In this dissertation I discuss emotional rationality generally, and the fear of death specifically. I argue that the intentionality of emotion is one source of difficulty for philosophers who defend the view that the fear of death is irrational. I suggest that since there are several things we can fear when we fear death, the acceptability of some arguments will vary depending on the objects the arguments presuppose. I also argue that philosophers (...) often employed inappropriate conceptions of emotional rationality. If the conceptual framework in which these philosophers were working is unacceptable, then perhaps their arguments are unacceptable as well. I ultimately develop a view of emotional rationality that takes its inspiration from externalist accounts of belief justification. I try to show that, even if the fear of death is not a "true" emotion, it is nonetheless justified.^. (shrink)

This paper outlines the Epicurean conception of rationality and then tries to assess the merits of the notorious contention of the Epicurean philosophers that it is irrationalto fear death. At the outset, I talk about the nature of harmful emotions or passions, of which the fear of death is an outstanding example: their dependence on one‘s disposition, their cognitive and non-cognitive components, the ways in which these elements may be related to each other, and the healthy (...) counterparts of the passions, namely the ‚bites‘. Next, I distinguish different kinds of fears involving the thought of death and I examine the Epicurean arguments against each one of them: fears about the state of being dead, others about dying prematurely, yet others concerning the dying process and especially the moment when the soul leaves the body and, finally,the fear that we must die sometime. Much of the discussion focuses on the writings of Philodemus . Philodemus offers the most sustained discussion of the fear of premature death and of the fear of dying that survive in the Epicurean literature. In addition, in the peroration of his treatise On Death, he gives a brilliant example of how we can reconcile ourselves with the fact that we shall die sometime and accept our own mortality. My provisional conclusion is that although the Epicurean philosophers often succeed in appeasing our fears about death, for the most part they fail to prove that these fears are irrational. (shrink)

The article investigates how Diogenes of Oenoanda in his huge 2ndcent. AD Epicurean wall inscription deals with the control of fear. It argues for restoring the fragmentary title of Diogenes’Ethics–treatise with “feelings [of soul] and [body]”. In this way the importance given inEthicsto the evaluation of our feelings according to the Epicurean doctrine is reflected in the title. Diogenes in his introduction to the whole inscription lists up the control of irrational fears in the first place of achievements (...) of Epicureanism. The analysis of the relevant passages on hisEthicsresults in assigning fr. 47 III–IV and NF 137 to a subsection dealing with fear of pain from diseases which on the inscription must have followed fr. 48. Fear from gods is abundantly discussed in the recently combinedTheological Physics Sequence. The article argues, that this topic was not treated once more inEthics. Indeed, the “unclear fear” mentioned in fr. 35 (Ethics) refers, as a comparison with Epic.Ep. Hdt. 81–82 and Phld.De DisI shows, not to some sort of feeling triggered by wrong tales on gods, but to an irrational fear of death. (shrink)

The article investigates how Diogenes of Oenoanda in his huge 2nd cent. AD Epicurean wall inscription deals with the control of fear. It argues for restoring the fragmentary title of Diogenes’ Ethics–treatise with “feelings [of soul] and [body]”. In this way the importance given in Ethics to the evaluation of our feelings according to the Epicurean doctrine is reflected in the title. Diogenes in his introduction to the whole inscription lists up the control of irrational fears in the (...) first place of achievements of Epicureanism. The analysis of the relevant passages on his Ethics results in assigning fr. 47 III–IV and NF 137 to a subsection dealing with fear of pain from diseases which on the inscription must have followed fr. 48. Fear from gods is abundantly discussed in the recently combined Theological Physics Sequence. The article argues, that this topic was not treated once more in Ethics. Indeed, the “unclear fear” mentioned in fr. 35 refers, as a comparison with Epic. Ep. Hdt. 81–82 and Phld. De Dis I shows, not to some sort of feeling triggered by wrong tales on gods, but to an irrational fear of death. (shrink)

