Discussion of D.Z. Phillips Conception of Immortality Essay

Discussion of D.Z. Phillips Conception of Immortality In his book Death and Immortality, D Z Phillips starts by asking the question: does belief in immortality rest on a mistake? The first two chapters are negative in the sense that they examine traditional philosophical, as well as common sense, conceptions of what immortality means. Phillips argues that philosophical analyses centred on the notion of immortality have generally been constructed around certain essential presuppositions: presuppositions that assume some form of continuation of personal identity after death. One cannot logically deny that, by definition, death entails the end of bodily existence, so one, it seems, is logically†¦show more content†¦I e, I can continue to exist without my body if I am not the same thing as my body. Following on from Wittgensteins attack on the notion of logical privacy, Phillips thinks that this idea of the soul is fundamentally confused. Phillips argues that it is impossible to divorce private experience from public life and as such any conception of the soul as a separate substance is entirely fallacious. Taken that any continuation of personal identity after death seems to be dependent on some form body/soul dualism, and given the logical objections to such notions, one may be drawn into thinking that immortality is always going to be seen as rationally implausible. However, Phillips argues that a rejection of dualism does not necessitate a rejection of immortality. Phillips draws attention of to the fact that a perfectly meaningful conception of the soul can, and does, exist in the absence of any reference to some mysterious incorporeal substance. In everyday language we use expressions such as he was a good soul or he would sell his soul for money, Phillips uses these examples to demonstrate that, in this context, what we are referring to is not some philosophical dualistic account of a person, rather it is an assessment of what we believe to be that persons moral state of being - his