The fear of death is irrational; death should be nothing to us. According to Epicurus, death involves neither pleasure nor pain. If pain is the only thing bad for us, then death is not bad for us. The conclusion of his argument is true if one accepts the premises to be true. The first premise must be true based on Epicurus’ metaphysics of atomism. If trying to attack his argument, it must be on the second premise. When Epicurus says “death,” he did not mean the process of dying which could inflict pain and therefore be bad for us. Epicurus also did not mean the moment of death which could also be good or bad for us. What he meant was being dead. If the metaphysical insinuation that one does not exist after death and there is nothing beyond death is accepted, then his argument is sound. Epicurus claims that one should not fear death because “Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist” (Letter to Menoeceus, 125). Death might be alarming to an individual because they do not know what to expect, or fear that they will not meet expectations. Epicurus states that when one dies, they no longer exist. If one no longer exists then being dead is not bad, and if being dead was bad, one would not exist to experience it. Therefore death …show more content…
This same argument becomes very controversial. Epicurus is an empiricist and relies on senses to make judgements and evaluate the world around him. Epicurus believes that the soul provided the body with facial expressions and motion in general. The soul must be material for these actions to occur. Epicurus thought it made little sense to claim that the soul was not material because something that was of the void could neither act or be acted upon and the soul both acts and is acted upon (Letter to Herodotus,
Epicurus was a philosopher who was born in 341 BC and lasted until 270 BC. He examined the situation of death and came to the conclusion that once one is dead, no harm can be done, due to the fact that they no longer exist. Stephen E. Rosenbaum is a philosophy professor. Rosenbaum wrote the essay “How to Be Dead and Not care”, in which he explains Epicurus’ views and then defends Epicurus’ beliefs about death. The reason why he defends Epicurus, is because he’s being logical. Rosenbaum also believes that we spend too much time thinking about death, which is something we will never have to experience. However, Thomas Nagel who’s a philosophy and law professor, disagrees with both Epicurus and Rosenbaum. Nagel believes that one doesn’t have to experience
Both Lucretius and Marcus Aurelius think we fear death because of some different, yet also similar factors. Lucretius believes religion is the biggest problem why one fears death. We as humans believe that somehow the soul survives death, so when we further think about death, we consider that we will still be existing, but not living. These ideas lead us to the fears of what punishments we may face in the next life, and we are afraid of all the things we will miss once we are no longer here. Marcus Aurelius similarly believes that we fear death because we are not clear on what will happen to us after it. We are not certain if the gods exist, so we can never know what they are like. Moreover, we fear death ultimately because it remains something that we have absolutely no
I only see him being right if you look at death as something that is a positive idea. When death gets looked at as nothing but not looked at as something positive in the same sense, people are going to grieve about it. Epictetus’ argues we should not grieve because death is natural. Well if we look at it that way, then grieving is a natural emotion also. We cannot control what comes to us naturally. The grieving process can end up becoming a long stressful process. Therefore grieving can become a huge problem in someone’s life that can cause him or her to become irritable and intolerable to others. According to Epictetus’ philosophy, the point of life is to be happy. Grieving is going to cause your life to be the opposite. Attempting to ignore death is only going to cause us to think about it more. Constantly thinking of the loss of your loved one is going to cause you to think of them. Most likely, he or she will go on to think of the memories they had with their loved one and then continue to go through the grieving
A1 and A2 are easily granted points. Once one is dead he certainly ceases to exist and because of this feels no pain. A4 is where more of the controversy comes in. Epicurus makes a big jump by correlating pain and badness together. It can be granted that being dead is not a painful experience, but to say that because it is not painful it is not bad for the person who died is highly controversial. This is the point I will argue in the paper. A4 rests on a very faulty premise and thus A5 must be revised.
Marcus' philosophy of death is not complicated but must be known to understand life. Marcus believes death to be molecules dissolving to the Earth on a physical plane. All people should understand this, and when they do they will not fear death because they will understand the process. Marcus understands that man should not fear death because it is natural and "only children are scared by a natural process" (2:12). If man does not fear death then they will live their lives without fear. If man lives without fear then their lives will, in turn, be ideal.
Socrate explains the fear of death to be irrational, as it would be ignorant to think that death was the greatest of evils and not consider it to possibly be the greatest blessing to mankind. He believes that death is either lead to and process much like sleep in which the sleeper doesn 't dream, or another in which it is like a trip where all dead souls are traveling from one place to another in which they all meet. Ultimately Socrate believes the truth to be that a good man would have no fear of what is after death as nothing can or will hurt a good man. Socrate 's view that fear of death being irrational is fair, despite arguments can be made on whether their is a heaven or hell, or an afterlife. The true argument doesn 't revolve around
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.
