Dante

1
Dantes Divine Comedy

• Introduction to Dante
• Reason and Faith
• Love and Free Will
• Development of Soul Body

2
theodicy

• The immortals know no care, yet the lot they spin
  for man is full of sorrow on the floor of Zeus'
  palace there stand two urns, the one filled with
  evil gifts, and the other with good ones. He for
  whom Zeus the lord of thunder mixes the gifts he
  sends, will meet now with good and now with evil
  fortune but he to whom Zeus sends none but evil
  gifts will be pointed at by the finger of scorn,
  the hand of famine will pursue him to the ends of
  the world, and he will go up and down the face of
  the earth, respected neither by gods nor men.6

3

• Hesiod elaborates (59093)
• From her is the race of women and female
  kindof her is the deadly race and tribe of
  women wholive amongst mortal men to their great
  trouble,no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but
  only in wealth.

4

• Hesiod goes on to lament that men who try to
  avoid the evil of women by avoiding marriage will
  fare no better (6047)
• Hesiod concedes that occasionally a man finds a
  good wife, but still (609) "evil contends with
  good."

5
Hope

• Hope is the only good god remaining among
  mankind the others have left and gone to
  Olympus.
• Trust, a mighty god has gone, Restraint has gone
  from men, and the Graces, my friend, have
  abandoned the earth.
• Mens judicial oaths are no longer to be trusted,
  nor does anyone revere the immortal gods the
  race of pious men has perished andmen no longer
  recognize the rules of conduct or acts of piety.

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Introduction to Dante

• Dante Aligheri (1265-1321), of Florence, Italy.
• One of the 4-5 greatest poets of the Western
  tradition (with Homer, Virgil, Milton, Goethe).
• His masterpiece (The Divine Comedy) embodies the
  Thomistic synthesis of Greek philosophy the
  Biblical worldview.

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Structure of the Divine Comedy

• Three Parts
• The Inferno (Hell). A depiction of the
  consequences of unchecked evil.
• The Purgatorio (Purgatory). A representation of
  human nature in this life (of which purgatory is
  an extension) the conflict between good and
  evil.
• The Paradiso (Heaven). The ultimate,
  supernatural end of human life. The vision of God.

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Issues to Consider

• Love as the source of both good and evil.
• The paradox of free will is it compatible with a
  scientific (Aristotelian) picture of the workings
  of human nature?
• The relationship between body and soul.

10
Faith Reason

• Dante gives a high status to natural reason.
• Virgil, Dantes guide through hell and purgatory,
  was a pre-Christian Roman poet.
• Aristotle is described as the father of them
  that know.
• The philosophers and poets in limbo, although
  unbelievers, are treated with great respect, and
  suffer only the sadness of the loss of heaven.

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Limits of reason

• At the same time, Dante clearly asserts the
  limits of reason, and the need for its
  supplementation by faith.
• Beatrice (representing grace) must take over for
  Virgil as Dante enters heaven.
• Certain mysteries (like that of free will) lie
  beyond the scope of reason to explain completely.
• The souls in heaven, enjoying the vision of God,
  have transcended all natural limitations.
  Humanity is commingled with Gods essence.

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Love as the source of Good and Evil

• Virgil distinguishes between animal and
  mind-directed love.
• The second is fallible, both in respect of its
  object and its intensity.
• Wrong object Pride, Envy, Wrath
• Too weak Sloth (accidie)
• Too strong Avarice, Gluttony, Lust

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Love directed toward the good, but fallibly

• All men, though in a vague way, apprehend a good
  their souls may rest in, and desire it each,
  therefore, strives to reach his chosen end.
  (Pur. xvii)
• Though loves substance (object) always will
  appear to be a good, not every impress made, even
  in finest wax, is good and clear. (Pur. xviii)

14
The Enigma of Free Will

• If love springs outside the souls own will, it
  being made to love, what merit is there in loving
  good, or blame in loving ill? (Dante to Virgil,
  canto xviii)
• As far as reason sees, I can reply. The rest you
  must ask Beatrice. The answer lies within Faiths
  Mysteries. (Virgils reply)
• All love springs from necessity, but you still
  have the power to check its sway.

15
Marcos Discourse (canto xvi)

• Until quite modern times, astrology was taken to
  be scientific, revealing laws connecting heavenly
  motions to earthly events.
• If we substitute modern physics chemistry for
  astrology, the same philosophical question
  arises how is human freedom compatible with a
  world of natural causal necessity?

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Free Will the Intellect

• Marco answers it is the human intellect that
  frees man from the heavens influence. By
  understanding the laws of cause/effect, we can
  transcend them.
• Unsolved problem why doesnt the intellect
  merely introduce its own chain of inexorable
  cause effect? Whence comes the freedom to
  assent or dissent to reasons conclusions?

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The Place of Training, Civic Leadership

• The fact of free will does not (for Dante) negate
  the need for training restraint by law to guide
  love to higher things.
• The bad state of the world (in Dantes time)
  Dante attributes to bad leadership of both church
  and state (but, especially, of church).
• Another paradox? Is it bad environment or free
  will that is the ultimate explanation of evil?

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The Development of Soul Body

• Statiuss Discourse -- Pur. canto xxv
• Describes the development of the human fetus,
  beginning with the formative power present in
  the sperm.
• This formative power shapes the blood in the
  uterus through successive stages plant-like,
  jellyfish-like, human.

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Emergence of the rational soul

• This formative power could be identified with
  the genetic information contained in the gametes
  (like Aristotle, Dante hypothesizes no genetic
  contribution of the mother).
• As the fetal brain develops, God steps in and
  creates a rational soul, which then draws into
  itself the powers of the vegetative and
  perceptive souls.

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Three Medieval Theories

• Dante endorses what was known as creationism
  that each individual human soul is specially
  created by God.
• Augustine and others endorsed traducianism the
  human soul is formed by natural powers possessed
  by the sperm egg.
• Dante clearly rejects Averroism (ibn Ruhd) that
  all human beings share a single soul.

21
Dantes Vision of Heaven

• Dantes Paradiso was based on the current,
  Ptolemaic (earth-centered) model.
• Dante passes through successive, concentric
  circles moon, Venus, Sun, planets, fixed stars.
• After reaching the primum mobile (first mover)
  beyond the stars, Dantes universe undergoes a
  disorienting, non-Euclidean transformation.

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• What had been the center (the earth) now becomes
  the extreme periphery, and the sphere of the
  primum mobile is seen to revolve around
  concentric spheres of angels, centered in God.
• Thus, Dantes universe is really not geo-centric
  at all, but theo-centric.

23
Introduction to Joseph Butler

• Sermons, published in 1726.
• Had profound effect on moral philosophy in
  Britain, well into 20th century.

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2 major themes

• 1. Nature is the standard of good/bad,
  right/wrong.
• 2. The problem of the relation between self-love
  and love for others.