Episode 274 - TD04 - Is The Soul Held Down By The Body, And Does Death Allow The Soul To Ascend To A Better Place?
Date: 03/30/25
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/4365-episode-274-td04-is-the-soul-held-down-by-the-body-and-does-death-allow-the-soul/
Summary
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Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius: Welcome to episode 274 of Lucretius today. This is a podcast dedicated to the poet Lucretius who wrote on the Nature of Things, the most complete presentation of Epicurean philosophy left to us from the ancient world. Each week we walk you through the epicurean text and we discuss how epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. If you find the epicurean worldview attractive, we invite you to join us in the study of epicurus@epicureanfriends.com where we discuss this and all of our podcast episodes. This week we’re continuing our series going through Cicero’s, tus, and Disputations from an epicurean viewpoint and we have a lot here to talk about because Cicero either explicitly or implicitly is criticizing epicurean positions through much of Tus and disputations. The section we’re started with is about the question of whether death is an evil and Cicero is responding to questions raised by his students, implying that death is a cause of concern, is an evil, not from the point of view that there are monsters waiting for us in the underworld to punish us after death, but from a much more educated point of view that there is a significant question about whether we should consider death to be something that’s good or bad or indifferent just in terms of the questions involved and whether there’s any consciousness after death or whether death is the total end of our existence. Ro started his explanation by making a very epicurean adjacent argument that at the very worst death is the end of perception, the end of consciousness, and so there’s no reason to be concerned about a problem existing when we are not there to experience that problem, but that’s not Cicero’s core position as he’s explained, he is very much in the camp with Plato and Pythagoras and others that there is a soul that is above the body separate from the body and that can continue to exist after the body has ceased to exist and Cicero is going to try to convince his student that is the case. Of course, always keeping in mind that Cicero is taking the position that he’s an academic skeptic and he’s not really sure of anything himself or taking a strong position, but he’s going to give the arguments of other people and talk about whether they sound probable to him or not. At the very end of our discussion last week, Cicero had introduced the history that Pythagoras was one of the great early philosophers who took this position that the soul existed separate from the body and how influential Pythagoras was on Plato and others. Basically establishing this core viewpoint that the soul is an inhabitant of the body and that it can continue to exist after death. So today we’re going to turn to this argument that not only is death not an evil, but in significant respects, it’s actually a better place and an improvement over life here on earth, and we’ll start today by reading section 17 where we left off last week,
Joshua: But I returned to the ancients. They scarcely ever gave any reason for their opinion, but what could be explained by numbers or definitions, it is reported of Plato that he came into Italy to make himself acquainted with the Pythagoreans and that when there amongst others he made an acquaintance with Arita and Timaeus and learned from them all the tenets of the Pythagoreans and that he not only was of the same opinion with Pythagoras concerning the immortality of the soul, but that he also brought reasons in support of it, which if you have nothing to say against it, I will pass over and say no more at present about all this hope of immortality.
Speaker 3: What will you leave me when you have raised my expectations so high, I had rather so help me Hercules, be mistaken with Plato whom I know how much you esteem and whom I admire myself from what you say of him, then be in the right with those others.
Cassius: Before we go further, Cicero has started off here by saying we don’t even need to talk about the immortality of the soul if you’re just going to accept it and if you have nothing to say against it, at which point the student says Cicero has raised his expectations so high and in fact he’d rather be mistaken with Plato than being the right with the others, which when we pick up again, Cicero is going to agree with, but it’s interesting that Cicero would say that the ancients never gave any reason for their opinions, but through numbers or definitions and that the student could conceivably just accept those and not have anything to say against them when that’s really the heart of this whole question, why are you taking the positions that you’re taking and what are the reasons that you can give me for why I should believe them
Joshua: In the context of ancient mathematics? This approach kind of does make sense just as when I was in high school, I didn’t constantly argue with my math teacher about the fundamental axioms and so forth and the equations and theorems that she was trying to teach me because mathematics is an exact science and they’ve worked this stuff out. They haven’t worked everything out. There’s problems yet to be solved, and he’s talking here about people like Arita for example, who is alleged to be the first person to solve the problem of doubling the cube, which was a problem in ancient mathematics, but in the context of mathematics where we’re talking about in geometry, what is the point, what is the line and so forth. There isn’t a whole lot to argue about when it comes to the axioms and how you build them up. But to transfer that then to this other question, which is the question of the immortality of the soul, hold on. There is a lot to talk about when it comes to the immortality of the soul and you better have good reasons for staking a position here and to say that we don’t need good reasons because we just have our definitions or I don’t need good reasons. I’d rather be mistaken with Play-Doh whom I know how much you esteem and whom I admire myself from what you say of him than be in the right with those others. It’s funny, the student here hasn’t even read Play-Doh from the looks of it. You see what they say? I had rather so help me Hercules be mistaken with Play-Doh, whom I know how much you esteem and who I admire myself from what you say of him, right? It’s not even that this person has studied Play-Doh themselves and they’re arriving at the conclusion that they’d rather be mistaken with Plato than correct with any other philosopher. They’ve never even picked up his dialogues and they’re putting their foot down and saying, Nope, I don’t need to read them. I just agree with that guy. If this is what Epicurus and the epicurean are up against in the ancient world, I see where some of the problems come from.
