The Final Proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato's Phaedo 102a - 107a

Abstract

Among the arguments presented by Socrates as proofs for the everlastingness of the human soul the last one has greatly puzzled philosophers because it seems that, in opposition to the earlier arguments,' Plato considered this last argument conclusive. For, whereas earlier in the discussion the partners of the dialogue, Simmias and Cebes, raise objections and Socrates tries to meet their criticism, at the end of the last argument he claims: Then this is most certain that the soul is immortal and imperishable and that our souls will really exist in Hades (106e). And at this point Socrates obtains his partners' final consent. For, though Simmias admits that he still entertains doubts, it seems that Plato wants to attribute this to the natural difficulties we encounter when arguments have to overcome fears, not to shortcomings of the argument itself (cf. 107 a/b). For with Socrates' calm reassurance that further scrutiny of its presuppositions would finally lead to a state of conviction as far as this is humanly possible, the argumentative part of the dialogue ends (107 b9) .2 What follows is Socrates' mythical description of the soul's afterlife and, finally, the narrative of Socrates' peaceful death among his friends. Because of Socrates'/Plato's apparent confidence in this last argument it has always attracted special attention. And in recent years there have been various attempts to expose the flaw or flaws in the proof. For, ever since Kant pointed out the unavoidable difficulties that human reason encounters when it tries to transcend the boundaries of sense-experience, the interest of philosophers in arguments of this kind has been mainly a critical one. It is a challenge to a philosopher's skill to expose weaknesses of such arguments, steps which do not follow necessarily or assumptions which one does not have to accept. Furthermore, especially in the case of a philosopher as great as Plato, such a critical investigation promises to be a rewarding task, since one may hope that, if the argument under investigation turns out not to be clearly invalid, one may learn something about those philosophical presuppositions which are not explicitly stated in the argument but tacitly assumed (or argued for earlier in the dialogue), but which are, nevertheless, needed to make the argument go through. In this paper, then, I shall try to defend Plato's argument against those critics who claim that its conclusion is reached by invalid inference and point out