I would like to know the providence of Plato's writings. It seems to me that much of what Socrates espouses is proto-Christian. I know that Christians were in the habit of destroying pagan art and literature and sometimes appropriating it for their own ideological ends. It may be that Plato's works were revised or censored by later Christian scholars.
I don't understand why my translation of Plato makes frequent references to God, when the Ancient Greeks were polytheistic. Elevation of philosophers who reject the material world seems much in line with the early Christian hermits. Socrates looking forward to death and expecting rich rewards in the afterlife--Christian. Rejection of sexual, sensual and dietary pleasures--Christian. I'm no Ancient literature scholar, so I don't know, but I do wonder. I wonder whether scholars have an answer.
I enjoyed the part where Socrates talked directly to Phaedo. But his dialogue with Cebes put me off the book for good. I'm not willing to question whether or not eight plus two equals ten. It seems to me the ratio of verbiage to ideas is high, and many of his ideas seem mistaken, a matter of semantic tricks only.
Whenever Socrates describes the soul, or psyche, it sounds an awful lot like the brain, which underlines the Ancient Greeks' ignorance about the brain. I think that if Socrates had been aware of the functions of the brain and become familiar with our modern knowledge of medical science, he would have abandoned his ideas about the soul.
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