Cassius: Yeah. One more part of the context there, Joshua. I recall now from last week that Cicero started off all this by saying that the main reason that I have to tell you that you should believe in the life after death of the soul continuing is that that’s what everybody’s thought in the past. He started out with this argument that the great men of the past have all thought that that’s really what the situation is. That’s why they gave their lives in war. That’s why they worked for their societies is because they expected to have some kind of existence after death. So Cicero has gone down this road of argument by consensus that everybody believes it, so therefore we should too. And he’s setting this up almost as if all of that is good enough to accept it on that basis. You don’t even have to know what their reasons were beyond the fact that they did, but of course he is going to give us some of their reasoning as we proceed further. So why don’t you go ahead and continue on in section 17.
Joshua: I commend you for indeed I could myself willingly be mistaken in Plato’s company. Do we then doubt as we do in other cases though, I think here is very little room for doubt in this case for the mathematicians prove the facts to us that the earth is placed in the midst of the world being as it were, a sort of point which they call a tron. Tron in Greek means a point, but it can also mean the center of a circle or something like that, which they call a tron surrounded by the whole heavens. And that such is the nature of the four principles, which are the generating causes of all things these four basic elements of earth, water, fire and air that they have equally divided amongst themselves the constituents of all bodies. Moreover, that earthy and humid bodies are carried at equal angles by their own weight and porosity into the earth and sea that the other two parts consist one of fire and the other of air as the two former are carried by their gravity and weight into the middle region of the world. So those on the other hand ascended by right lines into the celestial regions either because owing to their intrinsic nature, they’re always endeavoring to reach the highest place or else because lighter bodies are naturally repelled by heavier. And as this is notoriously the case, it must evidently follow that souls when once they have departed from the body, whether they are animal by which term I mean capable of breathing or of the nature of fire must mount upwards. But if the soul is some number, as some people assert speaking with more subtlety than clearness, or if it is that fifth nature quintessence for which it would be more correct to say that we have not given a name to than that we do not correctly understand it still, it is too pure and perfect not to go to a great distance from the earth, something of this sort, then we must believe the soul to be that we may not commit the folly of thinking that so active a principle lies emerged in the heart or brain or as impedes would have it in the blood.
Cassius: And so just to comment briefly on what we just read, this is an indication of where the minds of these educated people were back in the ancient world, that they were wanting to associate the soul with either air or fire because that gave them from their point of view a rational argument that when the body comes apart at death, that the soul components are going to be the lighter ones and that they’re going to ascend upwards as opposed to going downwards into the earth. Basically you’ve got either people taking the position that the soul is fire or air or a harmony or some kind of a numerical existence, whatever that means, but whatever the case would be, all of those are going to be very light and at death they will mount upwards and they’ll go upwards physically away from the earth into the higher regions.
Joshua: Yeah, that’s exactly right. We’re supposed to imagine here these classic Pythagorean spheres, right? So you have the earth, which is a sphere which is at the center of creation. It is unmoved, it cannot be moved by any means, and the tendency of things in this cosmos is to fall towards the center and of course earth is the center. He says here it might be the case with fire and air that it is in their nature to rise away from the center, or it might be that the heavy elements pushing themselves down essentially push the lighter elements up as in we see with buoyancy. So then as you leave earth, you rise up through a series of concentric spheres around the earth, and then when you get to the last one, you have the stars. And so we’re talking about a radically different view of physics to the epicurean view. Of course, the epicurean view is that there’s no reason the earth shouldn’t be moving because it’s made of atoms and atoms are always moving either linearly or vibrationally. And we’re not limited to just as one world. There are an infinite number of worlds, all of which might harbor life, all of which have different conditions and different things that are appropriate to them. And in epic’s cosmos, there is no up really in that sense because when you go up from the perspective of your local position on earth, eventually you’re going to come to someone else’s down. That’s just the nature of the universe. Every direction you could possibly go off of earth, eventually you’re going to run into another world with another living being on it, experiencing their own local views of ups and downs. I mean they didn’t have a view of gravity. So whether it’s a cohesive system or not is an interesting question, but it’s a very different view of nature to the view of this Russian nesting doll universe of the Pythagoreans and of Plato. And so his views I think should be understood in the context of that view of the cosmos. And when we understand his views in that context, we can start to see why they pushed back so hard against Epicureanism but against Aism even in Democrats. And we see Cicero do that before he even gets into the argument in the quais section of V Ns, the very introduction of that he’s complaining about aism and why it doesn’t make sense.
