Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.32

M. Are you willing to hear then why, even allowing this, death cannot be an evil? 

 

A. As you please; but no one shall drive me from my belief in mortality. 

 

M. I commend you, indeed, for that, though we should not be too confident in our belief of anything; for we are frequently disturbed by some subtle conclusion. We give way and change our opinions even in things that are more evident than this; for in this there certainly is some obscurity. Therefore, should anything of this kind happen, it is well to be on our guard.

 

A. You are right in that; but I will provide against any accident.

 

M. Have you any objection to our dismissing our friends the Stoics—those, I mean, who allow that the souls exist after they have left the body, but yet deny that they exist forever?

 

A. We certainly may dismiss the consideration of those men who admit that which is the most difficult point in the whole question, namely, that a soul can exist independently of the body, and yet refuse to grant that which is not only very easy to believe, but which is even the natural consequence of the concession which they have made—that if they can exist for a length of time, they most likely do so forever.

 

M. You take it right; that is the very thing. Shall we give, therefore, any credit to Pauaestius, when he dissents from his master, Plato? Whom he everywhere calls divine, the wisest, the holiest of men, the Homer of philosophers, and whom he opposes in nothing except this single opinion of the soul’s immortality: for he maintains what nobody denies, that everything which has been generated will perish, and that even souls are generated, which he thinks appears from their resemblance to those of the men who begot them; for that likeness is as apparent in the turn of their minds as in their bodies. 

 

But he brings another reason—that there is nothing which is sensible of pain which is not also liable to disease; but whatever is liable to disease must be liable to death. The soul is sensible of pain, therefore it is liable to perish.

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.32 

 

I regularly manage to confuse the difference between conviction and stubbornness, where it isn’t just a matter of what I happen to hold dear, but also the motives behind why I am binding myself to this or that proposition. Am I following the path of what is true, regardless of how unnerving it might feel, or am I drifting into the comfort of settling for what is gratifying and convenient? 

 

There is a line between reasoning and rationalizing, between working toward a conclusion and starting with one, and I must be careful not to insist that I know something when it would be better for me to remain in wonder. I may sound like a broken record, but I will say it over and over until it sinks into my thick skull: always distinguish principles from preferences. 

 

I ought to honestly ask myself if my attitude toward any afterlife is in harmony with what I can truly know about Nature, or if it is merely arising from wishful thinking. I am encouraged by how Cicero affirms that the worth of a good life will remain constant, regardless of whether there is a hereafter, and that death, whatever that may entail, does not have to fill me with dread. 

 

This isn’t so I can forever sit on the fence, baffled by doubt or unwilling to commit, but rather so I might discern the degrees of certainty and priority necessary for living well. 

 

The Auditor’s views will fluctuate as the discussion progresses, and this is in many ways as it should be, for learning will always be a process with many twists and turns. I should not attempt to speak his mind for him, yet I do question how often I find myself insisting on a position due to some lingering prejudice. Might I be inclined to desire a heaven as some aethereal reward? Might I be disposed to denying my immortality precisely because I have grown tired of a living hell? 

 

In any case, Cicero leaves all this aside for now, asking only that the Auditor think critically about the various arguments on their own terms. Can the Stoics be consistent in their thinking if they say that mind is a purer and more lasting type of existence, while still subjecting it to the corruptibility of sensible matter? Or can a follower of Plato, like Pauaestius, adhere to the whole system while also rejecting the incorruptibility of the spirit? 

 

I have a special attachment to the Stoics, but once again I must not let that become an excuse for sloppy reasoning. Even if I believe that Mind is eternal, does that mean that my particular mind, as an individual entity, has to be everlasting? Similarly, if I speculate that a very long-lasting thing is likely to also be immortal, does that confirm that it must be so? Probabilities are not necessities; proceed with caution. 

 

Interestingly enough, as much as Cicero is disposed to advocating a life after death, his entire approach ends up being quite Stoic, in that it doesn’t have to be what happens later that provides the meaning and value to how we live right now. This kind of philosophical synthesis, finding fundamentally shared truths from the Stoics, the Platonists, or the Peripatetics may be infuriating to some, though I find it remarkably enlightening. 

 

I am reminded of a priest who once threw me for a loop, when he asked me to consider if I would do anything differently if death completely extinguished my awareness. I am glad when someone challenges me to look over my shoulder. 

—Reflection written in 5/1996