MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OFTHE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
NOVOSIBIRSK STATE UNIVERSITY
Institute of Philosophy and Law
The Chair of the History of Philosophy
Plato on Immortality of Soul and its
contemporary relevance
Student
Supervisor
Bishakha Dutta
Eugene Afonasin
Novosibirsk – 2020
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Abstract
This thesis focuses on Plato's arguments for immortality of the soul. The main
objective of this thesis is to scrutinize the arguments put forth by Plato and
understand them with the help of some contemporary philosophers and scientific
theories. By the end of this thesis one will have a greater understanding of the
concept of the human soul and potentially develop his or her own perspective in
greater detail - bridging the gap between philosophy and science.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
5
1. On Soul and its immortality in reference to ancient texts
10
a. Approaching Phaedo
10
b. Approaching Phaedrus
20
2. On soul and its immortality in reference to scientific texts
a. Approaching Modern Science
28
29
Conclusion
41
Bibliography
45
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Acknowledgement
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my masters thesis supervisor Dr.
Eugene Afonasin for his support, advice, guidance and immense knowledge. I have
learnt many things since I became a student under Dr. Afonasin. His guidance
helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. I could not have
imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my Masters study. Not just his
guidance for my studies but also for helping me adjust to life in Russia and advising
me for any problems I have encountered with.
I would also like to thank my professors Dr. Anna Afonasina, Dr. Alexander
Sanzhenakov and Dr. Marina Volf for sharing their knowledge through interesting
lectures and talks. They have inspired me a lot towards this thesis. I would also like
to thank all the staff members and administrative members of Novosibirsk State
University for their continued support and help.
During the period of two years, many of my friends helped bring colour to my life.
Adjusting to a new country, speaking a different language was not always easy.
Nevertheless, I was lucky to find friends and colleagues who inspired me and helped
me overcome all the difficulties. I would like to thank my Siberian friends, all of
whom I cannot list because of limited space and because I would have liked to
include all the names and my group mates for being the people I can always rely on.
I would also like to thank my long-distance friends, who have helped me no matter
the time difference.
Last but not the least important, I would like to thank my family for their financial
support and encouragement throughout my life. Without their support it is
impossible for me to finish my university and graduate education seamlessly.
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Introduction
Regardless of the advances made by humans in science, one of the biggest mysteries
that remains unsolved is that of the souls. For centuries, or rather, for as long as
human intellect has existed, the question of what happens to our soul after death
remains a mystery even to the brightest minds. Every religion has a theory of life
after death and whether the soul has existed even before us. From scientists to
philosophers, have spent endless hours discussing and wondering about the
existence of the soul. This dissertation aims to contribute to the discourse of the soul
and its immortality.
For as long as we can remember, the concept of the soul has existed. Be it old and
obsolete religions like Orphic or from old and ever-growing popular religions like
Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and so on. Each has their own concept of what
happens to the soul after death.
Regardless of what religion a man belongs to, or whether he is an atheist, one is
always afraid of death, for he has no idea as to what happens to the soul, the essence
of a human after he has reached the end of life.
While such a concept, in my opinion, is abstract, as it has no physical form that can
be conceived by our most reliable senses but only thought, many philosophers have
formulated logical arguments to prove the existence of it. Not just existence but the
fact that it is immortal.
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One cannot start theorizing about the soul and it’s nature without first understanding
the origin of such concepts. More importantly it is essential to look at the Ancient
Greek origin of the word for soul: ψυχή (psyche). The meaning of the word is
‘breath’. One of the early uses of this word is seen in Homeric epics. In Homer, the
Trojan war sent Hades the ψυχή of many heroes and this ψυχή is what we interpret
or rather what Plato interpreted as the soul. It is more likely that Homer did not
mean soul as we understand the concept today when he said ψυχή of heroes was sent
to Hades. Neither did he use the term in the sense of breath but possibly something
like a shadow resembling the man but without any memory or attributes to make it
recognizable or distinct. At no point in Homer do we see him describe ψυχή as the
soul of man as we know from Plato and other philosophers. That is not to say that he
does not mention the soul of man in his epics. He instead uses other words to mean
the soul - mostly taken from parts of body or affections of body. Furthermore, what
we learn and question about the immortality of the soul is a product of later periods
of Greek mind. If we are to look at the origin of the concept of immortality of the
soul, we find that in Homer a man is immortal through his deeds and memory of
others, and how these people would keep the memory alive for generations to come.
That being said, Plato took this concept further to figure out the soul (as we know
today) and its immortality.
This thesis looks at the arguments presented in Phaedrus and Phaedo for the
immortality of the soul. It carefully dissects the arguments to get a better
understanding of the thought process of Plato. The thesis then moves onto a
scientific approach to argue against the ideas put forth by him.
What we find in this thesis, is that many scientific theories and modern
philosophers, even though not in complete agreement with Plato, somehow bring
out concepts that seem to be in agreement. In fact, certain concepts provide more
support to his theories. This is because if you are reading just Plato, you will find
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that on a number of occasions he seems to jump from one theory to another or to
some conclusion without providing satisfying explanations. But if you really take
the time to think and analyze his dialogues, with help of some modern concept it
starts to make a lot more sense.
Dialogues from Plato, namely Phaedo and Phaedrus, aim mainly to prove that the
man’s soul is indeed immortal and does not perish along with its mortal companion,
the body. The discussions in this thesis will focus mainly on arguments and
doctrines put forth in these two dialogues to back up the theory of the immortality of
the soul. Recent research involving babies and their understanding of morality
serves as a rather concrete proof of Doctrine of Recollection used in Phaedo to argue
that the soul has existed before the body. While this may be one of the few kinds of
research conducted in the last decade that may have accidentally supported the
doctrine of recollection, the theory still feels unsolved.
The aim of this thesis is not just to scrutinize the arguments of the two dialogues,
but it also extracts some concepts and arguments made by other contemporary
philosophers and scientists such as Leibniz and Freud combining some modern-day
researches to come to a conclusion that will hopefully provide a new set of eyes to
not just the concept of soul but immortality as well.
The methodology of research used in writing this master’s dissertation includes an
in-depth reading and analysis of Phaedo and Phaedrus, in-depth research into
ancient literature, namely Homeric poems, that gives the concept of the soul its
origin, analysing and reviewing existing philosophical research and scientific
research conducted in this area, as well as evolutionary researches conducted to
support the main idea behind the thesis topic.
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The thesis is divided into two chapters. The first chapter looks at Doctrine of
Recollection, Opposites Argument, Argument of Affinity and Argument from Form
of Life from Phaedo; the myth and the proof regarding immortality of the soul from
Phaedrus. This part of the thesis conducts a detailed analysis into the arguments
presented in dialogues and finds some gaps in the way the arguments are presented
by Plato. The second chapter takes the approach of modern science and
contemporary philosophy. In reference to an experiment conducted by researchers at
NYU, the thesis further looks at the implications of evolution and psychology on the
theory of the soul. Finally, the thesis concludes, that while on its own dialogues of
Plato fall short when arguing for the immortality of the soul, if modern science and
psychology is applied to some of these dialogues and theories, one can begin to
understand why many ancient philosophers thought for the soul to be immortal and
why it is believed so even today. Although a concrete proof of such a concept may
be difficult, one can take a step towards solving the problem of the soul by
combining philosophy and science.
