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Plato's view of immortality 4. 5. 3 Plato was an Athenian philosopher, and the author of various world renowned masterpieces including Republic. As a young man, Plato was a disciple of Socrates, and his early work bears the mark of Socrates' heavy influence including Plato's view of immortality that is going to be discussed in this essay. During his middle period, and particularly with the Republic, Plato began to espouse a more purely personal philosophy based on his own Theory of the Forms. Forms are put to their most significant use in Plato's final argument for the immortality of the soul, where they are presented as teleological causes.
The best reason why anything in the sensible world is the way it is will always be given through an appeal to the Forms it participates in. The Theory of Forms is the hypothesis from which all of Plato's arguments follow, and itself is taken for granted. Thus, Forms serve as the ground for everything Plato says, and must then necessarily imply the Theory of Recollection and the immortality of the soul. In spite of all this, it is very difficult to determine precisely what we should say about Forms. (this dialogue's Commentary sections provide only hints toward several different possible answers. The delineation of Socrates in the Republic is not wholly consistent. In the first book we have more of the real Socrates, such as he is depicted in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, in the earliest Dialogues of Plato, and in the Apology.
He is ironical, provoking, questioning, the old enemy of the Sophists, ready to put on the mask of Silenus as well as to argue seriously. But in the sixth book his enmity towards the Sophists abates; he acknowledges that they are the representatives rather than the corrupter's of the world. He also becomes more dogmatic and constructive, passing beyond the range either of the political or the speculative ideas of the real Socrates. In one passage Plato himself seems to intimate that the time had now come for Socrates, who had passed his whole life in philosophy, to give his own opinion and not to be always repeating the notions of other men. His soul is here believed not to have learnt in vain, because after bodily death it will not die with the rest of the body but will remain immortal. There is no evidence that either the idea of good or the conception of a perfect State were comprehended in the Socratic teaching, though he certainly dwelt on the nature of the universal and of final causes (cp.
Xen. Mem. i. 4; Phaedo 97); and a deep thinker like him in his thirty or forty years of public teaching, could hardly have failed to touch on the nature of family relations, for which there is also some positive evidence in the Memorabilia (Mem. i. 2, 51 foll. ) The Socratic method is nominally retained; and every inference is either put into the mouth of the respondent or represented as the common discovery of him and Socrates. But any one can see that this is a mere form, of which the affectation grows wearisome as the work advances.
The method of inquiry has passed into a method of teaching in which by the help of interlocutors the same thesis is looked at from various points of view. Neither can we be absolutely certain that, Socrates himself taught the immortality of the soul, which is unknown to his disciple Glaucon in the Republic; nor is there any reason to suppose that he used myths or revelations of another world as a vehicle of instruction, or that he would have banished poetry or have denounced the Greek mythology. His favorite oath is retained, and a slight mention is made of the daemonic, or internal sign, which is alluded to by Socrates as a phenomenon peculiar to himself. A real element of Socratic teaching, which is more prominent in the Republic than in any of the other Dialogues of Plato, is the use of example and illustration ('taphorhtika auto prhospherhontez'): "Let us apply the test of common instances. "You, " says Adeimantus, ironically, in the sixth book, "are so unaccustomed to speak in images. " And this use of examples or images, though truly Socratic in origin, is enlarged by the genius of Plato into the form of an allegory or parable, which embodies in the concrete what has been already described, or is about to be described, in the abstract. Thus the figure of the cave in Book VII is a recapitulation of the divisions of knowledge in Book VI. The composite animal in Book IX is an allegory of the parts of the soul.
The noble captain and the ship and the true pilot in Book VI are a figure of the relation of the people to the philosophers in the State which has been described. Other figures, such as the dog in the second, third, and fourth books, or the marriage of the portionless maiden in the sixth book, or the drones and wasps in the eighth and ninth books, also form links of connection in long passages, or are used to recall previous discussions. Plato is most true to the character of his master when he describes him as "not of this world. " And with this representation of him the ideal State and the other paradoxes of the Republic are quite in accordance, though they can not be shown to have been speculations of Socrates. To him, as to other great teachers both philosophical and religious, when they looked upward, the world seemed to be the embodiment of error and evil.
