The death of a soul, no matter how metaphorical that may sound, is something that i believe happens and something doesn't belong under the logical rules of the way people look at the death of something else.
The argument begins in 608d with socrates proposing that the soul is immortal and can never be destroyed. He uses this statement and the argument behind it to jump into the "myth of Er", Socrates' dramatic climax to all his final argument. The argument that is behind the immortal soul is what i consider now. Socrates claims that what is evil is what corrupts and destroys everything. Socrates also claims that something cannot be destroyed or corrupted by something that is not of it own or something alien to it. Socrates also purposes that because vices or the evil that belongs a part of the soul doesn't completely destroy it and force it to leave the body, then the soul doesn't die and therefore must live on forever.
This, in my opinion, is where Socrates' argument has a hole. He claims that just because the soul doesn't leave the body when it is brought to the point of death by its interior evil, then it is not dead. The problem is that i do not believe that the soul leaving the body when brought to the point of death is a logical indicator of whether a soul has truly perished. The soul is not something physical, like all the other items that Socrates is comparing it to. The soul doesn't abide by the physical rules that Socrates is supposing it does. I would go even farther in saying that not only does a soul die, but it has the ability to be brought back to life.
The death of a soul can be detected when the will of a person fails to exist. The person no longer wants to do anything or simply live. The dead soul has no concern for anything and this is reflected in its host. The host doesn't perish because the soul is not one of the required organs that allow life. The life of the host will be empty of purpose and desire, but the bodily functions will continue if only by habit.
I agree with your post. It's like saying that someone is "dead on the inside," because their soul has died but their body keeps on living. The two do not need each other to survive in my opinion. The physical body can live without a soul and the soul can flourish without a body.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that the two bodies do not need each other to survive in my opinion. I don't think the physical body can live without a soul and the body cannot flourish without a body. I guess this opinion comes from my religion.
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