Many of us have some view or idea of the afterlife – whether it is some kind of utopia or even if there is one at all. Research conducted by Douglas Davies found that around 29% of us believe that nothing happens after death, 8% think that our bodies awaits resurrection and 12% believe that we will come back as someone else. Of course there are some more religious people, 22%, who just think that we should trust in God, the remaining 34% of us believe that our souls passes on to another world. These views can all be classed into the traditional divide used when discussing the soul and life after death. There is the Monist view – the idea that the body and the soul exists as a single unity, the souls existence is dependent on the body, belief in resurrection and reincarnation falls under this idea. The Materialist view is the idea that human beings are purely physical beings and does not consist of a body and a soul – belief in there being nothing after death falls under this category. The final view is Dualism – the idea that humans consist of two elements, the body and the soul – where the body is physical the soul is immaterial. The belief of a place after death falls under this view.
The first idea we will explore is dualism. Plato famously claimed that the soul is ‘imprisoned’ by the body. He put forward the Allegory of the Chariot – where there is the charioteer (which represents the soul) and two horses (one representing the mind and the other the body). The soul attempts to control the two horses and directs them to work in harmony. This Plato claims is a virtue. There is evidence for the soul when the different aspects of the soul (reason, spirit and desire) are in conflict. Kenny uses the example of a child throwing a tantrum, here the child shows both spirit and desire but lacks reason, which Plato claims is evidence for the soul. Plato also claims that the soul is what provides us with the knowledge of the forms and through anamnesis (recollection...