Plato And Lucretius: Life After Death

Many people contemplate life after death. Does our soul cease to exist or does it remain after we die? These were both important questions that were discussed by Plato and Lucretius. I agree with Plato’s concept of the immortality of the soul. I will discuss in detail each Lucretius’ and Plato’s positions.

Plato argued that when your physical body dies, your soul remains. The Greek philosopher said that “death is the separation of the soul and the body”. Plato concluded that the soul is immortal because, in the Realm of Forms, it is part of the Life Form, and since one object cannot have two contradicting Forms, for example, Life and Death, the soul cannot die. Many Greeks believed in reincarnation and this provided a possible answer for

He argued that personal identity goes hand in hand with the consciousness of someone. So if you switched bodies, you would still view your new body as “yourself” because your mind and consciousness is with it. Thomas Reid attempted to falsify Locke’s proposition by creating the “Brave Young Officer” situation. This objection is a story about a military officer. When the 40-year old officer goes to steal food, he remembers himself stealing an apple from his neighbors as a 10-year old child. Then, at 80-years old, the now general remembers stealing food as a 40-year old officer, but not as a 10-year old child. Locke would say that the general is both the same and not the same as the child. This is because the officer shares continuity of consciousness with the child and the general, so both the general and the child must be related. But also according to Locke, if something doesn’t share a continuous stream of memory, then they are not related. So the general and the child can’t be the same person if they don’t share continuity of consciousness. Reid argues: how could you be the same but not the same? How can continuity of memory or consciousness dictate personal identity if we forget our memories? Joseph Butler declared that John Locke’s theory was circular because the notion of memory it employs presupposes the notion of personal identity. Both critics favor a substance-view of personal identity instead of Locke’s belief that it is determined by consciousness. Thomas Reid’s objection undermines Locke’s theory by questioning how it works if there are certain parts that have no explanation, such as in the officer story when the man forgets what he did as a child. If he forgot, then how, in Locke’s theory, is he the same person as the child? Continuity of consciousness is a factor for personal identity but it is not the only thing that controls it like John Locke