Plato 1

Will we survive?

The human being as essentially a 'soul'

Plato has a number of arguments purporting to show that human beings are immortal. They all assume that the human being is essentially a 'soul': it is the 'soul' that is said to go on existing even though the body has fallen to the worms.

How did Plato think of the soul? A person was supposed to be some sort of duality - a body and a soul.

Reasons for thinking a human being has a 'soul'

What was it that led people to think of the human being in this way? For Plato at any rate it seems to have been the phenomenon of movement.

The ancients saw a key distinction between things that were capable of initiating change and things that were not: things which possessed and things which lacked life.

Both sorts of thing manifestly were or had 'bodies'. So it couldn't be body which had the capacity to initiate movement. Therefore, there must be something besides body in those things that had this capacity. So they said that self-movers - living things - had souls, and that it was the soul which had the ability to start movement off.

'The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion is immortal; but that which moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing to move ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, never leaving self, never ceases to move, and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all that moves besides. Now, the beginning is unbegotten, for that which is begotten has a beginning; but the beginning is begotten of nothing, for if it were begotten of something, then the begotten would not come from a beginning. But if unbegotten, it must also be indestructible; for if beginning were destroyed, there could be no beginning out of anything, nor anything out of a beginning; and all things must have a beginning. And therefore the self- moving is the beginning of motion; and this can neither be destroyed nor begotten, else the whole heavens and all creation would collapse and stand still, and never again have motion or birth. But if the self-moving is proved to be immortal, he who affirms that self-motion is the very idea and essence of the soul will not be put to confusion. For the body which is moved from without is soulless; but that which is moved from within has a soul, for such is the nature of the soul. But if this be true, must not the soul be the self-moving, and therefore of necessity unbegotten and immortal? Enough of the soul’s immortality.'

Plato, Phaedrus, 245

Keeping movement going

There was in Ancient thought another question besides what was it that was capable of starting movement off? Another question was: What is it that keeps movement going once started.

But both starting and maintaining movement was thought to be down to the soul.

Could anything more be said about the soul besides that it's being the 'life principle'?

The soul as our 'intellect'

The argument from 'recollection' purports to show that the soul is also the vehicle of thought, or 'intellect'.

The 3-part soul

'Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse, let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite—a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him.'

Plato, Pheadrus, 246

Thus Plato gives impetus to the conception of the human being as a sort of composite, with parts which stand in need of some sort of harmonisation. The parts are sometimes called the Reason, the Spirited Element, and the Appetite.

Arguments for immortality

1. Living things (soul= principle of life) cannot be lifeless.

2. The soul is simple, not composite, and uncompounded things cannot cease to exit. We know that the soul is simple because we know it is incorruptible.

3. You need there to be souls to maintain movement.

4. We possess knowledge which we could only have acquired in a former life. The body disintegrates on death. Therefore something distinct from the body must have been the vehicle for carrying knowledge across death.

Transmigration of souls

Plato believed that after the death of one body a soul generally moved into another. And the sort of body it moved into depended on the sort of life it had lived until its most recent partner decomposed.

Philosophy turns out to be a good choice for you.