Unit 1: The Metaphysics of Death

There are two ways we can begin to think about the nature of death. One way is to suppose that human beings are composed of a body and a soul. This is known as a dualist view. If we possess a soul, then we can imagine that while the body dies, the soul may continue to exist in some fashion. Of course, having a soul is no guarantee that this is true, but it does appear to be a necessary condition for surviving the death of the body. The other way we can think about death is to start out with the assumption that there is no such thing as the soul. This view, known as physicalism, asserts that human beings are entirely physical or that they depend so completely on their physical bodies that, once the body dies, there is nothing to sustain our consciousnesses (or our “selves”). In this unit, we will attempt to determine which of these views is the most plausible. We will consider a wide range of arguments for and against the existence of the soul, as well as arguments for and against the idea that the soul is immortal. In order to answer these questions, we will consider a number of related topics, such as whether we can really imagine existing without a body and the nature of near-death experiences. We will also become intimately acquainted with Plato’s arguments for the immorality of the soul in his dialogue, Phaedo.