In the seminal essay ‘Three Kinds of Platonic Immortality’ (in D. Frede and B. Reis [edd.], Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy [2009], pp. 145–61) D. Sedley argued that according to Plato's dialogues something can be said to be ‘immortal’ in many ways, πολλαχῶς λέγεται ἡ ἀθανασία. Let us take the example of the soul. Firstly, it may possess ‘essential immortality’, as argued in the Phaedo, since it is metaphysically and logically impossible for the soul to die (pp. 146–53). A second kind of ἀθανασία is ‘conferred’: this is the case, for example, with the immortality bestowed by the Demiurge of the Timaeus upon the rational component of the human soul, which according to this perspective would in itself be perishable or mortal (pp. 153–6). Finally, there is ‘earned immortality’, as described in the culmination of Diotima's speech in the Symposium: a ‘hard won’ achievement of the soul that moves from the state of constant flux to apotheosis or to a pure and almost immobile intellectual life, thus attaining a kind of existence that has no connection with the mortal/bodily condition (pp. 156–61). Obviously, this framework opens up the problem of the consistency of Plato's dialogues. For it is evident that a soul possessing essential immortality would not require conferred or earned ἀθανασία.
Sedley's framework has provided one of the starting points of Long's research. After publishing Death and Immortality in Ancient Philosophy (2019), Long has now edited Immortality in Ancient Philosophy, which supposes that the tripartition at work in Plato is at least partially to be found in the preceding and subsequent philosophical tradition. After a short introduction by Long, the volume consists of nine essays ranging from the so-called Presocratics to Augustine. The common goal of the contributions is to reconstruct what kinds of immortality were identified by ancient philosophers and how they may have been harmonised into a coherent philosophical perspective. One notable exception is P.S. Horky's essay on the early Pythagoreans (Chapter 2). According to his analysis, the theory of metempsychosis does not require the immortality of the soul, since the soul is apparently conceived of – much as by Democritus – as a perishable compound of atoms, but also as long-lasting and capable of reincarnation. In turn, the standard reading that the soul is immortal depends on the later ‘Platonizing’ interpretation of Pythagoreanism.
At the same time, the volume in certain respects diverges from Sedley's account (pp. 2–4). Long prefers to call the second kind of immortality ‘achieved’ rather than ‘earned’. Moreover, contributors sometimes merge ‘derived’ forms (= ‘conferred’ forms in Sedley) with essential ones. For instance, S. Obdrzalek (Chapter 3) combines the two kinds into the category of ‘general immortality’, recognised by all the Platonic dialogues with the exception of the Symposium, which instead describes a mortal soul in flux that aims to ‘achieve’ immortality. She then argues that the tension between the two conflicting perspectives may lie in the fact that the latter text takes earned ἀθανασία to indicate the changeless condition of the philosophical soul that has learned to grasp the eternal Forms. Similarly, S. Yli-Karjanmaa (Chapter 7) argues that ‘essential’ and ‘derived’ immortalities are united in Philo of Alexandria. He recognises an ‘ontological immortality of the mind’ (p. 171) that stems from kinship with God and therefore has an essence derived from a divine source. Such ἀθανασία is opposed to the achieved immortality of the virtuous. No longer forced to reincarnate after death, the individual attains ‘permanent disembodiment’ and an eternal blessed life.
It should be added that not all scholars find traces of the idea of ‘earned’ immortality. This is for instance the case with S. Gertz (Chapter 9), who analyses Augustine's attempt to ‘derive’ the ‘essential’ immortality of the soul (= its being an eternal subject that keeps eternal truths within itself) from its permanent relationship with reason (or connection with these same truths). This gives rise to some serious difficulties, the foremost being that nothing precludes a subject from undergoing changes that sever its reason from the objects of knowledge ensuring its ontological eternity. Following his analysis, Gertz finds no sign of the possibility that a soul could ‘earn’ ἀθανασία.
It can then be said that Long's volume sets out from Sedley's insights, but also addresses problems that were not discussed in his article. More specifically, the volume opens up broader research paths. Its introduction mentions three topics connected with an analysis of ἀθανασία: the theological dimension (pp. 4–7), the definitions of life and death (pp. 7–9) and the problem of personal identity (pp. 9–10).
