Plato’s 1st Argument for the Immortality of the Soul from Opposites and Theory of Reincarnation
Plato’s 1st argument for the Immortality of the Soul from opposites and Theory of Reincarnation Plato’s Phaedo is a dialog between Phaedo, Cebes and Simmias where Socrates gives some arguments for the immortality of the soul. In this work, Phaedo tells us about Socrates’ final days, who has been convicted to death. Great philosopher does not have a fear of death because he believes that when a man dies, the soul still exists even if the body perishes. Trying to prove his arguments, Socrates presents two proofs – Doctrine of Opposites and second which is based on Theory of Recollections. In Phaedo he writes: “That soul, I say, herself invisible, departs to the invisible world – to the divine and immortal and rational…”. In this quote, Plato uses the first argument about Opposites of things. He implies that while the body dies and decomposes, the soul still lives. In other words, if the body must cease, the soul should be immortal because it is the body’s opposite. There are a lot of examples from Doctrine of Opposites which are given by Phaedo and Socrates. Moreover, according to Socrates’ definition – one opposite thing comes from another opposite as well. For instance, increasing and decreasing, cooling and heating, separation and combination, etc. Let’s take the example of being asleep and being awake. If you are not sleeping, then you are awake, or on the contrary – if you are not awake, then you are sleeping. These two actions could not exist at the same time because when you are sleeping it is impossible to be awakened. Indeed, sleep comes from being awake. Consequently, there must be first condition before the second – in order to become awakened firstly we should be sleeping. The same we know with life and death – when a man ceases to exist anymore, he dies. But if one comes from another, thus there should be opposite action – life after dying. His second argument is based on the Theory of Recollection. This theory suggests that