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Ι. On Soul and its immortality in
reference to ancient texts
a. Approaching Phaedo
What happens to the soul after death? Does it cease to exist or continue to another
world to be reborn? These are the questions surrounding the main discussions in
Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, where Socrates discusses the nature of the afterlife and
immortality of the soul with his pupils before his execution.
Man is always afraid of death for he has no idea as to what happens to the soul, the
essence of a human, after he has reached the end of his life.
Socrates presents his argument for the immortality of the soul through four stages:
The Doctrine of Recollection, Opposites Argument, Argument of Affinity and
Argument from Form of Life.
In this part of the chapter, each of these arguments has been carefully scrutinized,
developed and compared to justify the immortality of the soul.
Doctrine of Recollection
This section discusses the Doctrine of Recollection, which revolves around the idea
that humans possess innate knowledge (acquired before birth) and learning consists
of rediscovering that knowledge within us - this argument has been used to back the
existence of the soul before birth, and its repeated incarnation.
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The argument starts by claiming that the body and senses are sources of error and
mislead the soul in search of truth.
“because , if we can know nothing purely in the body’s company, then one of the
two things must be true: either knowledge is nowhere to be gained, or else it is for
the dead; since then but no sooner, will the soul be alone by itself apart from the
body.” (66e4-67a2).
A number of arguments and proofs have been put forth to show that when a man is
dead his soul exists and has any force or intelligence.
The example of a lyre and a man, whence a lover recognizes a lyre or garment
which their beloved has been in the habit of using; they form an image of this
beloved through the lyre - this he claims, is recollection. However, this is just a
simple example. He then goes on to present his case with the example of absolute
equality. He argues that recollection can be derived from things either like or unlike.
For instance, we can obtain an idea of equality from a piece of wood and stone which, by using our senses we declare to be different. To further the argument, he
considered that same piece of wood to be of equal portion to the stone - although
they are equals from one point of view, they, however, fall short of absolute or
perfect equality - as that is inferior. Although at this point, we are thinking of equals
rather than absolute equality, we conceive the idea of equality. The fact that from
these equals one conceives and attains the idea of equality proves that there is an act
of recollection. This is not limited to absolute equality but holds true for beauty,
goodness, justice and so on. We acquire this knowledge when we first see the
material equals with the help of senses, i.e. we see and hear and have use of our
senses as soon as we are born. Therefore, the higher senses of equality, goodness,
justice and so on must have been known to us before birth and forgotten at birth
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only to be recovered by the use of senses and we continue to know this for as long
as life lasts - “because this is knowing - to possess knowledge one has got of
something, and not to have lost it.” (75d9- 75d10)
“... one of two things is true: either all of us were born knowing those objects, and
we know them throughout life; or those we speak of as ‘learning’ are simply being
reminded later on, and learning would be recollection.” (76a5-8)
Even though a simple man will not be able to give an account for this, the absolute
essence of all things must have existed in our former state and with the use of our
sensations, we find these ideas to be pre-existing in us. This means souls must have
existed prior to the man or if not the souls then not the ideas or if not the ideas, then
not the souls.
So far, the argument constructed to show a pre-existence of the soul through ideas is
strong. By looking at an object or considering a concept, by default the human mind
will be reminded of other objects or concepts that may or may not be like by relating
to it. Such ideas, say that of equal and not of absolute equality may be passed down
to us by our guardians or parents but even a child’s mind will not relate of them
(piece of wood and stone) of being absolute equality - this knowledge is then,
something recollected by the use of our senses, hence, the idea must have preexisted and thus, the soul.
However convincing the argument is of the previous existence of the soul, does not
answer the argument of whether the soul exists after death or scattered away. This
has been argued by the compounded and uncompounded. The compound or
composite is naturally capable of being dissolved but uncompounded is not, i.e. the
compounded is always changing and never the same while uncompounded is
unchanging. The idea or the essence or true existence is a dialectical process - which
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is to say, have the same simple self-existence and not admitting to any variance,
whereas material things such as horse or men admit to such variances. These are the
things you can perceive with senses while the unchanging or uncompounded can
only be perceived with mind and are invisible to the human eye, just as the soul.
Since the soul uses the body as an instrument of perception is then dragged into the
region of changeable.
“Whereas whenever it studies alone by itself, it departs yonder towards which is
pure and always existent and immortal and unvarying, and in virtue of its kinship
with it, enters always into its company, whenever it has come to be alone by itself,
and whatever it may do so;” (79d1 - 79d5)
That is to say that the soul is divine, immortal, intellectual and unchangeable while
the body is the exact opposite.
He then proceeds to assure Simmias and Cebes that soul being of the nature and
origin can never be blown away and destroyed rather, the good souls is offered the
company of god and the souls which have been polluted and is impure at the time of
departure (after death) wanders into the bodies of the animals or birds.
This is to say that an animal which does not have the same complexity of mind as
that of a human understands and recollects the concept of true essence. Since it is
said that the soul is unchanging and has a previous existence and knowledge of idea
of true existence which is only to be recollected after birth, the same stands for the
soul of animals - as they to a great extent use the same senses as we do and yet by
their actions we can perceive that they not only do not care about such concepts but
given the fact that their complexity of brain is inferior to human are devoid of such
concept - hence, posing a question, what happens to the knowledge of such things
when the soul passes onto an animal body? Because if it continues to be there and
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the animal such as a dog or lion can differentiate between true beauty and goodness
is to say that their capability is the same as the human but if not, then the whole
argument of the doctrine of recollection falls short in explaining the previous
existence of idea and soul.
Argument of Affinity
However convincing was the doctrine of recollection for the previous existence of
the soul, the existence of the soul solely through this argument remains unproven to
a greater extent.
To this, Simmias and Cebes propose two analogies: the lyre and an old weaver. The
first analogy questions that lyre and its strings are matter and material and are
subject to mortality just as the body of man, while harmony like the soul is invisible,
divine, incorporeal and existing in the said material harmonized. By this, when
someone breaks the lyre or cuts and rends the string, harmony survives and does not
perish, i.e. the harmony will still remain somewhere and the wood and strings will
decay before anything can happen to that. The same is applied to the concept of the
soul:
“... our body is kept in tension, as it were and held together by hot and cold, dry and
wet, and the like, and our soul is blending and attunement of these same things,
when they are blended with each other in due proportion. If, then, the soul proves to
be some kind of attunement, it’s clear that when our body is unduly relaxed or
tautened by illness and other troubles, then the soul must perish at once, no matter
how divine it may be, just like other attunements, those in musical notes and in all
the products of craftsmen; whereas the remains of each body will last for a long
time, until they are burnt up or rot away.” (86b7 - 86d1)
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The second analogy of an old weaver presents the theory that although the soul may
be immortal, it will perish at one point. After an old weaver dies, somebody says he
is not dead but must be alive for there is a coat he weaved and wore which remains
undecayed - demonstrating the survival of a man who is more lasting simply
because the less lasting (the coat) remains. However, the same weaver must have
woven and worn many such coats, which have perished, and now one coat outlived
this weaver. This analogy when applied to the body and the soul argues that the soul
like the man is lasting and the body weak and short lived. Like the weaver, the soul
wears out many bodies and continues to weave another and repair the waste.
