The Republic by Plato - 13 - The Afterlife
Book Fourteen
Quote
"Don't you realize that our mind is immortal and never dies?"
Notes
Continuing their discussion about why living morally is the best, Socrates says that good people are rewarded for how they lived after they die. And immoral people are punished.
Before he gets there, however, he first tries to establish that the mind is immortal. He explains that every thing in the world has a specific defect that causes its destruction. The body has illness, iron has rust, etc. The mind's defect is immorality, he says, but immorality only degrades the mind, it doesn't destroy it. Therefore, the mind cannot be destroyed....
Socrates then tells a story about a man who goes to the afterlife and is sent back to report about it. He sees that bad people are punished for their crimes ten times over, where good people are rewarded for their goodness ten times over.
The story also includes a description of how souls are reincarnated back to earth in different forms that they can choose. They can choose to come back as an animal, animals can choose to come back as humans, and you can pick from any type of human and any type of life. Many people pick based on their previous experience, maybe looking for something different than what they had before. On the other hand, people who don't know any better may choose something that will cause them a lot of suffering, such as the life of a dictator.
Socrates finishes the dialog with this conclusion: "We should always keep to the upward path, and we should use every means at our disposal to act morally and with intelligence, so that we may gain our own and the gods' approval, not only during our stay here on earth, but also when we collect the prizes our morality has earned us, which will be just as extensive as the rewards victorious athletes receive from all quarters. And then, both here and during the thousand-year journey of our story, all will be well with us."
Key Takeaways
The case for the mind's immortality here is extremely dubious. First of all, there is usually more than one way that a thing can be destroyed. The body can be killed by illness, and it can also be killed from an injury, like being stabbed during a battle for example. And just because the mind isn't destroyed by immorality doesn't mean it's immortal.
I'm also curious about what Plato means by the mind. Is he talking about consciousness? Because, if so, there is a question about if consciousness can be destroyed, or if it can still exist after the body dies. In any case, Plato doesn't really spend a lot of time with this argument, and I'm sure he'd be capable of something more comprehensive than this if he wanted to.
The Republic seems to have been about a lot more than establishing why its best to live morally. Was Plato trying to describe what a good political system would look like? And a good education system? Not to mention why it makes sense to ban all poetry. How do these things all connect with the moral life? We'll look at this a little bit in the conclusion.