Plato: Dualist
- - Soul existed before we were born
- - Soul is simple
- - Soul contains knowledge of the Forms. Learning is remembering this knowledge
- - Soul restricted by body and longs for the world of the Forms
- - Soul lives on after the death of the body
- - Soul has 3 different components: Reason, spirit and desire (Triparti)
- - Harmony within these= healthy and happy.
Chariot analogy- reason drives spirit and
desire
Myth of Er?
First tries to communicate that the soul must be immortal.
His argument for this is that the mind cannot be destroyed by a physical
illness that affects the stomach, for example. Is this true now??
Plato then introduces concept of reward and punishment in
the afterlife
In Plato’s Republic:
1.
Man called Er dies. Er sees immoral people going
supposedly towards hell for punishment for bad deeds. Moral people going
supposedly to heaven for good deeds.
2.
Also saw that people were coming down from
heaven with clean souls and saying how wondrous heaven was. People were also
coming up from hell and were dirty and despairing at how awful hell was.
3.
Then they were all before Lady Necessity and
chose their next life.
4.
The man that had been in heaven and knew only of
reward and not of hell= foolishly chose a powerful dictatorship. He then
committed terrible sins= and ended up in Hell for the next life
5.
The man that had been in hell and knew of the
hardships and terror= chose a good life.
6.
All drank from the River of Neglect and forgot
everything.
Where can we see
the existence/ point towards the existence of the soul?
-
Can be shown through our knowledge of opposites=
Forms
-
Our acknowledgement of beauty= Forms
-
Déjà vu= Forms
QUOTE:
“The body is the source of endless trouble to us”
Weaknesses:
-
Peter Geach= can a supernatural soul even
experience the physical?
-
Is learning as simple as really remembering?
-
It relies on theory of the forms
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