“... when the soul does perish, it will have to be wearing its last garment, and must
perish before that one alone; and when the soul has perished, then at last the body
will reveal its natural weakness, moulder away quickly, and then be gone.
… the souls of some, even after we have died, from still existing and continuing to
exist, and from being born and dying over and over again - because soils is so strong
by nature that it can endure repeated births - even allowing all that, were one not to
grant the further point that it does not suffer in its many births, and does not end by
perishing completely in one of its deaths, and were one to say that no one can know
this death or detachment from the body which brings pressing to the soul - (87e288b2)
To this Socrates argues, that harmony cannot be the same as that of the soul as
harmony is compound because harmony cannot be prior to the elements which
compose it. Most importantly, the reason why harmony cannot be compared fully to
the soul is because harmony, unlike the soul, tends to follow the parts or elements
that lead it. Moreover, harmony admits to a degree, i.e, it is more of a harmony
when more truly and fully harmonized and less when less truly and fully
harmonized, whereas a soul can never admit of degrees and no two souls is more or
less soul than other, even if it has more virtue or vice - a soul always leads. Because
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if a soul is same as harmony, they all must be equally good but the soul is at
variance with the affections of the body and if the soul is the same as harmony then
it can never utter a note of variance of which she is composed and can only follow
and not lead. This consequently disproves the analogy of lyre.
As stated in Doctrine of Recollection, compounded is naturally capable of
dissolving while the uncompounded is devoid of variance. This is to say that a man
or a lyre admits of variance and currently stated by Socrates that soul too admits of
variance by body. There appears to be a contradiction in the two.
This is not to be mistaken with the thought that the soul, although being
uncompounded will never accept variance, for if so, it would be driving the body to
its death and the soul, in this light, uses the body as some sort of vessel and when
the body is hungry or cold, the soul does not let it starve or deprive it of its
materialistic needs.
However, according to the argument of affinity, if harmony can never utter a note of
variance then she must be uncompounded for by Doctrine of Recollection:
uncompounded is unchanging and not admitting to variance while soul from this
refutation should be compounded then, because even though it leads the body or the
vessel, it in some ways is following the demands of its elements. Hence, there can
be found a contradiction in the arguments of compounded and uncompounded from
these two.
The second analogy, although not clearly refuted, merges with the explanation
above and in the parts following. The soul’s divinity and demonstration of the
strength and her existence prior to man do not necessarily imply her continuing
existence after death.
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The Opposites Argument
A young Socrates believed in the doctrine of Anaxagoras according to which ‘mind
was the disposer and cause of all’ and from this he came to the notion that if the
mind was the disposer and cause of all then ‘it will dispose all for the best and put
each particular in the best place’ however, failing to decipher a method for inquiring
into the cause from this theory, he devised a second mode: first assumed some
principle which was judged to be the strongest and then affirmed as true whatever
seemed to agree with this and that which disagreed to be untrue.
The notion behind this mode of enquiry is that all things exist by participation in
general ideas, i.e to say if there was anything beautiful than absolute beauty then it
can be beautiful in so far as it has qualities of absolute beauty because something is
made beautiful by the participation of beauty, and by this all things become
beautiful. Or a better and more concrete example is that of greatness and smallness.
“Similarly it’s by largeness that large things are large, and larger things larger, and
by smallness that smaller things are smaller?” (100e5-100e6)
To escape the certain contradiction of relation a detailed example is produced:
Simmias is greater than Socrates and less than Phaedo, which predicates that
Simmias is both of greatness and smallness. Simmias is greater than Socrates by
reason of size and not because he is Simmias but because Socrates has smallness
when compared with the greatness of Simmias. Phaedo is greater than Simmias,
again, by size and not because he is Phaedo but because he has greatness relative to
Simmias who in comparison is smaller. Therefore, Simmias is both great and small
because he is the mean between Phaedo and Socrates, exceeding the smallness of
the one by his greatness and allowing the greatness of the other to exceed his
smallness. That is to say that the idea of greatness can never be small and the
greatness in us will never admit the small or to exceeding - because if it does, at the
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approach of the opposite, that is the less, it will either retire before it or has already
ceased to exist despite the fact that less, which is the opposite is generated from
greater. Just like snow is converted to water at the approach of heat but not cold into
heat. Snow is not the same as cold but has properties of it, hence at the advance of
heat snow will perish just as the fire at the advance of cold will perish. The things in
which the opposites exist essentially generate into and out of one another.
This concept is further developed in Argument from the Form of Life.
Argument from Form of life
“... what we’re saying now is that the opposite itself could never come to be
opposite to itself, whether it be the opposite in us or the opposites in nature. Then,
my friend, we were talking about things that have opposites, calling them by the
names they take from them; whereas now we are talking about the opposites
themselves, from whose presence in them the things so called derive their names.”
(103b3-103b10)
That is to say that not all essential opposites but some concrete things which contain
opposites exclude each other. For instance, take the idea of odd and even. Three can
be called by its proper name and also as odd, same goes to every alternate number,
same goes for two and every even number. And this number three when intruded by
the opposite idea will obliterate sooner than converted into even. “Then not only do
the forms that are opposite not abide each other’s attack; but there are, in addition,
certain other things that don’t abide opposites’ attack.” (104c7-104c9)
That is to say that natures may not be opposed and yet may not admit to opposites three for instance, although not opposed to two will not admit the even just as two
will not admit to odd; rather than saying that oddness is the cause of odd numbers,
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one can say monad is the cause of them just as fever is the cause of body being
diseased. The same can be applied to the soul: it is not the life that makes it alive,
rather a soul that makes it alive. With the same logic of odd and even, it can be
inferred that life or the source that has life-giving power does not admit to death,
hence is immortal and imperishable. For if immortality was imperishable it would
retire whole as it could not admit to death just the principle of cold and warm is
imperishable.
Although the two arguments: the opposite argument and argument from form of life
is convincing, I cannot help but think the continuity of these arguments to be
entirely justifiable.
Immortality at the arrival of death will not cease to exist - this stands for soul.
