What Does Immortality Mean?

Plato claims in his text The Phaedrus that all souls are immortal. He states that “every soul is immortal, for that which is always changing is immortal” (1), and that “since it does not come into being, it also necessarily does not perish” (1). This perfectly illustrates Plato’s claim as he explains that a soul is at every moment changing itself from within and since it is capable of changing itself, it will never stop changing. Furthermore, because the soul is a source of change, it must also be an origin. This means that the soul cannot be created or come into being, and consequently cannot perish. As a result, the soul must be immortal, for it will never ceases to exist. On this subject, Lewis would completely agree with Plato’s claim. According to the text The Three Parts of Morality by C.S.

In the Phaedo, Plato presents a conversation between Socrates and two of his interlocutors, Simmias and Cebes, as they discuss the immortality of the soul during Socrates’ last hours before his death in the jail at Athens. At 70a, Cebes offers his worry that upon death the soul “…is destroyed and dissolved…and is dispersed like breath or smoke.” The rest of the dialogue consists of a debate between the three men as they consider the form and indissolubility of the soul. In this paper I will show that though Socrates’s position does not definitively explain his claims about the soul’s immortality, which he lays out in the Resemblance Argument, he does successfully respond to Simmias’ Lyre Objection, which itself offers a reasonable but still not infallible objection to Socrates’ original argument.

Who am I? What is the meaning of life? What happens after death? Since the beginning of time, humans have pondered these and other grand questions of life. Some of the most significant attempts at explaining life were undertaken by philosophers in ancient Greece during the 6th century BCE. Two key figures contributing to Greek philosophy were Socrates and Aristotle who both developed fundamental ideals: idealism and materialism. Socrates explained through idealist logic that the truth of life is relative to each individual’s ideas and reasoning, while Aristotle believed through materialism that life is

As we discussed previously Theory of Forms, states that everything in the world fits into two categories, the abstract universals, things such as beauty itself, equality itself, and piety itself and the second category is concrete particulars, things that exist in space and time, such as sunsets, music, and people. However Socrates derives his confidence from a combination of the argument of opposites and the theory of forms. This Argument from the Theory of Forms for the immortality of the soul: If we assume the theory of forms is true, and there is a form of Life itself, then souls are the sources of life because they participate in the form of life, then souls cannot participate in the opposing form of life, death, at the same time, if the principle of non-contradiction is true. Now since death is the opposite of life, souls can’t participate in it, therefore souls are immortal. Socrates makes these claims to comfort his friends and followers who are concerned

And if the body is like a lyre and the soul is like a harmony, then the soul must die before the body. Counterargument 2: In the eyes of Cebes, the soul is like a man and his cloak. The wearer goes through many cloaks during his lifetime. But the wearer doesn't outlast all cloaks, because he doesn't outlast the cloak being worn at the time of his death. Even if the soul survives the deaths of a portion of people, this doesn't mean that it survives the deaths of all people.

Socrates explains that philosophy is the preparation for death. In other words, Socrates has spent the majority of his life preparing for the separation of his body and soul. “…the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death” (101). He says that because our souls are immortal, we should embrace death and look forward to what it has to offer for our souls. To confirm this belief, Socrates again states, “…the freedom and separation of the soul from the body is called death…those who practice philosophy in the right way, we say, who always want to free the soul; and this release and separation of the soul from the body is the preoccupation of the philosophers” (104). A philosopher’s ambition, when looking toward death, is to free the soul from its body; therefore, when one dies, the soul lives on and the body does not.

Hence, Socrates concludes “the living come from the dead in this way no less than the dead from the living, and, if that is so, it seems to be a sufficient proof that the souls of the dead must be somewhere whence they can come back again” (Phaedo 72a) and as a result, “if anyone recollects anything, he must have known it before” (Phaedo 73c). Socrates uses the example of Equal to demonstrate that we knew the essence of Equal before birth. Knowing the essence allows people to “[realize] that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this” (Phaedo 75a). Recollection in life can be extrapolated that humans lose a

I agree with Williams argument about death not being an evil as death is an ending of great suffering. I believe that living a short meaningful life is much better than a long unsatisfying one. An unending life gives us an infinite amount of time which eventually leads to boredom. Hence, the correlation

Socrates states that everything comes into existence from out of its opposite. For example, a tall man becomes tall only because he was short before. Similarly, death is the opposite of life, and so living things come to be out of dead things and vice versa. This implies that there is a perpetual cycle of life and death, so that when we die we do not stay dead, but come back to life after a period of time. Socrates mentions an ancient theory

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).

“Metaphorically, death is the portal between the land of the living and the land of the dead the bridge over the Styx” (Benatar, 177). Death may not be part of a person’s lifetime but it can constitute a small part of that. Unlike dying, the death’s time is uncertain. “It is not clear that it takes time, or if so, how much time it takes” (Benatar, 177). Being dead is a process that cannot be experienced. It also comes after death. Rosenbaum states that knowing these concepts helps us understand Epicurus’s argument and it helps us notice the “ambiguous use of the term death which embody rhetorically, but not logically, persuasive ways of insinuating the falsity of Epicurus’s view” (Benatar, 177).

The notion that soul’s being destined for another world is dominant aspect of the doctrine of immortality of soul. The soul’s origin is prior to that of this mundane order, it is not subject to a process of decay, but is connected intrinsically with eternal world of ideas. The body may perish but soul continues to exist and Plato has offered various evidences of this immortality. If examined on logical standpoint they are not always conclusive; but they present the soul in light of that

Plato has roused many readers with the work of a great philosopher by the name of Socrates. Through Plato, Socrates lived on generations after his time. A topic of Socrates that many will continue to discuss is the idea of “an immortal soul”. Although there are various works and dialogues about this topic it is found to be best explained in The Phaedo. It is fair to say that the mind may wonder when one dies what exactly happens to the beloved soul, the giver of life often thought of as the very essence of life does it live on beyond the body, or does it die with it? Does the soul have knowledge of the past if it really does live on?

This happens with one simple solution. Planning. Before physical birth the soul choses what type of experiences it wishes to have (such as being charitable to those in his community) and chooses a body in which to live out that life. Sometimes, the soul may choose a body that will not be born or whose live will end rather shortly (a mother losing her baby). In these cases, the soul has decided to help another soul experience and learn from loss of a loved one. Between lives, the soul does not immediately become reborn. There is a time spent reflecting on the experiences learned.

Since philosophers don’t fear death and believe that the soul is the most important, Plato says that the soul is immortal and has has existed before our birth. “For if the soul existed before birth, and in coming life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death exist, since she has to be born again? Surely the proof which you desire has been already furnished” (Plato 55). This quote explains how our soul has lived for many years and what happens to our soul from the result of our death. Plato says that our soul could have lived inside other bodies during its many lives, such as animals or other people. If your soul has lived a previous life before being inside your body like Plato explains, it makes you wonder what other lives our soul has gone through before our own. This is pretty interesting to think that once you die, your soul will live on, your body is just another life or stop, for your soul to gain even more experiences and wisdom. Plato explains that the soul is the most important, and that the body is just another obstacle for your soul to go through.