I was told the other day that you disagree with Socrates's ideas on the soul and the afterlife. Well, you're not alone, as you'll see in my following examination of Socrates's third argument in Plato's Phaedo. One more thing, if you don't have a symbol font on your computer, that title is really messing with you. So, umm, well, go get the Symbol font, and learn some greek.

Tom Acton
Philosophy 300, Ancient Philosophy
Dr. Davenport
20 February 2001

     Socrates's argument for the immortality of the soul is not painfully difficult, though the constant comments on the opposite of life and other intangibles are sometimes awkward, may only exist in the twisting, and poor selection of words, and seem to disregard the complexities and gray areas involved in such ideas. Socrates says that the something that distinguishes the living from the dead always has life, and therefore cannot be dead. He also believes that if a person's soul, that something distinguishing life from death, is immortal, then in effect, that person is immortal, in a nonphysical sense. This line of thinking has more holes in it than an O.J. Simpson alibi, and leaves twice as much room for speculation.

     The problem with Socrates's understanding of the soul, or the psyche, or whatever word you choose to use for the item that, when present, makes a being alive, and when absent, defines a being as being dead, is that it may very well not be an item at all. What is the definition of "alive?" Does it mean being able to move about and perform various lively activities? Well, most plants do not move and they are alive. Does it mean acquiring energy from food, either collected externally or produced internally, for various activities. Does a virus do that? Are viruses what Socrates had in mind when talking of life? Does being alive simply mean using energy? Does not any machine do that? What if you decide to not delve too deeply into biology and say that being alive is simply performing certain physiological activities, specific to the organism? It would then seem a bit impossible to refer to that sort of "psyche" being alive or being dead, as it is obviously neither. A condition does not have life. If the item that separates the living from the dead is really a condition, then Socrates's argument really does not hold water. It seems as though the various philosophers conversing with Socrates before his death should not have taken their knowledge of the soul for granted, as it seems they have done, by assuming there is an actual item at all that distinguishes life from death.

     There lies yet another problem within the thinking of Socrates. He may very well have wrongly equated a person's soul, presuming a person has a soul, with that person's very being.

     I have a liver. Assume for the sake of argument that I died, and yet my liver was kept working and functioning, essentially alive, by some apparently over funded scientists. Would that mean that because my liver is alive, I am still alive? Most people would most likely not think that my liver being alive, or functioning at least, would mean that I, myself was still alive. In order for any situation similar to this to hold water, it would have to involve the piece of my body still being alive having as a part of it my consciousness, or my mind, or whatever word seems appropriate. Socrates assumes that the part of a being that makes it alive is the same part that contains a person's consciousness. This seems to have been a common sentiment among many people, and yet there does not seem to be many arguments backing it up. Perhaps this idea needs to be challenged, like any idea, before it is taken as commonplace and accepted. If there was something, a physical entity, not just a condition, that rendered life to all it touched, and death to all it evaded, that something could very well exist in my liver, independent of my mind. In that sense, my liver could be perfectly healthy and alive, and I would still be dead.

     It is this writer's belief that being alive is only being the victim of certain conditions, be they respiration, digestion, etc. Following this line of thinking, Socrates's idea of an afterlife and of how what sort of afterlife you exist in is dependent on what sort of a life you lived is absurd. My problem with Socrates's third argument, if spelled out in the interpretation by Dr. Davenport, would be with premise number nine, as it is at that point when the premise cannot be construed to allow for the "psyche," or whichever term is used, to be a set of conditions or functions, as no condition or function can be dead or alive. Socrates seems to have let his religion get the best of him in his final dialogue with his fellow philosophers, in assuming that the soul had to be an actual, tangible, item rather than an occurrence of a few select conditions and functions.