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Socrates Argumentative Analysis

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In Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, he explains the soul and comes to the conclusion that the soul is immortal. Through describing the last hours of Socrates life before his execution, he lays out three arguments in support of the idea that while the body may cease to exist the soul cannot perish. In this paper, I will explicate Socrates three arguments for the immortality of the soul and their objections. Then I will argue on the presupposition of the Law of Conservation of Mass, that the universe, entailing the soul, must be cyclical. The Law of Conservation of Mass For the efficacy of this argument, I will ask you grant my assumption that is: Mass cannot be created or destroyed. However, it can be rearranged or changed in form through processes like chemical reactions. All the matter that composes the universe has always been there and will never cease to be there since it cannot be …show more content…

Therefore, the universe must be cyclical. If it were not all things would eventually die and the entire universe would cease to exist. If this were the universe’s one existence, then from where does innate knowledge come from? Socrates Argument from Recollection supports the idea that the present is not the first existence of the universe. An objection not raised in the body is one to the theory of recollection. Could it be that rather than the soul occupying another body, that innate knowledge we posses is the by-product of ancestral knowledge that is passed down throughout the generations before? All things that are as such now have always been and will always be. This is not to say that the present is the final form of the universe, rather the universe as it reaches its final form will resemble a time before the big bang where matter is so dense the pressure will cause an explosion that will start the cycle of the universe over again composed of all the same matter as the universe

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