Divination

- the attempt to predict future events which

on the face of them are fortuitous

De Divinatione
- a form of conversation between
Marcus Tullius Cicero and his
brother Quintus about divination

Marcus Tullius Cicero

 Divination was practiced in Rome
in many ways:
Study of the stars (Astrology)
Observation of the flight of the birds
Inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals
Interpretation of dreams
Consultation of oracles
 De Divinatione

Quintus Cicero Marcus Cicero

-defends divination and -denies the equivalence

claims that religion stands and denounces divination
or falls with the belief in it as puerile superstition

-draws his argument from -based his arguments to

Chrysippus Carneades
We do not know the reason
that links the sign and the
signified, but we do know
that there is one.

Quintus Cicero
If you seek something, ask
someone learned on that matter,
not a soothsayer.

Marcus Cicero
 Not all soothsayers
predictions come true:
but then doctors too
make mistakes from
time to time.

Quintus Cicero
There are many cases where the
advice of divines was falsified or
disastrous: both Pompey and
Caesar, for instance, had happy
deaths foretold to them.

Marcus Cicero
 If the gods know the future, and do not tell it to us,
then they do not love us, or they think such knowledge
will be useless, or they are powerless to communicate
with us.
But they must know the future, since the future is
what they themselves decree.
So, they must communicate the future to us, and must
give us the power to understand the communication,
which is the art of divination.
Fate a single united series of interconnected causes.

Quintus Cicero
 If an event is a genuine matter of chance,
then it cannot be foretold, because there is no
equivalent of the causal series that enables
astronomers to predict eclipses.
On the other hand, if future events are
fated, then foreknowledge of a future disaster
will not enable one to avoid it, and the gods are
kinder to keep such knowledge from us.

Marcus Cicero
 The predictions that divines offer us contradict
each other: as Cato said, it is a wonder that when
one soothsayer meets another they can keep a
straight face.
It can be argued that against all portents that
whatever is impossible to happen never in fact
happened; and if what happened was something
possible, it is no cause for wonder. - Chrysippus
Mere rarity does not make a portent: a wise
man is harder to find than a mule in foal.

Marcus Cicero
 The belief that mens careers are predictable
from the positions of the stars at their birth is
worse than folly: it is unbelievable madness.
Twins often differ in career and fortune.
The observations on which predictions are
based are quite erratic: astrologers have no real
idea of the distances between heavenly bodies.

Marcus Cicero
 Most of the dreams turn out false, and so
sensible people pay no attention to them.
Since we possess no key to interpret dreams,
for the gods to speak to us through them would be
like an ambassador addressing the Senate in an
African dialect.

Marcus Cicero
"Wherefore, just as it is a duty to extend the
influence of true religion, which is closely
associated with the knowledge of nature, so it
is a duty to weed out every root of
superstition.

Marcus Cicero
The metaphysics of Plotinus begins
with a Holy Trinity: the One , Spirit
and Soul.
- Bertrand Russel
With some qualification it can be said that:
The One (Platonic God)
Intellect (Aristotelian God)
Soul (Stoic God)
1. The One
-The One of the Parmenides and the Idea of the Good in the
Republic
-Beyond being power and dignity
-Utterly simple and undivided, all of a piece, and absolutely
unique
-The most real thing there is
-No predicates can be applied
-Our awareness of it is not through science or understanding
2. Intellect
-Pure activity
- the world of Being, Thought and Life; also contains desire
as an essential element: always desiring and always
attaining its desire
-Two different accounts
a) Intellect emanates from the One
b) daring to apostatize from the One
3. Soul
-Has an arrogant desire for independence, which took the form of a
craving metabolism

-Time
-is the continuous, restless succession of thoughts and actions
-the life of the soul in its transitory passage from one episode of
living to the next
-The immanent, controlling element in the universe of nature
-incorporeal
 THE ONE
The absolute and self-sufficient

emanation/ revolt contemplation

NOUS
The Divine Mind
Eternal and Transcendent

emanation/ revolt contemplation

SOUL
-the dynamic, creative temporal power, both cosmic
(World Soul) and individual (e.g. human consciousness)

The world of the senses