Cassius: That’s exactly right and that’s what he’s going to get into in the next section 18 that we’re about to read. But the very last sentence here of 17 emphasizes the point you’ve just made because Cicero is saying something of this sort, we must believe the soul to be so that we may not commit the folly of thinking that the soul lies immersed in the heart or the brain or even in the blood. So Cicero was aware that the challenge of these people who believe that the soul has some kind of a physical basis is something that has to be dealt with because if it’s physical, if it’s part of the body, then it’s much harder to understand how it survives death and flies up into the sky basically intact as he’s suggesting. And while he doesn’t mention Epicurus directly in this section 18 that we’re about to read, he does mention Democrats. So I think this really is going to apply to Cicero’s, objection to Epicurus as well. So let’s go ahead with 18,
Joshua: Right? He says in section 18 we will pass over DK with his contemporary and fellow disciple aristo, both indeed men of learning. One of them seems never even to have been affected with grief as he could not perceive that he had a soul. While the other is pleased with his musical compositions that he endeavors to show an analogy betwixt to them and souls. Now we may understand harmony to arise from the intervals of sounds whose various compositions occasion many harmonies, but I do not see how a disposition of members and the figure of a body without a soul can occasion harmony. He had better learn it as he is leave these speculations to his master Aristotle and follow his own trade as a musician. Good advice is given him in that Greek proverb, apply your talents where you best are skilled. I will have nothing at all to do with that fortuitous concourse of individual light and round bodies. Notwithstanding Democrats insists on their being warm and having breath. That is to say life. But the soul which is compounded of either of the four principles from which we assert that all things are derived is of inflamed air, as seems particularly to have been the opinion of pines and must necessarily mount upwards for air and fire, have no tendency downwards but always ascend. So should they be dissipated, that must be at some distance from the earth, but should they remain and preserve their original state, it is clearer still that they must be carried heavenward and this gross and concrete air, which is nearest the earth, must be divided and broken by them for the soul is warmer or rather hotter than that air which I just now called gross and concrete. And this may be made evident from this consideration that our bodies being compounded of the earthly class of principles grow warm by the heat of the soul.
Cassius: Joshua, let’s talk about a couple of aspects of what you’ve just read there before we go forward because in talking about Democrats, he is pretty clearly referring to an argument that Epicurus would’ve made as well. But there’s certainly distinctions in which I don’t know whether Cicero is getting Democrats correct or not, but Cicero is alleging here that Democrats said that the atoms are warm and have breath or life in themselves. Now, I don’t know whether that’s an accurate representation of Democrats or not, but I don’t think it’s an accurate representation of Epicurus. Do you recall anything Joshua, as to Democrat’s position on that point?
Joshua: I don’t know enough to know whether Cicero is speaking literally. I do know that there is a poetic tradition regarding Adam in that respect and we see it here in John Tyndall in his address at Belfast, which was delivered in 1874, and he ends this way. He says this, is there not a temptation to close to some extent with Lucious when he affirms that nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods or with Bruno when he declares that matter is not that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who rings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb believing as I do in the continuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye and not withstanding our professed reverence for its creator by an intellectual necessity, I crossed the boundary of the experimental evidence and discern in that matter which we and our ignorance of its latent powers and not withstanding our professed reverence for its alleged creator have hither to covered with opprobrium the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. So what John Tyndall is saying here is he chooses to look at the Adams as potent with potential potential to give life potential, to give increase in nature in the cosmos, and nature is seen to do all things of herself that’s from Lucious. So this view of Adams, which we see here in Cicero, again, most of what Democrat wrote is law. So Cicero is working with far more than we are, but it’s possible that he’s tapping into this other tradition in atom, this very Lucian tradition in atom which ceased the atoms themselves not as mere inert grits, but as the life moats, as lucious caused them the seeds of things.
Cassius: It’s probably also worth commenting that Cicero started section 18 by talking about Dick a arcus whose position apparently was that there was no soul at all. Now, if we had to put epicurus and democratis in the same type of categories of saying that there is a soul or there is not a soul, I don’t know that Epicurus is in the camp of those who would say that there is no soul. He would simply say, I think that the soul exists as any other part of the body exists. He wouldn’t say that he doesn’t have one.
Joshua: The internet says that Democrats believed that the soul was composed of spherical mobile fire atoms and was distributed throughout the body. So if you throw out the fire atoms idea, this is very similar to the epicurean view. The soul is made of matter, it’s made of the finest atoms that exist, and those atoms because of their fineness are able to quickly move throughout the body. So the soul is not located in one particular place in the body, it is distributed throughout all of the body and it has to be in epicureanism because sensation is first and foremost contact with the soul. And so every time you touch a table, the table is making contact with your soul In Epicureanism, it all comes down to touch divine touch as Lucious says. And it seems Ous was somewhat close to that same view. Cicero quotes this Greek proverb, apply your talents where you best are skilled. Shut up musician. Don’t give me your opinion on philosophy. How often do we see that kind of view of things today? I don’t want to hear so-and-so’s opinion on politics because they’re just a musician. I don’t want to hear so-and-so opinions. We are amateurs doing this. So if that’s your view, you can end the podcast going forward and do that, but everybody can offer their opinion on this stuff provided of course you’re willing to think through these problems which are interesting and which have engaged all of these minds. Cicero here is listing all the people who are thinking about this stuff throughout time. There’s no reason that you can’t be one more of them, but you’d have to put in the work in a sense. Anyway, in section 19, he goes on to say this, we may add that the soul can the more easily escape from this air, which I have often named and break through it because nothing is swifter than the soul. No swiftness is comparable to the swiftness of the soul, which should it remain uncorrupt and without alteration must necessarily be carried on with such velocity as to penetrate and divide all this atmosphere where clouds and rain and winds are formed, which in consequence of the exhalations from the earth is moist and dark. But when the soul has once got above this region and falls in with and recognizes a nature like its own, it then rests upon fires composed of a combination of thin air and a moderate solar heat and does not aim at any higher flight for then after it has attained a lightness and heat resembling its own. It moves no more but remains steady being balanced as it were between the two equal weights. That then is its natural seat where it has penetrated to something like itself and where wanting nothing further, it may be supported and maintained by the same element or food which nourishes and maintains the stars. Now as we are usually incited to all sorts of desires by the stimulus of the body and the more so as we endeavor to rival those who are in possession of what we long for, we shall certainly be happy when being emancipated from that body. We at the same time get rid of these desires and this rivalry and that which we do at present when dismissing all other cares, we curiously examine and look into anything we shall then do with greater freedom and we shall employ ourselves entirely in the contemplation and examination of things because there is naturally in our minds a certain insatiable desire to know the truth and the very region itself where we shall arrive as it gives us a more intuitive and easy knowledge of celestial things will raise our desires after knowledge. For it was this beauty of the heavens as seen even here upon earth, which gave birth to that national and hereditary philosophy as Theophrastus calls it, which was thus excited to a desire of knowledge. But those persons will in a most special degree enjoy this philosophy who while they were only inhabitants of this world and enveloped in darkness, were still desirous of looking into these things with the eye of their mind.
