God and the soul,

166 Pages·1969·5.539 MB·English

by  Peter Thomas Geach

EX UBRIS

STUDIES IN ETHICS AND THE
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION
The Series is meant to provide an opportunity for philosophical
discussions of a limited length which pursue in some detail
specific topics in ethics or the philosophy of religion, or topics
which belong to both fields. For the most part, the Series will
present work by contemporary philosophers. The contributors,
while not representing any single philosophical school, will be in
sympathy with recent developments in philosophy. Occasionally,
however, unpublished material by earlier philosophers, or works
of importance which are now out of print, or not easily accessible,
will appear in the Series.
D. Z. PHILLIPS
God and the Soul
by
PETER GEACH
London
ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL
First published in 1969
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited
Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane
London, E.C.y
Printed in Great Britain by
The Garden City Press Limited
Letchworth, Hertfordshire
(g) Peter Geach 1969
No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without permission from
the publisher, except for the quotation
of brief passages in criticism
SBN 7100 6323 7
Contents
Page vii
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
P R E F A C E XXI
1. REINCARNATION I
2. IMMORTALITY j 7
3. WHAT DO WE THINK WITH? 3O
4. FORM AND EXISTENCE 42
5- WHAT ACTUALLY EXISTS 65
6. CAUSALITY AND CREATION 75
7. PRAYING FOR THINGS TO HAPPEN 86
8. ON WORSHIPPING THE RIGHT GOD IOO
9. THE MORAL LAW AND THE LAW OF GOD II7
INDEX I3 I
V

Analytical Table of Contents
i. Reincarnation
Reincarnation as here discussed consists in one and the
same human mind’s successively animating two different
human bodies. I shall not consider supposed cases where a
mind animates now a human, now a non-human body; and
I confine myself to Western conceptions pp. 1—2
Given some human body or other, there is the same
person just so long as there is the same mind pp. 2—3
Locke’s doctrine of personal identity is indefensible;
and his view of responsibility is morally repugnant pp. 3—4
Do we understand propositions like ‘I lived in pre-
Christian Rome’ apart from memory? This could be main¬
tained if we accepted such views of the meaning of ‘I’ as
McTaggart and Descartes argued for. But we must re¬
member that there can be a spurious impression of having
understood an incoherent supposition pp. 4-5
The arguments of McTaggart and Descartes were de¬
signed to show that each one of us can arrive at indubitable
empirical propositions about the individual that he signifies
by ‘I’, in a certain soliloquistic use of this word pp. 6-7
These propositions are to be indubitable answers to
questions like ‘Who is now in pain?’. ‘Who is now puzzled?’
But since the ordinary answers to these ‘Who’ questions are
by stipulation excluded, the questions have been deprived
of sense p. 7
God and the Soul
Descartes fell into the Masked Man fallacy p. 8
In many soliloquistic uses, T does not refer to an indi¬
vidual. Though ‘I’ in soliloquy can refer to the person
speaking, such cases are no help to Descartes pp. 8—9
Could ‘I’ refer, not to some personality, in the ‘multiple
personality’ sense? The criterion of identity for person¬
alities is obscure; and we are hardly likely to make intelli¬
gible the transference of a personality from one body to
another pp. 9-10
But suppose a man’s ‘memories’ of his life as Julius
Caesar were borne out by historical facts they led us to
discover? pp. 10-11
We need to grasp certain truths about memory:
(1) There are false memories p. 11
(2) There is no inner self-authenticating sign by which
to tell memory-knowledge from possibly false memory-
belief; this does not justify scepticism pp. 11-12
(3) There are episodic memory-judgments pp. 12-13
(4) A judgment does not count as a memory-judgment
if it has an unacceptable provenance, e.g. other people’s
information or post-hypnotic suggestion pp. 13-14
If a surgeon could stuff someone else’s brain with'mem-
ories’ of my life, these would not be memories; nor would
a person thus claiming to be Peter Geach actually be Peter
Geach pp. 14—15
‘Memories’ of what Julius Caesar did would raise an
irremovable doubt as to whether their claim to be memories
is not vitiated by their provenance p. 15
The argument about what ‘only Julius Caesar can have
known’ is grossly inconsistent if applied to such ‘memories’
P*
So the notion of reincarnation we have been examining
has no clear sense p. 16
2. Immortality
I shall be discussing survival of bodily death, rather
than endless survival p. 17
viii