However, let us once again consider the example of odd and even, or rather number
three and two. Looking at the same example in another light: let’s say when three
attacked by two, although retaining its property of odd, changes, i.e, when the
opposite, namely two, is added to three, it converts into five - retaining its oddness
and this change continues. So to say, when a function is introduced to the number
three while retaining the oddness it changes and takes a higher form. Should the
same not be applied to the soul? That is, when the soul is attacked by death,
although retaining its immortality, it changes and takes a higher form.
Just as without the presence of a function, in the case of three additions, the
operation cannot be conducted - passing of a soul from its body at the approach of
death cannot be conducted. To conclude, in order for death to approach the soul it
needs a mediator or rather a process just as in order for two to approach or attack
three it needs a function. This logic seems has not been clearly stated or explained in
the dialogue. But this process or mediator can be taken as a disease or an accident.
So death approaches the opposite, the life, in the form of a disease or accident that
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ends the cycle of life, however, just as at the approach of heat snow melts, but the
cold does not perish, a soul too does not perish and hence, by this analogy it is
immortal.
b. Approaching Phaedrus
Phaedrus, at first may not seem like a dialogue concentrated on just one thing, as it
talks about love, soul and speech. But if looked closely, Plato quite cleverly
constructs this dialogue to match with the final discussion on the art of speech.
Keeping that in mind, this part of the chapter will focus on the way the argument
“all/every soul is immortal” (245c) is presented in Phaedrus.
The first thing one will notice while reading this dialogue is that immortality and the
nature of the soul is argued for in two parts: through logic, and through the myth of
charioteers. One of the main differences to note between the presentation of the two
parts is the usage of language. The logic or the proof is presented in a rather rigid
and economic manner while the myth has a florid and loose approach. One of the
major differences that can be noticed between Phaedo and Phaedrus is that the
argument for the immortality of soul in this dialogue does not take place in the
classic question and answer style but rather in a story telling format. The influence
of the way the language is used may be of importance to the argument of
immortality of the soul.
This section of the chapter is dedicated in dissecting the two parts of the dialogue as
carefully and minutely as possible.
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The Proof
In Phaedrus, argument for immortality of the soul is presented in three-step
structure before moving on to the myth of charioteer. A rather strange construction
for the argument which seems to work for it trying to convince its readers or
listeners.
What Plato does is starts this piece of the dialogue with a conclusion (step 1) “every
soul is immortal” (245c4), then moving onto provide a proof to support it (step 2)
“self-mover is immortal” (245e3) and into an indefinite result (step 3) which further
solidifies the conclusion “souls are self-movers” (246a).
The explanation for the argument “self-mover is immortal”, as it can be seen, has
been established in a complex manner. There are four parts to this:
1. “...anything that is ever-moving is immortal.... ” (245c5)
2. “...the thing which moves itself never stops moving .. ” (245c7)
3. “Such a thing is also the original source of motion for everything else that
move” (245c8)
4. “.... a source is ungenerated, it is also necessarily imperishable. ” (245d5)
Clearly, the underlying thought in this argument is that something that is always
moving must always exist and so is immortal, because if it were to stop moving, at
any given time, would be for it to abandon its own nature, hence it would cease to
exist, and thus mortal.
To begin with, let’s take the argument 2 which fully states “It is only something
which moves itself that never stops moving, because it never abandons itself”
(245c7-8). From here we can deduce that the essential property of a self mover is
that it should be in constant motion, that is to be moving itself at any given time.
The logic behind this conclusion is that if a self-mover were to stop moving then it
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could not start moving itself unless jolted into motion by something else or by itself.
Because if it were to be jolted into motion by itself then that would mean some part
of it was already in motion which would cause it to move - a clear contradiction of
the hypothesis and if it were jolted into motion by something else then we cannot
call ita self-mover, as that would be in contradiction to what other term implies or
means. But does this mean that a self-mover has to be eternally in motion? Clearly
an essential property if a self-mover is to be in constant motion or in self-motion,
which means a self-mover cannot stop and still be called a self-mover (as
established before but this does not mean that it will keep moving forever and
existing eternally. Since “the thing which moves itself never stops moving” could
mean either of the two things: i) it is impossible that there should be a thing that
moves itself without moving or motion (which is what plato is mainly concerned
with or focuses on) or that ii) that what which moves itself is eternally moving - this
would imply the notion of immortality. However, since Plato seems to be more
focused on essential property (as represented by i)) and not the second conclusion
suggest, the eternal possession of a property (where moving is the property and selfmover is in possession of it) may bring to question the premise that self-movers are
immortal.
Now, moving on to statement 3 and 4, we can see that “Such a thing is also the
original source of motion for everything else that move” is not argued for explicitly
but the fact that it is followed by statement 4 and its argument for it “.... a source is
ungenerated, it is also necessarily imperishable...” is done so in order to present that
statement in favour of statement 4. Furthermore, the repetition of “a defunct source
can never be generated from anything else nor can it bring about the generation of
anything else, given that everything is generated from a source.” seems to cycle
back as a support for 3, almost creating a loop that you cannot get out of.
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A source is ungenerated since everything that comes to be comes out of a source and
it does not come out of anything else (as stated by Plato) because if it were to then it
would no longer be a source that all things that comes to be came to be from. This
statement makes sense as long as you assume the basic principle that nothing can
generate itself. This follows that source must also be imperishable because
otherwise nothing else could bring it back to being and neither could anything come
out of it. This in turn would create the universe and the whole creation to collapse
as it would fall into a negative loop. The explanation here is quite clear so far.
While on its own this whole argument seems to be sound, one has to wonder, how
does this relate to the soul and its immortality? How does Plato come to relate the
soul to a self-mover? The notion that the soul always brings life was a common
view amongst greek philosophers. Anything that has a soul is alive and it is an
essential property of the soul that they are absent in things which have died (or
lifeless). This would by the analogy so far mean the reason for an organism’s
motion (maybe not in strict definition of the term motion as in movement) is soul,
making it a self-mover, a source or a first principle. This answer is maybe
oversimplified.
Let’s shift the focus a bit on the word “motion” used by Plato in this dialogue.
This “motion” that is mentioned can mean a number of things (like coming-to-be)
and is not limited to movement type motion. This is because, if you read the
dialogue, Plato uses two words: κίνησις and γένεσις, where “ γένεσις” is a part of
“κίνησις”.
If we are to assume that self-mover as a thing of existence then we can also
conclude that these are responsible for motion of everything else. Where, as
mentioned before, ‘coming-to-be’ ( γένεσις) is included in ‘motion’ (κίνησις). This
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would mean that the source or as we termed before (and probably the correct term to
use in this case), first principle of ‘motion’ is the first principle of anything that is in
motion in the universe, because the notion of impersible lies in the principle of
motion.
If we are to look at the word “ γένεσις”, it has several meanings: generation,
production, coming-to-be) and if γένεσις would mean as first principle of ‘all
motion’ then it would not make sense for all universe to “run down and stop” if only
one of the ‘ γένεσις’ was to be perished, sine at least one of the other ‘genesis’ is to
remain active at any given time. Thus, Plato’s probable assumption and usage of
just one motion as the first principle does not entirely make sense here.
