7 PagesPHAEDO: IMMORTALITY OF SOUL In the dialogue Phaedo Plato discusses the immortality of the soul. He presents four different arguments to prove the fact that although the body of the human perishes after death; the soul still exists and remains eternal. Firstly, he explains the Argument from Opposites that is about the forms and their existence in opposite forms. 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