Cassius: Okay, well this is where we see totally upfront from Cicero, that being dead, having your soul rise up into the elements from which it is most naturally sustained is going to be in a better position to enjoy knowledge, to see the beauty of the universe and these things which we can only begin to appreciate through philosophy here on earth. But this is a very explicit statement that if this is true, who would not want to be in this kind of position enjoying ourselves entirely in the contemplation and examination of things. This beauty of the heavens gave birth to philosophy in the first place according to Cicero. So this is the furthest thing from ceasing to exist. This is existing on a higher plane than here on the earth.
Joshua: Exactly. And we reach that plane by shedding the flesh that burdens the soul, right? This is one of the ideas I hate the most when I read this stuff. If we go back a little bit to see what he says in section 18, he’s talking about the four elements and he says the soul as it descends starts by ascending through this gross and concrete air which is nearest the earth. And even before that he’s talking about the earth as something based that all of the heavy things ascend to. And then we have this gross and concrete air. He’s talking about the air that we’re breathing right now, which is in comparison to the air that is proper to the soul, gross and concrete. The soul is going to get through that and then it’s going to ascend into lighter and pure air. So when you leave the body and the earth and the things of the earth behind all the desire, all the pleasures that you’ve experienced in this world, when you leave those behind, you’re going to ascend to an even higher plane where your sole existence for all coming time is contemplation. And I think this is a very common view in the philosophies and religions of the world, that the body is something debased and disgusting, something that traps the soul, imprisons the soul, and that when we finally escape from it, it won’t be a hardship to us because we’ll be quote unquote dead. It will be a benefit to us because we will finally be freed from this prison. I think that’s such a dangerous view of human life and the body and I think as an epicurean we have to honor the claims of the body where that, and we’re the soul and we can’t shunt one of them to the side and say, no, I just want to be soul. You’re going to be disappointed because we are both of those things and when we stop being both of those things, we stop existing and that’s death. So I don’t have a whole lot of patience for Cicero’s view of things here.
Cassius: Well said, Joshua. I think this is really the heart of why we’re even having this discussion and going through all this because it’s so important to emphasize how divergent a viewpoint you have in the standard position from what Epicurus is telling us, you’re either going with this world and making the most of your life on this world or you’re putting all of your eggs in this basket of some better place after death about which you have no assurance whatsoever. It’s a very religious type of a dilemma here that it’s this swirl versus some hypothetical other world. I’m reminded a little bit right now of what Torta says in regard to virtue that he says that people are beguiled by the glamor of a name and part of what is so attractive about virtue, part of what is so attractive about this religious view of a life after death is that it is glamorous and it’s something that you really wish were true. And you can see that the ideas that are being spun here are beguiling in their beauty, I guess is one way to say it. And if you think that Cicero has finished in what he’s already had to say about the beauties of this next existence, we have another section here, section 20 where Cicero is going to wax even more eloquently about how wonderful this existence after death is like. So why don’t we go ahead and read 20 and take that in connection with what you’ve just read.
Joshua: That’s right. In section 20 he says this for if those men now think that they have attained something who have seen the mouth of the Pontus, the Black Sea, and those straits which were passed by the ship called Argo because from Argo she did chosen men convey bound to fetch back the golden fleece their prey, or those who have seen the straits of the ocean where the swift waves divide the neighboring shores of Europe and Africa. What kind of site do you imagine that will be when the whole earth is laid open to our view? And that too, not only in its position, form and boundaries nor those parts of it only which are habitable, but those also that lie uncultivated through the extremities of heat and cold to which they’re exposed for not even now, is it with our eyes that we view what we see for the body itself has no senses, but as the naturalists I and even the physicians assure us who have opened our bodies and examined them, there are certain perforated channels from the seat of the soul to the eyes, ears, and nose. So that frequently when either prevented by meditation or the force of some bodily disorder, we neither hear nor see though our eyes and ears are open and in good condition so that we may easily apprehend that it is the soul itself which sees and hears and not those parts which are as it were, but windows to the soul by means of which however she can perceive nothing unless she is on the spot and exerts herself. How shall we account for the fact that by the same power of thinking we comprehend the most different things as color, taste, heat, smell and sound, which the soul could never know by her five messengers unless everything was referred to her and she were the sole judge of all. And we shall certainly discover these things in a more clear and perfect degree when the soul is disengaged from the body and has arrived at that goal to which nature leads her for at present. Not withstanding nature has contrived with the greatest skill, those channels which lead from the body to the soul, yet are they in some way or other stopped up with earthly and concrete bodies. But when we shall be nothing but soul, then nothing will interfere to prevent our seeing everything in its real substance and in its true character.