This paper identifies two possible versions of the Epicurean 'Symmetry argument', both of which claim that post mortem non-existence is relevantly like prenatal non-existence and that therefore our attitude to the former should be the same as that towards the latter. One version addresses the fear of the state of being dead by making it equivalent to the state of not yet being born; the other addresses the prospective fear of dying by relating it to our present retrospective (...) attitude to the time before birth. I argue that only the first of these is present in the relevant sections of Lucretius (DRN 3.832-42, 972-5). Therefore, this argument is not aimed at a prospective fear of death, or a fear of 'mortality'. That particular fear is instead addressed by the Epicureans through the additional premise (found in the Letter to Menoeceus 125) that it is irrational to fear in prospect an event which is known to be painless when present. This still leaves unaddressed the related fear of 'premature death', which is to be removed through the acceptance of Epicurean hedonism. (shrink)

An exposition of Spinoza's views of the cause and cure of death. He holds death to be disruption of mind/body which need not involve becoming a corpse; amnesia counts. It follows that his criterion of personal identity includes memory, so Spinozistic immortality is impersonal. The cause of death is always something external, for nothing can destroy itself. (This principle, however, is not universally true; Spinoza was led to it by mistaken physics.) Suicide is irrational. Fear (...) of death is to be overcome by realization that since adequate ideas are eternal, to the extent that they consitute our minds we are eternal also. (But if so, isn't suicide rational after all? And since language depends on memory, the eternal understanding of adequate ideas is non-linguistic and non-symbolic; what then can it be?). (shrink)

Epicurus (in)famously argued that death is not harmful and therefore our standard reactions to it (like deep fear of death and going to great lengths to postpone it) are not rational, inaugurating an ongoing debate about the harm of death. Those who wish to resist this conclusion must identify the harm of death. But not any old harm will do. In order to resist both the claim that death is not harmful and the claim (...) that our standard reactions to it are irrational, we must identify a harm associated with death that rationalizes our standard reactions. We can divide the potential harm properties death might have along two axes: intrinsic/extrinsic and instrumental/final. This gives us four places to search for the harm of death. I argue that it is nowhere to be found. (shrink)

The fear of death resists philosophical attempts at reconciliation. Building on theories of emotion, I argue that we can understand our fear as triggered by a de se mode of thinking about death which comes into conflict with our will to live. The discursive mode of philosophy may help us to avoid the de se mode of thinking about death, but it does not satisfactorily address the problem. I focus instead on the voluntary diminishment of (...) one’s will to live. I argue that we can encourage a natural tendency for the will to live to decline as we approach death. I then consider two objections: Is not the will to live too fundamental for us to control? And even if we can control it, would not a declining will to live result in a general despair that it is better to resist? I argue that both of these objections can be overcome. (shrink)

Epicurus, born at Samos, Greece, in 341 BC, and died at Athens in 270 BC, founded a school of philosophy in the ancient world which has little to do with the meanings that surround the word "Epicureanism" today and more to do with living a mindful, simple life, maximizing simple pleasures and minimizing pain, such as the irrational fear of death--"Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when (...) class='Hi'>death has come, we are not." Epicurus did not believe that humans would be punished for their sins after death, and stressed the search for lasting pleasures during the life we have, such as tranquility, friendship, and philosophical inquiry. What is good is what is pleasurable and what is bad is what is painful. Epicurus was a prolific author, but very few of his writings have come down to us. Included in this collection, edited and translated by George K. Strodach, are a collection of observations that were preserved by the biographer of ancient philosophers, Diogenes Laertius, and three important letters. (shrink)

Fear, which has always been one of the most powerful of human passions, has grown in importance during modernity. First with Machiavelli and later especially with Hobbes, fear has become one of the foundational ideas of modern political philosophy. If fear, especially fear of death, does indeed occupy a central place in the foundation of modern politics, then it is necessary to study carefully the implications and consequences of the transhumanist attempt to overcome death. (...) Among the main aspirations of transhumanism is the search for almost infinite longevity and, eventually, the total abolition of aging. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the specific role that fear of death has played in modern political philosophy to understand the possible effects that an eventual overcoming of death would have, albeit partial, as wanted by transhumanists. While the possibility of achieving immortality seems unlikely, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t study what’s behind this transhumanist aspiration. In this way, transhumanism seems the final consequence of modern development, since it’s in continuity with the modern attempt to respond to the fear of death, but it does so by trying an ultimate solution to it through the elimination of death, at least by sickness and old age. In this paper, we will review the role of fear of death in the founding of modern political philosophy by Machiavelli and Hobbes, and then we will analyse the transhumanist attempt to overcome death as a consequence of this fear and its possible political effects. (shrink)

Many have said, and I think some have shown, that it is irrational to fear death. The extinction of what is essential to the self—whether it be biological death or the permanent cessation of consciousness—cannot by definition be experienced by oneself as a loss or as a harm.

