Plato is one of the most famous Greek philosophers who has many published works that contributes to the field of ethics. In many of his philosophical debates, Plato claims that the soul never perishes after death and only the body dies. One of Plato 's famous works that argues for the immortality of the soul is the Socratic dialogue, The Phaedo. In this dialogue, Phaedo is telling the story of Socrates ' death, who appears as the main character in the dialogue. Socrates was executed by drinking poison hemlock after the state of Athens accused him of corrupting the youth. The dialogue depicts Socrates as a great philosopher who does not fear death and remains calm while practicing philosophical debates with his students during his last few hours …show more content…
In fact, these three arguments are related to each other and cannot stand on their own to draw Plato 's final conclusion that the human soul is immortal. The recollection argument is the most interesting one because of Plato 's way to draw the final conclusion of the argument. Plato 's premises for the recollection argument follow an irrefutable logic. Therefore, the argument is logically valid. However, the soundness of the argument can be put into question since there are gaps and some degree of vagueness to the premises. In the dialogue, Plato constructed the premises of the recollection argument as follows: 1)Plato argues that "what we call learning is recollection"(Plato, 73b, P.138). He explains further that recollection is the process of remembering and bringing previously known things that we actually have forgotten out of our memory. 2)True knowledge only comes from the knowledge of the Forms that are perfect, eternal, unchangeable, and do not have physical existence in our sensible …show more content…
However, Islamic religion do not believe in incarnation, which Plato is arguing here. Muslim philosophers think that Allah the God created the souls before creating the bodies. Each soul has to wait for Allah 's permission to descend to the earth and bring a baby in the woman womb to life. After the person live on this earth and experience death his soul will be drawn from his body and will be kept in good place or bad place according to what the person did during his life. The soul will stay in that place until the judgment day, where all dead bodies will get up from graves. At judgment day, Allah will decide whether the soul needs to stay in heaven forever or it will go to paradise. I believe that our understanding of the soul’s immortality will not be complete until we experience death and separating from the body. Therefore, Plato 's argument about pre-existence of the souls is just thoughts and ideas that need faith to be proven and not
A strong parallel exists between the two storytellers Plato and Luke in that they are both biased to a great degree. While they both teach a wonderful perspective they teach solely their perspective with no room for any other. Luke asserts that when Jesus died “the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two,” (Luke 23:44) thus giving divine testimony that Jesus is indeed the son of the Almighty. Whenever Jesus is questioned the people who do so are inevitably wrong, there points being made to look stupid as Jesus transcends the question with a new concept. For example, in Luke 20:34-40 Jesus is asked about a wife who has been widowed and remarried several times and to who she should be married in heaven. This is a difficult question in Jewish tradition where the concept of the resurrection is that of a physical rebirth and the continuation of life on earth. However, Jesus comes up with an new and controversial idea of an immortal soul. He uses the rational that since God only spoke to the living in the Torah, he only deals with the living; so since God still represents you after death, you must still be alive after you die. This is a questionable argument at best however the obvious leaps of logic here are never examined because the questioning scribes “no longer dared to ask him another question.” (Luke 20:40) This obviously must be because Jesus is the Son of God who speaks with divine and unquestionable authority, or so Luke seems to imply. In much the same way,...
For this reason, Plato believes that we must separate the soul based on how it
The 'doctrine of recollection' states that all true knowledge exists implicitly within us, and can be brought to consciousness - made explicit - by recollection. Using the Platonic concepts of 'Forms', 'particulars', 'knowledge' and 'true opinion', this essay explains what can or cannot be recollected, why all knowledge is based on recollection, and why the doctrine does not prove the soul to be immortal.
The main theme behind the "Phaedo" is Socrates' readiness and willingness to die, because of his belief of immortality. Socrates believed that when his body ceased to exist anymore, that his soul would leave and join that of the forms, where he would be eternally. Socrates believed so strongly in this, that not only did he not fear his death, he welcomed it. He believed that only when the soul separated from the body, is a person able to be truly enlightened and gain all knowledge. This "enlightenment" has been Socrates' life long goal of discovering the truth. Even at his hour of death, Socrates showed no hesitation. However, Socrates' friends did not believe so strongly, and took some great convincing by Socrates, to allow his friends to be okay with his death. The two proofs that Socrates used to convince his friends are the "Doctrine of Opposites" and the "simple and composite theory.
In the book “Phaedo,” Plato discusses the theory of forms with ideas that concern the morality of the form. There are four philosophers that are expressed which are Phaedo, Cebes, and Simmias regarding the execution of Socrates. Socrates is presented in “Phaedo” on the morning of his execution where he is being killed. He tells his disciples Simmias and Cebes that he is not afraid of dying because a true philosopher should welcome and look forward to death but not suicide. A man should never commit suicide. He says that we are possessions of the Gods and should not harm themselves. He provides the four arguments for his claim that the soul is immortal and that a philosopher spends his whole life preparing for death.
