To what extent does Plato successfully explain the relationship between the body and the soul? (30 marks)
Plato utilises his Theory of the Forms to distinguish a relationship between the body and the soul. When
evaluating this certain relationship, Plato adopts a dualistic interpretation, meaning he believes that the body and
soul are entirely separate entities. Whilst there are certainly strengths to this argument, it relies on the veracity of
the Theory of Forms, and ultimately there is no empirical evidence to prove this existence. Thus, this essay will
demonstrate that Plato successfully explains the relationship between the body and soul to a somewhat small
extent as well as including the scholars Plato, Aristotle, Dawkins, John Hick and Peter Geach.
The first way in which Plato explains the relationship between the body and the soul is through his theory of the
Forms. Plato’s philosophy asserts two realms; the material world of appearances, which is imperfect and
ever-changing and the World of Forms, which is perfect, unchanging and eternal. It is the body that belongs to
the physical world and the soul that belongs to the spiritual realm. From this theory, Plato adopted the idea of
the soul being immortal. This can be corroborated through when Plato states in Phaedo ‘the soul is in the very
likeness of the divine, and immortal…’. However, there is a fundamental weakness to Plato’s theory of the
soul’s immortality. It ultimately relies on the veracity of the World of Forms, of which there is no empirical
evidence for and thus undermines the entirety of his argument. A scholar who strongly rejects the notion of the
soul in a Platonic sense is Richard Dawkins, who instead takes the materialistic approach and concludes there is
no such thing as a soul or consciousness. Additionally, Dawkins’ evidence is backed empirically thus making
his alternative conclusion far stronger than Plato’s. Another materialist, John Hick, rejects the traditional belief
in body-soul dualism and instead contends the idea that when we describe the soul, we are describing something
mental that consists of characteristics and personality traits. Aristotle also challenged Plato’s logic through the
Third Man Fallacy, which in effect argued that a copy of a Form could turn out to be an infinite series that never
stopped. This would render the Theory of Forms meaningless and thus the theory of the soul also. It is therefore
through a lack of empirical evidence and the third man argument that ultimately disproves Plato’s theory of
Forms as well as the relationship between the soul and body and thus it cannot be accounted as a successful
explanation.
Another way in which Plato explains the relationship between the body and the soul is through the argument
from recollection, which essentially argues that we have a dim recollection of what Forms are because we have
an immortal soul that observed the Forms before being incarnated in a body. Plato’s evidence for this claim can
be found in the demonstration of the enslaved boy in Meno, which gives an example of a slave boy with
knowledge of mathematical proofs. Plato concluded that our soul, which is immortal and eternal, has inhabited
the World of Forms and resides there till united with the body at birth. Thus, when we see variations of the
forms in the material world, we recognise them through this process of recollection, or as Plato put this as ‘What
we call learning is only a process of recollection’. However, whilst this may seem successful in explaining the
relationship between the body and the soul, there are ultimately several flaws, and the inferences made by Plato
come across as stretched. Why should we believe that an innate ability to reason mathematically implies that the
soul is immortal? Additionally, this argument assumes learning is about remembering things we already know,
yet our experience of learning concerns acquiring new knowledge. Therefore it is clear that the argument from
recollection is weak, because there is a clear error in Plato’s view on knowledge through experience rather than
knowledge through the senses and therefore cannot successfully explain the relationship between the body and
the soul.
Another aspect where Plato explains the relationship between the body and soul can be seen through his
argument of opposites. This line of argument was based on the idea that everything in the observable world has
an opposite effect and relates to the case of life and death. Just as one can go from life to death, one must be able
to go from death to life. From this, he devises the idea that the soul must survive this transition of life to death
and as a consequence possess immortality and separation from the body. Thus because life and death are existent
opposites, and since the body is moral and subject to physical death, the soul must exist as its indestructible
opposite. Whilst this may seem as a coherent line of argument, it is ultimately flawed due to the fact that not
everything has to have an opposite. For example, black does not bring about white, and hunger does not bring
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