A little divertissement in the form of a dialogue, to end with[1]

“Men die for this reason,
because they cannot join the beginning to the end”

Alcmaeon

Thrasymachus Tell me, what shall I be after death?

Philalethes Nothing.

Thrasymachus There he goes again! The usual nihilist.

Philalethes Do not be hasty in your conclusions. Behind this nothing there hides a circle that makes of existence a perfect circle.

Thrasymachus What do you mean?

Philalethes What else is the end of existence if not the beginning of non-being?

Thrasymachus Certainly, the end of existence is the beginning of non-being. But what does this have to do with the circle?

Philalethes If the end of existence coincides with the beginning of non-existence, then the beginning of existence too coincides with the end of non-being.

Thrasymachus Do you mean that the beginning of my life is nothing other than the end of my non-existence?

Philalethes Certainly. When we come into existence we put an end to our nothing, to our non-existence. It is a victory over nothingness.

Thrasymachus But it is a relative victory! With our death that accursed nothing returns, and forever.

Philalethes The usual vice, you run too fast. Remember that “every truth is curved; time itself is a circle”[2].

Thrasymachus I still do not understand.

Philalethes We said that the beginning of my life is the end of my non-existence and that the end of my life is the beginning of my non-existence. So we have an end of non-existence, that is to say birth, and then a beginning of non-existence, that is, death.

Thrasymachus Good, and so far I have no trouble following you.

Philalethes Then you should already notice an incongruity, a contradiction.

Thrasymachus Which would be?

Philalethes Reflect on this: can a thing end before it begins?

Thrasymachus No. A sporting contest certainly cannot end if it does not first begin.

Philalethes So neither can my non-existence end before it begins.

Thrasymachus So let us see… you are saying that your non-existence ended at the moment you came into the world and that when you depart, your non-existence will begin. So your non-existence, which has ended, because obviously you are already born, will one day begin with your death. A long time from now, I hope for you.

Philalethes Thank you for the wish. In any case yes, it is exactly so. My non-existence, if the registry office does not deceive us, ends and begins. It ends with birth and begins with death. But this means that first it ends and then it begins, it ends before it begins.

Thrasymachus True, it ends before it begins because birth comes before death. But I still do not understand the link with the circle.

Philalethes Do you remember what we said about the fact that a sporting contest certainly cannot end before it begins?

Thrasymachus I do not know whether the principle of non-contradiction is involved, but surely our logic compels us to reject an end that precedes the beginning.

Philalethes And therefore the only way to get out of trouble is to close the circle. If it is true that my non-existence ended at the moment I came into the world, then my very non-existence must already have begun.

Thrasymachus But does the beginning of non-existence not coincide with death?

Philalethes Exactly! That is the point. If my non-existence must already have begun, then I must already have died and therefore must already have lived. One can die only by living.

Thrasymachus Now I have it. The beginning of life is the end of non-existence, but the end of non-existence calls back, a parte ante, the beginning of non-existence, that is death, which calls back, again a parte ante, life, and so on.

Philalethes Just as in a perfect circle.

Thrasymachus True… and yet, come to think of it, there is something that does not add up.

Philalethes What?

Thrasymachus Earlier we said that your non-existence ended at the moment you came into the world and that when you depart your non-existence will begin; but should we not perhaps say that when you depart, your non-existence will begin again? It is wrong to say that non-existence begins, better to say it begins again. In this way we remove the contradiction. We no longer have a non-existence that ends and then begins, but a non-existence that ends and then begins again. If a football match ends before it starts, that is a problem; but if a match ends before it starts again, then everything is fine.

Philalethes Your observation is pertinent, yet it confirms what we have said.

Thrasymachus In what sense?

Philalethes If we say “to begin again” instead of “to begin”, we still always presuppose having already begun. Does not one who dies for the second time begin again not to exist?

Thrasymachus I do not follow you.

Philalethes One can begin a thing again only on condition of having begun it previously.

Thrasymachus True.

Philalethes Then the point is this: if you maintain that when one dies one begins again not to exist, you implicitly affirm that one dies many times and, therefore, that one lives many times. And is this not, perhaps, what we maintained before?

Thrasymachus I must confess to you that all these discourses on non-existence have only confused me. I can no longer make out where the head is and where the tail.

Philalethes The head is the beginning of our non-existence, that is death, and the tail is the end of our non-existence, that is birth. In a certain sense, when we die, we put things back in order by giving to the end its beginning, in a sort of reversed completion. Instead of bringing to a close what we have begun, we give a beginning to what we have finished. And so we close the circle.

Thrasymachus Maybe, but in your reasoning there is something that does not convince me. I think it has to do with expressions like “the beginning of non-existence”. What sense does the statement “the beginning of my non-existence” have? When existence ends, everything terminates and there is nothing left that can begin; when I am dead, I will be nothing anymore and there will be nothing of me that can begin, not even my non-existence. “The beginning of my non-existence” is only a metaphorical expression to say that everything is finished.

Philalethes Now it is you who is the nihilist.

Thrasymachus Nihilist or not, I think it is better to stop. These discourses have only confused my ideas.

Philalethes Then we have not wasted our time and we may as well end here; after all, it is a good beginning.

Notes

[1] A. Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, Milan, Adelphi, 1998, p. 366.

[2] F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Milan, Mursia, 1987, p. 164.

Cristiano Bianconi was born in Perugia in 1968 and graduated in philosophy in Venice. He currently teaches philosophy and history in secondary schools.