The argument from the soul
What thinks in us is not a mere body, and may outlast it.
Supports
Plato ·
- What thinks, judges and loves is not the same as an organ: thought has neither weight nor color, and it grasps truths that do not age, such as the equality of the triangle or justice.
- But what is simple, without parts, cannot fall apart as a composite body does: the end of the soul cannot be conceived on the model of material decomposition.
- A moral demand is added: it is hard to accept that the crushed just and the prosperous tyrant share one and the same destiny, sheer nothingness.
Therefore Therefore it is rational to hope that death is not the annihilation of the person, but a passage.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
Deepenings
Kant's postulate of immortality
- does not claim to prove the soul: he makes it a postulate of practical reason. The moral law commands a perfection no finite life can reach.
- For this demand not to be empty, one must postulate an endless progress, hence a duration of the person beyond death: not a knowledge, but a hope that morality makes reasonable.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely