PHAEDO’S ARGUMENTS FOR THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Concept of the soul is basically a religious belief. It is believed that there is a soul and it maintains a relation with the body. But though the body dies the soul remains undying. Indian philosophy except Buddhism and Carvaka believe in a permanent soul-substance and they believe that the soul is immortal. But they never raise any argument to prove soul's immortality. Immortality of the soul is not a problem for the Indian philosophers. But in the west Plato for the first time raised questions regarding soul's existence and immortality. He is the first philosopher in the history of philosophy who tried to philosophize on the concept of soul. He raised so many impressive arguments in his dialogues namely Phaedo, Phaedrus, Meno etc. Among his various dialogues composed in different periods his concept of soul can be best found in his dialogue Phaedo. In Phaedo, Plato put forward four impressive arguments to prove soul's immortality. His concept of soul is also found in Phaedrus, Meno, Republic etc. Though Plato's concept of soul has similarities with that of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita He presented so many new ideas by analyzing and synthesizing which we could come to know that the concept of soul is quite significant and has an impact on human life and society. In this research paper, an attempt has been made to analyze and synthesize Plato's concept of soul found in his dialogue Phaedo. An attempt has has been also made to highlight how far the concept of soul is relevant in present days. So far as methodology is concerned, in this paper, both analytic and synthetic methods have been used. The required data have been collected both from primary and secondary sources. Books on Greek Philosophy and internet have been used for data collection