Students usually fixate on an author that their goal is to discover what that author believed rather than what is actually true

There is another fault of great consequence into which students commonly fall: they become obsessed with a single author. If there is anything true or valuable in a book, they immediately go to extremes — everything in it is true, everything is good, everything is admirable. They even take pleasure in admiring passages they do not understand, and demand that everyone else admire them as well. They take pride in the praise they lavish upon these obscure writers, because they thereby convince others that they understand them perfectly; this becomes a source of vanity, and they consider themselves superior to others simply because they believe they can make sense of some vague statement by an ancient author — or even by someone who perhaps did not fully understand himself. How many scholars have strained their minds to clarify obscure passages in the works of philosophers, and even of ancient poets! And how many brilliant minds still delight in analyzing the exact meaning of a single word or the opinion of some author! But it is right to provide some proof of what I am saying.

The question of the immortality of the soul is undoubtedly of great importance; no one can object to philosophers devoting all their efforts to solving it. And even if they write large volumes to prove a truth that could be demonstrated in just a few words or pages, they may still be excused. But it is quite ridiculous to see them take such great pains to decide what Aristotle himself believed on the subject. It seems to me of little use to people living today to know whether a man named Aristotle ever existed, whether he wrote the books attributed to him, or what he meant in any given passage of his works. Such knowledge makes no one wiser or happier; what truly matters is whether what he says is true or false in itself.

It is therefore entirely useless to know what Aristotle believed about the immortality of the soul, even though it is very important to know that the soul is indeed immortal. Yet there is no denying that many scholars have spent far more effort investigating Aristotle’s opinion on this matter than seeking the actual truth of the question itself. Some have even written entire works specifically to explain what Aristotle believed, while devoting far less energy to discovering what one ought to believe.

But even though countless people have exhausted their minds trying to determine Aristotle’s view, their labor has been in vain — for no agreement has yet been reached on this absurd question. This shows just how unfortunate Aristotle’s followers are: they look to a writer so obscure for enlightenment, and one who even deliberately cultivated obscurity, as he himself admits in a letter he wrote to Alexander the Great.

Aristotle’s view on the immortality of the soul has therefore long been a major and much-debated question among scholars. To show that I am not speaking without evidence, I must quote here a somewhat lengthy and tedious passage from La Cerda, who gathered together various authorities on this topic as if it were a matter of great significance. Here is what he writes regarding the second chapter of Tertullian’s work On the Resurrection of the Flesh:

“This question is hotly debated in the schools, with strong arguments on both sides: did Aristotle teach that the soul is immortal or mortal? Some philosophers and respected authorities maintain that he held our souls to be free from destruction. These include, among Greek and Latin commentators, both Ammonius, Olympiodorus, Philoponus, Simplicius, and Avicenna — as Mirandula records in Book 4, Chapter 9 of An Examination of Vanity; also Theodorus, Metochites, and Themistius. Saint Thomas Aquinas, in Summa contra Gentiles, Book 2, Chapter 79, and in his commentary on the Physics, Lecture 42; also in Metaphysics, Lecture 3, and in Quodlibet X, Question 5, Article 1; Albertus Magnus, in On the Soul, Treatise 2, Chapter 20, and Treatise 3, Chapter 13; Giles of Rome, in On the Soul, Book 3, Chapter 4; Durandus, in his commentary on the Sentences, Book 2, Distinction 18, Question 3; Ferrarius, in the same work Summa contra Gentiles; and at length Eugubinus, in Perennial Philosophy, Book 9, Chapter 48. Most notably, Aristotle’s own pupil Theophrastus, who should have known his master’s mind perfectly, also interpreted him this way.

“On the other side stand several Church Fathers and distinguished philosophers: Justin Martyr in his Exhortation to the Greeks; Origen in his Philosophy; as is also claimed of Gregory of Nazianzus in his Discourse Against Eunomius, and Gregory of Nyssa in On the Soul, Book 2, Chapter 4; Theodoret in Cure for the Ills of the Greeks, Book 3; Galen in History of Philosophy; Pomponazzi in On the Immortality of the Soul; Simon Portius in On the Human Mind; and Cajetan in On the Soul, Book 3, Chapter 2. Those who believe Aristotle held the soul to be perishable rely largely on the interpretation of Alexander of Aphrodisias, who was his most famous commentator — though Eugubinus defends Aristotle against this reading in Chapters 21 and 22. It is remarkable that Alexander drew the conclusion of mortality from the very same passage in Metaphysics, Book 42, from which Saint Thomas, Theodorus, and Metochites inferred immortality.