ABSTRACT According to the Symmetry Argument against the fear of death, our attitudes towards birth and death should be identical. In this paper I defend the Deprivation Account of the badness of death, according to which death is bad because it deprives one of future goods. After rejecting previous attempts to explain and justify the asymmetry in our attitudes towards birth and death I argue that the asymmetry in our attitudes is both explained and (...) justified by the fact that contrary to birth, death is not viewed as a nomologically necessary condition for life, and therefore death is viewed as an unnecessary limitation of life. (shrink)

According to what I will refer to as judgmentalist approaches to the fear of death, the fear of death conforms to the structure implied by judgmentalist theories of emotion. JFD holds that fears of death are constituted in part by evaluative judgments or beliefs about one’s own death. Although many philosophers endorse JFD, there is good reason to believe that it may be problematic. For, there is a troubling objection to judgmentalist theories of emotion; (...) if judgmentalism is false, then so too is JFD. In brief, the worry with judgmentalist theories is this: it is sometimes the case that one has an emotion, but holds a belief that is in tension with the emotion. For example, I sometimes fear flying despite the fact that I believe flying is not dangerous. Emotions of this sort are often referred to as recalcitrant emotions, and they are widely thought to pose a serious challenge to judgmentalist theories. In this paper, I consider an objection to JFD based on the existence of recalcitrant bouts of the fear of death. I include in this discussion an Epicurean-inspired solution to the problem of emotional recalcitrance. Although I argue this solution may be ultimately unsuccessful, I believe it is still worth considering. For, in most discussions of the problem of emotional recalcitrance, philosophers abandon judgmentalism in favour of some other theory of emotion. The Epicurean-inspired solution I discuss in this paper, however, may allow one to retain one’s commitment to judgmentalism. (shrink)

Humans clearly have trouble thinking about death. This trouble is often used to explain behavior like delay in writing wills or buying life insurance, or interest in odd medical and religious beliefs. But the problem is far worse than most people imagine. Fear of death makes us spend fifteen percent of our income on medicine, from which we get little or no health benefit, while we neglect things like exercise, which offer large health benefits.

Increasing evidence suggests that psychedelic experiences, undergone in controlled conditions, can have various durable psychological benefits. One such benefit is reductions in fear of death, which have been attested in both psychiatric patients and healthy people. This paper addresses the question: how, exactly, do psychedelic experiences reduce fear of death? It argues, against some prominent proposals, that they do so mainly by promoting non-physicalist metaphysical beliefs. This conclusion has implications for two broader debates: one about the (...) mechanisms of psychedelic therapy, and one about the potential non-medical uses of psychedelics for the alleviation of existential angst in psychiatrically healthy people. On the first count, the paper argues that the role of metaphysical belief change in fear of death supports the “Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics” (REBUS) model of psychedelic therapy over alternative accounts. On the second count, the paper argues that the role of metaphysical belief change undermines the proposed use of psychedelics in the “neuroexistentialist” project of naturalizing spirituality. The best available evidence suggests that when psychedelic experiences reduce existential angst and restore a sense of meaning in life, they do so primarily by persuading people of the falsity of a broadly naturalistic worldview, and thus do not help reconcile people to the truth of such a worldview. (shrink)

Lucretius points out a puzzling asymmetry in our attitudes towards our prenatal non-existence and our post-mortem non-existence. Normally, we view birth as a happy occasion, and death as a sad event. Some philosophers argue that these asymmetry in our attitude is justified by the A-theory of Time, which reflects the common sense way of thinking about time, and so they discredit the B-theory of Time. In this paper I critically examine these claims and argue that this belief is false. (...) Our attitude is neither justified nor discredited by anything which is in debate between the A-Theory and the B-theory of time. Thus the existence of this asymmetry does not favor one theory over the other, and the dispute between the two theories will have to be settled on other grounds. (shrink)

