Giula Scalas, La théorie épicurienne du vivant. L’âme avec le corps
Giula Scalas, La théorie épicurienne du vivant. L’âme avec le corps, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2023 (Les anciens et les modernes), 490 p. ISBN 978-2-406-14137-2.
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1The book under review is based on Giulia Scalas’ doctoral thesis, which she completed in 2019 at the Université de Lille under the direction of Thomas Bénatouïl. As the title already indicates, the book aims to offer an Epicurean theory of what it means to be alive. More specifically, Scalas is interested in the question of how exactly different life processes such as digestion, respiration, and perception can arise in a living being given an Epicurean commitment to materialism and mechanistic explanations. The answer that emerges at the end of the book is complex. Very roughly, on Scalas’ account of the Epicurean view, life is the product of a perfect self-organization (“la vie est le produit d’un mécanisme parfaitement (auto-)organisé”, p. 444). This means that life only emerges as a result of the unity between body and soul atoms. Life is thus a feature of the composite; there is no absolute life principle on the Epicurean view. However, the Epicureans also distinguish different kinds of life processes and so different ways of being alive. Some of these such as respiration and digestion rely on more everyday constituent parts of the soul such as air, breath, and heat, whereas others such as thought and sensation are, on the materialist level, explained by the presence of a nameless fourth nature, which can more properly be described as the direct motor principle of being alive. The Epicureans then offer an explanation of the interaction of these different elements and further differentiate their view by distinguishing functionally between a rational and nonrational part of the soul (respectively animus and anima in Lucretius).
2Scalas’ book consists of three parts. The first part of the book (roughly 110 pages) examines the material component parts of the Epicurean soul in detail. The second part (roughly 80 pages) discusses the Epicurean theory of the soul as standing in the Democritean tradition and as replying to certain criticisms against this tradition that were raised by Aristotle. The third part (roughly 210 pages) is an explanation of different life processes on the Epicurean view: perception, nutrition, locomotion, sleep and dreams, respiration, and desire, sex, and procreation. After each section, Scalas provides a short summary of the findings, and at the end of the book, she concisely sums up her reading of the Epicurean doctrine of what it means to be a living being. In an addendum, Scalas offers a new reading of papyrus P.S.I. 3192, which supplements the discussion of the life functions in the third part of the book. A bibliography and different indices conclude the volume.
3La théorie épicurienne du vivant. L’âme avec le corps is clearly structured and well-written. The main argument is, as I already remarked, complex, but generally easy to follow. Scalas engages with the relevant secondary literature where appropriate and carefully weighs different interpretative options prior to giving her own view. While there are some papers by other authors that cover the different aspects of the Epicurean theory of the soul and of Epicurean physiology, the book is – to my knowledge – the first comprehensive account of the topic. It will be of interest for advanced students and researchers interested in Epicureanism, Hellenistic Philosophy, and ancient science more generally. Given the comprehensive character of the work, the book will likely be an important source for future research. In short, this is a solid piece of scholarship.
4There is a plurality of topics that could be discussed in more detail in regard to Scalas’ work, but space constraints force me to focus on two points. The first of these is the payoff of Scalas’ analysis. Scalas argues that her approach focusing on life processes is superior to approaches to the mind-body relationship that start from the contemporary mind-body problem debate because it has the advantage of not reducing the relationship between soul and body to one of unidirectional, voluntary control, and because it avoids falsely dividing mental and bodily activities (p. 19). These are certainly good pitfalls to avoid when discussing the Epicurean theory of the soul, even if I am not quite convinced that those scholars who have approached the Epicurean theory of the soul from the perspective of the contemporary mind-body problem are truly guilty of these errors. Be this as it may, Scalas’ approach offers a refreshing perspective. I would have appreciated nevertheless if at the end of her book, Scalas had taken the additional step of relating back her findings explicitly to the existing debate on the mind-body relationship in the scholarship on Epicureanism (of which Scalas is aware, as her introduction shows). The result of such a discussion could be that Epicurus’ view does not fit neatly into the intellectual space that has been carved up. But if that is the case, thinking about the Epicurean theory of the soul might enrich our awareness of possible theoretical options and perhaps even offer us more compelling ways to think about the mind-body problem today. Certainly, when using contemporary categories, one always runs the risk of employing anachronisms. However, this can be done responsibly. A case in point is Scalas’ very own paper about how the Epicureans would answer the Molyneux problem, a problem that was only formulated for the first time during the early modern period (see G. Scalas, “Epicureanism and Molyneux’s Question”, in G. Feretti and B. Glenney (eds.), Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy, London: Routledge, 2020, p. 36-48). In other words, while Scalas’ analysis of the Epicurean theory of living things is useful, I think a more explicit discussion how her reading of the soul-body relationship differs from other existing readings and how this relates to contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind would have made the book even better.
