Lucretius' Soul Theory Essay

Even corporeal objects, such as his body, are known much more distinctly through the mind than through the body.

Within Lucretius’ dialectic and poetic writings in Robert Latham’s translation of Lucretius: On the Nature of the Universe, three major topics are discussed: philosophy, religion, and science. Lucretius was devoted to the works of his teacher and renowned philosopher Epicurus, praising him as a prophetic or god-like figure. His poetic prose uses a host of concrete examples to show validity in his beliefs. Lucretius effectively supports the Epicurean worldview that everything can be explained by material forces. Memmius is the addressee of the poem, and Lucretius enlightens him to the nature of happiness, how religion is based on superstition, and the idea of atoms composing earthly matter. Evaluating reality gives mankind the natural answers to life’s questions without concerning themselves with gods, prophets, or beliefs, and this was Lucretius’ main task in his work.

The circumstance of one’s death determines the stature of the experience. The shared account of Epicurus and Lucretius unravel the merit of death, in the Philosophy and Death. There shared view is contrasted by the piece by Nagel. It is important to note that all three accounts are assuming the soul ceases to exist when the body perishes. Epicurus’ explanation is centered around death being nothing to humans, since the sense experience is deprived through death. This concedes, there is nothing in death and this should encourage one to seek happiness in life—the fear of death is irrational (Epicurus 164). Additionally, Lucretius furthers the point of Epicurus through his theory of the body and soul being one and mortal, therefore, death “is

“What therefore did I formerly think I was? A man, of course. But what is a man?” (Descartes 340). This question that Descartes addresses in Meditations on First Philosophy is important because it outlines his core philosophical view in his work. His philosophy primarily focuses on dualism, which is the concept that there is another world that exists with ideal forms and is separate from the world of perception. The part of dualism that Descartes focuses his work on is the distinction between the soul and the body. His perception of what makes up a person is that the soul and the body are two separate entities. More specifically, he believes that the body only exists as a consequence of the soul. These ideologies are applicable to the advancement and understanding of life today because although people naturally evolve through time, the essence of an individual remains the same; every person is born with a soul that thinks and a physical body with a head, neck, trunk, arms, hands, legs and feet. Therefore, through Descartes’ reasoning in his work, he was able to address the question of dualism and clearly illustrate that there exists a difference between the soul and the body. His ideas still remain relevant because he did not rely on principles of his time to draw conclusions, allowing scientists to utilize his work as a foundation for research to help better understand the world.

In contrast, the Epicurean, Lucretius, establishes the idea of order as arising from chaos, manifested through atoms and their motions in space. As opposed to Plato, Lucretius provides a naturalistic explanation of universal phenomena by reconciling Parmenidean reasoning with experience where the world is eternal and has unity, consisting of many atoms and empty space or ‘the great inane’. “In effect, Lucretius illustrates the creation of the material universe as a result of the union of elementary particles that had existed for eternity rather than the divine act of a creator. As such, all objects and structures are seen to be formed by the combination of atoms and their chaotic motions in space. Hence, the unity in the uniformity of the atoms

Descartes is an early proponents of substance dualism, the view that there are two substances, an immaterial mind and a material body. One common objection raised against his view is the mind-body problem which raises the question of how the two different substances can possibly causally interact on substance dualism. In this essay, I will put forth two of Descartes’ replies to the problem and argue that they are successful. I will then consider one objection based on the law of conservation of energy and give a reply.

On The Nature of Things (Lucretius) by Walter Englert On the Nature of Things is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. We know practically nothing; beyond what little can be gathered from the poem itself, of Lucretius' biography. Lucretius insists human happiness is incompatible with belief in gods that control nature, follow their own agendas (open or hidden), and constitute human ends. Humans must, he insists; unchain themselves from misconception, foolish fears, and echoing pieties.

Descartes Argues that The mind and body are completely independent of one another and interact causally. (Pojman Pg. 292) According to him mind interacts with each part of its body separately. He thinks the body is something that does not think. Mind only interacts with brain. He described the material events that casually stimulate one of our five senses

In the early stages of modern psychology, it is apparent that a lot of the ideas proposed by scholars were met with astounding controversy. Descartes’s development in the concept of mind-body problem was of no exception. Scholars wanted to find out if the mind and body had a distinction between the mental and physical world. Prior to Descartes’s finding scholars took a more dualistic position on the matter. Therefore, it was believed that the flow of interaction between the mind and body was unidirectional. The brain had an abundance amount of influence on the body, but the body could not reciprocate the same level of impact. He agreed on the fact that the mind and body were indeed separate but rejected the notion of one directionality. Traditional believes at the time gave a lot of credit to the power of the mind more than the body. His theory challenged this idea by saying the body has greater power on the mind than previously stated. Theory based around the idea of mutualism, the mind-body effect

One of the theories is Rene Descartes’ argument on the state of mind and body. This paper gives a critical evaluation and analysis of Descartes argument on the nature of the body and mind. According to Descartes, the nature of the body is totally different from that of the mind. According to him, the body is not a thinking object whereas the mind can think (spiritual substance).

“I do not observe that aught necessarily belongs to my nature or essence beyond my being a thinking thing [or substance whose whole essence or nature is merely thinking]. And although I may, or rather, as will shortly say, although I certainly do possess a body with which I am very closely conjoined”. (Descartes IV) Descartes also shows the mind does not depend on body because the mind and the body can be conceived independently of one another having distinct difference. He gives the example of this by saying “I am present to my body in the way a sailor is present in a ship."( Descartes IV)

In “Meditations on First Philosophy,” Rene Descartes argues that your knowledge of yourself is quite different to your knowledge of any physical thing and that this shows that your mind is distinct from any physical thing. Perhaps the strongest justification that Descartes gives for these claims is his assertion that every act of distinct knowledge of bodily matter also provides even more certain evidence for our existence as thinking things. In this paper, I will argue that this argument is plausible as I believe that the mind and body operate independently of one another and that one is undoubtedly more knowledgeable about him or herself than any object outside the realm of his or her being.

The topic I have chosen for my final project is the argument of whether or not we as humans have a soul. If so, is it something different from the brain and does this “force” survive after our physical death? The concept of a soul has long been rooted in religion and we still debate its existence to this day. As humans, we fear the unknown that follows this existence; after this physical life. Due to this fear we have created this idea of a force larger than ourselves. Many scientists and philosophers have contradicting viewpoints on the existence of a soul. However research and discussion still continues on the matter to hopefully uncover the answers we seek.

What is it that separates living things from non-living things? Do living things have souls? If so, what exactly are souls? Can they exist independent of material bodies? What happens to our souls after our bodies die? Ancient Greek philosophers, from Homer to Socrates, struggle with these questions, and strive for answers. Out of all the answers, perhaps the most thorough and revealing come from Aristotle. This may be due to his insistence that, in defining the soul, an exclusive focus on form over matter is misguided; conversely, he argues that an exclusive focus on matter over form is equally wrong-headed. We will examine Aristotle’s objections to both Plato, regarding the former, and Democritus, regarding the latter. Following, we will identify what Aristotle defines as the soul, and analyze the ways in which his definition avoids the pitfalls of materialism and dualism. Concluding, we will see that Aristotle, out of all the ancient Greek philosophers, provides the most sophisticated and satisfying answers to the questions initially posed.

When Princess Elisabeth questioned Descartes on the possibility of interaction between heterogeneous substances [AT III 661]., he answered recognizing that through his works, he had not said much about the union of mind and body. In his letter [21-05-1643] Descartes justifies this saying he had been primarily focused in the demonstration of the distinction between mind and body.