You said:

There's no comedy or tragedy because it's not a drama. — frank

In response I quoted Rosen making specific points as to the dialogues being dramas:

in Neo-Platonist times, interpreters of the dialogues took the dramatic form very seriously.

there was a tradition of taking seriously the dramatic form of the dialogue. It began in Germany in the 18th century with people like Schleiermacher. And that tradition extends through the 19th century, and you see it in scholars like Friedländer and in philosophical interpreters like Gadamer.

within the last ten years, even the analysts have began talking about the dramatic form of the dialogue

within the last ten years, even the analysts have began talking about the dramatic form of the dialogue — Fooloso4

That's what I'm saying, "drama" or play with a moral and spiritual content.

At the risk of going off piste for a minute. We can get back to discussing Plato's Phaedo whenever, or as soon as...

What is 'Platonism' ? It depends on your view. Some have already offered thoughts but don't give references.
Post your definitions or understanding here, or not. Preferably with links to sources.

Here's the SEP version:

Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects — where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view.

It is obviously related to the views of Plato in important ways, but it is not entirely clear that Plato endorsed this view, as it is defined here.
In order to remain neutral on this question, the term ‘platonism’ is spelled with a lower-case ‘p’. (See entry on Plato.)

The most important figure in the development of modern platonism is Gottlob Frege (1884, 1892, 1893–1903, 1919). The view has also been endorsed by many others, including Kurt Gödel (1964), Bertrand Russell (1912), and W.V.O. Quine (1948, 1951). — SEP article on Platonism

Or I suppose another thread can be started by Platonists or spin-offs ?

But the non-philosophers are reluctant to ground their lives on logic and arguments. They have to be persuaded. One means of persuasion is myth. Myth inculcates beliefs. It is efficient in making the less philosophically inclined, as well as children (cf. Republic 377a ff.), believe noble things....

I think that this is correct. It is something that I have been attempting to show. Cebes and Simmias are the image of just such non-philosophical readers and listeners. They have to have their childish fears charmed away by myth and incantations.
By contrast:

For Plato we should live according to what reason is able to deduce from what we regard as reliable evidence. This is what real philosophers, like Socrates, do.

It is significant that those who have opposed my interpretation have not said anything about the details of what Socrates says in the dialogue about myths. Instead they point elsewhere.

It is something that I have been attempting to show — Fooloso4

Yes. I have been attempting to understand and slowly getting there.
I think most careful readers and followers of this discussion can see and appreciate your approach to this.

It is significant that those who have opposed my interpretation have not said anything about the details of what Socrates says in the dialogue about myths. Instead they point elsewhere. — Fooloso4

Yes. It is unfortunate.
However, interesting questions have been raised and I have learned more than I would have if I had just stuck to the text.
I am trying to do both. Not easy.
Hopefully this will lead to a better understanding :sparkle:

Yes, I have. I think Eckhart's teachings come very close to the mysticism within the Platonic tradition. — Apollodorus

He was influenced by Neoplatonism. I think Hegel also came across a brand of it, but that'd be for some other thread.

Anyway, which part of Phaedo reminds you of Hegel's take on oppositions?

It is significant that those who have opposed my interpretation have not said anything about the details of what Socrates says in the dialogue about myths. Instead they point elsewhere. — Fooloso4

Have you thought of just drawing out the significant ideas instead of providing your interpretation?

To zoom out a little.
For those interested in interpretations. 'Methodologies for Reading Plato' :

Such an open-ended type of interpretation has its representatives among two radically different groups: among philosophical interpreters, for whom it makes Plato a philosopher much like them—more interested in, or expecting more from, arguments than in or from conclusions;

and among literary interpreters, who insist on the literary and dramatic form of Plato’s works and argue that we can no more read off his intentions from what he puts in the mouths of his characters than we can infer what an Aeschylus thought from what he has his Clytemnestra or Cassandra say.

But one problem faced by both of these approaches, as by the skeptics of the New Academy, is that of explaining why, if they are right, certain ideas keep recurring in the corpus...

...Platonic metaphysics, that backbone of historical Platonism, also looks comfortably at home in an ethical context, insofar as it places a reconfigured goodness, beauty, and justice within the very structure of things—however it may be that Plato thought that trick could be pulled. Indeed, without that context (and without its inventive elaboration and re-elaboration by successions of Platonists and idealists), it can look as unmotivated as it appeared to an unsympathetic Aristotle.
— Christopher Rowe

Just a few snippets from this article which has 12 short sections !
OK enough already... back to the text...

