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Single Idea 5887

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind ]

Full Idea

In souls there is no mingling of ingredients, nothing of two-fold nature, so it is impossible for the soul to be divided; impossible, therefore, for it to perish either; for perishing is like the separation of parts which were maintained in union.

Gist of Idea

The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish

Source

M. Tullius Cicero (Tusculan Disputations [c.44 BCE], I.xxix.71)

Book Ref

Cicero: 'Tusculan Disputations', ed/tr. King,J.E. [Harvard Loeb 1927], p.83

A Reaction

Cicero knows he is pushing his luck in asserting that perishing is a sort of division. Why can't something be there one moment and gone the next? He appears to be in close agreement with Descartes about being a 'thinking thing'.

The 44 ideas from M. Tullius Cicero

2661 Dialectic is speech cast in the form of logical argument [Cicero]
20800 Every true presentation can have a false one of the same quality [Cicero]
2664 If we have complete healthy senses, what more could the gods give us? [Cicero]
2665 How can there be a memory of what is false? [Cicero]
2672 Virtues must be very detached, to avoid being motivated by pleasure [Cicero]
2673 There cannot be more than one truth [Cicero]
2669 Dialectic assumes that all statements are either true or false, but self-referential paradoxes are a big problem [Cicero]
6029 Whoever knows future causes knows everything that will be [Cicero]
6031 The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero]
21405 Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long]
20871 Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero]
21667 Oratory and philosophy are closely allied; orators borrow from philosophy, and ornament it [Cicero]
21677 How can the not-true fail to be false, or the not-false fail to be true? [Cicero]
21678 If desire is not in our power then neither are choices, so we should not be praised or punished [Cicero]
20814 Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero]
2645 Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero]
2628 Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero]
2627 I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero]
2634 It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero]
2635 The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero]
2636 Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero]
2638 Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero]
2640 We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero]
2641 Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero]
2647 It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero]
2650 If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero]
2651 God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero]
2652 Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero]
2653 If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero]
2655 If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero]
2656 Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero]
2657 If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero]
2658 The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero]
2659 The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero]
5879 The soul is the heart, or blood in the heart, or part of the brain, of something living in heart or brain, or breath [Cicero]
5884 How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero]
5887 The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero]
5885 Souls contain no properties of elements, and elements contain no properties of souls [Cicero]
5886 Like the eye, the soul has no power to see itself, but sees other things [Cicero]
5890 We should not share the distress of others, but simply try to relieve it [Cicero]
5891 Philosophy is the collection of rational arguments [Cicero]
5893 A wise man has integrity, firmness of will, nobility, consistency, sobriety, patience [Cicero]
5894 All men except philosophers fear poverty [Cicero]
5895 If one despises illiterate mechanics individually, they are not worth more collectively [Cicero]