Epicurus Fear Of Death Research Paper

When people ponder death they wonder about the unknown with trepidation. As a young man, William Cullen Bryant wrote the "Thanatopsis." His thoughts progress from the fear of death to the acceptance of the event. People should not fear death because everyone dies and becomes a part of nature.

This paper will analyze Lucretius’ symmetry argument in De Rerum Natura, and draw evidence in its conclusion that supports the Epicurean notion, of the nature of nothingness in death. In Epicurus’ “Letter to Menoeceus”, he argues that death is nothing to us and thus should not be feared. Epicurus’ views on death follow from his metaphysical and ethical views. He believed that the goodness or badness of something was directly correlated to its tendency to produce pleasure or pain. Death was simply the privation of the sense-experiences that we encounter every day. He also argues that death is not yet present when we are alive, and that we are not alive when death is present. Epicurus’ argues that the combination of these two arguments should deter us from fearing death. In Lucretius’s symmetry argument, every individual in the universe is made up of a specific combination of body and soul atoms. He argues that the finite body and soul atoms of each individual have recombined an infinite number of times. He further claims that because our atoms are finite, we have all existed an infinite number of times but recall our past lives due to the separation of our body and soul. Regardless of whether the soul is immortal or not, an individual’s sense experience dies along with the destruction of the body and soul. Understanding Lucretius’ and Epicurus’ views on death, we can conclude that they both support the notion of death being nothing to fear. They acknowledge that there is no

This philosophy is known as the Epicurean philosophy. Although Lucretius is very straightforward about his beliefs on how the world is created, he offers this philosophy as a personal remedy to soothe people who are afraid to die. In a way, this act is similar to Socrates’ idea of comforting his friends while he approached his death. Although the two famous philosophers both had completely different ideas about life and death, they both tried to soothe their audience about death in their own way. The Epicurean philosophy focuses on two aspects; hedonism and materialism.

He recommends that we should rid this irrational fear in order to maximize our pleasure and minimize our pain. In his letter, he writes “all things good and bad are experienced through sensation, but sensation ceases at death.” (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus,1) What Epicurus means is that these sensations are only experienced by those that are alive and will cease once our bodies are dispersed back into tiny particles of atoms. What solidifies this argument is Epicurus’s belief of how we experience the sensory world. Epicurus believes that the soul is our bodies access to sense perceptions and experiences.

As mentioned before, both the Apology and the Phaedo argue against the fear of death, but in different ways. The Apology focuses on death as an unknown. If death is truly the point where a

The question of whether death on an expiry date poses a harm to the one who dies has important ontological relevance concerning how we relate to death and including how death causes harm to us. I will argue that what matters for us with respect to life is mental continuity, and that an expiration date is only harmful in that it fails to cohere with our irrational tendency to project our current mortality beyond our own existence. In this paper I will first examine what it means to be harmed and appeal to the Epicurean notion of death to investigate in what sense an individual can be harmed by being in a state of death. Next I will use Nagel’s objections to the Epicurean notion of harmless death to understand how we may be harmed by projecting feelings about our own mortality. Finally, I will appeal to Lucretius’ argument that it is irrational to fear death and demonstrate that death can only harm us by virtue of our own irrational psychological orientation towards death.

Lucretius introduces his argument with an explanation as to why death evokes such fear while at the same time assuring that he will eliminate those fears by disproving

Epicurus’ views are the views of a hedonist; the only thing that is intrinsically good is pleasure. By pleasure, Epicurus does not mean a sexual pleasure, but the “absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul” (Epicurus, n.d., p. 3), which means that pleasure is the absence of pain, so removal of pain equals pleasure. Epicurus believes that living a calm life is better than living a thrilling life. However, a calm life would be boring and without purpose compared to a thrilling life. A thrilling life does not necessarily mean creating excitement in everything you do, but living a meaningful life without being too precarious to avoid pain. Epicurus believes that we should live a calm life to avoid pain and therefore

