ABSTRACT
As the characters of Plato’s Phaedo discuss whether the soul survives the death of the individual and, if so, whether it possesses any of the intelligent capacity it had when embodied, they come to focus increasingly on what the soul must be to survive in this way. Socrates specifies that only something incomposite and unchanging could be indestructible, whereas anything composite and mutable is subject to destruction (Phd. 78c). Socrates goes on to argue that the soul should be regarded as indestructible or nearly so because its affinity to the incomposite, unchanging, and thus indestructible Forms indicates that it is likely to resemble them in respect of being indestructible as well (Phd. 78c–80b). While the argument from analogy is hardly conclusive, it marks a crucial moment in ancient Greek speculation regarding the possibility of the soul’s persistence after death because it raises the crucial question of what the soul would have to be like to survive the death of the individual and, indeed, to be immortal by being indestructible. Plato recognizes that a serious treatment of the question of the soul’s immortality must be grounded in consideration of the ontology of soul. Only if one understands what the soul is, he thinks, will one be in any proper position to determine whether it should be thought to be destroyed at the death of the individual. As we consider the interest of Greek philosophers prior to Plato in the soul’s persistence after death, we need to consider the extent to which these early thinkers considered the ontology of soul.