Cassius: Yes, indeed, we’re waiting for death so we can experience this perfect existence and ability to observe those things which we can’t observe now because our bodies are stopped up so to speak, and preventing our soul from having direct contact with the true reality. It’s all very poetic, but it’s all totally speculative and without foundation on evidence that we can see and hear and observe here on the earth, it’s a display of intellectual possibilities that create in our minds something that’s desirable that we wish is true, but that we don’t have any evidence actually exists.
Joshua: Yeah, it seems like it’s weirdly similar to some of what you find in Hinduism with this idea that the energy that flows through the body is being stopped up in some places and that this inhibits the freedom of the soul and so forth. It’s very interesting that to find that here in Cicero as well. But yeah, you’re right. I mean in some sense he’s saying not only should we not fear death, we’re anticipating death hopefully because we get to see the hot parts of the earth and the cold parts of the earth and the uncharted parts of the earth without anything interfering in the operations of our senses. And we get to see that forever. So death is not something evil, it’s something that we’re supposed to look forward to as a better time than now.
Cassius: Yes, if you take this to its logical conclusion, why would you want to live any longer than you absolutely have to here on this earth when you have this wonderful existence waiting for you after death? I think that’s one of the major problems with this whole point of view is that if indeed it’s true, then why are you here? As epicure says in the letter to Menoras, if it’s really better to just hasten to the gates of death, why don’t you go ahead and do it if you really believe that. But these people in most cases don’t really believe that they’re just spinning a tail that is convenient for them and that has many useful properties, useful purposes for them in convincing people to do things for them, such as giving their lives in an army for causes that the people don’t believe in themselves. All sorts of reasons that you can use this type of an argument to manipulate people into doing things that they would not otherwise do. But now Cicero will come back off his pedestal, so to speak and talk about criticisms of other schools. So let’s now take a look at 21.
Joshua: It is true, I might Expiate did the subject require it on the many in various subjects with which the soul will be entertained in those heavenly regions. When I reflect on which I am apt to wonder, at the boldness of some philosophers who are so struck with admiration at the knowledge of nature as to thank in an exulting manner, the first inventor and teacher of natural philosophy, and to reverence him as a God for they declare that they have been delivered by his means from the greatest tyrants, a perpetual terror and a fear that molested them by night and day. What is this dread, this fear? What old woman is there so weak as to fear these things which you forsooth had you not been acquainted with? Natural philosophy would stand in awe of the hallowed roofs of a caron, the dread of orcas, the pale regions of the dead, and does it become a philosopher to boast that he’s not afraid of these things and that he has discovered them to be false? And from this, we may perceive how acute these men were by nature who if they had been left without any instruction, would’ve believed in these things. But now that they have certainly made a very fine acquisition in learning that when the day of their death arrives, they will perish entirely. And if that really is the case for I say nothing either way, what is their agreeable or glorious in it? Not that I see any reason why the opinion of Pythagoras and Plato may not be true, but even although Plato were to have assigned no reason for his opinion, observe how much I esteem the man, the weight of his authority would’ve born me down. But he has brought so many reasons that he appears to me to have endeavored to convince others and certainly to have convinced himself.
Cassius: Joshua, this seems to me like an awful lot of it is aimed directly at Epicurus. I don’t know whether his people called him the first inventor and teacher of natural philosophy or not, but a lot of the rest of this sarcasm applies directly to the Epicureans from Cicero’s point of view.
Joshua: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He says, I’m apt to wonder at the boldness of some philosophers who are so struck with admiration of the knowledge of nature as to thank in an exalting manner, the first inventor and teacher of natural philosophy and to reverence him as a God. Well, they certainly called epicurus savior in the ancient world, these epicureans because he saved them from not only false opinions concerning the gods and nature and human life, but they saved him from the terror of what allegedly waited after death. And so yeah, I absolutely think this is aimed directly at the Epicureans,
Cassius: Just calling him a natural philosopher. I mean obviously epicure talks a lot about studying nature and so forth. I’ve never really considered whether there was somebody before Epicurus who focused at it from that point of view. But I think we remember from tota talking about Cicero as the master builder of human happiness, that some of this language seems to echo what Cicero has already used in that other work to describe Epicurus.
