Our Atoms, Ourselves: Lucretius on the Psychology of Personal Identity (DRN 3.843–864)

Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 41 (2):297-328 (2020)
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Abstract

In Epicurean cosmology, material reconstitution, or palingenesis (παλιγγενεσία) is the necessary consequence of the infinity of time and the eternity of atoms. I examine Lucretius’ treatment of this phenomenon (DRN 3.843–864) and consider the extent to which his view enables us to develop an Epicurean response to the question: what makes a person at two different times one and the same person? I offer a reading of this passage in the light of modern accounts of persistence and identity, and what Lucretius states in Books 3 and 4 about memory and the soul’s motions. Guided by the metaphysical implications of this analysis, I determine the type of relation which, according to Lucretius, holds between the mental and the physical.

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10.1515/elen-2020-0016

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Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Mortal questions.Thomas Nagel - 1979 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mortal Questions.Thomas Nagel - 1983 - Religious Studies 19 (1):96-99.

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