It is often put forward that the entire political project of epicureanism consists in the overcoming of fear, whereby its scope is deemed to be very narrow. I argue that the overcoming of the fear of death should actually be linked to a conception of freedom in epicureanism. This idea is further developed by Spinoza, who defines the free man as one who thinks of death least of all in the Ethics, and who develops this idea (...) more in the Theological Political Treatise. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyse Adam Smith’s view of death in The Theory of Moral Sentiments for commercial society to determine whether the current commodification of goods (e.g. pharmaceuticals) and services (e.g. cryogenics) to assist people to deal with the fear of death was what Smith envisioned for meaningful existence and to find out what he proposed as a means to manage the fear of death in existence. The investigation revealed that Smith’s (...) book contains many references to death as a source of anxiety that negatively influences the lives of people, their happiness and meaning in life, and ignites fear and anxiety. The cultural measure of Smith’s time to manage the fear of death are magnanimity (e.g. war and suffering), the comfort of wealth, posthumous happiness (e.g. duty and sacrifice) and philosophy (e.g. Stoicism). The problem for Smith is that wealth and commodities, as is the case with the other means to deal with the fear of death, do not result in being-for-itself without the assistance of the impartial spectator which is a cognitive mechanism for self-awareness and socially located meaning-creation in the world with others. (shrink)

It seems that fearing the death and believing in an almost endless cycle of rebirths is a paradox, but in India it is an actual attitude of the majority of religious local creeds. The painful ways in which death happens, the frightening netherworld in which the dead must be punished, the sad missing of one’s family and friends, the uncertainty of the new form in which the imperishable soul (ātman) might dwell in its new life, all these are (...) the basic elements of such a fear. Therefore the solution can be seen only in nirvāṇa, i.e. to be extinguished or not to go any longer. (shrink)

Hobbesian war primarily arises not because material resources are scarce; or because humans ruthlessly seek survival before all else; or because we are naturally selfish, competitive, or aggressive brutes. Rather, it arises because we are fragile, fearful, impressionable, and psychologically prickly creatures susceptible to ideological manipulation, whose anger can become irrationally inflamed by even trivial slights to our glory. The primary source of war, according to Hobbes, is disagreement, because we read into it the most inflammatory signs of contempt. Both (...) cause and remedy are therefore primarily ideological: The Leviathan's primary function is to settle the meaning of the most controversial words implicated in social life, minimize public disagreement, neutralize glory, magnify the fear of death, and root out subversive doctrines. Managing interstate conflict, in turn, requires not only coercive power, but also the soft power required to shape characters and defuse the effects of status competition. (shrink)

