In Renaissance philosophy, Pietro Pompanazzi (1462–c. 1525) was typical. He concluded that Aristotelianism could not prove the independent existence of the soul and though he did not deny the soul’s immortality, he thought that the question was insoluble and that, therefore, a system of ethics based on rewards and punishments after death was meaningless. Instead, he thought we should construct a system that related to this life. ‘The reward of virtue is virtue itself,’ he said, ‘while the punishment of the vicious is vice.’ The religious authorities looked on Pompanazzi with disfavour and he
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