The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Penguin Classics)

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Meanwhile, in the recollection and affinity arguments, the connection with life is not explicated or used at all. These two arguments present the soul as a knower (i.e., a mind). This is most clear in the affinity argument, where the soul is said to be immortal in virtue of its affinity with the Forms that we observe in acts of cognition. de Caso, Jacques (October 1972). "Jacques-Louis David and the Style 'All' antica' ". The Burlington Magazine. Vol.114, no.835. pp.686–690. Johnson, Dorothy (1993). Jacques-Louis David: Art in Metamorphosis. Princeton University Press. p.66–68. ISBN 0691032181. Plato worked his whole life to rationally prove, without a doubt, the existence of a higher plane of existence and higher truths which informed the visible world. In the last dialogue he would write, Laws, he was still trying and still not quite succeeding. Plato's works may be read as one life-long refutation of Protagoras' relativity.

Now if we received this knowledge before our birth, and were born with it, we knew, both before and at the moment of our birth, not only the equal, and the greater, and the less, [regarding abstract equality] but also everything of the same kind, did we not? Our present reasoning does not refer only to equality. It refers just as much to absolute good, and absolute beauty, and absolute justice, and absolute holiness; in short, I repeat, to everything which we mark with the name of real, in the questions and answers of our dialectic. So we must have received our knowledge of all realities before we were born. (75c-d) Throughout the 20th century, scholars universally recognized this as a flaw in Plato's theory of the soul, with this trend continuing and then ultimately being rejected in the 21st century. [25] Even though he was never able to prove his objective standards to his own – or others' – satisfaction, his attempt created a concept that had never been articulated before in such a highly developed form: that there is a higher good to strive for in life, an objective truth one should seek, and a right way of living one's life according to the standards of that truth.Fletcher R., Platonizing Latin: Apuleius’s Phaedo in G. Williams and K. Volk, eds., Roman Reflections: Studies in Latin Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 238–59

See Campbell 2021: 524 n. 1 for more examples of scholars hurling this problem at Plato's feet, both in the English-language scholarship and abroad. Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you and, while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not Ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care; I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less. And this I should say to everyone whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For this is the command of God, as I would have you know: and I believe that to this day no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue come money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, my influence is ruinous indeed. But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not; but whatever you do, know that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times. Plato: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus. Greek with translation by Harold N. Fowler. Loeb Classical Library 36. Harvard Univ. Press (originally published 1914).In 387 BC Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the school is often said to be the first European university. It provided a comprehensive body of classes, including such subjects as astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory and philosophy. Aristotle was the Academy's most well-known student. Plato. Phaedo. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Greek text with introduction and commentary by C. J. Rowe. Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0521313186 This treatise defends the value of rational free inquiry and its importance to the well-being of society. Dorothea Frede argued that “as to the exact nature of the soul we are left somehow in the dark by Plato in the Phaedo and also in Republic X." [27] In this rich appreciation of Plato’s philosophical achievement, Emerson emphasizes Plato’s work on the nature of the human soul, while at the same time offering Plato as the preeminent example of the philosophical mind.