Plato's Argument For The Immortality Of The Body And The Soul

Fellow philosophers like Simmias and Cebes provide two different counters for Plato’s claim, however he accurately disproves them by using his 3 arguments as rebuttal. 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. Phaedo was set in a prison. While in prison, Socrates contemplated whether or not there is an afterlife and whether or not the soul can survive death. He explains that we discuss the soul because it applies to all humans; it’s more personal, closer to us than the nature of being.

In the book Plato 's Phaedo, Socrates argues that the soul will continue to exist, and that it will go on to a better place. The argument begins on the day of Socrates execution with the question of whether it is good or bad to die. In other words, he is arguing that the soul is immortal and indestructible. This argument is contrary to Cebes and Simmias beliefs who argue that even the soul is long lasting, it is not immortal and it is destroyed when the body dies. This paper is going to focus on Socrates four arguments for the soul 's immortality.

If the soul is immortal and energy, (by the laws of thermodynamics) cannot be destroyed, perhaps energy and soul are synonymous and there is no such thing as soul, but mere energy in our bodies. I also don’t believe that what a plant has, whatever it is, can be defined as a soul as Aristotle claims. In whomever or whatever a soul dwells, that entity must be aware of its existence, and I don’t think plants know it’s alive. I also agree with Augustine that the soul genuinely desires happiness and that happiness is only the truth. A soul wouldn’t desire that which is false, if happiness is a natural good thing as Plato holds, then of course the soul desires that which is good.

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

This is the general position as out forward by Plato in his idea of the soul being immortal. The soul, therefore, is believed to outlive the body even after death. This can be understood better in under various facets of study as considered in this paper. It is important, nonetheless, to note that some of these aspects sound more religious than philosophical. Perhaps this is because of the sharing that is apparent

(81c-d) Because the soul is immortal, Plato is suggesting that the soul learns when it is not bound by a body and that the soul knows everything there is to know. Furthermore, he is suggesting that while in a body, the soul is merely recollecting things it already knows. Relating this to the paradox of inquiry, not only can we not learn but we don’t need to learn because we already know everything. From this point on, whenever Socrates mentions ‘knowledge,’ he is referring to the theory of recollection. The theory of recollection is the second part of his 3-step solution to the paradox of inquiry.

The soul lives on after the death of its physical body. There is much more to living beings than just having a physical body. This is made evident through Plato’s idea of reincarnation. This idea is made when Socrates introduces the Argument from Opposites. Plato claims, “Everything that comes to be so of anything comes to be in this way and no other – opposites from opposites…” (Phaedo 70e).

Matter can take on new forms some of which are accidental while some our essential”. It is clear from this quote that Aristotle means something very different by his use of Forms. While Plato believed Forms were universal truths that can only be truly known to the immortal soul, Aristotle believed the Forms to be fully knowable through investigation unlike Plato's theory, “which sees individual things in this world as somehow participating in the unchanging world of the Forms, has difficult with explaining how thing... ... middle of paper ... ...of the body, and no problem arises of how soul and body can be united into a substantial whole: ‘there is no need to investigate whether the soul and the body are one, any more than the wax and the shape, or in general the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter; for while “one” and “being” are said in many ways, the primary [sense] is actuality’ (De anima 2.1, 12B6–9).Many twentieth-century philosophers have been looking for just such a via media between materialism and dualism, at least for the case of the human mind; and much scholarly attention has gone into asking whether Aristotle’s view can be aligned with one of the modern alternatives, or whether it offers something preferable to any of the modern alternatives, or whether it is so bound up with a falsified Aristotelian science that it must regretfully be dismissed as no longer a live option.

As a result, Socrates provides arguments as to why he believed the soul was immortal and even though all his arguments lacked unconvincing evidence, he does bring up good points. In this paper I will talk about Socrates’ most and least convincing arguments on immortality, and explain what Socrates’ problem was with Anaxagoras. First and foremost, Socrates believed that when a person dies the body is what seems to die while the soul continues to live and exist. Although many suggested that when the body dies the soul dies with it, Socrates provides numerous arguments to prove his point otherwise. The arguments that were presented consisted of The argument of Reincarnation, The argument of Opposites, The argument of Recollection, and The argument of Forms.

“If the truth of all things always existed in the soul, then the soul is immortal” (The Philosophical Journey 89). This states that since the soul has all knowledge integrated, one recollects this knowledge through situations in an individual’s life and use one’s reasoning. With the dialogues of the Meno and Phaedo, Plato discusses the ideas of recollection and immortality of the soul in general. As well, the Republic, through the three different situations shown, Plato shows the ideas of the forms and what is real and what is not. In the dialogue of Meno, Socrates explains the idea of recollection with the question and answer period between himself and the boy.