Death is part of the circle of life and it's the end of your time on earth; the end of your time with your family and loved ones. Nobody wants to die, leaving their family and missing the good times your loved ones will have once you pass on. In the Mercury Reader, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross “On the Fear of Death” and Joan Didion “Afterlife” from The Year of Magical Thinking” both share common theses on death and grieving. Didion and Kübler-Ross both explain grieving and dealing with death. Steve Jobs commencement speech for Stanford’s graduation ceremony and through personal experience jumps further into death and how I feel about it. Your time is on earth is limited one day you will die and there are many ways of grieving at the death of a loved one. I believe that the fear of death and the death of a loved one will hold you back from living your own life and the fear of your own death is selfish.
If one fears death, then one claims to know that death is not the greatest of all blessings for man.
To understand Epicurus's philosophy on the fear of death, we fist have to understand Epicurus's perception of the universe, and why he believes the soul is mortal. Epicurus believes that the totality of the universe consists only of "bodies and void" (Letter to Herodotus 39). He says that using out senses, we can observe that there are bodies, and using reasoning we must therefore conclude that there must be something (a "void") for the bodies to exist in (Letter to Herodotus 39-40). He claims there can be nothing conceivable outside the totality, since there can be no sense-evidence of anything outside the totality (Letter to Herodotus 40). By this logic, all observable things must be bodies or combinations of bodies, of which the smallest bodies (atoms) are unsplittable (Letter to Herodotus 40).
Many people seem to fear death, but philosophers such as Socrates and Epicurus would argue that one has no reason to fear it. Socrates sees death as a blessing to be wished for if death is either nothingness or a relocation of the soul, whereas Epicurus argues that one shouldn't worry themselves about death since, once we are gone, death is annihilation which is neither good nor bad. Epicurus believes that death itself is a total lack of perception, wherein there is no pleasure or pain. I agree with Epicurus because Socrates doesn't give a sound argument for death as a blessing, whereas Epicurus' argument is cogent. I would also argue personally that death is not something to be feared because, like Epicurus, I see no sufficient evidence showing we even exist after death.
Intro : Introduce the concept of death, and how the concept of death is shown to be something to be feared
Russell discussed the finality of Death. He argues that there cannot be life after death and that after the destruction of our body’s that our memories and personality are destroyed as well. He discusses the importance of fear when dealing with death. He states that this is the strongest emotion and he also states that it is instinctive and biological and that it is useful. He thinks that if we truly believed in future life that we should have no fear of death. I have a few opinions about this subject. For one I think that fearing death can be to your advantage. For instance I know people who believe in the after life but they still fear death. Having this fear of death prevents them from doing any harm to themselves. Also not knowing what awaits them in the after life could cause this fear as well. This also has to do with religions there are some that believe strongly that there is life after death and that it is their destiny to be with God.
...ording to Heidegger, become fearful of the prospect of death. He argues the correct response to death in one’s life is a form of ‘brave anxiety’ (Heidegger, pge 310, 1978). There is a distinction between this anxiety and outright fear towards death, where fear is attached to some object, person or idea (in this case the prospect of death). Anxiety involves what Heidegger describes as an ‘impassioned freedom towards death’ (Heidegger, pge 310, 1978) due to the fact anxiety is concerned with human freedom or lack thereof regarding choices we cannot make. As pointed out earlier death is out of our control and therefore should be regarded with anxiety rather than outright fear of something we cannot control. Heidegger seeks to explain death in these ways because he wishes to explore how the anxiety of death is related to being, not due to some kind of morbid curiosity.
Socrates states, “death may not in fact prove the greatest of all blessings for mankind; but people fear it as if they knew it for certain to be the greatest of evil”. I agree with Socrates that we don’t know what death is, and it is possible for death to be a good thing. There is not a definite answer to what death feels like or what happens after you die. Even when we ask people about death, we are going to get infinite ideas about death. If we do not know about death then why fear something we do not know. We also cannot decide whether death is actually considered “evil”. There are many circumstances that people may think that it is better for a person to die than to live. In medical practices there is term known as euthanasia, which is intentionally ending a life in order to relive pain or medical assisted suicide. We cannot determine whether it is a bad for a person to die because this may actually end their