On Pleasure-Pain And Other Opposites In Plato's Phaedo

Abstract

Plato's Phaedo can be approached taking as its axis the question of opposites, which runs through it in all its extension. In this paper we will focus on the reference to pleasure and pain with which Socrates opens his participation in the work, as well as on the first argument dedicated precisely to the cyclical nature of opposites. We will examine the wide range of qualitatively different examples of opposites that Plato offers and how those differences impact on the value of argumentation. Our analysis will allow us to formulate some appreciations of Platonic interest in these developments which, for their proper interpretation, must be read in the light of the fundamental ontological distinction between the sensible and the intelligible, presented for the first time in this dialogue. Only after being accepted by his interlocutors that it is necessary that opposites can coexist and alternate in order to explain the change in what is generated, Plato will be able to refer to the very determinations that the things designated by them receive, those very opposites that could never become opposites of themselves. It is only from this anticipation, we believe, that the importance given by Plato to the question of opposites in the Phaedo can be justly dimension.