Through statement 3 and statement 4 we are led to conclude that the soul is a selfmover and hence is the principle of motion. As stated above this requires that there
should be just one principle of motion, which would mean that there is just one soul.
This seems in direct contradiction of the myth that follows the proof which touches
upon the plurality of the soul. Perhaps, Plato here was playing with the notion of
World Soul and the goal of individual souls is to descend to that World soul.
Although we find no such direct suggestion in Phaedrus of this assumption.
Moreover, we can deduce that the myth is trying to emphasise on the individuality
of the souls.
So the assumption of World Soul in Phaedrus, while may be not entirely correct,
seems to be a way to explain the existence of just one self-mover.
The Myth
Moving onto the myth of the charioteer. We see Plato here describing a soul not in
singularity but a tripartite soul. In this part the underlying concept of soul has
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several features. As we noticed before one of them is, it being a self-mover. Not just
a self-mover but a soul being in unceasing self-motion/ Furthermore, it moves
everything else. Also, the job of a soul is to look after all that's inanimate and thus
patrol the whole universe. (246b8)
According to the image created by the myth of charioteer, the two horses “soul is
like an organic whole made up of charioteer and in a team of horses” (246a7-8).
According to this the inner ruler (charioteer) drives the two horses, one of which is
good and noble while the other is difficult and disagreeable. These two parts of the
soul are always in conflict (unlike the souls of gods, which are always good).
The end point of the souls is to progress towards eternal traversing of the heavens
but is interrupted by contemplation of Forms. The two parts of the soul through this
eternal traversing tales the charioteer to a point of contemplation, because as it
seems, on its own the charioteer appears to be motionless in a way, or senseless.
Together they fulfill the souls destiny of being in constant motion.
This whole myth seems in connection with Phaedo’s Doctrine of Recollection,
where the underlying idea is that soul has a previous existence and knowledge of
idea of true existence which is recollected after birth - by the use of our senses
through looking at an object or considering a concept and relating it to true
knowledge.
Similarly, in Phaedrus, Plato says “This is a recollection of things which our souls
once saw during their journey as companions to gods…”(249c2-3). Here he gives a
reason as to why the soul is immortal while the body of a human being is called
mortal. Because a soul has had the chance to get a glimpse of god or has seen god it
is immoral while the body, having never seen god is called mortal. The soul has a
wing which is responsible to carry the soul to the gods. These wings have to be
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nourished with good and virtue and so on to be lifted up to gods and not fed with
badness which could cause the wings to shrink and perish. The charioteer's job is to
train the two parts of soul perfectly to let these wings grow and take it to the gods.
Once it has made it to the edge of heaven and had a peek around, it is able to get a
sense of true being; it is able to witness higher good, absolute beauty, justice and all
that is intangible. This intangible has no color or form and is comprehensible only
by the intelligent part of the soul, that is, the charioteer. But because they are
always pulled by the horses, the charioteer does not get a good look at the true being
and is uncertain of the image of things he has seen or they are able to see some
things and other things not. Once this tripartite soul is inside a body and is
encountered with somebody resembling the true knowledge, it is drawn towards it.
That is to say, the soul recollects the true being to certain degree and relates that to
the object or the person it sees. This point is described with the concept of a lover.
There is a striking similarity between the myth of charioteers in Phaedrus and
Parmenides proem. Plato here has based his concept of immortality of the soul on
Parmenides concept of the true being. The soul is self-moving and cannot be
destroyed or come into being is similar to Parmenides’s ungenerated, whole,
imperishable and complete being. The charioteer's journey in Plato is close to the
chariot journey of a young philosopher beyond sense-perception reality to the realm
of eternal existence. One can see Plato’s charioteer and the reasoning part of the
soul perform the same role as the immortal companion of Parmenides' charioteer.
No doubt, if read closely one can see the influence of Parmenides on Plato on many
occasions.
Furthermore, this myth is quite closely corresponding to Phaedo’s Doctrine of
recollection, where a lover is reminded of their beloved through a lyre which they
had been in the habit of using. Or when we attain the idea of equality by looking at a
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piece of wood and stone. Similarly, the soul through the lover is reminded of
divinity or something of true knowledge. The soul goes through this experience
many times in one life and in all other lives.
In both the dialogues the aim of recollection is to escape the cycle of rebirth as soon
as possible and this can be done only through living a life as a philosopher. Clearly,
in the myth you can find an undisputed argument for the immortality of the soul and
it being a self-mover being in unceasing self-motion.
26
ΙΙ. On Soul and its immortality in
reference to scientific texts
In pursuit of truth, every human puts their faith towards something. In ancient times
it was pagan gods and the cosmos to whom they looked up when an illness or bad
situation fell upon a city or a family. In medieval times the church started acting as a
medium through whom advice was sought and in the modern time, it is science and
technology that we pray to.
With passing years it became easier to understand and learn the ways in which our
world works. It became known to us that it was earth that revolved around the sun
and not the other way around or that it is because of gravitation that we are able to
stand on the ground and not float around in the atmosphere. The reason for volcanic
eruptions, earthquakes or tornadoes got a scientific and logical explanation rather
than just saying “it was gods’ will”. And with that, the wonderful discoveries of
modern science trust in religious scriptures, such as the Bible, for scientific
explanation or even common problems started to shake.
One subject modern science could not provide proof for with confidence is that of
the soul. Be it evolutionary theorists, or psychology - neither of them consider the
question of soul as popular science and soon it fell out of the table of things to
consider when understanding human nature and mind and became a thing for
philosophy only. Today, if anything has to be stamped as credible, it must agree
with the principles of modern day investigation (scientific experiments mainly) and
general laws of the universe put forth by science, in order that it is comprehensible
by the rational mind.
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This chapter deals with modern scientific researches conducted in the last few
decades that have rejuvenated the questions about the soul. It looks at exactly what
happened at the approach of science to the soul discourse? What does science have
to say about the soul? Does all those years spent by numerous philosophers (who set
the path for modern discoveries) such as Plato, Aristotle and so on debating and
theorising about the soul and its function mean nothing at all?
a. Approaching modern science
Many great scientists agree with the hypothesis that the transition from nonliving to
living entities was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing
complexity that resulted in formation of cell membranes and thus humans, plants,
animals and so on.
One of the most famous and widely known theories is Darwanian theory - which
states that all species of organism arise and develop through natural selection of
small, inherited variations that increase individuals ability to compete, survive and
reproduce. (Evans and Selina, 2005)
These theories and laws of evolution have revolutionised our ways of thinking in
such a way that today very few accept religious doctrines as sufficient evidence of
truth. A curious mind has to take into account the significance of laws of evolution
when questioning or discussing the soul’s origin, survival and death.
From invertebrate to vertebrate form, from mammal to human life - when we study
the life-history of humans or any living organism, we are able to trace it back to its
origin and comprehend the evolutionary development into the current life form.
