Philosophical Writings

. . different types of basic things." He "posit[s] a vast number of different kinds of things" and argues that "things are non composed of ultimate indivisible pure particles" (203; 216). A skill on this belief can be discerned in Anaxagoras' "commit[ handst] to nonseparable, noncountable amounts of the basic Things, the Portions" (205). Clearly, then, for Anaxagoras, in that location is more than one quick thing, in fact, " perchance unlimitedly many" things (203). He "is thus committed to separable, countable objects can macroscopic and microscopic" (205).

The Atomists, on the other hand, do hope that there is something indivisible into parts, namely, the atom: "Atoms are indivisible . . . build blocks too small to be seen." They are indivisible because "they can non be affected, . . . are so small, and . . . have no parts" (310). McKirahan says, however, that there is "controversy" today over whether the Atomists "believed that atoms are geometrically or theoretically as well as physically indivisible" (312).

However, at least technically, it can be fairly tell that the Atomists did nevertheless believe that there is more than one existing thing aside from atoms, namely, the void. The void is posed as not only the realm in which atoms are not present, yet as a thing in and of itself, although McKirahan finds "riddles" in this Atomist position. Nevertheless, he writes that: "The A

3. There is general correspondence in the Phaedo that the intellect existed before the several(prenominal) was born: " learn is recollection and . . . our consciousness must of necessity exist elsewhere before us, before it was imprisoned in the consistency" (130). However, there is doubt about its continuing to exist after conclusion. Socrates says that men fear death because they believe they leave behind be fragmented into parts upon death. He asks what is to be scattered and answers that those things that change will be scattered and those that dwell the same will remain after death, unchanged. The visible will scatter and the invisible will remain. The body is the visible, and clearly perishes. The individual is invisible and will remain. The spirit is related to the divine, the body to the mortal.

In life, the soul is confused by the body, struggling to keep a link with the divine, while on death the soul is free. Even in life, if the individual practices philosophy, pursues the divine, pursues " instruction for death" (120), the soul can partly fulfill its idol on earth. If the individual while alive practices the pleasures and bad habits of the body, it will, upon death, be bewildered, wander as a ghost, and essentially be reincarnated to fall back the same failures.

The soul can enter a order of divinity---in Hades---only if it has purified itself and separated itself from the body on earth, and if not then it reincarnates in another body to continue its education. The individual who pursues bodily pleasures fears death because he identifies with the body, which will clearly disintegrate upon death. But the soul that has followed the philosophic path does not fear death because that individual knows that the soul will be freed from the struggle with the desires of the body upon death. The body does come to be and perish but the soul does not. The soul does not perish in any case. Either the soul reincarnates into another body or it passes into Hades free at long last of the body forever. The soul is a "harmony"
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