From the Rosen interview:

The purpose of the text is to stimulate the reader to think, and it does that by being an intricate construction with many implications, some of which are indeterminate in the sense that you can’t be sure of what Plato meant and what Socrates meant, but they are intended to make you, the interpreter, do your thinking for yourself ... I think that it would be better to emphasize that the dialogue has as its primary function the task of stimulating the reader to think for himself, not to find the teaching worked-out for him.

And from @Amity above:

Such an open-ended type of interpretation has its representatives among two radically different groups: among philosophical interpreters, for whom it makes Plato a philosopher much like them —more interested in, or expecting more from, arguments than in or from conclusions — Christopher Rowe

Platonic metaphysics, that backbone of historical Platonism, also looks comfortably at home in an ethical context, insofar as it places a reconfigured goodness, beauty, and justice within the very structure of things—however it may be that Plato thought that trick could be pulled. Indeed, without that context (and without its inventive elaboration and re-elaboration by successions of Platonists and idealists), it can look as unmotivated as it appeared to an unsympathetic Aristotle — Amity

Well, we understand that. But I think that what needs to be established is whether metaphysical concepts such as "forms"/"ideas", "soul", "rebirth", etc. occur in the dialogues. If they do, then it is legitimate for traditional Platonists to extract metaphysical teachings from the dialogues irrespective of Plato's actual intention that, incidentally, is impossible to determine beyond reasonable doubt.

In other words, if the true and only intention of the dialogues is to stimulate thought or reason, how can we claim that they should stimulate the reader exclusively in a materialist sense? It seems to be a self-contradictory claim.

It is significant that those who have opposed my interpretation have not said anything about the details of what Socrates says in the dialogue about myths. Instead they point elsewhere. — Fooloso4

Well, Socrates says many things in the dialogues. He certainly seems to agree with traditional Platonic concepts such as soul, immortality and rebirth as at 72a - 72d etc.

Incidentally, although the structure of the Platonic texts has been compared to that of a drama or play, the true setting of Plato’s dialogues is more akin to a symposium.

Symposium - Wikipedia

Symposia (“drinking together”) were central to the Greek cultural context in which philosophers like Socrates and Plato operated. They were the part of banquets after a communal meal held in honor of the gods, when drinking of wine tempered with water (hence the Greek term κρασί crasi, literally "mixed" for wine) was accompanied by games, music and discussions among the men. There were big differences between symposia. Philosophical symposia naturally revolved around philosophical discussions (and not around sexual or other such activities as sometimes erroneously assumed).

The dialogues taking place in works like Phaedo are very much like conversations that would have taken place in a philosophical symposium, from which satire or humor would not be lacking.

So, the dialogues may be seen as a combination of dramatic performance and symposium.

In terms of the dialogues' function of stimulating thought, though they may not provide a "dogma" as such, they do provide moral and metaphysical concepts such as justice, immortality, rebirth, etc. that can guide the reader's thought in a moral and metaphysical-mystical direction, should the reader be so inclined.

In the Republic hypothesis is used to get free of hypothesis, back to the beginning of the whole. Here, however, Cebes and Simmias are told to go from hypothesis to hypothesis, but they do not free themselves from hypothesis. They are told not to discuss the beginning, but, of course, they can’t because they have not arrived at the beginning. They have not arrived at the forms. At best they have arrived at what seems to them best. The philosopher, if Cebes and Simmias are philosophers, does not have knowledge of the whole either through dialectic or recollection. — Fooloso4

Lies to children are simplified versions of the truth, containing intentional lies that cover deeper, more detailed or complex issues in order to explain the overall picture.

Wittgenstein's ladder is different int hat it is necessary to climb the ladder in order to then dispose of it.

Is what we have read so fr a lie-to-children or Wittgenstein's ladder? Is Socrates engaged in pedagogy, or is this a necessary logical step in the argument?

That's a good question. I don't think it is a step in logical argument, but I do think that Plato intends for the most thoughtful of us to work through the logic of the accounts he gives. In the next section that I will present (probably tomorrow) he will call the "safe answer" he proposes here as a hypothesis , an "ignorant" or "unlearned" answer, and will propose another.

