Phronesis 49 (1):1 - 23 (2004)
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Phaedo of Elis was well-known as a writer of Socratic dialogues, and it seems inconceivable that Plato could have been innocent of intertextuality when, excusing himself on the grounds of illness, he made him the narrator of one of his own: the "Phaedo". In fact the psychological model outlined by Socrates in this dialogue converges with the evidence we have (especially from fragments of the Zopyrus) for Phaedo's own beliefs about the soul. Specifically, Phaedo seems to have thought that non-rational desires were ineliminable epiphenomena of the body, that reason was something distinct, and that the purpose of philosophy was its 'cure' and 'purification'. If Plato's intention with the "Phaedo" is to assert the separability and immortality of reason (whatever one might think about desire and pleasure), then Phaedo provides a useful standpoint for him. In particular, Phaedo has arguments that are useful against the 'harmony-theorists' (and are the more useful rhetorically speaking since it is only over the independence of reason that Phaedo disagrees with them). At the same time as allying himself with Phaedo, however, Plato is able to improve on him by adding to the demonstration that reason is independent a proof that it is actually immortal
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DOI | 10.1163/156852804773617389 |
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The Asceticism of the Phaedo: Pleasure, Purification, and the Soul’s Proper Activity.David Ebrey - 2017 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 99 (1):1-30.
“Escucha, entonces, un sueño por otro”: Antístenes en el Teeteto de Platón.Claudia Mársico - 2021 - Revista de Filosofía 78:157-172.
Plato's Phaedo on Disagreement and Its Role in Epistemic Improvement.Tonguc Seferoglu - 2020 - Ancient Philosophy Today 2 (1):24-44.
Plato and Antisthenes in the Phaedo: A Reflexive Reading. Part One.Giuseppe Mazzara - 2019 - Peitho 10 (1):13-44.
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