the existence after death of a conscious self

• what view does Plato hold?

  that the soul is naturally immortal
• what are his two arguments for the immortality of the soul?


  the argument from opposites and the argument from recollection
• (the argument from opposites) everything comes to be from its...?

  opposite
• (the argument from opposites) life and death are opposites
• (the argument from opposites) so, in the same way that living bodies die...?

  the dead must become living
• (the argument from opposites) in the same way you have to be asleep before you can wake up...?


  you have to be awake before you can sleep
• (the argument from recollection) what did Plato believe that knowledge is?

  recollection
• (the argument from recollection) to have an innate understanding of anything in life, what must you have done?

  lived before
• (the argument from recollection) what does the soul remember?

  its experiences and knowledge from its previous life - and uses that in the next life it is a part of
• (the argument from recollection) what is this an advocating argument for?

  reincarnation
• what do these arguments suggest?

  that after the death of the body, the soul goes to the world of forms to contemplate their perfection and is subsequently reborn in the flesh
• why does Plato's argument from opposites seem to simply be wrong?

  because he uses an incoherent analogy between sleeping and dying
• why is it in an incoherent analogy?

  the two (sleeping and dying) do not relate in any way
• Plato's argument allows for the soul to avoid...?

  being destroyed
• how does Plato's argument allow for the soul to avoid being destroyed?

  as it is not in separate parts
• however, what does this prevent?

  developed understanding of the soul
• what did Price hypothesise that the afterlife would be?

  mind-based
• just as in a dream state we perform bodily actions...?


  a community of disembodied cartesian-type souls could perform bodily actions
• what did Price suggest their environment would correspond to?

  the individual souls deepest desires and strongest memories
• as with dreams, Price thought the the constructed environment wouldn't...?

  have to conform to the laws of physics
• how would souls communicate?

  telepathically
• how would disembodied souls recognise each other as persons in the afterlife?

  telepathic communication would allow individuals to project an image of themselves to other disembodied souls
• this argument is good at surface level but...?

  it doesn't make sense for deeper understanding
• why does Price's argument not make sense for deeper understanding?

  how would someone born blind, who died at birth, be able to manipulate images at all?
• Price doesn't seek to prove the existence of a disembodied afterlife, rather, what does he want to do?

  show that the concept is at least coherent
• although those who had known each other while embodied might...?

  understand each other to be the same person
• the absence of bodies, brains and sense experience would seem to...?

  stretch the definition of "same" far beyond its normal use