Dialogue 4, Part 2 Summary and Analysis

"Phaedo", cont'd. Cebes asks what happens to the soul after death, inquiring whether "...immediately on her release from the body, [she issues] forth dispersed like smoke or air and in her flight vanish[es] away into nothingness" or whether she remains intact and journeys to an underworld where it's possible to encounter other souls who have previously passed away. Here Socrates develops his theory of opposites, suggesting that in every aspect of existence (waking, that which is greater, that which is worse) has its opposite (sleeping, that which is less, that which is better), and that one leads into the other (waking leads to sleeping, that which is greater was once less, that which is worse was once better). He then likens death to sleeping and life to waking, suggesting that life comes from death in the same way...