James Warren, Facing Death, Epicurus and his Critics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004. Pp. viii, 240. ISBN 0-19-925289-0. $45.00. Reviewed by Thornton Lockwood, Sacred Heart University Word count: 2152 words ------------------------------- To modern ears, the word Epicurean indicates an interest in fine dining. But at least throughout the early modern period up until the 19th century, Epicureanism was known less for its relation to food preparation and more so, if not scandalously so, for its doctrine about the annihilation of the (...) human soul at death, its denial of human immortality, and its attempt to justify the claim that death should not be feared since "Death is nothing to us". Epicureans -- like many ancient schools of thought -- sought to establish an objective "morality of happiness" or rational teaching about right conduct which allowed its practitioners to arrive at a kind of well-being. Epicureans identified such well-being or happiness with "freedom from disturbance" taraci/a ), and insofar as the fear of death undermined such contentedness in life, they presented arguments against the claim that death was a bad thing. Put more concisely, Epicureans believe that, "if we think about death correctly, we think about living a good life correctly, and vice versa". But whereas other ancient thinkers -- most famously Socrates and his students -- had sought to cure the fear of death by positing an immortal soul which philosophy was to prepare for life after the death of one's body, Epicureans took the opposite route and argued that in part it was the longing for an impossible immortality that contributed to the fearfulness of death. JW has done both classicists and philosophers the service of presenting a detailed analysis of the philosophical arguments which Epicureanism -- as found principally in the sayings and correspondence of Epicurus, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, and Philodemus' De Morte -- presented about facing death. As the book's title accurately reflects, the presentation of the arguments is organized in large part as a response to the criticisms which both ancient and modern thinkers such as Cicero, Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams have made against the Epicurean belief about death. JW is principally concerned with the accurate presentation and fair evaluation of philosophical arguments. Much of his analysis will appeal to philosophers interested in the problem of death or the cogency of ancient ethical thought, but, as he also notes, questions about death and how to live a good life are hardly the problem only of philosophical specialists. "If any questions are worth pursuing, these are". Insofar as JW's task requires careful scrutiny of ancient texts, he also sheds light on the proper understanding of difficult Epicurean texts, especially in those cases where different passages from different Epicurean authors appear to be in tension.[[1]] For the aid of philosophers coming to Epicurus without the skills of classicists, JW translates all Greek and Latin texts into English; at the same time, all translations are accompanied by the passage in its original language. The citations and corresponding bibliography are extensive, covering not only the relevant works of contemporary philosophers such as Nagel, Williams, Feldman, and Parfit, but also the philological works of classicists writing on Epicureanism in English, French, Italian, and German. The volume concludes with a helpful index locorum. The Epicurean belief that "death is nothing to us" is meant to correct the mistaken beliefs which people have that generate a fear of death. But as JW acutely notes, precisely what is fearful about death is ambiguous. On his analysis, it could include at least four analytically distinct fears: 1) the fear of being dead ; 2) the fear that one will die ; 3) the fear of premature death ; and 4) the fear of the process of dying. JW claims that "there is no single Epicurean 'argument against death'. Rather, they had an armoury of arguments which could be deployed against the various different kinds of fear of death". Thus, JW organizes his book into chapters which consider the "armoury"of arguments made against each of these four fears. After an initial introductory chapter which analytically distinguishes the different fears of death, JW next devotes chapters to: the argument that, since humans are without perception of death and the process of death, neither should be feared ; the "symmetry argument" which seeks to prove that apprehension about the coming end of life is as irrational as apprehension that one's life did not begin earlier ; and the Epicurean analysis of what constitutes "completeness" in life. In these first four chapters, JW lays out all the arguments which the Epicurean makes against each of the four fears, considers counterarguments which have been made by ancient and modern authors, and then evaluates the overall strengths and weaknesses of each argument. A fifth chapter considers a slightly different argument, namely one which alleges that either the historical fact that Epicurus wrote a will or the Epicurean attitude towards suicide generate inconsistencies between Epicurean theories and actual Epicurean practice. Finally, a sixth chapter summarizes and evaluates as a whole the Epicurean project to rid humans of their fear of death. Although all of JW's analyses are thorough and detailed, let me focus upon his evaluation of some of the more central -- and more difficult to justify -- claims which Epicureans make to give a sense of JW's argumentation. With respect to the fear of being dead or not existing, Epicureans claim that since the atoms which make up a person dissipate upon death, then there is no person who could perceive any postmortem harm, and thus there is nothing to fear about death itself. Philosophers like Thomas Nagel have raised against this argument examples which appear to justify the belief that postmortem non-perceived harms are something in fact that should be feared.[[2]] For instance, there seems to be something fearful about the death of an individual who does not get the chance to see his or her children grow up, but such a scenario seems to be an example of something which "harms" that individual even though the individual is dead and incapable of feeling or perceiving anything. The case is related to the problem of dying before one's life is "complete," but a merit of JW's analyses of the different fears of death is that it shows that the Epicurean has two distinct arguments against the claim that such a scenario is fearful, one of which concerns the question of fearing something which happens after one's death, the other which concerns the question of fearing that one's life ends before it is complete. With respect to the first question, JW suggests that the source behind our intuition that premature death could be an unperceived harm is a "comparative" evaluation with a non-tragic death. For instance, it is not implausible to say that a child raised in a less developed country has been "harmed" in comparison to a child growing up in a country with adequate access to schooling and health care.[[3]] Even if the child raised in the less developed country never perceives the harm, in comparison to the life she or he might have lived elsewhere such lowered access to resources seems to be a "harm". But, although the case of children being raised with different levels of access to resources may have a place within the question of global justice, the case of such "unperceived" comparative posthumous harms fails as a counter argument to the Epicurean position. In the original example, it was thought that dying before seeing one's children grow up is an unperceived harm because we know of other individuals who have had that opportunity, and comparatively the former individual seems to be "harmed." One of the main problems with such a counter argument, according to JW, is that it ends up proving too much. Since one could imagine for almost every death a comparative case which was better, the counter argument makes almost every conceivable death a "harm" to the individual who died. In JW's words, "given the thought that death may rob us of goods we would have experience were we to die later, it is difficult to resist the thought that any death will fit this description". But the force of the counter argument is supposed to seize upon the case of a "tragic death" where someone is prematurely struck down before life is complete. If all deaths are tragic, none is. If the claim that death is to be feared because of unperceived harms in the case of comparative loss is unpersuasive, what about the claim that death is to be feared instead because it sometimes strikes before one has arrived at completeness or fullness in life? Solon famously claimed that we must "look to the end" and call no man happy until his life is complete; Aristotle picks up on Solon's remarks in part because eudaemonists have traditionally placed special emphasis on "completeness" as a criterion of a life well-lived. Should not all fear death because death can strike prematurely, before one has reached the various goals and stages of a life well-lived? JW persuasively argues that Epicureans were concerned with addressing the fear of premature death but that they countered such a fear on the basis of their understanding of completeness and pleasure. A complete life is a good life, but for the Epicureans, the good is pleasure and the highest pl. (shrink)

