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Debating Personal Immortality: The Philosophical Arguments from Socrates to Hume

Explore the contrasting views on personal immortality from influential philosophers like Socrates, Descartes, and Hume. Uncover the debates surrounding the nature of the soul, God's role, morality, and evidential claims for life after death.

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Debating Personal Immortality: The Philosophical Arguments from Socrates to Hume

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  1. Personal Immortality: Arguments Socrates (470-399 BCE) Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • Socrates/Descartes: unlike the body, the soul is simple, immaterial, & does not come apart • Objection: death is not dissolution of material parts, only the end of bodily (brain) activity • Peter van Inwagen: God re-creates our same body after we die • Objection: no re-creation would be identical (1942- )

  2. Personal Immortality:Arguments (continued) Kant • If there is a loving God, he would give us more than the brief span of our time on earth Objection: this assumes that there is such a God • Kant: morality requires that the injustices of this life be balanced in an afterlife Objection: morality does not require happiness to match virtue; so eternity is unnecessary

  3. Personal Immortality:Arguments (continued) • The fact that the belief in an afterlife is found almost universally argues in its favor Objection: this shows only widespread desire • Reports of “near death experiences” are too common, similar, and accurate to ignore Objection: such reports are explainable in purely psychological terms

  4. Personal Immortality:Arguments (continued) • Reports of reincarnation are also widespread Objections: why don’t babies remember their past lives? Furthermore, not enough people have lived in the past to account for everyone today • Reports of communication with the dead and “miracles” are likewise widespread Objection (Hume): these are due to wishful thinking and deception David Hume

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