Why Does Plato Think That the Soul Is Immortal? Is He Right? Discuss with Close Reference to Phaedo 102a-107b.

In Phaedo, by Plato, Phaedo recounts an incident with Socrates. The story starts with Socrates opening up saying that Philosophers should not only accept death, but welcome it. After all, although the body will pass, the soul is able to live on because it is immortal. He uses a lot of his intuition to back up his claim, but the main rationale is the Argument of Affinity. He claims that the world is very binary. Things are either incorporeal and invisible, or not. The body is physical, visible and corporeal. Things like the body that are visible are part of the sensible world and do not last. The soul however is not. It is invisible and incorporeal. That is why Socrates believes the soul is immortal. Simmias counters Socrates claim bringing

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.

Plato's final argument in Phaedo for the immortality of the soul is one of the most interesting topics of all time. It goes hand to hand with the application of the theory of forms to the question of the soul's immortality, as Plato constantly reminds us, the theory of forms is the most certain of all his theories. The Phaedo is Plato’s attempt to convince us of the immortality of the soul by using several main arguments. These include the argument of forms and the law of opposites. In the final passage of the Phaedo, Plato provides his final proof, although it may be his last attempt to give his reasoning, it is not very convincing. Plato has some good points and reasoning to believe in the immortality of the soul, but his arguments often

Plato uses Socrates’ Argument from Opposites to show that a living being cycles from being dead to being alive, but this falls flat because we must rely on the idea that there is another realm for were the dead souls must reside. “Let’s consider it, perhaps, in this way: do the souls of human beings exist in Hades when they have died, or do they not?” (Plato 17) This shows that their belief in an immortal soul requires that one believe that there is the existence of a place called Hades, without any other interpretation from either Socrates or Cebes. Piper would disagree with this idea because it relies on a religious belief, which can be related to the idea of the modern Christian Philosopher. “The following reflections will nonetheless consider-third-only those situations in which the philosopher is also explicitly a believer who openly accepts the truth of a sacred tradition and consciously accepts the truth of a sacred tradition and consciously tries to be aware of it in his reasoning.” (Pieper 112) Here Pieper talks about how a philosopher must be careful of his faith and make sure it does not affect his reasoning, which is what is happening to Socrates and Cebes as they reason their way through the existence of the soul. They attribute a piece of their reasoning to a potentially mythical place that the current Greek religion believes in, without considering if there are alternatives to such

1. Explain the three parts of the soul in your own words as well as referring to the Republic, Book IV. In case of being corrupted by bad upbringing (441a), what is Plato’s suggestion/ solution? Explain. Do you think his solution is reasonable? Expand.

Within this essay, I am going to argue that the simple soul is a more plausible conception than the idea of multiplicity within the soul within Plato’s work. This is due to the multiplicity of the soul resting on a circular argument of Plato’s ideal city which in turn rests back upon his idea of the tripartite soul. However, it can also be argued that neither conceptions of the soul are plausible due to them both relying on Plato’s theory of the Forms. Throughout Plato’s works of the Phaedo and the Republic, his account for the soul is conflicting as Plato’s two accounts cannot be reconciled. I will also refer to Plato’s work in the Phaedrus to aid my explanation of the multiplicity within the soul.

Speakers Note: Plato believed that the body was only a temporary vehicle for the soul. Death was the separation of the incorporeal part of living person, the soul, from the physical part, the body. After death the soul is guided to the next realm by guardian spirits.

Plato's views on life after death were manifold, and developed over time as an examination of a bevy of his literature readily indicates. However, during all phases of his writing he does demonstrate that there is in fact life after physical death, which is widely attributed to his notion of the soul. Plat always viewed the soul as an entity that was distinct from the physical body. Moreover, while the physical body was destined to die, the soul was enduring, interminable, and destined to go on somewhere in some state of being. In just what sort of way the soul would endure was a matter of question, in which at various points in his career as a writer Plato offered different accounts. Yet the most consistent part of this conception of the author's was the fact that the soul was everlasting.

Throughout Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates invokes different arguments to portray specific ideas about the immortality of the soul. One of the arguments in which Socrates brings about is the cyclical argument. The cyclical argument, also referred to as the principle of opposites, connects the core ideas of the body and the mind to later prove that the soul is an immortal entity. Forms are ever changing in and of themselves to create the cycle in which Socrates explains the basis of all things. It is through knowledge of the Forms, and the existence of the body and the soul that Socrates enhances the cyclical argument to demonstrate the concepts leading to the immortality of the soul.

The next argument from Lucretius is the “proof from sympaethia of mind and body.” The argument from medicine is an example of this type of argument. The argument from medicine states that the mind can be cured by medicine just like the body, which is mortal. Since that which is immortal cannot be altered in any way, it could not be cured. Since the mind can be cured, the mind (soul) is not immortal. The “affinity argument” from Plato could be seen as a counterargument. The affinity argument states that the soul resembles that which is invisible and divine, while the body resembles the visible and corporeal. Since the invisible and divine outlasts the visible and corporeal, the soul must outlast the death of the body. This argument fails in a number of ways, but in relation to Lucretius, no reason is given for why the soul cannot resemble the visible and corporeal, as Lucretius demonstrates in the sympaethia arguments.

In this paper I will be discussing the tripartite (three parts) of the soul that Socrates discussed in chapter 6 of Plato’s Republic, and I will compare and contrast them to that of Aristotle and Anthony Kenny. In Plato’s Republic the three parts of the soul consist of the rational, spirited and, desire. In this dialogue the three parts of the soul go hand and hand with three parts of a just society.

Simmias compares the soul to a sort of harmony and the body to a lyre and its strings because both of soul and harmony are invisible, beautiful, and divine, whereas both of the body and the lyre and its strings are visible, bodily, and mortal. The existence of the lyre and the tension of its strings produce the harmony. Likewise, the soul is a result of a mixture of bodily elements in a state of tension. It is true that harmony will be destroyed if the lyre is broken or its strings are cut. Similarly, if the soul is kind of harmony, when the body is destroyed the soul will be destroyed too. Consequently, Simmias objects Socrates’ argument that soul is immortal.

In Phaedo Socrates claims that the soul exists somewhere after the body dies. He uses the argument of opposites to make his claim. Socrates believes that for something to “be” it must have been something else before or come from something. He gives Cebes examples of thing that are generated as a result from its opposite. “when anything becomes greater it must inevitably have been smaller and then have become greater.” He uses this example to say that being “greater” is derived from having been “smaller” at some point; and that in between being “greater” and “smaller” there are a lot of variables. After giving several examples to Cebes and Cebes agreeing to most outcomes, Socrates asks Cebes if there is an opposite to living, Cebes responds

explains his belief that the “soul exists before, and survives the body”. Plato 's beliefs of

The predominant themes discussed in the Phaedo are the existence and nature of the afterlife and the immortality and reincarnation of the soul. In the dialogue between Socrates and his companions, they discuss four arguments for the immortality of the soul to illustrate and attempt to prove the concept of the afterlife. According to Socrates the afterlife is the place where the soul supposedly goes after we die. The four arguments are: the Opposites Argument, the Theory of Recollection, the Affinity Argument and the Argument