The common sense of mankind has revolted against this view, or has only partially admitted it. And even in Socrates himself the sterner judgment of the multitude at times passes into a sort of ironical pity or love. Men in general are incapable of philosophy, and are therefore at enmity with the philosopher; but their misunderstanding of him is unavoidable: for they have never seen him as he truly is in his own image; they are only acquainted with artificial systems possessing no native force of truth words which admit of many applications. Their leaders have nothing to measure with, and are therefore ignorant of their own stature.
But they are to be pitied or laughed at, not to be quarrelled with; they mean well with their nostrums, if they could only learn that they are cutting off a Hydra's head. This moderation towards those who are in error is one of the most characteristic features of Socrates in the Republic. In all the different representations of Socrates, whether of Xenophon or Plato, and the differences of the earlier or later Dialogues, he always retains the character of the unwearied and disinterested seeker after truth, without which he would have ceased to be Socrates. Thus, Simmias suggests that the relationship between the soul and the body may be like that between musical harmony and the strings of a lyre that produces it. In this case, even though the soul is significantly different from the body, it could not reasonably be expected to survive the utter destruction of that physical thing. (This is an early statement of a view of human nature that would later come to be called epiphenomenalism) But Socrates replies that this analogy will not hold, since the soul exercises direct control over the motions of the body, as the harmony does not over those of the lyre.
Plato's suggestion here seems to be that it would become impossible to provide an adequate account of human morality, of the proper standards for acting rightly, if Simmias were right. (taken from web) Plato still harshly opposed any attempts to disillusion him from the idea that souls are immortal. Plato extensively used the Forms with respect to their role in human lives that corroborates the immortality argument. Plato believed that forms can be the fore-cause of any future event that is related to such form. In Plato's Phaedo one can read that the form of Beauty causes the beauty of any beautiful thing; the form of Equality causes the equality of any pair of equal things... But then, since the soul is living, it must participate in the Form of Life, and thus it cannot ever die. (Phaedo 105 d) Whenever a soul occupies a body, it always brings life with it. This would suggest that the soul is intimately connected with life, and so cannot admit of its opposite, death.
If that which does not admit the Form of Evenness is uneven, then it follows that the soul, which does not admit of death, is undying (Phaedo, 109). Since the soul, as intimately connected with the Form of Life, cannot admit of death, it must either withdraw or disappear at the approach of death. But if the soul is undying, it cannot possibly disappear and perish. Therefore, it must simply withdraw at the approach of death.
Therefore, Socrates concludes, the soul does not die with the body, but simply withdraws from it, living on, eternal and indestructible. At this point, in Phaedo Cases admits that he is entirely convinced by Socrates' argument of soul immortality. Plato therefore, believed that souls cannot be destroyed but rather reincarnate and assume additional forms after the death of their bodies. In conclusion I would like to say that the cyclical theory of Plato and his theory of recollection both depend upon a theory of reincarnation which is directly connected to the concept of immortality. By reincarnation we should understand that Plato appears to mean that souls are reborn, not that they are reborn as themselves necessarily. There are, however, some indications in the Phaedo that Plato held that souls might be repeatedly reborn, in each incarnation purifying themselves more and more of their taint of body lines. : I also agree that there are some major flaws in Socrates theory yet I Do believe that the soul did exist before it obtained a body and the argument by Socrates that we already have knowledge makes sense to me.
I believe that our souls do have intelligence and throughout our level we are brought to remember things that we already know and that as we study the given subject more things are brought to our remembrance. It is a constant struggle to overcome the body and carnal desires. I can understand the cyclical theory. It is somewhat similar to Christian belief in that our souls have always existed in some type of eternal circle and this mortal existence is a small portion of our lives. I see the main difference is that reincarnation is not a Christian belief.
The belief is more of an immortality through resurrection. Bibliography: web Phaedo, Plato The Memorabilia of Xenophon, Plato. Dialogues of Plato. Apology, Plato. Creek, Richard, The analysis of Plato works, McGraw Hill, 2002.
Ryan, Thomas, The philosophy of immortality, Oxford University Press, 2001.
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