Of course there is a long history of such sayings in all the world’s main spiritual traditions. Socrates’ remark reminds us at once of Solon’s doleful doctrine that we should call no man happy until he is dead (Herodotus Histories Book 1; Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1100a11). And Bonhoeffer’s famous saying, while it echoes the typical teaching of many Christian spiritual masters, for instance St Thomas à Kempis and Bianco da Siena (the author of that beautiful hymn “Come down O Love (...) Divine”), is ultimately just a paraphrase of Jesus’ even more famous saying that anyone who wants to follow him must “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16.24). (shrink)

Death, violent or otherwise, is a matter of widespread concern with ongoing debates about such matters as euthanasia and the nature of brain death. Philosophers have often argued about the rationality of fear of death. This book argues that that dispute has been misconceived: fear of death is not something that follows or fails to follow from reason, but rather, it forms the basis of reasoning and helps to show why people must be cooperating (...) beings who accept certain sorts of facts as reasons for acting. Within the context of this account of reasons, the book gives a new understanding of brain death and of physician-assisted suicide. (shrink)

In the contemporary fear of death literature, few if any discuss what implications insights from the philosophical literature on emotions might have for arguments about the fear of death’s rationality. I remedy that here. I discuss two types of arguments to conclusions about the fear of death’s rationality. One type is Badness Arguments. The other is Epicurean Arguments. Both argument types have contradictory conclusions. Both employ different conditional claims as their crucial premise. And both (...) presuppose that there is some relation between the fear of death’s rationality and the value of death. I argue these arguments share another feature: they are unsound. This is because the crucial premise of each argument type is false given some plausible analyses of the several conceptions of emotional rationality found in the fear of death literature, analyses that themselves follow from several ubiquitous assumptions about the nature of emotions. (shrink)

Reasons and the Fear of Death is about reasons for acting. As the title suggests, Ewin concentrates specifically on the way in which the fear of death makes certain facts reasons for acting. The book is divided into seven chapters. The first is an introduction.

This book is a concise, clearly written, and rigorously argued discussion of the main question regarding the metaphysics of death. In defending the view that death can harm the person who dies, Jack Li refutes Epicurean and Lucretian arguments that death cannot harm us and that it is irrational to fear death. Epicurus held that a person can be harmed only when he exists. Because death is the end of a person’s existence, (...) class='Hi'>death cannot harm him. Therefore, death should be “nothing to us”. Lucretius offered the following symmetry argument. No one is harmed by, and no one fears, prenatal non-existence. Postmortem non-existence is symmetrical to prenatal non-existence. Therefore, no one can be harmed by postmortem non-existence, and it is irrational to fear this state.To show that the Epicurean and Lucretian arguments are flawed, Li examines three different theories proposed by such philosophers as Thomas Nagel, Joel Feinberg, Jeff McMahan, and Fred Feldman. The first is the “desire thwarting” theory, which says that death can harm us because it thwarts our unconditional desire to continue living. The second is the “deprivation” theory, which says that death can harm us because it deprives us of the goods we would have enjoyed had we …. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the well-being and mental health of populations worldwide. This study sought to examine whether religious coping mediated the relationship between COVID-19-related fear and death distress. We administered an online survey to 390 adult participants (66.15% females; Mage = 30.85 ± 10.19 years) across Turkey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring the fear they had experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, their levels of religious coping and their levels of death anxiety and (...) depression. Our findings revealed that (a) fear of COVID-19 was associated with positive religious coping, negative religious coping, death anxiety and death distress; (b) negative religious coping was associated with death anxiety and depression and (c) negative religious coping mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and death anxiety and depression. These results highlight the detrimental effect of negative religious coping in increasing the adverse effect of the COVID-19 fear on death depression. (shrink)

