Plato's Four Arguments For The Immortality Of The Soul?

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Many have extensively studied philosophy since the times even before Christ. Many have attempted to explain the reason behind existence, knowledge, reason, divinity, God and so forth. The philosopher, Plato, contributed a great deal to philosophy and his work and thoughts were greatly influenced by some of his predecessors like Heraclitus, Parmenides and Socrates. Plato`s Phaedo and Meno are about the immortality of the soul. With the view of Socrates’ experience, Plato believes that the soul is immortal as per the Phaedo. This paper will look at Plato’s four arguments for the immortality of the soul as the Phaedo and Meno, and the epistemological considerations that support his view and personal insights, which have developed it. In the dialogue, the Phaedo, Plato gives the account of the soul being immortal. Four arguments about the immortality of the soul were included. The first argument is the Argument from Opposites, the second is the argument for the Theory of Recollection, the third is the Argument from Affinity and the forth is the Final Argument. The Final Argument is more appealing to Plato. Although the four arguments dispute the same concept that the soul is immortal, they use different angles to argue for this issue. All of these arguments are outlined in the Phaedo. The first argument is the Argument…show more content…
This argument distinguishes the things that are immortal, immaterial and invisible from those which are perishable, material and visible. The soul and the body belong to the respective groups. The soul being immortal can take different forms of this immortality either within the living body, as a ghost of the dead body if it is not detached from body at time of death and other forms (Broadie, 2011). The soul recognizes forms and because forms are eternal and change from one form to the other, therefore the soul is immortal and just does the
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