Reason shows mortality. Unamuno, Life 5.1
Reason imposes limits, teaching us that we are mortal, not immortal.
El
gran maestro del fenomenalismo racionalista, David Hume, empieza su
ensayo Sobre
la inmortalidad del alma,
con estas definitivas palabras: «Parece difícil probar con la mera
luz de la razón la inmortalidad del alma. Los argumentos en favor de
ella se derivan comúnmente de tópicos metafísicos, morales o
físicos. Pero es en realidad el Evangelio, y sólo el Evangelio el
que ha traído a luz la vida y la inmortalidad». Lo que equivale a
negar la racionalidad de la creencia de que sea inmortal el alma de
cada uno de nosotros.
Kant,
que partió de Hume para su crítica, trató de establecer la
racionalidad de ese anhelo y de la creencia que éste importa, y tal
es el verdadero origen, el origen íntimo, de su crítica de la razón
práctica y de su imperativo categórico y de su Dios. Mas a pesar de
todo ello, queda en pie la afirmación escéptica de Hume, y no hay
manera alguna de probar racionalmente la inmortalidad del alma. Hay
en cambio, modos de probar racionalmente su mortalidad.
Sería,
no ya excusado, sino hasta ridículo, el que nos extendiésemos aquí
en exponer hasta qué punto la conciencia individual humana depende
de la organización del cuerpo, cómo va naciendo, poco a poco, según
el cerebro recibe las impresiones de fuera, cómo se interrumpe
temporalmente, durante el sueño, los desmayos y otros accidentes, y
cómo todo nos lleva a conjeturar racionalmente que la muerte trae
consigo la pérdida de la conciencia. Y así como antes de nacer no
fuimos ni tenemos recuerdo alguno personal de entonces, así después
de morir no seremos. Esto es lo racional.
The
great master of rational phenomenalism, David Hume (†), begins his
essay On the Immortality of the Soul with
these definitive words: "It seems difficult to prove the
immortality of the soul by the simple light of reason. Arguments in
its favor derive generally from premises that are metaphysical,
moral, or physical. But the truth is that the gospel is the only
thing that has brought life and immortality to light."
This amounts to denying that
it is rational to believe in the immortality of the individual soul.
Taking
Hume as the point of origin for his own critique, Kant sought to
establish the rationality of our desire for immortality,
and of the belief that this desire brings in its wake. This is the
true origin, the intimate origin, of his critique of practical
reason, of his categorical imperative, and of his God. But in spite
of all that, Hume's skeptical observation remains unshaken, and there
is no way to prove the immortality of the soul rationally. But there
are rational ways to prove its mortality.
It
would be wrong, and frankly ridiculous, to spend time here attempting
to set forth the degree to which the individual human consciousness
depends on the organization of the body. To explain how how our
awareness grows little by
little, as the brain receives impressions from outside itself;
how it is interrupted temporally, during sleep,
loss of consciousness, and other accidents; and how it brings us to
the rational conjecture that death entails its permanent loss. As we
did not exist before birth and have no personal recollection of that
time, so after death we shall cease to be. Such is the tale of
reason.
---
(†)
David Hume (1711-1776 CE) was born to the Home family, whose surname
he later altered for himself,
in Scotland. He attended university in Edinburgh very young, perhaps
when he was just 10 years old, and found little to interest him there
besides books, especially ancient ones, remarking to an acquaintance
that these contained anything you might get from a professor. He took
no degree, and worked various
different professions (merchant's clerk, tutor, secretary, librarian)
while writing
freely on subjects that interested him.
He produced several works, notably
these: A Treatise
of Human Nature (published
1739-40), which
was followed by An
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748),
then An Enquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals (1751),
and finally
a massive History
of England in
six volumes (1754-61).
Though
he applied to be considered for a chair of philosophy at the
university of Glasgow, the
atheism apparent in his writings disqualified him. He is most famous
for observing that we cannot establish historical causality with
rational certitude, as every event in history is caused by too many
things in conjunction for us to separate out.
Translating
this perspective into ethics, he argued that irrational passions and
emotions are more fundamental to human nature than reason, which is
properly their servant and not their master—illustrating,
amending, and justifying the orders they give without having
independent orders of its own.