Plato thought that doing philosophy prepares human beings to face their own deaths. He thought that in death, the human soul would be freed from the prison of the body and apprehend the true nature of things, rather than the dim shadow reality to which embodied beings are limited. During our lives, Plato argues that it is in doing philosophy that we can get the closest to truth. By following through with philosophical inquiry we can begin to see the vague contours of things as they really are, even if their true nature ultimately remains inaccessible to us while we are living. We see Plato's views on the relationship between philosophy, death, and reality in his portrayal of the death of Socrates. Socrates is not afraid of death, indeed he welcomes it. The attitude Socrates has towards death is not straightforwardly suicidal. Rather, at least in Plato's rendering, he looks forward to death as union with truth. I don't personally think about the relationship between death
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