I think the main purpose is rhetorical. It is the pharmakon against misologic. (89d) The truth is, logos or accounts or arguments cannot accomplish what is hoped for, knowledge of the fate of the soul. But this is not a truth they are ready to hear. Socrates does not want them to give up on philosophy so here he resorts to the myth of recollection, with its promise of knowledge and the safe passage of the soul to Hades and back. In the Republic to the story of the ascent from the cave to transcendent knowledge of the whole. This story in particular has inspired generations to pursue philosophy. And, as Nietzsche nicely sums it up, Christianity becomes Platonism for the people.

This discussion has taken me beyond reading the text. Before I return, one last step out...

Reading Rowe's article, I understand that interpretations of Plato's dialogues lie on a spectrum; the neoplatonist and a reductionist analytical approach being at opposite ends.
The approach taken by @Fooloso4 is analytical; with fine attention to detail.
However, there is no reduction to argument and counterargument alone.
There is much more colour...

...with the dialogues we need to look not only at what is said but at what is done. — Fooloso4

I appreciate that even with his level of expertise, it is not only a challenge to decipher the dialogue but to present and discuss any understanding.

The article excerpts I found useful :
VIII. The Problems of Cherry-Picking

A second problem with both the Neoplatonist and the analytical approach is that their choice of contexts and issues, and indeed of dialogues, to privilege over others is too obviously dictated by their own preoccupations...

Neoplatonizing accounts catch something of the larger picture in which this critique is framed while either missing the critique itself altogether or representing it one-sidedly in terms of oppositions between soul and body, human and divine, descent and ascent.

Such oppositions clearly are Platonic, but they are at one end of a spectrum that also includes, and more frequently, a carefully reasoned, hand-to-hand engagement with people and their ideas: an engagement that presents alternatives that look to this life as much as to anything beyond it.

For their part, analytical interpreters may end up failing even more spectacularly to capture the passionate tone of the Platonic dialogues, by reducing them—at least by implication—to a locus for quasi-academic 26 argument and counterargument. — Christopher Rowe

IX. Two Worlds or One?

The last section has implicitly proposed a compromise on another of the dividing lines between interpreters of Plato.

On the one hand there are those who think he believes in another world, over and above this world of ours, inhabited as it were by the ideal forms and by gods and other purified souls, to which it is our business to make our own way, even in this life, by (as Socrates puts it in the Phaedo) “practising for death.” Such a reading 27 accompanies a literal interpretation of the eschatological myths, which are there, on this view, to terrify us into changing our ways if we cannot be persuaded by argument.

But there is also another view of Plato’s position, namely that the talk of another world is at bottom metaphorical and that the myths in question are chiefly allegories of this life. What is clear is that there are grounds, in Plato’s texts, for both readings; the problem for the interpreter is to know how to make room for both. — Christopher Rowe

This story in particular has inspired generations to pursue philosophy. And, as Nietzsche nicely sums it up, Christianity becomes Platonism for the people. — Fooloso4

And everything that Nietzsche said is true, of course. How could it possibly be otherwise?

But I think you have failed to show that the dialogues are "comedy" or that Plotinus, Proclus and other Platonists are inconsistent with Plato.

The approach taken by Fooloso4 is analytical — Amity

Based on the divisions in the article you cite my approach would be "Straussian":

Historically important modes of interpretation, like the Neoplatonic, and their modern counterparts—“unitarian,” “developmentalist,” analytical, esoteric, and Straussian

By contrast Leo Strauss and his followers specifically start from the multiplicity of the dialogues and the characters, situations, and conversations in them. At least in its original form, “Straussianism” is probably—at least in principle—the most sensitive of all approaches to the Platonic corpus (other than the most exclusively literary) to its dramatic aspects. Its methodology is hard to summarize but can perhaps fairly be said to consist in trying to see how the choice of characters, their setting, and their interactions affect the apparent outcomes of the argument.

From an earlier post:

There has been an important reappraisal in the way the dialogues are read. Influential figures are Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss, and his students including Alan Bloom, Stanley Rosen, Thomas Pangle, and Seth Benardete, and their students, including Charles Griswold, Rhonna Burger, David Roochnik, Laurence Lampert , and many others. — Fooloso4

These are the people I read and whom I have learned the most from.

An important statement from Strauss's student Stanley Rosen:

For Strauss, there were three levels of the text: the surface; the intermediate depth, which I think he did think is worked out; and the third and deepest level, which is a whole series of open or finally unresolvable problems. Strauss tended to emphasize the first and the second. I wouldn’t say he didn’t mention the third, whereas I concentrate on the third. — Fooloso4

Between this and Rowe's criticism it is clear how far apart those who look at the dialogue as a whole with attention to parts are from those who say:

Have you thought of just drawing out the significant ideas instead of providing your interpretation? — frank

my approach would be "Straussian": — Fooloso4

I thought as much.

