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Plato's Argument On Why The Soul Is Alive

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In the Republic, Plato gives an argument saying the soul is immortal. In this paper I will present his argument and show that his argument is invalid. I will show why the conclusion is not true and restate the argument to make it valid to help with Socrates’ claim. Plato’s argument on why the soul is immortal:
1. Something can only be destroyed by the thing that is bad for it.
2. Injustice, licentiousness, cowardice, and lack of learning are bad for the soul.
3. Injustice or other vices do not destroy the soul.
4. Therefore, the soul is immortal. This argument is invalid because the conclusion does not agree with the premises. The premises all follow one another and make sense. The conclusion does not agree with the …show more content…

By including what immortality covers the argument makes sense talking about nonliving things and living things. As stated before, for nonliving things the argument would not would very well. I think just by including premise number two the argument became stronger and is now valid. In the Republic Socrates’ explained how injustice and other vices are bad for a soul, so I do not believe an argument could be made against how they could not destroy the soul. I think adding this premise makes the argument valid and sound. Socrates’ original argument was not valid or sound. The premises were corrected but the argument needed another premise to make the conclusion true. Adding premise two takes away any confusion there was to what immortality meant. Since Socrates’ spent almost the entire book creating a just person and a just city the information about what is good and bad for a soul makes sense. It also makes sense that those things cannot destroy the soul because injustice and other vices could only lead the body to make poor choices and possibly get sick or die from those poor choices. The soul would not get affected by those choices or by the death of the

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