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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2021
As his biological time ticks away, Socrates describes the everlasting life of his soul. His friends keep their eyes on the clock: Cebes reminds everyone to speak up now while Socrates is still alive (107a), and Crito urges Socrates to delay drinking the poison, since “the sun is on the mountains and has not yet set” (116e). But Socrates looks beyond the present to the future life of his soul. He presents four arguments for the immortality of the soul. In one argument, he says that the soul acquired knowledge of the Forms before it entered a body. As he claims: “souls existed previously … apart from bodies, before they took on human form, and they had intelligence” (76c).1 By pointing to a period of existence before incarnation, Socrates locates the soul outside of biological and historical time.
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