Influential figures are Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss, and his students including Alan Bloom, Stanley Rosen...
— Fooloso4
These are the people I read and whom I have learned the most from. — Fooloso4

I had absorbed this but my recall is rubbish !

The Rosen quote is referenced in the Rowe article in Section X - Hidden Meanings ?
which says more about the Straussian approach and the different versions:

One of the central features of such an approach is its deployment of the concept of (Socratic) irony. It appears that one can never take anything anyone says in a dialogue at face value; to see what we are to make of any statement or proposal, an interpreter has to stand back and ask how it relates to everything else that is said or done in that particular dialogue.

That looks fine, up to a point, and especially as a corrective to overliteral interpretations of the texts that refuse to take notice of context, dramatic or otherwise. The trouble is that this way of proceeding lends itself too easily to abuse. Thus what began in Strauss himself as an interesting method with the potential for plausible readings, not least of the Republic, has hardened, in the hands of some of his epigoni, into the treatment of Plato as an advocate for a conservative politics: — Christopher Rowe

I have returned to the pdf text and Librivox audio files in an effort to catch up.
Just finished listening to audio 3 which corresponds roughly to pp16-26 ( 70d - 78b)
Also to your discussion, here ( about 6 days ago ! )
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/535924

The first 2 Arguments for the Soul's Immortality:
1. Opposites/Cyclical
2. Recollection

Still thinking about them. But when it comes to comedy - listening to the audio really brings it out.
The request to be reminded of the Recollection proof: 'Not sure that I remember the doctrine !'.

...An overarching question of the dialogue is about teaching and learning. Socrates teaches him how to solve the problem and yet claims it was recollection. This is not the place to get into it, but the difference between Meno’s problem, teaching virtue to someone like Meno who is lacking in virtue and teaching someone geometry is very different — Fooloso4

I had remembered the story of how Socrates helped someone work through a problem but couldn't recall who or where ! And yes, it made me wonder again just how much of this Recollection argument is more about stilling the fears of the 'child within us' - Cebes and Simmias.
Anxiety about losing Socrates continues.
Socrates gives some counselling:
There are plenty of 'charmers' in Greece - incantations to reduce fear.
However, I think the final words at 78b say it best:

And you yourselves must search too, along with one another; you may not easily find anyone more capable of doing this than yourselves.'
'That shall certainly be done,' said Cebes; '

It does help to have a guiding hand...in this world...
Going forward and reaching back even as we speak.

Between this and Rowe's criticism it is clear how far apart those who look at the dialogue as a whole with attention to parts are from those who say:

Have you thought of just drawing out the significant ideas instead of providing your interpretation?
— frank — Fooloso4

Indeed. As if what counts as drawing out a significant idea is separate from someone's interpretation :brow:

Thus what began in Strauss himself as an interesting method with the potential for plausible readings, not least of the Republic, has hardened, in the hands of some of his epigoni, into the treatment of Plato as an advocate for a conservative politics: — Christopher Rowe

I agree. One time I shared my concern about this with Rosen. He said that this is why he deliberately tried to distance himself from the "Straussians". More recently there has been a split between "East Coast" and "West Coast" Straussians over the conservative activism of those on the west/right. Whereas Rosen emphasizes the unresolved problems, they have convinced themselves that they have the answers. It is remarkable how Strauss has engendered such a wide, varying, and opposing set of views.

But when it comes to comedy - listening to the audio really brings it out.
The request to be reminded of the Recollection proof: 'Not sure that I remember the doctrine !'. — Amity

I am glad you caught that. Plato's playfulness goes unnoticed by those searching for his doctrines,

Socrates gives some counselling:
There are plenty of 'charmers' in Greece - incantations to reduce fear.
However, I think the final words at 78b say it best:

And you yourselves must search too, along with one another; you may not easily find anyone more capable of doing this than yourselves.'
'That shall certainly be done,' said Cebes; ' — Amity

And to be clear, Socrates is talking about myths and those involved in the cults of mystical rites. Some here are advocating that we pay attention to them but ignore what Socrates says about them. If they are to be looked at, it should be from this perspective if looking at them is intended to shed light on the dialogue.

