Philosophy: The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity

IntroductionThe Concise Oxford lexicon defines instinct as follows Spiritual or immaterial part of serviceman, held to survive devastation. This definition highlights the fact that the ideal of life after cobblers last by means of a intellect remains a librate of religious assertion. No authority can prove it. In contrast, the highest authority, the Bible, says The soul that is sinningit itself will die. (Eclessiastes 311)The dust returns to the earth just as it happened to be and the spirit itself returns to the true God who gave it. In his Commentary, Wesleyan Methodist theologian Adam Clarke writes concerning this verse Here the wise man makes a most translucent distinction among the body and the soul they are not the same they are not both(prenominal) national. The body, which is consider, returns to dust, its original but the spirit, which is immaterial, returns to God (123). Similarly, A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture says The soul goes back to God (90). Th us, both commentaries imply that the soul and the spirit are the same.Through the birth of philosophical popular opinion on the issue of people having an immortal soul, it could then be assured that through the different theories form by early philosophers, many people were confused ab come in the truth on the matter. Hence, to be equal to clearly understand the issue, further studies were made and were formulated to answer the queries of people regarding a living soul. In the paragraphs to follow, the parley of moth miller and Weirob shall be examined as to how the two philosophers arePhilosophy The Immortality of the Soul and private Identity able to wrap up the issues of an identical self that continuously thrives even after a mortals death.The Dialogue and the ClaimIn antic Perrys A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality, in that respect is an indication of a conversation that existed between Miller and Weirob. The latter mortal signifies the existence of a conn ection between the continuous events in a individuals life that is identified as a somebodyal individuality of an individual. accord to Miller, the immortality of the soul is the indication that a persons identity is rather passed on through the geezerhood of life of the individual.In the conversation though, it has been focalizeed out by Weirob that the continuity of a persons identity does not necessarily depend upon the life and death transition of a persons experience. However, Miller continues to localize out that the continuity of identity that is referred to as stage a bunch of mental and physical events that are paste together a set of events that are cursoryly interacting within a persons life, occurs in a persons life just once as he is living. The verbalize casual relations are then glued together, hence the identity of the person continues well with the years of his life, from the point of his birth towards the days of his old age. A persons capability of rall ying the earlier days of his life helps him identify himself as the same person as he was during the past years compared to who he is at state. Saying this, Miller came up with four major hypotheses about a persons ability to remember. The said hypotheses are as followsPhilosophy The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity. If Something is imaginable, it is possible It is possible that in that respect will be someone identical with Gretchen Weirob in Heaven If identity is imaginable then it is possible. endurance is identity with a future personThe fact that there has to be a certain connection between the events and the physical experiences that a person passes through life makes the possibility of a life after death experience, or the idea of an immortal soul a possible matter at that. According to Miller, the identity of person could only be tracked down through memory. Hence, once an event is remembered by a person then he gains the old personal identity he once h ad during his earlier or first life. This identity, according to him is someone that exists in heaven. This could be referred to as a complete depiction of the person that is living on earth at present. Hence, this simply means that the person living in forthwiths world at the present time has an identical person counterpart in heaven, which enables him to remember his past life completely.Weirob however, further argues that even though there exists an immortal soul as some other philosophers claim, the said factor of human life soul cannot account for identity unlike how people could do as they live. Hence, reincarnation as a way of branching one persons identity is not at all possible, or someone undoubtedly identical with the person living at present is possible at all.Weirob proves this contestation by pointing out the differences between remembering and presumable to remember. According to her, there is a big differencePhilosophy The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Ide ntity between the two activities of the mind. Whereas remembering pertains to the ability of the person to recall the exact things as it all happened to him during an earlier part of his life. However, seeming to remember is to quite manage what happened as it happened but not in truth knowing the exact events that occurred. To support this claim, Weirob uses an exampleif for a importee a person is hypnotized to remember as if he has talked to Miller, then another person actually talks to him, the result when asked may not be that at large(p) to distinguishThus, a person could be able to remember something if it actually happened to him, however, at some point, some spirit testing and activities also enables a person to remember something that did not even happen. However, remembering in detail would not be that easy to copy as hypnotism does. Hence, here enters the idea of being able to seemingly remember things.By stating the said claims, Weirob was also able to come up with h er own hypotheses about the matter Examining the content of what a person is thinking or saying cannot establish whether that person is identical with a person existing at an earlier time (14,21) Really remembering a thought or action is just seeming to remember it plus having really thought or done it.Philosophy The Immortality of the Soul and Personal IdentityClearly, Weirob points out that the argument of Miller is strippedly proposing thatthe real memory is a combination of apparent memory and identity. However, the circularity of the matter proves otherwise. As clearly discussed by Weirob, survival is possible for a person not through the plain ability of being able to remember memories but through continuous existence in life. It may not be through being reincarnated or things as such, but through the ability of the person to make himself be remembered by others even when after he dies through his works while he is still living.ConclusionThrough the proofs and the dialogue di scussed in this paper, it could then be claimed that the existence of an immortal or immaterial soul is then raised as a questionable theory created by world philosophers. Historians point out that the teaching that man possesses a separate, immortal soul did not originate with the Bible but with Greek philosophy. The mod Catholic Encyclopedia observes that the ancient Hebrews did not think of man as being make up of a material body and an immaterial soul. It states about the Hebrews belief When the glimmering of life entered the first man whom God formed out of the ground, he became a living being (134). Death was not regarded as a separation of two distinct elements in man, as in Greek philosophy the breath of life departs and man is left a dead being. In each case the newsworthiness being would be the Hebrew nephesh, often translated soul but, in fact, virtually equated with the person. That same encyclopedia notes that Catholic scholars recently have maintained that the sp ick-and-span Testament does not teach the immortality of the soul in the Hellenistical GreekPhilosophy The Immortality of the Soul and Personal Identity sense. It concludes The ultimate solution to the problem is to be found not so much in philosophical speculation as in the supernatural gift of the Resurrection. Hence, as Weirob and Miller have argued in their conversation, it could be noted that philosophers of both the later and the present era have failed in concluding that there is an immortal soul that continues to thrive after a persons death to continue ones identity. In this regard, it could then be assumed, that as both experts such as Weirob and Miller have argued, there would still be some philosophers who would continue to prove and disprove the matter concerning the existence of a continuum of self-identity after death. However it would be, it would still help if a person tries to search in his own way to be able to find the truth about this theory.BIBLIOGRAPHYCatholi c New American Bible. (1970). P. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York.The Protestant Interpreters Bible. (1989). Blackwell Publishing Company.Concise Oxford Dictionary. (1987). Blackwell Publishing Company.Ralph Earle. (1997). Adam Clarkes Commentary. Nelson Reference.John R. Perry. (1978). A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. Hackett Publishing CompanyDangerous Road. (July 20, 1990). Time Magazine. Volume 9 Number 5. New York.