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Thanks to the number of experiments conducted we know each species has a typical
number of chromosomes in their cells and this number regularly recurs in division
and multiplication of these cells. (Bixby, 1920)
Along with bodily developments we see a progress in the mind as well - from reflex
actions to subtle instincts present in almost all living organisms to more advanced
behaviour like perception, conscience reason, judgement and so on. From what it
seems humans may have reached the peak of physical development but not yet
cognitive development as even to this date we are still developing and testing our
limits. This is where we begin our journey to understand our purpose in this
universe.
It is not just a popular belief amongst philosophers but many scientists also that
there will come a time when all life forms will become extinct only to dissolve into
some new fire-mist to develop again from a lifeless nebula into a home for some
animal species. It is a senseless disaster to think all the grand evolution progress
happened only to end in complete annihilation, as Darwin said, “it is an intolerable
thought”, unless there is a continued life after death of souls, or atleast a hope for it.
Without the support of some spiritual progress evolution appears to be a concept of
hopelessness and in vain for a man.
“the soul encapsulated the mind’s conscious operations as well as the body’s
unconscious vital activities…” - Robert Whytt, (Bassiri, 2013, p. 428)
Psychology is the science of behavior and consciousness, however, up until 19th
century psychology was not even considered as science. Aristotle’s approach to
dream (a reaction to Plato’s soul-concept) became the first scientific psychology to
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be discussed. It is said that to know psychology one has to know it’s object, the
soul. (Rank, 1996)
Soul is a versatile thing, for psychologists (mainly early psychologists) it is a bearer
of personal identity while for philosophers it is the bearer of life. But for sometime
now the soul, as we know it from ancient times, is not a thing of scientific
psychology - with progress in research, the soul-concept became invalid in the
scientific psychology society and became a thing mainly to be discussed and studied
by philosophers.
Otto Rank in his paper Psychology and the Soul highlights a problem many raise
when trying to grasp what psychology is - whether it is objective or subjective - a
dualism or as he calls it “science of relationships”, where subjective is more
concerned with self awareness with its theory of self knowledge and objective is like
a tool used to understand others and human nature in general.
If we are to justify the immortality and existence of the soul in the modern world we
must consider some experiments and theories conducted in the field of psychology.
“We would never be moral beings if we did not start as moral babies.” (Wynn and
Bloom, 2014 p. 451) - with this statement Karen Wynn and Paul Bloom conclude
their experiment on whether humans are born with some basic understanding of
morality. From an evolutionary point of view, there is an explanation for the rise of
such complex behaviour in regards to serving a purpose in preservation of the race
of species. This study suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from
the very start of life. Wynn and Bloom carefully developed an experiment that
shows moral thought in first years of life - like it’s bred in the bones. (Wynn and
Bloom, 2014)
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They conduct a number of experiments with babies from 5-months old to 10-months
old. For infants, they use looking-time as an indication to what the baby is more
interested at and draw conclusions from that. For older babies, who have the
capacity to hold objects or reach for objects, they use that as an indicator to
determine the results.
The first experiment found that infants are sensitive to the competence of social
interactions, by demonstrating them an event in which a character, a climber,
repeatedly attempted to ascend a steep incline. In one scenario the climber was
helped by a helper and in the other it was obstructed by a hinderer. When the
climber approached the hinderer instead of the helper, it was noted that the infants
looked longer at the climber, probably because they expected the climber to
approach the helper instead of the hinderer - suggesting that like adults, babies do
hold some expectations in social behaviour. The next experiment went on to study
how babies felt about negative and positive social actions. In the next experiment,
the same demonstration was shown to the babies again and this time when the
puppets were held out to the infants to show their preference, most of the babies
reached out for the helpful individual. When given a choice between a neutral
character and a hinderer, babies again did not reach for the hinderer. For babies of 3months old, since they are not able to reach for their preferred character, the two
characters were held in front of them and their looking-time was observed. As stated
before, babies tend to look towards the character they prefer and so in this
experiment, they looked towards the helper longer than the hinderer. Infact, babies
possess more subtle moral capacities than good and bad. They would even prefer a
character who rewards the helper or punishes the hinderer than a character who
would reward the hinderer and punish the helper.
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These experiments indicate that within the first few months of life when humans
have not had any personal experience with moving from one location to another,
they can differentiate positive from negative behaviour.
Many scholars believe that humans have some inborn moral sense which would
explain the reaction of babies in this experiment. Babies are not “a perfect idiot” as
Jean-Jacques Rousseau would say. This experiment shows that babies have
expectations about how objects should behave and have an actual understanding of
mental life.
Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that humans do have some higher moral faculties
and some sort of “godly force” must have been the reason for creation of these
capacities, which was no doubt ridiculed by his partner Darwin.
Danish D'Souza, a writer and film-maker also concluded something of similar
nature in his book What’s so great about Christianity? In this book he said that
while there may be genetic benefits to niceness and good morals, there is no
evolutionary positive purpose for disinterested kindness and reasoned that this was
“voice of god” in our souls. To which many evolutionary psychologists disagreed,
saying that certain biological traits do not always evolve to serve a purpose in
preservation of the race of species.
Although the results of this experiment shows that humans possessed some innate
moral values, scientists and evolutionary psychologists tend to credit it to social and
cultural experiences, and biological evolution rather than to the soul.
The results of this experiment can be interpreted in terms of Platonic Doctrine of
Recollection. Through this experiment we can prove that there is a possibility that
humans possess innate knowledge and that through senses and learning they
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rediscover the innate knowledge present within, for an empty head learns nothing.
For a human to be able to absorb information they need to have some pre-existing
understanding of what to pay attention to and what generalizations to make. So the
babies in the experiment, according to Plato’s theory are recollecting the ‘Truth’
because their soul existed before them and has previous knowledge of absolute
good. They are hidden in the depth of the soul.
As we know, not just from Doctrine of Recollection from Phaedo, but from Meno as
well, that Plato believed that learning is nothing but remembering or ‘anamnesis’
(ἀνάµνησις) of ‘Truth’. When the soul is incarnated in the body, it forgets the truth
and is able to regain them by educating through remembrance and with the help of
someone more knowledgeable. In Meno, he demonstrates this through a slave boy
who has no knowledge of mathematics or geometry. Socrates by drawing square
figures on the ground asks the slave boy to find twice the area of the square. Initially
the boy has no idea but through answering the questions of Socrates he is able to
calculate the answer. The idea here is that he does not learn, in the terms that we
understand learning, but learn through the process of remembrance led by someone
more knowledgeable. The same way, through this experiment we learn that humans
hold this idea of morality from a very young age. They are able to learn/remember
these ideas through the use of their senses - in this case, watching a puppet show or
watching their parents or television programs that teach them certain moral values..