Theology often appears pivotal for understanding precisely what immortality means in the philosophical tradition. We have already seen that it is often believed that some divine entities (God, the Forms etc.) are responsible for the perpetual existence or blessedness of souls; thus, ἀθανασία could prima facie consist in a form of eternity. However, other ancient theological-physical theories recognise a form of immortality that does not prevent destruction. The essays in the collection that stress this point are those by S. Trépanier (Chapter 1) and Long (Chapter 5; as the author points out, this is a revision of Death and Immortality in Ancient Philosophy, pp. 63–85). Both show that thinkers like Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics rejected essential immortality. Human souls – sometimes even the demons or gods themselves – are destroyed (e.g.) by their separation from the body, by the Empedoclean cosmic Sphairos or by the Stoic apocatastasis of fire. It follows that the texts by these philosophers that speak of ἀθανασία must refer to a peculiar form of earned immortality: one that grants a temporally limited godlike state. Individuals are immortalised by behaving like the gods until cosmic destruction occurs. Depending on the philosopher we consider, the means for ‘immortalisation’ could be pleasure, virtue or intellectual inquiry. In any case, it is generally clear that our ideas of immortality are shaped by our views of the gods and of the cosmos.
This conclusion is also related to the definitions of life and death. Again, the meanings of these words change depending on one's interpretation of the soul, the gods and the cosmos. The volume's authors distinguish at least four senses of life and death: (A) the biological sense (= existence and destruction); (B) the metaphysical sense, for instance life as imprisonment in the body and death as liberation leading one to the divine; (C) the moral sense, or life as virtuous/intellectual conduct and death as immoral/irrational behaviour; (D) the temporal sense, or life as a timeless/changeless existence and death as existence within bodily limitations. C. Rowett's essay (Chapter 4) stresses this fourfold division and recognises it in the Phaedo by arguing that the true immortality that interests Plato is the one that is found in its subtext. (B) is instead stressed (e.g.) in Trépanier's reconstruction of the Presocratic/Platonic belief that we are living in Hades (pp. 18–19, 23–5), and (C) by Yli-Karjanmaa's reading of Philo's conception of sin (pp. 162–9).
Finally, the problem of personal identity emerges in connection with the notion of immortality. Ancient philosophers noted that what is or becomes immortal in us represents our true self. Such a thought is highlighted by J. Warren (Chapter 6), who concentrates on the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus, where Socrates combines the symmetry argument (= future non-existence must not be feared, because I have not feared my pre-natal nothingness) with the proof of the intrinsic immortality of the soul. Warren notes that in doing so Socrates attempts to lead his interlocutor from the common-sense view that ‘I’ am this frail psychosomatic compound to the counter-intuitive view that ‘I’ am the psychic substance that survives the separation from the body. This is also a topic addressed by L.P. Gerson's analysis of Plotinus’ solution to the problem of personal identity (Chapter 8). By pointing to the philosopher's notion of Forms of individuals and to his theory of the undescended intellect, Gerson argues that Plotinus identified the self with its ‘ideal’ or ‘disembodied’ counterpart. Immortality will then be gained by the mind that tries to unite with its eternal and intelligible source.
This concise overview of Immortality in Ancient Philosophy should suffice to show that the volume is a fine work of scholarship. The core idea that the different kinds of Platonic immortality can be applied to a more ample philosophical tradition turns out to be a useful explanatory tool, especially for those philosophers who deny the possibility of personal survival, yet continue to call some souls ‘immortal’. Moreover, the three parallel research paths opened by the book are worthy of pursuit, particularly the second one, related to the definitions of life and death. Indeed, the recognition that these words can signify different things invites methodological cautiousness. First and foremost, we should analyse the terminology employed by ancient philosophers in order to resist the dangerous temptation to apply our own linguistic assumptions to their ideas, and thus to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.
The only limitation that I could find in the book is that perhaps the material selected is too narrow. Some authors or texts that are not analysed in the collection might have been discussed, while others that are examined could have received a more systematic analysis. For instance, Alcmaeon's interesting argument about the essential immortality of the soul mentioned by Long and Horky (pp. 6, 43 n. 10) could have received a separate chapter. Democritus too could have been examined in detail, since he seems to anticipate the Epicureans’ negation of the ‘essential’ immortality of the self and their positive attempt to ‘earn’ immortality through the persistent contemplation of beauty (cf. DK 68 B 112 and 297). Plato's conception of immortality could have been problematised through a study of the myth of Er in Book 10 of the Republic. Indeed, this text raises a theoretical problem: if a soul descends into a new body after forgetting its previous existence completely (621a–b), does this not mean that its past self (say, being Socrates) has been destroyed and, therefore, that only the psychic substance survives the cycle of death-rebirth? Finally, Augustine's silence on earned immortality – noted by Gertz – could have been explained by looking at his belief in divine grace: Augustine supposes that human beings achieve the truth and the good only through God's gratuitous will (cf. e.g. De gratia et libero arbitrio) and that, therefore, they cannot autonomously become immortal.
These limitations only show that Long's enterprise should be continued. His book can be regarded as a solid contribution that foreshadows more comprehensive research to come.