Joshua: Absolutely. And then later down in the passage he says, but now they have certainly made a very fine acquisition in learning that when the day of their death arrives, they will perish entirely. If that really is the case for I say nothing either way, what is their agreeable or glorious in it? We’re appalled that Cicero can’t wait to die because he’s going to finally shed his loathsome body and ascend to the stars in his own view. He’s appalled that the epicureans are happy knowing that death is the end for them and that when they die, there is no life after death. He says there’s nothing agreeable or glorious in that view. This is horrifying to him. It’s horrifying to him that you might not only believe that there’s nothing after death, but accept and embrace that there is nothing after death. It’s like he sees the epicureans as in some way insane on this question, which I think is very interesting because his own views are eccentric to say the least
Cassius: Insane. Or in another perspective, actually stupid because I’m recalling that we started off here by having this student of Cicero’s own taking the position that he’s not concerned about the fires or the monsters that await in a caron. And so when Cicero says, I think this is very sarcastic, and from this we may perceive how acute these men were by nature, who if they had been left without any instruction, would’ve believed in these things. In other words, I take that as saying that these epicurean sound like they’re acting so smart, but what they’re really saying is that, well, unless Epicurus had told us that these things don’t exist in a Keon, we’d have believed them. Well, here’s our educated Romans of 50 bc. They don’t believe in these things and yet they’re not epicurean. Epicurus didn’t convince them these things didn’t take place, but apparently the epicureans are proud of the fact and so relieved and happy of the fact that Epicurus has come along and told them that these things aren’t true, because if he hadn’t come along, we’d have still been believing in these things. So I see that as sarcastic. And one other thing that I want to comment on before we move further is Cicero loves to hit on this argument that the epicureans are basically scaredy cats. That there are a bunch of weak minded cowards running from fear all the time. And when Cicero says, what is this dread, this fear, what old woman is there so weak as to fear these things which you for soThe had you not been acquainted with, natural philosophy would stand in awe of, in other words, he’s continuously trying to plant this idea that what Epicurus is all about is running from fear that there’s no concern about what’s true or false in Epicurus, that there’s no concern about living the best life possible to you, that there’s no acknowledgement that Epicurus does all the time, that you’re going to undergo pain in order to achieve the pleasures that you want. Just was trying to plant this idea that epicures are nothing but a bunch of cowards who are running as fast as they can in terror from things that nobody should be concerned about. And that in itself is a discrediting aspect of epicure and philosophy, which of course, I would simply just reject that as a total attempt to intimidate or mischaracterize what’s going on here. If there’s anybody who is engaging in wishful thinking to evade reality, it’s not the epicurean, it’s Cicero and Plato and Pythagoras because as Lucretius says, from a very early age, even as children, we’re going to take the medicine, we may rim the cup with honey while we are delivering the medicine, but we’re going to deliver the medicine because the medicine may taste bitter while you’re taking it, but will lead to a better, happier, more fulfilling all around higher life when you follow this path as opposed to engaging in wishful thinking.
Joshua: I could not agree more with Cassius. The people who are hiding in terror behind their mother skirts are Cicero and Plato and those like them who are not willing to face the truth about death and about what that means for us and what non-existence means as opposed to what your most optimal, ideal, optimistic version of the afterlife looks like. It’s the Epicureans really who stared death in the face and they deserve credit for that. But Cicero is looking to the Epicureans owe you old women who are so terrified, a perpetual terror as he says, and a fear that molested them by night and day. But he can say that all he wants, but it’s Cicero and those like him who’s not willing to face up to it in the end. I agree so hard with what you just said. That was great.
Cassius: Let’s do one more section today because I think it fits in with what Cicero has said so far in 19 and 20 and 21 in terms of the epicurean position. So let’s go ahead and take a look at 22.
Joshua: But there are many who labor on the other side of the question and condemn souls to death as if they were criminals, capitally, convicted, nor have they any other reason to allege why the immortality of the soul appears to them to be incredible, except that they are not able to conceive what sort of thing the soul can be when disentangled from the body, just as if they could really form a correct idea as to what sort of thing it is, even when it is in the body, what its form and size and abode are so that were they able to have a full view of all that is now hidden from them in a living body. They have no idea whether the soul would be discernible by them or whether it is of so fine a texture that it would escape their sight. Let those consider this who say that they’re unable to form any idea of the soul without the body, and then they will see whether they can form any adequate idea of what it is when it is in the body. For my own part, when I reflect on the nature of the soul, it appears to me a far more perplexing and obscure question to determine what is its character while it is in the body, a place which as it were does not belong to it than to imagine what it is when it leaves it and has arrived at the free ether, which is if I may say so, it’s proper, its own habitation for unless we are to say that we cannot apprehend the character or nature of anything which we have never seen, we certainly may be able to form some notion of God and of the divine soul when released from the body dke, ais indeed and aristo because it was hard to understand the existence and substance and nature of the soul asserted that there was no such thing as a soul at all. It is indeed the most difficult thing imaginable to discern the soul by the soul. And this doubtless is the meaning of the precept of Apollo, which advises everyone to know himself for I do not apprehend the meaning of the God to have been that we should understand our members, our stature and form for we are not merely bodies, nor when I say these things to you, am I addressing myself to your body? When he says, therefore know yourself, he says this, inform yourself of the nature of your soul for the body is but a kind of vessel or receptacle of the soul. And whatever your soul does is your own act to know the soul then, unless it had been divine, would not have been a precept of such excellent wisdom as to be attributed to a God. But even though the soul should not know of what nature itself is, will you say that it does not even perceive that it exists at all or that it has motion on which is founded that reason of Plato’s, which is explained by Socrates in the pH and inserted by me in my sixth book of the Republic.