And to be clear, Socrates is talking about myths and those involved in the cults of mystical rites. Some here are advocating that we pay attention to them but ignore what Socrates says about them. If they are to be looked at, it should be from this perspective if looking at them is intended to shed light on the dialogue — Fooloso4

You keep saying "to be clear", but it isn't at all clear what you are on about.

Nobody says we should ignore what Socrates says about myths. But then nor should we ignore the other things he says regarding soul, immortality, and rebirth.

Either the dialogues are intended to stimulate thought or they are not. If they are, we can't ignore the fact that myths may have some truth in them and just dismiss them out of hand. The dialogues merely demand that we don't accept tradition unthinkingly, not that we become nihilists, atheists or communists.

So how would you sum up Phaedo in a few words (if you had to)?

So how would you sum up Phaedo in a few words (if you had to)? — frank

Are you joking or just ignoring what has been said?

Are you joking or just ignoring what has been said? — Fooloso4

You're not able to sum up your view?

@Apollodorus
So we have one vote for "can't give a summation"

How would you package your view?

How would you package your view? — frank

Very briefly, I see Phaedo as a combination of philosophical discussion as would take place during a symposium and a drama or play. It encourages analytical and critical thinking and points to a higher plane of experience that may be reached by way of reason but that can only be fully "lived" or "realized" in mystical experience. Concepts like soul, immortality, rebirth, forms/ideas etc. all point in the same metaphysical direction but together with moral concepts like virtues and justice have a practical application in the attempt to build a better society.

Excellent.

My summation (super tiny):

Phaedo is a vehicle by which Plato presents antithesis to materialistic ideas that were developing at the time.

His strategy is to point to aspects of thought that seem to rule out a materialistic view. The significance to "point out" is that per one the arguments, the ideas he presents can't be taught. They can only be revealed through examples and stories meant to uncover them for the reader.

One of the first ideas has to do with the apparently inherent imperfection of things sensed. The point here is related to aesthetics. If we examine a greek statue, it may seem perfect from a distance, but when we get closer, we'll see little imperfections here and there. This is fascinating notion that many people have realized long before encountering Plato. Maybe because Plato is just endemic to Western thought at this point? Or maybe Plato was right: some ideas are just native?

Another fascinating idea he presents will haunt philosophy for thousands of years, all the way to the 20th Century. It was in Aristotle, Kant, in Heidegger and Merleau Ponty, Schopenhauer and so on. It's that a thing has meaning relative to its opposite.

He also talks about forms and such.

In short, it's a philosophical smorgasbord wrapped up in a charming little dialogue (it's not a play).

"What has been said" by whom? Are you taking us for a ride or something? — Apollodorus

In case there are some here who are seeing this and might be confused, read the quoted statements above by Rowe and Rosen. The desire for a neat little "package" tied with a pretty bow is antithetical to an educated reading of the dialogues.

this thread is an earnest attempt to engage with the text of Plato's Phaedo, if you are unable or unwilling to do so, take it elsewhere. I invite people to flag posts in this thread that they believe are not strictly on topic and I (or someone else) will moderate them accordingly. — fdrake

Thank you for the deletion of flagged posts and for continued moderation.

The best and safest hypothesis according to Socrates is the hypothesis of kinds (eidos or Forms). Two “shares in the reality” of Twoness, one in the reality of Oneness. Recall that the discussion of Socrates second sailing came up from the need for a thorough investigation of the cause of generation and destruction (96a)


Mind arranges things according to their kind, that is, what kind of thing it is. But the arrangement according to kinds is only part of the story. Things are as they are, according to this hypothesis, because it is best that they be this way.

What happens when we use this hypothesis to investigate the cause of generation and destruction? It would seem that living things are alive because they share in the reality of Life and things that are dead because of the reality of Death. It follows that it is best that living things are alive and dead things dead.

There are two problems with this. First, it contradicts the argument that things come to be from their opposites. Second, it undermines what Socrates said about life being a prison and being alive the destruction of the soul by the body (95d). Unless, of course, it is better to be a slave and better that the body destroy the soul.

Socrates introduces the forms Bigness and Smallness.

Now it seems to me that not only Bigness itself is never willing to be big and small at the same time, but also that the bigness in us will never admit the small or be overcome, but one of two things happens: either it flees and retreats whenever its opposite, the Small, approaches, or it is destroyed by its approach. (102 d-e)

At this point an unnamed listener speaks up. Phaedo says he does not remember who it was. (103a) What is the significance of this? Perhaps the anonymous participant is the model for the anonymous reader who does not accept what is said but questions it.

