Personal identity is metaphysical Flashcards
What is Plato’s view?
-The soul is immaterial, unextended and simple (no parts) and therefore cannot be destroyed at death. Plato believes in a version of reincarnation.
What are Plato’s two arguments?
1) Argument from opposites
-Everything has an opposite, life and death are opposites however for ‘death’ to be a thing there must be an immortal soul who will keep living that is able to experience it.
- counter - a self that is so simple like Plato argues cannot be understood and encountered, we recognise each other due to our distinctive complexity.
2) Argument from recollection
-All knowledge is remembered from the realm of the forms, but this must mean that the soul has existed from before birth.
-counter - this just seems to be wrong, Plato uses the example of sleeping and waking up as you must be asleep before you can wake up however you do not have to be dead before you can live.
What is HH prices view?
-The afterlife would be mind based disembodied souls could perform bodily actions (Like we do in dreams)
-Where these souls exist would be constructed by it and not be bound by physics.
-Communication would be telepathically and they would be able to interact via projection
Issues with HH Price’s disembodied souls?
-The souls spend a lot of time manipulating images, how could someone born blind do this? or a person who died during birth?
-Price said that paranormal experiences provide evidence for this but that there may be frauds out there pretending to have these experiences like mediums.