However, one could say that this behaviour, from infants inclining to choose the
good individual and even rewarding them, is something they pick up from watching
their parents or guardians - like a blank canvas being painted and it takes the form
that which is being painted. From the moment of birth, a parent installs a reward
system for their infants to train them into good social behaviours - leading them to
act the same way. As Locke observed, it is through perception and understanding
furnished by experience, that we are able to gain knowledge. (Locke, 2000)
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According to him all the ideas come from sensations and it is through these senses
the ideas are conveyed to mind. The mind, through reasoning and experience
provides understanding. For him there are two kinds of ideas: simple and complex where simple is like raw material and are provided to the mind in different ways,
and complex ideas are made out of simple ideas. The mind receives these simple
ideas either passively or actively. Some of these ideas can be like heat, cold, colour
and so on. The mind is either able to combine these simple ideas and form
something of complex nature like gratitude, beauty and so on or existing on its own
by comparing ideas, relating them and forming something distinct.
“Unless the mind had a distinct perception of different objects and their qualities, it
would be capable of very little knowledge” - hence, mind plays the main role in
associating ideas (Brunt and Locke, 2000, P138). For Locke, at this point, there is
no such thing as innate knowledge or ideas. Though, he points out that when a baby
is in the womb he receives some ideas such as heat or hunger, through experience in
the womb - that is a pre-existing idea and not innate. These ideas in the minds of the
babies are produced in the beginning through senses. But these ideas are not
knowledge, like mathematics. So, how does this justify babies having a moral
compass? Is it something they experienced in the womb? Certainly not, because
how can one, to think logically, produce these ideas or even comprehend and
exercise these ideas in the womb. That means, the idea of morality must be a
knowledge that is perceived and exercised through mind. But if babies are like blank
canvas, as Locke would say, or an ‘idiot being’, how can they choose a good
individual over a bad one, and further, punish the bad one? Surely, there is a clear
contradiction in Locke’s theory here, proved by the scientific experiment. And at
this stage Plato’s Doctrine of recollection seems more applicable in explaining the
results.
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What would happen if we were to apply Leibniz law of continuity to the theory of
soul, to understand or maybe even to prove the possibility of existence of soul and
further try to get a better understanding of existence of innate ideas.
“In reality there is no transition of the soul from one body to another, except insofar
as the body itself is insensibly changed. Metempsychosis would be against the rule
that nothing takes place by leaps. The transition of the soul from one body to
another would be the same as the leap of one body from one place to another,
without traversing the intermediate space.” (Leibniz, Foucher de Careil and Owen,
1855, p. 76). The law of continuity informs us that nothing jumps in nature and that
one thing cannot pass from one state to another without passing through all the other
states that can be conceived of between them. This would mean that every state in
which a being finds itself must possess sufficient reason why this body finds itself in
this state rather than in any other state; and this reason can only be found in its prior
state. The prior state therefore contained something which gave birth to the actual
state which it followed. We need to apply the same thought process to soul-body
theory, where this “something” would be a life-giving substance and prior state
would be the soul (without body).
Leibniz has somewhere referred to atoms as an example of incomplete being - these
beings are something of abstract theory and do not exist in the real world. The same
stands for souls. Souls without bodies exist no more than two individuals who are
exactly similar and differ only numerically (Brown, 1998). Thus, soul without body
would not be complete and vice versa. But that is not to say that without each other
they do not exist. Their separated existence could be imagined as an incomplete
existence - “creatures free or freed from matter would at the same time be separated
from the universal order of things, and be, as it were, deserters from the general
order” (Brown, 1998, p. 580). This is not to say that souls cannot exist outside its
matter but that they can be something more than matter - something that “does not
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produce or destroy by the changes which matter undergoes.” So how does this
justify immortality? This “something”, mentioned above, that is a life-giving
substance cannot admit to death and so is immortal. Immortality suggests continuity.
However, this statement lacks full support.
So far we have noted that through the law of continuity, soul transmigrating would
be an odd occurrence. And if it was possible for it to pass from one body to another,
it would have to retain some part of it from the old body and take it to the new one.
So according to Lebniz, if immortality was possible, it would mean that there should
be some psychological continuity in the soul and some physical continuity
(suggesting there are no separated souls). Thus, the soul has a subtle body, somehow
included in a gross body which cannot perish.
In his earlier works, Freud divides the soul or the subject (as he calls it) into three
components - two of these are so closely connected that we can look at them as one
(preconscious/conscious), as distinct from the unconscious (or id). If we are to look
closely at his structuring, we find that there is a tripartite structure of the id: ego and
superego which could be compared to Plato’s passion or appetite. The superego
keeps the ego (reason) in check when it errs morally, that is, it surrenders too much
to the passion’s demands rather than being a complaint helper. The superego drives
the ego towards moral perfection. Just as the ego has to struggle to fight with the
powerful impulses, such as sexual desires or aggression coming from the id, it also
has to, equally resist the demands of the superego. If it surrends too readily to either
of these sets of demands – which come from within the psyche itself – the ego risks
becoming pathological in the sense of being either at the mercy of id-drives, or of
superego-imperatives. This could weaken the ego’s freedom to the point where it
can no longer maintain a kind of balance between the two psyche-components
which, together with itself, comprise the human psyche. Add to this the fact that the
ego also, in addition, faces the necessity of confronting pressures, demands and
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dangers from the outside world – the relation to which is captured by Freud with the
so called ‘reality-principle’ – then it becomes apparent that the ego has no easy task,
for its actions are orchestrated by the reality principle. In fact, unlike Plato’s rational
charioteer who, with the assistance of the spirited white horse, is depicted as being
able to restrain and control the passionate, untamed black horse, the ego is assured
of no such ability to control or overpower the other two psychic agencies in relation
to either their demand, or the exigencies of the external world. The situation with
Freud, then, seems to be crucially different from that of Plato when it comes to
reason’s justified confidence in its ability to master countervailing forces either
within the psyche or outside of it.
As mentioned before, with growing research and psychology now being considered
as science, the concept of soul soon starts to depart from this area. Freud, who
wanted to give an objective understanding of unconsciousness (or what we know as
the soul) and explain it in terms of reality by merging and understanding it with the
help of a conscious mind, ended up shutting out the concept of soul completely.
Although he acknowledged the soul, he refused to explain it materialistically. No
doubt Freud made attempts to do this through an unconscious mind. For him
unconsciousness is something extra than the data registered by our conscious mind.
It holds something more than we take in, a residue of the outside world or a
reflection of reality - all characteristic soul.
The problem with considering soul as science is that it is something that cannot be
sensed or frayed or observed with a microscope and yet unlike contemporary
psychologists, early philosophers like Aristotle took it into consideration when
evaluating psychology. Psyche (ψυχή) cannot be explained as a ‘typical’ brain
function and as ancient philosophers believe, the soul uses the body as a vessel or an
instrument. So for any scientist to test the theory of existence of soul they would
need to have some form of physical proof. Furthermore, psychology always
37
involves some form of matter being studied and for souls in strict scientific terms,
this matter is absent.
