Lucretius and the Materialism of the Imaginary

Abstract

The text proposes a reading of the theory of the imaginary of Lucretius in line with a materialism of the imaginary akin to that of Spinoza and Althusser. This materialism argues that the imaginary implies a specific mechanism producing a specific effect. In Lucretius the specific operation is the obsession with imagining ourselves watching and the effect that follows from it is the belief in a separable and immortal soul. The demonstration rests on the finite nature of our imaginary: our inability to represent death. The argument will unfold seeking to resolve the problem presented to Epicurean and Lucretian philosophy by fear of death understood as fear of lack of sensitivity, for this fear does not seem to dissipate in front of the thesis that death is nothing to us. The article will try to demonstrate, finally, that the fear of death and the belief in an immortal soul separable from the body are necessarily linked in all cases.