The lecture explores the question of the state of being dead. Even though the most logical claim seems to be that when a person stops P-functioning he or she is dead, a more careful consideration must allow for exceptions, such as when one is asleep or in a coma. Professor Kagan then suggests that on some level nobody believes that he or she is going to die. As a case in point, he takes Tolstoy’s famous character Ivan Ilych.

The personality theory is revised to state that the key to personal identity is having the same personality provided that there is no branching, that is, provided there is no transfer or duplication of the same personality from one body to another. Similar “no branching” requirements are added to the other theories as well. At the end of class, Professor Kagan suggests a shift from thinking about the survival of the soul in terms of “what does it take to survive?” to “what is it that matters in survival?”

Two more views regarding the metaphysical key to personal identity are discussed: the body view and the personality view. According to the body view, an individual is identified in terms of his or her physical body. According to the personality view, an individual is identified by his or her unique set of beliefs, desires, memories, goals, and so on.

Professor Kagan elaborates on the “argument from simplicity” and discusses in detail Plato’s claims that the soul is simple, changeless and therefore indestructible. The final Platonic argument under discussion is the “argument from essential properties” in which the essential properties of the soul are addressed. At the end of the lecture the question of whether one needs to argue for physicalism is posed.

The discussion of Plato’s Phaedo continues, presenting more arguments for the existence and immortality of the soul. One such argument is “the argument from the nature of the forms,” which states that because the forms are non-physical objects and cannot be grasped by something physical like the body, it follows that they must be grasped by the soul which must be non-physical as well. This argument is followed by the “argument from recycling” and “the argument from recollection.”