Although death is inevitable, people still feel fear and angst from being aware of this unavoidable fate. This fear may stem from the dread of no longer being able to engage in activities, or simply from the knowledge that one will someday cease to exist. Whatever the case may be, there are people who tend to avoid death at all costs and strive for a longer life. However, from the views of Stoicism, it is pointless and unnecessary to be troubled by a situation that cannot be controlled. In Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, Seneca suggests that since death is a fixed predisposition, there is no need to bother and worry about a fate that we have no power to alter. There is no good that comes from fearing destiny, and the harder we try to fight our

After reading the excerpt on Epicureanism, the statement, “Death is meaningless to the living because they are living, and meaningless to the dead... because they are dead” speaks of living in the moment. Death is a matter of life that happens to everyone at some point. Unfortunately, there is no possible way to escape death or else we would all be alive forever. Epicurus is saying people should not be so fixated on death to the point that it keeps them from living their life to the fullest. It doesn’t necessarily mean that death is “meaningless”, but rather Epicurus did not want worry about death prior to living. As far as, “meaningless to the dead, because they are dead”, the second part of this statement explains itself. Those that have

For premise B2, it states that there is no more suffering, just peace with oneself. Some might say that is not true, because they might believe that in the Afterlife there will be painful punishments for those who committed sins. In order for those who reject B2, they have to understand Epicurus’s definition of death. “Epicurus claims that death is not the process of dying. Dying is something leading to death, but not death itself. Also, he did not mean the moment of death either.” (Epicurus' Death Argument). The moment of death is what most religious people believe is the Afterlife, and being dead is leading up to the moment of the Afterlife when we may or may not experience that. Once we have understood that, then we can argue against those who reject B2, by saying that the only bad things for you are painful sensations. Quoted by Epicurus, “death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is with out sensation; and which lacks sensation is nothing to us” (128). When we are dead, we do not feel anything at all. It is just a state of non-existence, with complete and total serenity. It is a moment in time when you feel nothing. After that moment has passed, is when the next phase in the Afterlife begins. Therefore, death is not bad for you because it is a moment of non-existence and is painless, and thus you should not fear

After death, a person cannot experience or feel any physical pain and mental turbulence. Death and afterlife shouldn’t be feared. As per him, Epicurus was of the assessment that a man should live straightforward, problem-free life. Extravagances and uncommon wants ought to be ended. The life must be calm and tranquil and simpler to keep up.

Epicurus was an empiricist meaning, he believed that knowledge comes from sense-experience: Everything , good or bad, is experienced through sensation of any outside factors with which we can physically encounter and any non physical factors such as our thoughts and consciousness in our minds and souls (?)(p 1). When the body dies, we therefore cannot experience any of the outside physical things through sensation. The soul is also corporeal(material) as according to epicurus metaphysics of atomism and physicalism it consists of tiny paticles and is spread all over the body . When the body

In Epicurus’s argument he uses the word death a lot. Rosenbaum further explains this by informing us that death in the context in which Epicurus is discussing, is actually being dead. This further proves the notion of death having ambiguous meanings as stated earlier. Also, according to this essay, death is not the issue but rather being dead. What we as humans fear is being dead; and Epicurus wants to get rid of this fear with the help of his argument. Rosenbaum also explains that since we cannot experience anything at the stage of being dead, it is not bad for us. Rosenbaum gives an example of an individual that cannot hear. If there were a bad symphony being played which was unpleasant to the ears, this person would not hear it. For other people

Authors Argument: Epicurus says that people need to start believing that death is nothing. He believes that death is the “privation of all awareness” (Epicurus, pg 103), the complete opposite of the meaning of good and evil, which is having awareness. Epicurus tells us that we must focus on the things that make us happy. In order to know we have lived a happy life we need to end our life with health and tranquility. If people were to figure out that death is nothing, life would be more enjoyable. Instead people are afraid to live their lives because they are afraid of dying. “When we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not” (Epicurus, pg 104). He believes that a person who fears death is nothing but foolish; because death isn’t scary or painful, but what is, is living with the anticipation of it. Epicurus believes that the wise, is the person who does not fear death, but instead this person knows that life is not something to be feared but something that should be lived to the fullest. When we are given the option to choose between something that is to the eyes more pleasant rather than something that seems to be longer or more; we tend to choose the most pleasant looking one. He believes that the worst type of person is the type that says that he