Epicurus on Death: Explanation and Critical Assessment

Introduction: Epicurus and the Fear of Death

Death is a subject commonly contemplated, often with anxiety. People were especially anxious about it during the era when Epicurus was establishing his personal philosophy and conveying it to his fellow human beings. Epicurus, however, held that one ought not to be afraid of dying: "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" (Epicurus, 1966). There are a number of reasons that make death a terrifying subject for people: they fear divine wrath; they are uncertain about what follows death; they worry about failing to achieve particular life goals; and so forth.

According to Epicurus, a person ceases to exist after death, and such a state of non-existence is not bad. Even if it were bad, one would not experience anything bad, simply because one would no longer exist. Therefore, death is no event to fear.

The Materialist Soul and Its Implications

Epicurus's most powerful — and perhaps most debatable — argument regarding death arises from his view that the soul is an impermanent and material thing. As an empiricist, Epicurus used his senses to obtain the facts he employed in assessing and judging the world around him (Glannon, 1993; Warren, 2001). In his view, a person's soul provided physical locomotion, gave rise to facial expressions, and so on. For the soul to achieve this, however, it had to be material. This is a simplified materialist argument that corresponds to Epicurus's thinking on the soul: a causal body–soul interaction is only possible if the soul is material. Since such a causal interaction does indeed exist, the soul must be material.

This materialist outlook of the human soul underpins Epicurus's strongest argument against fearing death. If the soul perishes along with the body, one need not fear death at all, for one will cease to exist and thus will not experience death. Here, again, the philosopher draws on his senses for knowledge of the world. Upon death, an individual no longer moves; the body decays and turns cold. The material soul ought to scatter at death, causing the body to become cold, since the soul can no longer hold the body together (Glannon, 1993; Warren, 2001). As an atomist, Epicurus maintained that every atom or element of the human body — including the soul — simply disperses back into the surrounding universe. This eliminates the possibility of sense perceptions, since the soul can only access the senses through the body. It also explains why disembodied souls are incapable of emotional response. Thus, in every relevant sense, Epicurean philosophy concludes that death is not painful.

Defining Death and the Problem of Harm

In certain respects, Epicurus's claim may be considered vague. A chief ambiguity lies in his very definition of death. If he means the process by which life ends, this raises a further interpretive issue: he may intend to establish that death and the events following it never affect us. From this follows the idea that such events — and death itself — are harmless, provided that an event is thought to cause harm only when we are affected by it at some point in time, possibly well after its occurrence (Partridge, 1981).

However, nothing stated thus far excludes the possibility of death affecting a person at the precise moment it occurs. The problem is especially acute when we consider that it is a living, breathing individual who may suffer harm at the time of death. Can we prove that death has no impact on a person at the moment it occurs? There are perhaps two ways to argue this (Partridge, 1981). First, one may argue that death occurs only after a person ceases to exist — though this leads to the strange consequence that death can only affect one if posthumous events affect one, ultimately leading again to the conclusion that death has no impact on us. Second, one may argue that death happens instantaneously and too swiftly to have any impact at all.

Some theoreticians define "death" — understood as life's ending — in terms indicating that it occurs after one ceases to exist. Levenbook's (1984) definition of death is "the first moment of the subject's nonexistence." This definition may be inspired by the difficulty of ascribing death to a moment when traces of life still remain. Yet it is equally difficult to ascribe death to the moment following the completion of "dying," and to speak of life's end only after a person has entered the state of the dead. It also means conceding too much to Epicurus, who can then claim that death is harmless simply by pointing out that events occurring after death are harmless.

Rather than attempting to prove that death cannot affect a person, an Epicurean may contend that death does not negatively affect humanity. To prove this, they may put forward some condition for something being harmful and then claim that death does not satisfy that condition.

Conclusion

Epicurus offers a philosophically powerful case that death does us no harm: once we no longer exist, there is no subject left to suffer any harm. His materialist account of the soul reinforces this by eliminating the possibility of post-mortem sensation. Nevertheless, the argument rests on definitions and conditions — of "death," "harm," and "welfare" — that remain contested and, in places, vague. Theorists such as Levenbook, Rosenbaum, and Partridge have refined and challenged these conditions, revealing tensions within the Epicurean framework.

Most importantly, even if Epicurus successfully demonstrates that death in its cessation sense is harmless, he may still fall short of his own stated goal. Achieving complete ataraxia requires freeing individuals not only from the fear of death as a final state but also from anxiety about the painful processes that may precede it — processes his argument does not fully address. In this respect, the argument, though elegant, leaves the comprehensive task of philosophical consolation unfinished.

References

Epicurus. (1966). "Letter to Menoeceus." In J. Saunders (Ed.), Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle. New York: Free Press.

Fischer, J. M. (Ed.). (2014). "Mortal Harm." In S. Luper (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Glannon, W. (1993). Epicureanism and death. The Monist, 76(2), 222–234.

Levenbook, B. (1984). Harming someone after his death. Ethics, 94(3), 407–419.

Partridge, E. (1981). Posthumous interest and posthumous respect. Ethics, 91(2).

Rosenbaum, S. (1986). How to be dead and not care: A defense of Epicurus. American Philosophical Quarterly, 23(2), 217–225.

Warren, J. (2001). Lucretius, symmetry arguments, and fearing death. Phronesis, 46(4), 466–491.