Life After Death

Question 1

Materialism

Answer 1

Minds are not independent of living bodies

Question 2

Idealism

Answer 2

Only minds really exist, bodies are an illusion

Question 3

Dualism

Answer 3

We exist as two separable distinct parts- a physical body and a non-material soul. E.G. Plato

Question 4

Hard Materialists

Answer 4

No life after death

Question 5

Soft Materialists

Answer 5

Life after death requires the resurrection of the body, which is probably a replica of the body. E.G. Hick

Question 6

Idealists

Answer 6

The illusion of the physical body ends at death and we continue in spirit form beyond it. E.G. Hegel

Question 7

Dualists

Answer 7

The soul is immortal and thus continues after the body dies. E.G. Descartes.

Question 8

Reincarnation

Answer 8

Life is cyclical, not linear, and we are able to be of the flesh multiple times (until Moksha according to Hinduism)

Question 9

At death the soul is said to leave the body and start off life in another physical body.

Answer 9

Transmigration of the soul

Question 10

Karma

Answer 10

Used to describe the consequences of individual actions, which cumulatively determine your fate.

Question 11

Moksha

Answer 11

Nirvana/Nibbana

Question 12

Evidence to support life after death?

Answer 12

A posteriori concern:

• NDEs
• Regression to past lives
• ‘Sightings’ of dead people
• Spiritualism

Question 13

A priori arguments for LED

Answer 13

AQUINAS argues that we are made for an ultimate end, happiness, which God will vouchsafe for us in a future life.
KANT argues in his moral argument (summum bonum) that life after death is a necessary postulate of practical reason.
PLATO argues that the soul is immortal because it is imperishable; because the soul is simple, it is therefore indestructible.

Question 14

Anthony Flew

Answer 14

Argued that the notion of life after death is incoherent:
1. The statement of ‘surviving death’ is self-contradictory
2. Life after death is empirically false
3. ‘People are what you meet’
Bodies plus behaviour.

Question 15

René Descartes

Answer 15

He believed in the dualistic theory a human being is the sum of the material body (temporal body) and a non-physical mind/soul (permanent essence).
He believed in interactionism, that the mind and body are intimately conjoined, but metaphysically cannot be causally interrelated.
The pineal gland is the site of interaction via ‘animal spirits’.