11 - The immortality of the soul

Summary

The scope of the immortality debate in the Renaissance

The debate during the Renaissance over the immortality of the soul encompassed epistemology, metaphysics, and theology. The metaphysical question was whether there is something spiritual that gives life to human beings, such that they are endowed with an ontological status superior to animals and a lasting reality. If this is true, then there is a human soul that transcends the perishable body. But a problemarises: what is the evidence for this, and what does it mean for man to be essentially spiritual? If one were to deny the need for any ontological difference between beasts and men - and that would entail abolishing the principle of life or soul as something distinct from body - then the fact of consciousness and truth over and beyond particular beings demands explanation.

Hence an epistemological problem arises from the metaphysical one. For the mere possibility that animation and spirit might be illusions or misconceptions of life and thought raises a question of epistemology. This, however, is not to be pursued in terms of formal logic, but by way of reflection upon the working of the human mind inasmuch as it seems to be the “place” (or subject) where claims are proffered that transcend particulars and where reflexivity seems to reside. The question is, then, whether the “place” of truth is coextensive with truth itself, and - supposing truth has an ontological status beyond that of physical things - whether the mind or intellect as this “place” shares that ontological status. That is to say: is the intellect as eternal as the truths it is supposed to and tries to think?