What is even more interesting is when trying to understand the role of soul in
psychology, because in some ways psychology has evolved from soul-concept, is
that it claims to be self-knowledge that comes from others and is tested on others quite paradoxical. This is mainly because one cannot simply avoid including oneself
when revealing some kind of universal pattern seen in human beings in general.
While scientific psychology denies the soul, it studies inner life or self and this self
or “I” or what we are is what we know of as soul-concept, as its nature.
As Aquanias said, “dispositions of the soul, such as anger, fear, and so on are not
separable from the physical matter if the animal insofar as they have this kind of
existence, viz., to the extent that dispositions that do not exist without a body. They
are not like lines and plane surfaces, which can be separated in reason from the
matter natural [to them]. If this is so, then the study of [such dispositions] and also
of the soul pertain to natural science.” (Zupko, 1997, p. 302)
Fear, anger, love, morality and so on are all part of some sort of self identity, a part
of the soul-concept. It is this identity that makes us different from each other. For
instance my opinion on the right way to discipline a child might vary from that of
my mother’s. It is this existence of personal identity that creates a problem when
considering the soul as immortal. As Nathan Oaklander says, “soul [cannot] be both
what we are and what continues after our bodily death.” For him, survival implies
identity. (Oaklander, 2001) However, if we are to take Cartesian point of view the
souls being an immaterial thing remains the same through time and supports
properties and experiences. Which is to say that the soul endured through change
(including personal identity) and is immortal.
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The problem that lies in this view is that this soul which is the subject of some kind
of consciousness before and after death is what makes me, me and it does not appear
to completely justify the problem of identity and that survival requires identity.
For this we need to turn to Plato’s affinity argument from Phaedo, where he brings
out the two categories: compounded and uncompounded. Compounded is subjected
to change and exists in space and time, that is to say it is something particular.
Uncompounded neither exist in time and space and can neither change nor come to
existence or cease to exist. For Plato, soul is uncompounded, having the
characteristics of indestructibility, invisibility, divineness and so on. Soul being
uncompounded would mean personal identity is lost for uncompounded is common
to many different particulates and since universal soul is what each soul participates
in the existence of it can hardly be the foundation of individual personal identity.
Furthermore, according to Plato or Socrates, the soul is what gives life to the body.
This would mean either the soul is the same as life or that soul has life in it. For if
the first, then soul is immortal but if not, then the argument in Phaedo with the form
of life is weak. Hence, the soul is either immortal and does not bear personal
identity (because of the nature of uncompoundedness) or it falls short of
immortality.
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Conclusion
To conclude, arguments presented in Phaedo are convincing enough to justify the
existence of the soul before man and after man. However, there seems to be some
negligence and contradictions in the ideas and examples presented. For instance, by
the example of odd and even, if the number three takes a higher position in order to
retain its oddness at the attack of the opposite, even, then by the same idea a soul
must also take a higher position in order to retain its immortality. But it can be said
that it is the idea of immortality that is immortal or imperishable and not the soul
itself, as by the analogy, a soul should have a beginning and hence, could mean that
its proof for existence before a man can once again be questioned. The second
example that leaves a confusion is that of an old weaver. So if the old weaver, lets
say a synonym in this example of the soul and the garment is that of a man, by this
analogy the soul at one point will perish and that knowledge is something a simple
man cannot account for, for no body would outlive a soul or retain the knowledge of
such event, and if it does the said man or soul is still alive and has not perished. The
idea that a good soul is offered the company of God while a folly soul wanders and
enters into an animal body, that is of a lower intellect is somewhat an unsteady
argument.
Furthermore, there is a lack of discussion on the concept of immortality itself. The
dialogue solely concentrates on proving immortality of soul but nowhere is there
mention of existence of the concept of immortality. One could argue this through the
opposite argument: just as the opposite of life is death, the opposite of even is odd
and the opposite of hot is cold - opposite of mortality is immortality since we know
that mortality exists, hence its opposite must too. However, this argument is not
strong enough.
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What Phaedo lacks in argument for the concept of immortality, is made up in
Phaedrus. No doubt that the Proof and the Myth are good arguments for
immortality. If we are to consider the soul being a self-mover it would seem not
completely convincing to deduce that soul is immortal. This is because, as
mentioned before, being in constant motion does not necessarily mean that it will be
in motion eternally. Self-mover needs no other force to keep it moving but does that
mean that it will keep moving forever? Given that “motion” is the property of a selfmover, then by that analogy it should always be in motion. Let’s revert back to
opposites argument and argument with Form. Here Plato has established that
something at the approach of the opposite would rather obliterate than admit to it.
By that analogy, a self-mover at the approach of it’s opposite will not admit to it.
Similarly, the soul at the approach of death will not admit to death, because if it
were to, life being the essential property of soul, it would admit to death and that
does not make sense, because life cannot admit to death and hence soul cannot
admit to death. For if it were to admit to death, it would mean that soul has
something else that holds life in it.
While at initial look it seems that Phaedo and Phaedrus fails to create a strong
support for the immortality itself, but if thought about it carefully the arguments put
forth in Phaedo does justify the immortality of the soul. Even if we are to argue
against it with modern science, it still seems that soul being immortal is a sound
conclusion. For it supports the law of continuity. Soul cannot jump from one state to
another, that would essentially mean that it cannot just jump to death, if it were to
perish it would have to go through some intermediate process. We cannot say with a
100% guarantee that soul will never perish because there is still a possibility that
soul does undergo some intermediate process or that it changes into something else.
However, to speculate about this theory would mean we are giving soul properties
of being “changeable”, which in turn means the soul might not itself be the one
containing life giving property but has something that holds this property.
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These dialogues have made me wonder, if soul being immortal and by my own
analogy changing its form, ever existed in another form instead of ceasing? That is a
soul must have had a previous form before it changed into soul and after wearing its
last garment, does not perish but changes its form - hence, retaining its immortality.
But does immortality as a concept even exist in reality? Immortality, in this case can
be argued as an idea such as good or evil, harmony or disharmony, absolute beauty
and so on - but these concepts exist within mortals however the same cannot be said
for the idea of immortality. Ideas as proved before, precedes existence of a man;
immortality being an idea itself in the same manner could prove to be pre-existing
but this argument is based on shaky grounds.
However, these arguments are not enough to talk about immortality of the soul.
There are still many things that need to be considered when theorising about such a
complex topic. One has to take into account evolution and its impact on our nature.
And if we are to consider evolution, we can very well say that immortality of the
soul based on the argument of recollection falls short. Because the possibility of
innate ideas may just be the result of an evolutionary process. What we have to
keep in mind when studying Plato for the soul and its immortality is that
philosophers of those times never considered that one species could come out of
another species, and so certain arguments do fail in the eyes of science and
evolution.
To really be able to come to an agreeable conclusion on this theory, science,
psychology and philosophy need to work together. Maybe only then will we be able
to come close to answering some of the most important lingering questions.
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Отзывы:
Авторизуйтесь, чтобы оставить отзывA really inspiring piece of work, hope to read more from this author in the future