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Ideas for 'Phaedo', 'fragments/reports' and 'works'

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2 ideas

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality
Whether the soul pre-exists our body depends on whether it contains the ultimate standard of reality [Plato]
     Full Idea: The theory that our soul exists even before it enters the body surely stands or falls with the soul's possession of the ultimate standard of reality.
     From: Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 092d)
Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal [Pherecydes, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: As far as the literature tells us, Pherecydes of Syros was the first who pronounced the souls of men to be eternal.
     From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.xvi.38
     A reaction: Presumably before that it was the physical person who arrived in the Underworld. The Hindu tradition seems to require the soul to be very long-lived, if not eternal. Why did Pherecydes come up with this idea?