Cassius: Now we don’t want to leave it hanging there to talk about, well, what was his argument in the sixth book of the Republic and what was Plato’s argument? But we’re going to postpone that into next week in chapter 23 because Cicero is going to very graciously tell us what his argument was in section 23. But in what we’ve just read, there’s a lot of interesting material. There’s this know thyself slogan that people talk about all the time, and Cicero has a spin on that that’s very interesting for us to talk about. But what I’d really like to emphasize about this section that we’ve just read is I do think Cicero has a point that we need to be able to address. One of the statements that Cicero makes here is for, unless we are to say that we cannot apprehend the character or nature of anything which we have never seen, we certainly may be able to form some notion of God or the divine soul when released from the body. Now, this is a reference in my mind to why epistemology and canons is such an important part of epicurean philosophy and while we make a mistake and not focusing on it, because just like Phil’s book on methods of inference, you have to deal with this question. Are you only going to believe those things to be true, which you yourself have seen or touched? And some people will take the position that if I’ve never seen it, I’ve never touched it, it doesn’t exist. And that question of course would apply to the soul and to God as well as this was bringing up here. So every philosophy, every person who’s thought through these deeper questions has to wrestle with this question of when do we have enough evidence to say that we believe something? What’s the criteria for believing anything? Unless you’re from Missouri, the show me state, you’re not going to believe it unless you’ve seen it. Then you’ve got to have a way of approaching these things because we all, even in Epicurean philosophy, we do believe that there are things that we’ve never seen or touched ourselves. The primary example of that being the atoms moving through the void, that is a deduction from things that we do see, but we’ve never touched or seen atoms directly and we never will. Yet we believe that those are the foundations of the universe. So we have confidence that they exist and we’re not just constantly doubting whether atoms are moving through the void and whether those things exist or not. So in this question of whether a soul exists or not, we have to apply that same kind of reasoning to realize that, well, I’ve never seen or touched my soul, but nevertheless, do I believe that I have a soul? And saying that you believe that you have a soul is not the same thing as saying that the soul is immortal or that it’s divine. It’s that you have something that can be understood separately from your tongue or your ear or your foot as existing just like they do, and how you approach that entire question. Cicero is saying that it’s just as hard to understand what the soul is when it’s inside the body, when you’re alive as it is to understand it once you’re dead.
Joshua: I think he’s saying it’s harder to understand it when you’re alive.
Cassius: Yes. Just sort of saying that it’s actually harder to understand the soul when you’re alive.
Joshua: Exactly. He’s pointing to his, I’m going to push my mind out to the future and imagine myself after death and imagine my soul swirling around in the ether far over my head, up in the sky. And that is the natural abode of the soul. So it’s easier to imagine the soul there than it is to look in the mirror in the morning and see my own body and imagine my soul in my body. So this is kind of an interesting problem, which is we understand the nature of the soul by imagining it after death, but we can only believe that the soul survives death by understanding the nature of the soul. So there is an element of circularity here, which I find interesting.
Cassius: Yeah, and Cicero’s raising this criticism of the epicurean that they’re treating the soul like they’re criminals who’ve been capitally convicted of a crime. But then Cicero says, nor have they any other reason to allege why the immortality of the soul appears to them to be incredible, except that they are not able to conceive what sort of thing the soul can be when disentangled from the body that’s worth focusing on because the epicurean phrasing in a lot of cases does appear to be that something is inconceivable. Well, why is it inconceivable has got to be the next question. And it’s not simply that it’s inconceivable because we’ve never seen it before. It’s inconceivable because there’s no evidence that would support it being a reasonable possibility. We’ve never seen atoms before, and yet we certainly conceive that atoms exist, and in fact, we have a firm position that they do. The same position can be taken as to the soul. Yes, we have reason to believe that we have consciousness, we have something going on inside our bodies that is consciousness, and we’re very confident that that exists. But to extend further and to say that that consciousness is immortal or that it’s going to go to a better place after it’s dead is something that is not supported by the evidence that we have in front of us, but with supportable only by the kind of wishful thinking that Cicero is engaged in. So the section has a very important aspect to it. Maybe the theme of our episode today has been what are your reasons for believing that the soul exists and whether or not it can exist after death? Epicurus is not saying that the soul does not exist like Dicky arcus or aristo. I would say that Epicurus is not in that same ballpark with those two philosophers. He’s not saying that the soul does not exist just as Epicurus does not say that Gods don’t exist. Epicurus says that God’s exist, but of a specific type, and they don’t have the attributes that people normally assign to them. I think Epicurus would likely say as well that the soul does exist. But likewise, as with Gods, it does not have these qualities of immortality or superior nature that Cicero, Plato, Pythagoras are trying to give to it.