The Recollection Theory is an argument Socrates brought up many times before. This theory is evidence that souls have existed before this current life. Cebes describes this theory in Phaedo as Socrates has described it many times before, “we recollect now we must have learned at some time before; which is impossible unless our souls existed some-where before they entered the human shape. So in that way too it seems likely that the soul is immortal” (Plato 137). When we learn something “new”
Phaedo is one of Plato’s classical dialogues which takes place between Socrates and his friends in the prison on his last day of life in 399 B.C. Phaedo is a conversation which mainly focuses on afterlife and soul or rather immortality of the soul. Plato 's Phaedo refers to this term commonly as “the final argument”. Final argument is divided into 3 arguments which consists of “Cyclical argument”, “Theory of Recollection argument” and “Affinity Argument”.
All three arguments propose an intriguing account for Socrates’ claim that the soul exists past death. Plato’s three arguments for the proving of the immortality and longevity of a soul provide clear and concise reasons to agree with his approach. It seems that any counterargument can be debated using at least one of the three arguments, simply begging the question.
hilosophers have contemplated over the subject of immortality. They question if the soul, particularly, is immortal. Although Plato writes the Meno, it is supposed to be a copy of what Socrates personally encountered and “taught” in his lifetime. Even though the Meno is originally about the search for the meaning of virtue, one perspective on the immortality of the soul is introduced to us by Socrates in that play. Therefore, what Socrates thought about the immortality of the soul in the Meno is the following: “If the truth about reality is always in our soul, the soul would be immortal so that you should always confidently try to seek out and recollect what you do not know at present” (Plato, 86b) In the beginning, Meno challenges Socrates
The most obvious problem with the recollection argument is that while it does offer plausible points about why the soul is immortal it only really discusses that the soul must have lived before. Nevertheless, it fails to offer a valid point regarding what happens after death, how does the soul live on after? Moreover, this argument is similar to the Cyclical Argument, which suggests that everything that can change must have come from its opposite, this is Socrates’s initially argument. Yet, much like cyclical argument, the recollection argument is a circular argument which really does not go
Plato is writing the dialogue of a conversation being had prior to Socrates’ execution, and part of that argument is focused on how the soul is surely immortal. Socrates uses examples of opposites, and how one exists because of another, yet will not accept the other. This can be seen when Socrates speaks about the imperishable soul that would not accept death in the first paragraph on page 46. Plato records this dialogue
Do you believe in the immortality of the soul.? Dualism is the idea that there are two equal powers evil and good, while they are competing with each other. Plato taught a soul body dualism. Human beings are composed of bodies and souls one power that our souls have is the power of the mind, and is the most valuable thing. Our mind and souls are immaterial in contrast to our material bodies. Plato metaphysics is also classified as an idealism because it centers on the theory forms and because the reality of matter is not denied. One problem with Plato’s dualism was that though he speaks of the soul as imprisoned in the body there is no clear account of what binds a particular soul to a particular body. Aristotle did not believe in platonic
Plato believed that the body and the soul were two separate entities, the body being mortal and the soul being immortal. In Plato’s phaedo, this is further explained by Socrates. He claims that by living a philosophical life, we are able to eventually free the soul from the body and its needs. If we have not yield to our bodily needs, we should not fear death, since it can than permanently detach the soul from the body. The most convincing argument for the immortality of the body is the theory of recollection, which shows that we are already born with knowledge of forms and that learning is thus recalling these ideas. If we are already born with knowledge this implies that are soul is immortal, since it would otherwise be a blank page.
To Plato, the soul is a self mover that is not restricted to mortality. He also states that without the soul, the body would not be able to move; the soul is the provider of energy for movement in the body. Since the soul is a self mover, it is inherently a source of energy and life that depends on nothing else to exist; therefore, the soul is immortal.
In the Phaedo, Plato introduced the theory of Ideas which centered on the problem of immortality of the soul, which suggested that true cannot be finding in the sensible world, but in the world of ideas. He talked about the knowledge of equality in the sense world in which it is impossible to have things that are equal. Things in the sense world might seem to be equal, but in reality it is not. Equality can only come from the mind and this equality is Ideas, which has always been in the mind and is unchangeable, universal, and eternal. He lays down that ideas such as beauty itself, goodness itself, and justice itself are itself when they partake in themselves. For example, beautiful object is beautiful because they partake in itself or all beautiful things are beauty by itself. This makes beauty exist forever and not like objects in the sense world which is temporary. He used these Ideas to use as his proof for the immorality of the soul. The body is like objects in the sense world, which is temporary and insignificant. These objects can change from hour to hour and from day to day. They are unreliable and useless. The soul, on the other hand, is in the Ideas world which is unchangeable, perfect and is forever. Just like beautiful thing partake of beauty by itself, the soul partake in the ideas of life which means that the soul li...