Causation in the phaedo

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85 (1):21–43 (2004)
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Abstract

In the _Phaedo Socrates says that as a young man he thought it a great thing to know the causes of things; but finding existing accounts unsatisfying, he fell back on a method of his own, hypothesizing that Forms are causes. I argue that part of what this hypothesis says is that certain phenomena--the ones for which it postulates Forms as causes--are the result of processes whose object was to produce them. I then use this conclusion to explain how Socrates' discussion of causality in the _Phaedo might be supposed to contribute to his final argument for immortality

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Sean Kelsey
University of Notre Dame

Citations of this work

Plato on Sunaitia.Douglas R. Campbell - 2023 - Apeiron 56 (4):739-768.
Causes in Plato’s Phaedo.Michael Wiitala - 2022 - Plato Journal 23:37-50.

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References found in this work

Plato: Complete Works.J. M. Cooper (ed.) - 1997 - Hackett.
The presocratic philosophers.Jonathan Barnes - 1979 - New York: Routledge.
Plato: Complete Works.J. Cooper & D. S. Hutchinson - 1998 - Phronesis 43 (2):197-206.
Plato's Phaedo.David Bostock - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Plato's theory of ideas.William David Ross - 1951 - Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.

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