5My second point concerns the first section of the book that deals with material component parts of the soul. The interpretative puzzle raised by the passages examined in this section is that Lucretius and later testimonia explicitly distinguish four component parts of the soul, whereas Epicurus’ Epistola ad Herodotum is less clear. It can be taken to distinguish different component parts, as on the traditional reading, which Scalas calls “coherentist” (p. 128-132). On this reading, all extant textual evidence is taken to agree with each other and there is only one Epicurean theory of the soul. On a more recent, revisionist reading, by contrast, which Scalas calls “evolutionist” (p. 133-138) and which has more recently been championed by Francesco Verde, the passage in the Epistola ad Herodotum is taken to talk about one uniform soul with a difficult to describe nature (see, for instance, “Monismo psicologico e dottrina dell’anima in Epicuro e Lucrezio”, in E. Canone (ed.), Anima-corpo alla luce dell’etica: Antichi e moderni, Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2015, p. 49-64; “Gli epicurei e la psicologia di Epicuro”, in F. Alesse et al. (eds.), Studi su ellenismo e filosofia romana, Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2017, p. 33-64; and “The Partition of the Soul: Epicurus, Demetrius Lacon, and Diogenes of Oinoanda”, in B. Inwood and J. Warren (eds.), Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 2020, p. 89-112). On this reading, the Epicurean conception of the soul is said to have developed over time, with the Epistola ad Herodotum representing an early stage of the development and passages in later authors representing a later stage. In her book, Scalas argues for the evolutionist reading. One big challenge for this reading is that it relies on certain assumptions on how to date the Epistola ad Herodotum vis-à-vis different books of Epicurus’ De natura, assumptions that were first developed by David Sedley (for instance, in Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom, Cambridge University Press, 1998). Since we only have fragmentary evidence of De natura, a chronological reconstruction must remain somewhat speculative, and I remain skeptical that we can really discern distinct phases in Epicurus’ thought. What I found rather strange about this section of the book, however, is that Scalas distinguishes a third reading of the relationship between the discussion of the component parts of the soul in the Epistola ad Herodotum and in Lucretius and later testimonia, which she calls “compatibilist” (p. 132-133). According to Scalas, this reading recognizes the differences between the Epistola ad Herodotum and other texts, but explains the difference of the letter and other texts by the fact that the letter is an epitome, which must leave out certain ideas. First, it seemed to me that this reading is a version of the traditional reading. Second, Scalas does not quote anyone who actually defends this view. Certainly, one might think that it is only a possible reading, but then Scalas’ comments at the beginning of her discussion on how to resolve the interpretative debate seem to indicate that she is discussing actual, not merely potential solutions: “Face aux différences évidentes entre les comptes rendus de la doctrine de l’âme d’Épicure et celle de Lucrèce, les commentateurs et les spécialistes de l’épicurisme ont proposé des interpretations afin de résoudre cette difficulté, à partir de la moitié du XIXe siècle” (p. 127, emphasis added).
6Be this as it may, let me end by reiterating that Scalas’ book is a solid piece of scholarship that provides a valuable contribution to the existing literature. I hope it will find many readers.
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Jan Maximilian Robitzsch, « Giula Scalas, La théorie épicurienne du vivant. L’âme avec le corps », Philosophie antique [En ligne], Comptes rendus en pré-publication, mis en ligne le 22 avril 2024, consulté le 21 mai 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/philosant/9691
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