Page 10 - GALIET PLATO´S PHAEDO: Reason and Idea Plato IV

Plato believes the senses confuse the soul:10 they mislead and deceive it, given that things pertaining to the body are not only subject to constant change, care and decay but also to endless appetites, desires and fears. However, when the soul is simply by itself11 dwelling in the realm of the pure, ever-existing and immortal Forms it never strays and experiences wisdom.12 This wisdom and truth, Plato posits, cannot be fully attained by the senses since they keep one too busy. They instigate endless distractions that prevent philosophical contemplation.13 Given that the body cannot think, one can approximate true knowledge only in the measure the soul approximates purity and the body resists urges, that is, actions must be moderate.
Thus, for Plato, the body is an obstacle, an impediment to the soul. The soul is destined to live in a realm of purity, free from any blemish or taint; realm comparable to the highly insinuated 3⁄4 in case it is not the same 3⁄4 realm of Ideas. Plato substantiates his argument that the objects of knowledge come from reason by associating the soul to the invisible and not the visible, to the eternal and not the mortal, to the mind and not the body, to reason and not desire, to the same and not to difference, to the permanent and not the changeless, to ruler and
10 Plato. Phaedo. 79c-d
11 Hence, to attain pure knowledge, he argues, one must escape one’s body. Only after death, he posits, and not in life, one can grasp, in its totality, true, objective knowledge [of the forms] and wisdom. For only in death, the soul is separated and free from bodily bonds.
12 Plato. Phaedo. 79d-e.
13 Plato. Phaedo. 66b-66e
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