Joshua: Yeah. Now, let me mention two more things here, because you brought up Cicero’s objection to the epicurean point of view, which is you have no evidence for saying that the soul dies with the body. The only reason you hold that position is because you can’t imagine or conceive a soul disentangled from the body. And my answer to that would be you used the word confidence earlier in the episode, Cassius. It’s true that we cannot prove with a hundred percent mathematical certainty that the soul does not survive the body. But we can be confident, I think in that opinion because we look at the evidence. And the evidence for me is when a new human is born, if we’re going to take the argument that the soul has always existed, which is the argument that Plato takes or that the soul cycles through the rounds of meta psychosis or transmigration of the soul from body to body to body, why is it the case that the body has to spend 15 years developing on earth before the person whose soul it is reaches maturity, not just physical maturity, but emotional and intellectual and linguistic maturity? Why is this growth and development necessary for the soul as well as for the body if the soul existed before the body? And likewise, you can look at death and say, if the soul when freed from the body is actually more efficacious and more wise and more free, then why is it that when the body is breaking down, you don’t see the soul taking over and becoming better? What you actually see, for example, with progressive brain damage, as in the case with horrible diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s and so forth, is that progressive damage to the brain correlates with progressive damage to the mind. And if the soul is eternal and unscathed, why should that be the case? Why should it be the case that brain damage leads to decayed cognition? It doesn’t make sense in his view of things. And so again, it’s not something you can prove mathematically, but we can look at that evidence and we can look at other kinds of evidence and we can say, okay, I can’t prove this, but I can be confident in the conclusion. And the other thing I wanted to mention as you brought up Cassius, was this bit about knowing thyself or something in Greek, and he says, this presents a riddle. And he says, the answer to it is inform thyself of the nature of your soul. In other words, you, your soul need to inform thyself, your soul of the nature of thyself, your soul, the body doesn’t come into it. He says, I apprehend the meaning of Apollo in making that expression for I do not apprehend the meaning of the God Apollo who made that statement to have been that we should understand our members or our stature and form for we are not merely our bodies, nor when I say these things to you, am I addressing myself to your body? When therefore he says, know thyself. What he’s actually saying is you need to inform yourself of the nature of your own soul for the body is only a vessel or receptacle for the soul, and whatever your soul does is your own act. Well, again, I would ask if the body is only a vessel for the soul or a receptacle for the soul, why is it that a decaying body correlates with the decaying mind and a decaying soul? And that would be my answer too, in a sense. Both questions.
Cassius: Yeah, Joshua, I like the way you concluded that in saying it’s the answer to both questions. Because when we talk about proving things to a mathematical certainty or being absolutely certain about anything, those phrasings raise all sorts of questions about practicality and reality and whether in fact it even makes sense to attempt to prove things to mathematical certainties. We frequently talk about mathematics and how it’s not the same as reality itself. So the whole way you approach proof and evidence and being confident or certain of anything is something that is important to think through so that you’re not holding yourself to a false standard that no one could ever meet that could only be met by some kind of a hypothetical, omnipotent, omniscient God, which practical reasoning tells us is not something that’s possible in the first place. There’s a lot more that we need to discuss, but that’s about all we have time for this week. Next week, Cicero turns to a very complicated argument about the nature of motion, and he’s going to evoke issues of the prime mover as Aristotle might refer to it, but we’ll wait to start that until next week. In the meantime, anyone have closing thoughts for today
Joshua: Given our discussion in this episode about Adams and Democrat and so forth? I quoted earlier from John Tyndall in his Belfast address. There are two other excellent passages that I should quote, not from John Tyndall. One of them is from Stephen Greenblatt in his book The Swerve, and one of them is from George Santiana. In his book, three Philosophical Poets, in his essay on Lucious, Stephen Greenblatt says this, he says, there is an order in the universe, but it is one built into the nature of things into the matter that composes everything from stars to men to bedbugs. Nature is not an abstract capacity, but a generative mother bringing forth everything that exists. We have, in other words, entered the Lucian universe. We spoke earlier about Democrats and Adams being alive, and I think that’s the context of this kind of approach. George Santi in his essay, Lucious, in his book, three Philosophical Poets, has this to say, he says, universal instability is not incompatible with a great monotony in things. So that while Heric colitis lamented that everything was in flux, Ecclesiastes, who was also entirely convinced of that truth could lament that there was nothing new under the sun. This double experience of mutation and recurrence and experience at once, sentimental and scientific soon brought with it a very great thought. Perhaps the greatest thought that mankind has ever hi upon and which was the chief inspiration of Lucious. It is that all we observe about us and ourselves also may be so many passing forms of a permanent substance. This substance, while remaining the same in quantity and in inward quality, is constantly redistributed in its redistribution. It forms those aggregates, which we call things, and which we find constantly disappearing and reappearing. All things are dust and to dust. They return a dust, however eternally, fertile and destined to fall perpetually into new and doubtless beautiful forms. This notion of substance lends a much greater unity to the outspread world. It persuades us that all things pass into one another and have a common ground from which they spring successively and to which they return. And again, this is me speaking. I think if you have this view of nature, this epicurean view of nature, some of the pitfalls that Cicero is laying out for us to fall into, we can avoid. We can see them coming and the more you study, the better you are at seeing them. Coming.
Cassius: Very well stated, Joshua, that’s what we’re doing is attempting to study these things and profit from the experience. That’s what we do each and every week@theepicureanfriends.com forum. And we do invite you to drop by there and let us know if you have any comments or questions about this or any of our discussions about Epicurus. Thank you for your time this week. We’ll be back again soon. See you then. Bye.