Plato’s Immortal Soul - I Am Awake Right?

Plato's character Phaedo of Elis, having been present at Socrates' deathbed relates the dialogue from that day to Echecrates, a fellow philosopher. By engaging in dialectic with a group of Socrates' friends, including the Thebans Cebes and Simmias, Socrates explores various arguments for the soul's immortality in order to show that there is an afterlife in which the soul will dwell following death. Phaedo tells the story that following the discussion; he and the others were there to witness the death of Socrates.

One of the main themes in the Phaedo is the idea that the soul is immortal. Socrates offers four arguments for the soul's immortality:

1) The Cyclical Argument, or Opposites Argument explains that Forms are eternal and unchanging, and as the soul always brings life, then it must not die, and is necessarily "imperishable". As the body is mortal and is subject to physical death, the soul must be its indestructible opposite. Plato then suggests the analogy of fire and cold. If the form of cold is imperishable, and fire, its opposite, was within close proximity, it would have to withdraw intact as does the soul during death. This could be likened to the idea of the opposite charges of magnets. (How the fuck do do they work?)



2) The Theory of Recollection explains that we possess some non-empirical knowledge (e.g. The Form of Equality) at birth, implying the soul existed before birth to carry that knowledge.



3) The Affinity Argument, (Cartesian dualism) explains that invisible, immortal, and incorporeal things are different from visible, mortal, and corporeal things. Our soul is of the former, while our body is of the latter, so when our bodies die and decay, our soul will continue to live.



4) The Argument from Form of Life, or The Final Argument explains that the Forms, incorporeal and static entities, are the cause of all things in the world, and all things participate in Forms. The soul, by its very nature, participates in the Form of Life, which
means the soul can never die.



Socrates thus concludes, "Then, Cebes, beyond question, the soul is immortal and imperishable, and our souls will truly exist in another world. "Once dead, man's soul will go to Hades and be in the company of," as Socrates says, "...men departed, better than those whom I leave behind." For he will dwell amongst those who were true philosophers, like he.

We have as much proof in the immortality of the soul as we do in the belief that we are not dreaming. If one states that they are not dreaming, they are no more vindicated than a believer in an immortal soul. Socrates is right in his claims that he will join great company after his death, but only as right as the statement I am not dreaming right now. There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream.