Of David Hume's Argument 'Immortality Of The Soul'

In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we are introduced to three characters that serve the purpose to debate God and his nature, more specifically, what can mankind infer about God and his nature. The three characters; Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes all engage in a debate concerning this question and they all serve the purpose of supporting their views on the subject. It is the “argument from design” put forth by Cleanthes that is the focal point of the discussion, and it is Demea and Philo who attempt to discredit it.

The philosophy discussed in the Phaedo revolves around Socrates discussion of the existence and nature of the afterlife. One of the overarching themes in Phaedo is the soul’s immorality. The dialogue explores a number of arguments for the immortality of the soul to illustrate the concept of the afterlife where the soul is supposed to dwell following our deaths. Four essential arguments are put forth for the soul’s immortality. The four arguments are: The Opposites Argument, The Theory of Recollection, The Affinity Argument and The Argument from Form of Life.

The concept of life after death has been around practically as long as life itself. Our beliefs about life after death can have a profound effect on our attitudes toward life. Most individual's beliefs about life after death are directly related to their cultural or religious affiliations. According to Montagu, "Of all the many forms which natural religion has assumed none probably has exerted so deep and far – reaching an influence on human life as the belief in immortality" (1955, p.15).

In the Myth of the Soul, Darrow argues against different conceptions of immortality. One of the arguments that he presents to us is that we have a soul that can survive our death. Darrow argues that there is no evidence for the existence of the soul and questions where the soul stays within our body and when it enters our body. His arguments are to be further evaluated for its strengths and weaknesses as he tries to counter a belief with a long history particularly, in religion.

John Locke and David Hume, both great empiricist philosophers who radically changed the way people view ideas and how they come about. Although similar in their beliefs, the two have some quite key differences in the way they view empiricism. Locke believed in causality, and used the example of the mental observation of thinking to raise your arm, and then your arm raising, whereas Hume believed that causality is not something that can be known, as a direct experience of cause, cannot be sensed. Locke believed that all knowledge is derived from our senses, which produce impressions on the mind which turn to ideas, whereas Hume's believed that all knowledge is derived from experiences,

Hume states that hoe do we know that the laws of nature tomorrow will be the same as the ones today, we only have the past to rely on which doesn’t say much about the future. We cannot prove the laws of nature and their existence.

Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The real question of life after death isn 't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.” The idea that death is inevitable is well known by everyone, yet no one is certain as to what happens afterwards. Even though the subject of life after death has been argued for centuries by many philosophers and theologians. In the article Sign Here If You Exist, Jill Sisson Quinn adequately employs figurative language, rhetoric questionings, and personal anecdotes to demonstrate a controversial argument on the topic of life after death.

The book Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, is a non-fiction work by Mary Roach, that explores the unanswered questions about the afterlife. The humorous and scientific exploration includes: whether there is a soul that survives death, reincarnation, near-death experiences and out of body experiences. This is a book about what scientists are doing and have done in their attempt to find evidence that when we die we don’t just turn into bones. Roach attempts to find and the define that soul using a scientific approach in order to determine the possibilities of an afterlife. To achieve this goal, she examines what scientists have discovered in their quest to find evidence for life after death.

This has to do with faith. Faith means believing in the existence of something without having any physical proof. Therefore, it could very well be a test of faith put into place by an all powerful and all knowing being to have people toy with the notion of its’ existence. As a result, Hume’s idea that we would be able to understand God’s plan is flawed. While we all can suggest that God would like for us to behave in a way conducive to showing we have love for all other human beings simply because this would allow for a peaceful universe, one can’t assume that this is God’s plan. Moreover, one definitely can’t assume that this enables us to understand God’s purpose for the world. Additionally, one can’t automatically assume that because our world is filled with various evils, an all powerful God does not exist. In fact, one could argue the exact opposite. Simply because our world is filled with evil acts and people committing these acts, there must be an all powerful God that exists in order to reward all those that manage to resist engaging in evil acts. Hume argues that we can’t infer that an all powerful being exists because of the tremendous amounts of evil that go on in our world. However, this could be an all powerful God’s way to get rid of all those he feels is not worthy of achieving eternal life in his heavenly kingdom. Therefore, this world could merely be a testing stage for humans to prove they

While Hume would disagree with Descartes’ proof for God’s existence as well as what influence God has on our thoughts, they would both agree that our knowledge and imagination do not come from within ourselves. Furthermore, both provide skeptical analyses of our experiences as humans that question reality, such as when Descartes’ recognizes the uncertainty of the existence of anything beyond his own mind, or when Hume questions whether we can conceive of anything we have yet to experience externally. Therefore, while the philosophers have marked differences, they share a fundamentally skeptical inquiry of the

     Hume began his first examination if the mind by classifying its contents as Perceptions. “Here therefore [he divided] all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species.” (27) First, Impressions represented an image of something that portrayed an immediate relationship. Secondly, there were thoughts and ideas, which

​This paper will analyze afterlife in Hinduism and in Catholicism. Afterlife will be considered in the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1020-1060 and in Romans 10. Afterlife will also be considered in Bhagavad Gita 2:27, Obayashi page 146 and in Rig Veda 10.14.8. This topic is intriguing because death is a part of life and it is interesting to see the different perspectives of their two religions and of what happens in the afterlife. Besides the perspectives, this topic studies the greatest mystery of life, death which is an uncommon topic since people usually shy away from talking about this because of the emotional implications that it brings to people.

     Hume on the other hand, took a different approach to the idea of self. He believed that there in fact was no such thing as selfhood. Instead he asserts that “it must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea. But self…is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference…” (597). By this he implies that in order to form concrete ideas, ones impressions of pain, pleasure, joy, etc. must be invariable throughout time. This, Hume states, we know without a doubt to be impossible. Passions succeed each other over time and give rise to new passions, therefore “…it cannot be from any of these impressions…that the idea of self is derived, and consequently there is no such idea” (597).

Another key concept that Hume argues is that we don’t need God to be ethical because God is merely a complex idea formed in our heads. In David Hume: Reason In History Claudia Schmidt states, “an established maxim in metaphysics, that whatever the mind clearly conceives includes the idea of possible existence, or in other words, that nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible.” For example, since we can formulate “the idea of a golden mountain,” we may conclude that such a mountain may actually exist.” In this quote, Claudia Schmidt is elaborating on Hume’s theory that God does not exist because he is just something we imagined. In other words, if we thought of the idea then it is just a complex idea, and therefore can’t impose us to be ethical or be the reason why we act as we do.

that if X can be without Y then X and Y are distinct. This view that a