"By the gods, did we not agree earlier in our discussion to the very opposite of what is now being said, namely, that the larger came from the smaller and the smaller from the larger, and that this simply was how opposites came to be, from their opposites, but now think we are saying that this would never happen?" (103a)

Socrates responds:

… you do not understand the difference between what is said now and what was said then, which was that an opposite thing came from an opposite thing; now we say that the
opposite itself could never become opposite to itself, neither that in us nor that in nature. Then, my friend, we were talking of things that have opposite qualities and naming these after them, but now we say that these opposites themselves, from the presence of which in them things get their name, never can tolerate the coming to be from one another." At the same time he looked to Cebes and said: "Does anything of what this man says also disturb you?" (103b-c)

The anonymous man to whom he turns and then turns away from is not given a chance to respond and does not interrupt. While it is true that Socrates was talking about things coming to be and now the Forms themselves, there is the problem of how they are related.

Although it appears that Socrates simply dismisses what the unnamed man said, the conversation moves in that direction. Socrates says:

Tell me again from the beginning and do not answer in the words of the question, but do as do. I say that beyond that safe answer, which I spoke of first, I see another safe answer. If you should ask me what, coming into a body, makes it hot, my reply would not be that safe and ignorant one, that it is heat, but our present argument provides a more sophisticated answer, namely, fire, and if you ask me what, on coming into a body, makes it sick, I will not say sickness but fever. Nor, if asked the presence of what in a number makes it odd, I will not say oddness but oneness, and so with other things. (105b-c)

Why would Socrates have previously gotten them to agree with an answer he now says is an ignorant one? Is Socrates’ new safe answer different from the answers he rejected as a young man because in part they made use of the senses? But how could he now know that fire is hot without the senses?

Before his second sailing Socrates rejected natural causes including heat, cold, and fire. (96b) As well, or so it seemed, to two being the result of adding one to one. He claimed that the safe
answer was caused by twoness. Upon closer reading, however, what he was saying is that neither the one added or the one added to becomes two. (96e) In other words, each one remains one and together they are two.

It is the unit, the one, that makes counting intelligible. We must consider how this relates to the Forms, which are each always one even when combined.

The significance of the unnamed man’s challenge now becomes evident.

Answer me then, he said, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living?

Cebes: A soul. (105c)

It is not, as the ignorant answer would have it, Life that makes a body living but soul.

Now the soul does not admit death?—No.
So the soul is deathless?—It is.
Very well, he said. Shall we say that this has been demonstrated, do you think?
Very sufficiently demonstrated indeed, Socrates. (105e)

But has it?

Well now, Cebes, he said, if the uneven were of necessity indestructible, surely three would be indestructible?—Of course.
And if the non-hot were of necessity indestructible, then whenever anyone brought heat to snow, the snow would retreat safe and unthawed, for it could not be destroyed, nor again could it stand its ground and admit the heat?—What you say is true. (106a)
Socrates is now doing exactly what he criticized the unnamed man for doing, mixing things and Forms of things. The Form Uneven can never become even, but three things are not indestructible. When the Hot is brought to snow it does not retreat safe and unthawed, it melts. The Form Cold, however, if the Forms are indestructible, would not be destroyed when the snow is.

One might object that the Forms “Triad” and “Snow” are indestructible, but this points to the problem of Socrates’ distinction between Forms and things. When it snows it is not the Form Snow that snows.

Must then the same not be said of the deathless? If the deathless is also indestructible, it is impossible for the soul to be destroyed when death comes upon it. (106b)

The Cold in snow is indestructible, but snow is not. If the soul is like snow then it too would be destroyed. But Socrates has confused Cebes, and no doubt some readers.

So the Soul will never admit the opposite of that which it brings along, as we agree from what has been said? (105d)

The opposite of what the soul brings along is Death. In accord with what has been said, snow brings Cold and three Odd. Snow cannot admit Hot without being destroyed. Three cannot admit Even and remain three. So, soul cannot admit Death and remain soul.

Then when death comes to man, the mortal part of him dies, it seems, but his deathless part goes away safe and indestructible, yielding the place to death. (106e)

According the examples, when the opposite approaches - Hot or Even, the Cold in snow and the Odd in three retreats. But if it is the soul in body that retreats then what is the opposite of soul that approaches?

Socrates has not been able to navigate the ship to safety. They are in treacherous waters, in danger of being shipwrecked, just as Simmias feared.