Perspective

The perspective of the Phaedo is three-fold. The explicit perspective in the text is that of Phaedo, who tells Echecrates about his experience with Socrates at his death. Periodically in the dialogue, Phaedo and Echecrates will summarize what is going on in the story and review the state of the argument. However, this perspective is only Phaedo's perspective, which is a proxy for both relating Socrates's ideas and expressing Plato's.

Socrates's perspective is perhaps the one most directly represented in the text. First, he does most of the talking and expresses his views about the soul, the philosophical life, the Forms, and so on. He expresses concern about the facts about the afterlife and describes in detail his views about the underworld and about how justice is dealt out to souls of varying deeds and degrees of virtue.

However, the primary perspective of the Phaedo is the author's...