Soul is distinct from the mortal body so can survive bodily death and move to the afterlife.
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Plato's view
Socrates and the forms-afterlife in world of pure forms
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Socrates
Did not fear death, is either a trip for the soul to a new world with other dead or is nothing (no awareness). Immortal soul enters the body at birth, soul is the lifeforce that gives energy and cognition as it participates in the form of life.
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Quote Socrates
'It is the soul which renders the body living' as life cannot emerge from a dead thing.
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Simple soul
only composite things can degrade-souls are simple so therefore imperishable
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Cyclical argument
Forms are eternal and unchanging, soul brings life so cannot die, the body is subject to death so the soul is the opposite
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Theory of recollection
We posses non-empirical knowledge at birth, soul existed before birth to carry that knowledge (of pure form i.e. goodness)
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Affinity argument
Invisible, incorporeal and immortal things are different from visible, corporal, mortal things. The soul is the former and body is the latter. So when bodies die souls live on.
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Argument from the form of life
forms are incorporeal static entities, they cause all things in the world. The soul participates in the form of life so cannot die
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Descartes view
Immortal soul is the source of conscious life. The soul must exist because, 'I think therefore I am' and human beings are primarily a 'thinking thing'. Thus basic knowledge of the self is independent of the body.
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Immortal soul in past cultures
Seen through belief in the after life, specific rituals i.e. coins for ferryman or grave goods in Egyptian pyramids suggest belief in afterlife-soul travels on.
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Ryle's view
There is no immortal soul. Ghost in the machine, souls are just a speculative spiritual hypothesis. Materialist argument, life is just complex brain processes.
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Modern neuroscience's view
Assumes that mind/self is a product of brain function, not an immortal soul, otherwise it couldn't be studied scientifically
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Kant
Simple substances are not necessarily eternal, they may just fade out of existence by dimming in intensity
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Modern Psychology
Mind is not a simple substance. Capable of division and instability in mental illness. So may not be simple-eternal
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
Plato's view
Back
Socrates and the forms-afterlife in world of pure forms
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