Depression versus perserverance

[Sethomas]

I'm reading The City of God Against the Pagans and have been quite surprised by a passage on the splendors of existence. Augustine (my patron saint) here says that human nature is to prefer an eternity of unhappiness to non-existence. He also proposes that nobody can be so miserable that death would seem desirable. We know that this isn't true because depression causes thousands of suicides every year.

Is it most likely that Augustine, one of the most intelligent persons in history, was so wrong simply because society had not yet developed to the point of harbouring such strong depression back around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire? Obviously chemical imbalances still existed back then, but perhaps people expended too much effort in the struggle to survive to contemplate giving up.

"Everyone prefers to be unhappy and sane rather than joyful and mad."

I really don't know about that one.

[Perndog]

In Augustine's day, people were stronger in their convictions and not so easily beset by depression - they led harder lives in general than we do now, so there were not a lot of things that could drive people into suicidal depression. Suicide was (and is) a sin to the Christians, and fear of God could have kept many alive.

I think Augustine wasn't making a universal point, it sounds to me like he saw life as such a great thing that even in the shoes of the most miserable person he would not choose death. It seems like a subjective matter to me; whoever does not have a strong conviction against suicide or a strong admiration for life is capable of suicide, while one who does possess those convictions is not.

I disagree with the last quote, as well. And in no way does intelligence ensure that Augustine is right or even close about anything - Galileo was damn smart, too, but many of his theories got thrown out the window by his successors.

[FartinMowler]

Some times it's good just not to think too much. :)

[punkgrrrlie10]

I was a philosophy major in college and it wasn't until after I graduated that I realized what bothered me abour philosophers. Most philosophers use logic to deduce universal truths about people but people are too complex to have one universal definition, only universal definitions about different types of persons. I think people spend their entire life looking for that answer when it may not exist or we aren't meant to find out. That doesn't mean we don't expand ourselves and discover who we are, but someone else's "truth" will not necessarily be one's own.