Arguments For Phaedo

In the Phaedo, Socrates does not fear death because he believes that his soul is immortal and will be sent to heaven after his death. It is worth noticing here that he pre-assumes that the soul exists, so his central argument is not about whether the soul exists, but whether it is immortal. One of his arguments is that the soul is invincible, and invincible things can’t be destroyed, so the soul is immortal. I shall explain more fully this argument in the next paragraph. Then I shall offer my objection on his premise that invincible things can’t be destroyed, and thus how his argument of the immortality of the soul is invaid.
Socrates starts by making a distinguish between compound things and uncompounded things. Compound things, like pencils,
chairs and the human body----things that are visible ---- can be destroyed because they are consisted of different parts, and they can be destroyed when the parts are taken apart. Uncompounded things, like perfect beauty, perfect equity, and numbers-----things that are invisible but can be perceived by our minds---- cannot be destroyed because they don’t consist of parts, they are each one complete entity. Now if we look at the human body, it is certainly something visible, so it must be compound, and thus can be destroyed, or is mortal. But on the other hand, the soul is certainly something invincible, so it must be an uncompounded thing that cannot be destroyed. So the conclusion here is that the soul is immortal. Basically, he reaches this conclusion through the following series of premises: 1) Only compound things can be destroyed. 2) Invisible things are uncompounded things. So 3) invisible things can’t be destroyed. Now 4) the soul is invisible. So 5) the soul can’t be destroyed. The above is my attempt at explaining Socrates’ argument. Although I left out some details that are irrelevant of my objection, the line of his logic is still valid.
Assuming that premises 1) and 2) are true, then premise 3) that invisible things can’t be destroyed must also be true. However, I think premise 3) is not true because there are things that are invisible but can be destroyed. But first, I must consider what Socrates means by “invisible”. I shall start with a first interpretation that invisible means can’t be seen by human eyes. If that’s the case, then what Socrates is saying is that what can’t be seen can’t be destroyed. But, there are things that can’t be seen but can still be destroyed. For example, sound of the speech. When someone speaks, we see his mouth moving and his hands gesturing, but we do not see the sound of his speech. All we can see are hints that the sound of speech is from that person, but we don’t see the sound directly. Yet, if the person suddenly gets killed and dies, then there is no longer the sound. The sound is gone because the person that gives it is destroyed. So it is now safe to say that the sound of speech is destroyed as well. If we say that, then we are saying that the sound of speech which is invisible (can’t be seen) can be destroyed. Another example would be the smell of coffee. There is no doubt that the coffee will produce a distinctive smell, but we can’t see it. And if the coffee is destroyed in some way, then the smell would be destroyed as well. So as it turns out, not all invisible (can’t be seen) things are indestructible.
Below is how Socrates could respond to my objection---- what he means by “invisible” is not “can’t be seen”, he means “can’t be sensed by the five human senses”.
Even though the sound of speech can’t be seen by human eyes, it could still be sensed by one of the human senses which is the ears. And even though the smell of coffee can’t be seen, it could still be sensed by one of the human senses which is the nose. So the counterexamples given in my objection regarding the sound of speech and the smell of coffee are no longer valid if the interpretation of “invisible” becomes “can’t be sensed by the five human senses”. So then Socrates’ argument, particularly premises 3) and 4), still works----things that can’t be sensed by the human senses, that is, things that can’t be seen, touched, smelled, tasted or heard can’t be destroyed. The soul is an example of such a thing. Thus the soul can’t be
destroyed.
Even so, the premise that invisible things (things that can’t be sensed by human senses) can’t be destroyed is still in danger because there are still things that can’t be sensed by human senses but can be destroyed. For example, the Wi-Fi signal. We can’t see it with our eyes, we can’t touch, smell, taste or hear it. We can’t sense it with our human senses at all-------it is invisible. And yet, it can be destroyed because as long as the router (or whatever instrument that produces the signal) is destroyed, the signal is destroyed as well. Or say a movie director imagines a scene in her mind. The scene can’t be sensed by any of her five senses-----it is invisible. And yet if she dies, the scene dies as well and gets destroyed. So given these counterexamples, even if we were to take the second interpretation of the word “invisible”, the premise that invisible things can’t be destroyed is still not true. Thus, there is no good reason to believe that the soul being invisible, can’t be destroyed.
Then again, I could imagine Socrates saying what he means by “invisible” is not “can’t be sensed by the human senses” but rather “can’t be detected by any means at all”.
Which is a third possible meaning of “invisible”. So what he really means by premise 3) that invisible things can’t be destroyed is that things that can’t be detected by any means at all can’t be destroyed. And thus the counterexample of the Wi-Fi signal no longer works because even though the signal can’t be sensed by the human senses, it could be sensed by machines such as cell phones and computers; Same for the imagined scene----even if the scene can’t be sensed by any of the five human senses, it could still be sensed by the director’s brain. This means that given the third interpretation of the word “invisible”, the Wi-Fi signal and the scene are not really invisible because they can still be sensed in some way. Here then, Socrates could say: unlike the ordinary things that can be sensed in some way, the soul is something that can’t be detected in any way at all, it is invisible under the third interpretation of the word
“invisible”.
So here we have premise 3 that says things that can’t be sensed at all can’t be destroyed. This could well be true and it could mean that Socrates can still reach his conclusion. However, now I find premise 4 in danger because the soul is not really invisible (not sensed at all) -----it can be sensed in some way. Consider an active body and a dead body. The active body can love, laugh, be creative and perform all the human tasks. Meanwhile, the dead body cannot do anything but to lie there. What makes the difference in these two human bodies as Socrates would explain is the soul, which is the breath that animates the body. If so, then it is not true to say that the soul can’t be detected at all because the body can be animated if the soul is put into the body and that’s one way of detection.
Essentially, the argument that Socrates gives to prove the immortality of the soul is based on the central premise that invisible things can’t be destroyed. However as shown above, this premise can either be disputed in that there are some invisible things that can be destroyed or that the soul isn’t really invisible. If the central premise fails to be true, then the conclusion of the immortality of the soul will no longer be reached.

Works Cited
Plato. Excerpts from Plato, Phaedo. Fall 2016. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Phaedo of Plato. Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire: Golden Cockerel, 1930. 41-45. Print.