QUOTES
“The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and
culture.” (Phaedo)
“The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.” (Republic)
The soul existed before birth and will continue after death.
“The soul is imprisoned in the body.” (Phaedo)
The body is a trap that limits the soul’s ability to reach true knowledge.
If we are just physical then there is no life after death, and nothing to live on (Ryle
and Dawkins)
If we have a soul (Plato and Descartes).
, What is meant by a soul?
- For some people the soul is the most important part of a person – given by God
to help people have a relationship with him and to exist with him after death
Plato’s view on the soul
Believes the soul and body are very different, soul will move on after death and
be immortal, and the body will die
The soul will still have thought and intelligence but no longer concerned with
bodily demands (tiredness, hunger etc.) and so it can reach its highest state
Must continue to live as life is the essence of what a soul is (soul can't be a soul
if it hasn't got life)
Animates a person – gives person life – so soul cannot die
Plato's reasoning for believing immortality of the soul
Plato argues every quality comes into being from its own opposite -> everything
depends on the opposite to exist e.g. light comes as there is darkness. He says
life comes from death; death comes from life.
Plato also uses an argument from knowledge; In the dialogue ‘Meno’ a slave boy
is given a geometry puzzle, he asks questions and he's able to get the answer
right, Plato says he must have had a life before this as the boy is recollecting
the knowledge from the world of the forms.
The chariot
Plato used the metaphor of a chariot being pulled by 2 horses
He says the soul has emotion, desire and reason – tripartite view of the soul
He says the charioteer is reason which keeps emotion and desire equal
2 horses' emotion and desire
He says the equalness makes us work as people he says these are the parts of
the soul
Myth of Er -> ‘Republic’
A soldier called Er dies on the battlefield, 10 days later no sign his body
decomposed, 12 days later at his funeral he was alive and said he experienced
the afterlife. The good were rewarded and immoral were punished.
“The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and
culture.” (Phaedo)
“The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.” (Republic)
The soul existed before birth and will continue after death.
“The soul is imprisoned in the body.” (Phaedo)
The body is a trap that limits the soul’s ability to reach true knowledge.
If we are just physical then there is no life after death, and nothing to live on (Ryle
and Dawkins)
If we have a soul (Plato and Descartes).
, What is meant by a soul?
- For some people the soul is the most important part of a person – given by God
to help people have a relationship with him and to exist with him after death
Plato’s view on the soul
Believes the soul and body are very different, soul will move on after death and
be immortal, and the body will die
The soul will still have thought and intelligence but no longer concerned with
bodily demands (tiredness, hunger etc.) and so it can reach its highest state
Must continue to live as life is the essence of what a soul is (soul can't be a soul
if it hasn't got life)
Animates a person – gives person life – so soul cannot die
Plato's reasoning for believing immortality of the soul
Plato argues every quality comes into being from its own opposite -> everything
depends on the opposite to exist e.g. light comes as there is darkness. He says
life comes from death; death comes from life.
Plato also uses an argument from knowledge; In the dialogue ‘Meno’ a slave boy
is given a geometry puzzle, he asks questions and he's able to get the answer
right, Plato says he must have had a life before this as the boy is recollecting
the knowledge from the world of the forms.
The chariot
Plato used the metaphor of a chariot being pulled by 2 horses
He says the soul has emotion, desire and reason – tripartite view of the soul
He says the charioteer is reason which keeps emotion and desire equal
2 horses' emotion and desire
He says the equalness makes us work as people he says these are the parts of
the soul
Myth of Er -> ‘Republic’
A soldier called Er dies on the battlefield, 10 days later no sign his body
decomposed, 12 days later at his funeral he was alive and said he experienced
the afterlife. The good were rewarded and immoral were punished.
