Plato And Immortality: The Argument In The Republic

“Plato and Immortality: An examination of the argument in the Republic, Book X,” an article by R. R. Hartford, argues that the tenth book of the Republic is noteworthy because of its historical influence on thought and because of Plato’s striking claims throughout. It emphasizes the Phaedrus argument, that reasoned the endless position of the spirit from which everything else lacks and shows that the Republic argument comes to the same conclusion because the soul lacks a characteristic which everything else possesses. It talks about the idea that philosophers have believed in the need for immortality as an ethical fact without seriously jeopardizing the position that love of the good is the sole ultimate motive for virtuous conduct. It highlights Plato’s conviction that the essential soul is not destroyed by moral evil, but must be due less to argumentation and observation than …show more content…
Philosophical temperance may be more beneficial in light of the fact that it emulates the forms, as well as runs for and associates with them. The artile gives insight into a viewpoint that says that the simplicity of the soul to its insolubility and therefore to its indestructibility. Socrates says, “...nor yet must we think that in its truest nature the soul is the kind of thing that teams with infinite diversity and unlikeliness and contradiction itself,"1 and later states that, "It is not easy for a thing to be immortal that is composed of many elements."2 It demonstrates that the soul is basic, therefore we cannot assume that it will disintegrate. Plato argues that unless we are convinced that the universe was divinely constituted we ought not to have any expectation of immortality at all, and this conviction owes part at least its quality as far as anyone is concerned about the souls'