In existographies, Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1524), aka the “great new Averroist of Padua” (Girolamo Cardano, c.1514), was an Italian physician, philosopher, religious skeptic noted for []
Overview
In 1513, Pope Leo X issued a decree that condemned any teaching that asserted that the soul was mortal, i.e. ceased to exist once the body ceased to exist.
Sometime, therein, as news of this condemnation spread, one of Pomponazzi’s students pressed him for a “straight answer” on the question of the soul, “leaving aside revelation and miracles, and remaining entirely within natural limits”. [1] Pomponazzi told this student that he agreed with Aristotle and Averroes in respect to the view that a soul independent of its body cannot exist; the following seems to be his gist argument:
“If we assume the continued existence of the individual, we must first of all prove that the soul can live without requiring the body as subject or object of its activity. We cannot think without sensations; but these depend on corporeality of its organs. Thought is in itself eternal and immaterial, but human thought is bound up with the senses; it can recognize the general only in the special, it is never free from the rule of space and time, for its ideas come and go one after the other. Our soul is therefore really mortal, since neither consciousness nor memory can endure. Virtue is far purer when practiced for its own sake, than for a reward. Yet must those politicians not be blamed who desire that the immortality of the soul should be taught for the sake of the public good, in order that the weak and the bad might at least go the right way under the impulse of hope or fear, while noble free spirits choose that path of their own accord. For it is utterly untrue that only base scholars have denied immortality, and that all noble sages have adopted it. Homer, Pliny, Simonides and Seneca, who did not cherish this hope, were not vile on that account; they only managed to get along without mercenary servility.”
— Pietro Pomponazzi (c.1520), Publication; cited by Ludwig Buchner (1884) in Force and Matter (pgs. 335-36)
Moreover, Pomponazzi rejected ghosts as mix of vapors from the charnel house and human imagination; that demons and angels are not real; possession and demonic prophecy are delusional states brought by sickness or madness. [2]
Three impostors
Pomponazzi, along with Averroes, are associated with the three impostors argument.
Atheism
Pomponazzi has been categorized as having been charged with atheism and or have been “secret atheist”, along with Machiavelli, Bodin, Arentino, Montaingne, Charron, and Gassendi. (Ѻ)
Education
In 1487, Pomponazzi completed a medical degree at University of Padua, specifically studying under under Nicoletto Vernia (1420-1499) (Ѻ), noted commentator on the nature of the soul. Pomponazzi, in retrospect, recalled how fellow students, during this period, pressed their teachers for a rationalist evaluation of Averroes and Thomas Aquinas.
From 1495 to 1509, Pomponazzi was chair of the department of natural philosophy, at the University of Padua.
He then became a lecturer at the University of Ferrara, whereat he lectured on Aristotle’s The Soul (De Anima). In 1512, he moved to Bologna, whereat he produced books on the nature of the soul.
Quotes | By
The following are note quotes by Pomponazzi:
“The whole world has been deceived by the idea of immortality, for if we assume that there are three major religions: Christ’s, Moses’, and Muhammad’s, either all of them are false and the whole world is cheated or two are wrong and the greater part of mankind is deceived.”
— Pietro Pomponazzi (c.1513) [1]
“The atheists Epicurus, Lucretius, Diagoras, and some lesser-known figures, are the few who had managed not to be taken in.”
— Pietro Pomponazzi (c.1513) paraphrase of Jennifer Hecht (2004) [2]
References
1. (a) Allen, Don C. (1964). Doubt’s Boundless Sea (pg. 32-35). Arno Press, 1979.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pgs. 272-73). HarperOne.
2. Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pgs. 272-73). HarperOne.
External links
● Pietro Pomponazzi – Wikipedia.
