Question

discuss why Plato in the dialogue the Phaedo believes the soul is immortal?

Answer 1

Plato presents the following arguments in order to support the view of the soul being immortal:

1. The argument from generation out of opposites: If death and life are opposites, it follows that something could have come to be life only after first having been dead. It then appears that in some sense or the other, a thing exists when it is dead.
2. The argument from recollection: What we call learning is just a recollection of what we have learned before. We possess extensive a priori knowledge about the world that are not obtained from our senses.

3. The simplicity argument: If a thing is composite, then it can be destroyed by being separated into its parts. But if something is incomposite, and has no parts, then it cannot be destroyed by being resolved into its parts. As the soul is incomposite, it is indestructible, and so can’t be destroyed by death.