Philosophy of Human Person Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Philosophy of Human Person - Essay Example The researcher states that Socrates investigates a number of influences about the immortality of the soul in a bid to show that there exists an afterlife with the soul dwelling after death. He does this by engaging his two friends, theSimmias and Thebans Cebes, in a debate. Among the major subjects in Phaedo is an idea that suggests the soul be immortal. Socrates presents four arguments about the soul’s immortality. The first being The Opposites Argument or Cyclical argument. This explains since the forms are external and unchanging, the soul is concerned with bringing life hence it is not supposed to die. It is also reported to be necessarily imperishable. The existence of the body as mortal through the subjection to physical death means the souls should be its opposite. Plato suggested the likeness of cold and fire with cold being imperishable and fire its exact opposite. He observed that everything came from its opposite. E.g. a tall man only becomes tall after being short before. Life being opposite to death, our analogous reason gives the thought that as the living once become dead, so should dead become living. Death and life are in a continuous cycle in a way that death is not a permanent end. The second argument is that of the theory of recollection. Humans have a non-theoretical knowledge at birth. This is to mean that the soul was in existence way before birth to help us in carrying that knowledge. The theory bears another account found in Plato’s Meno though Socrates infers previous knowledge of everything. The argument is based majorly on the fact that learning is an act of recollection of the things we knew before birth but we forgot them. We are able to judge two sticks to be equal in length but differing in width because of the innate understanding we have about equality.