“As for Tertullian, I believe he took neither side, but considered Aristotle’s teaching on this point ambiguous. Hence he cites Aristotle in support of both views: in one place he attributes to Aristotle the belief that the soul is mortal, while in On the Soul, Chapter 6, he cites him to prove the opposite opinion. Plutarch did the same, appealing to Aristotle on both sides in Opinions of the Philosophers, Book 5: in Chapter 1 he attributes mortality to the soul, and in Chapter 25, immortality. Even among the scholastics, many judged Aristotle to be inconsistent, uncertain, and hesitant. These include Duns Scotus, in Sentences, Book 4, Distinction 43, Question 2, Article 2; Harvey of Nedellec, in Quodlibet I, Question 11, and Sentences, Book 1, Distinction 1, Question 1; Agostino Nifo, in his treatise On the Immortality of the Soul, Chapter 1; and other more recent commentators. This middle view seems to me the more accurate, though the rules of scholarly debate forbid me to insist upon it without weighing the full authority of the sources.”

All these citations are accepted as true simply on the word of this commentator, because people think it a waste of time to verify them, and because they do not have access to all the rare works from which they are taken. No one adds new ones, either — for they do not begrudge La Cerda the credit of having gathered them, and it would take even more time to collect more, even if one only skimmed the indexes of all the commentators on Aristotle.

From this passage we see that learned men, considered highly capable, have gone to great lengths just to discover what Aristotle believed about the immortality of the soul; some have even written entire books on the subject, such as Pomponazzi, whose main aim was to demonstrate that Aristotle considered the soul mortal. And there are people who do not stop there — they treat as a major question whether Tertullian, Plutarch, or others believed that Aristotle taught the soul was mortal. One gets this impression from La Cerda himself, if one considers the final part of the passage just quoted.

Even if it is of little use to know what Aristotle believed about the soul, or what Tertullian and Plutarch thought he believed, the core question — the immortality of the soul itself — is at least a truth that it is necessary to know. But there are countless matters that are entirely useless to know, and therefore it is even more useless to find out what the ancients thought about them. Yet scholars exhaust themselves trying to guess the opinions of ancient philosophers on such trivial subjects. Books are filled with these ridiculous investigations; and it is such trifles that have sparked so many bitter scholarly disputes. These empty and pointless questions, these absurd genealogies of useless opinions, are treated as matters of great importance by the learned. They believe they have the right to despise anyone who scorns such nonsense, and to call ignorant those who take pride in ignoring it. They imagine they possess a complete knowledge of the history of philosophical terms and theories, and consider the age ungrateful if it fails to recognize their merit.

All this clearly shows the weakness and vanity of the human mind. When reason does not guide one’s studies, learning not only fails to perfect reason — it clouds it, corrupts it, and perverts it entirely.

It is worth noting here that in matters of faith, it is not wrong to seek what Saint Augustine or other Church Fathers believed, or even to investigate whether Saint Augustine held the same views as those who came before him. For the truths of faith are learned only through tradition and cannot be discovered by reason alone. Since the oldest beliefs are the most likely to be true, we must seek out what the ancients believed; and this can only be done by examining the teachings of successive generations over time.

But in matters that depend on reason, the opposite applies. There is no need to concern ourselves with what the ancients believed in order to discover what we ourselves ought to believe. Yet through some strange distortion of judgment, some people become alarmed whenever philosophy is discussed in terms different from Aristotle’s — while they remain unconcerned when theology is taught in ways that contradict the Gospels, the Church Fathers, and the ecumenical councils. It seems that those who shout the loudest against new ideas in philosophy are often the very same people who encourage and stubbornly defend certain theological novelties that ought to be rejected. It is not their choice of words we object to — even if those terms were unknown in antiquity, long usage has made them acceptable. What we oppose is the errors they spread and defend behind the cover of ambiguous and confusing language.

In theology, we ought to respect antiquity because we ought to respect truth, and truth is found in ancient tradition. Once we have found the truth, all further curiosity should cease. But in philosophy, we ought instead to welcome new ideas — for the same reason: we must always seek and pursue truth, and remain curious about it. If we believed Aristotle and Plato were infallible, we might perhaps need only to understand their works; but reason does not allow us to believe this. On the contrary, reason tells us they were less knowledgeable than modern philosophers, for the world is now two thousand years older, and has accumulated far more experience than existed in the time of Aristotle and Plato. Modern thinkers can learn all the truths handed down from the ancients and still discover many more. Yet reason also warns us not to accept the word of these new philosophers any more readily than we accepted the ancients. Instead, we must examine their ideas carefully, and accept them only when we can no longer reasonably doubt them — without being unduly impressed by their reputation for learning or by any other qualities of their minds.