By focusing on the thought of Classical American philosophers, this article addresses the existential problem of the fear of death. Drawing on the experiences and philosophies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, and Jane Addams as a theoretical framework, a prescriptive claim regarding how to confront human mortality is advanced. It is suggested that embracing the notion of experience as a prelude to the disaster of death can be – despite appearances to the contrary – a useful (...) approach to navigating exigencies connected with mortality and, in particular, fear of death. The essay contributes to a small but growing body of literature on the topic of death in American philosophy scholarship, while addressing a perennial problem receiving treatment in contemporary popular discourse. (shrink)

Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski offer experimental confirmation for Ernest Becker's claim that the fear of death is a powerful unconscious motive producing polarized worldviews and scapegoating. Their suggestion that their findings also prove Sigmund Freud's theory of repression, with worldviews as its irrational products, is questionable, although Becker's own statements about worldviews as “illusions” seem to invite such interpretation. Their basic theory does not depend on this, however, and abandoning it would enable them to (...) take better advantage of their finding that worldviews incorporating the values of rationality and tolerance tend to counteract polarization effects. (shrink)

abstractBy appealing to the similarity between pre-vital and post-mortem nonexistence, Lucretius famously tried to show that our anxiety about death was irrational. His so-called Symmetry Argument has been attacked in various ways, but all of these strategies are themselves problematic. In this paper, I propose a new approach to undermining the argument: when Parfit’s distinction between identity and what matters is applied, not diachronically but across possible worlds, the alleged symmetry can be broken. Although the pre-vital and posthumous (...) time spans that we could have experienced are indeed analogous with respect to our identity, they are not analogous with respect to psychological continuity, which forms the basis of prudential concern. Lucretius even anticipated the Parfitian distinction. He did not, however, notice the significance that it has for his Symmetry Argument. (shrink)

This small book presents a unified, sequential examination of a central theme in Epicurean philosophy: the nature of "irrational fears and desires." Their place in a distinctly practical philosophy, whose avowed intentions were the removal of fear and the cultivation of a securely arranged, pleasant, undisturbed life, must be examined. If security and static pleasures are the standards which the Epicurean sage recognizes as attainable in principle, what accounts for their absence from the lives of the masses? The (...) first chapter, Psychology, demonstrates subtly yet clearly the circle trapping the mass of men. They have irrational, limitless desires which express themselves in avarice, ambition, and amor. Men form an image of Hades which magnifies these: "Greek myths concerning punishment in the underworld have most of them in common some perpetual activity doomed forever to frustration." The terror of such prospects is an entirely irrational fear, since death is not on par with natural perils: timor mortis is only syntactically similar to timor ignis. Yet this irrational fear leads men to try to stave off death by "restless and reckless acquisition of wealth and power." Irrational desires, having only simulacra for their objects, cannot be satisfied, thus becoming self-perpetuating. The fear of Hades, itself a projection of irrational fears, likewise cannot be overcome. (shrink)

In De Rerum Natura III 963-971, Lucretius argues that death should not be feared because it is a necessary part of the natural cycle of life and death. This argument has received little philosophical attention, except by Martha Nussbaum, who asserts it is quite strong. However, Nussbaum's view is unsustainable, and I offer my own reading. I agree with Nussbaum that, as she construes it, the cycle of life argument is quite distinct from the better-known Epicurean arguments: not (...) only does it start from different premises, but it is a completely different type of argument. However, thus construed, it is deeply problematic. It relies on premises that are much more at home in Stoic than in Epicurean ethics, and Lucretius' appeal to nature in this argument contradicts what he says elsewhere in De Rerum Natura. I consider why Lucretius offers what appears to be such a flawed argument, and I propose a reading on which the cycle of life argument could be offered consistently by an Epicurean. The cycle of life argument, unlike the better-known arguments, does not attempt directly to show that death is not a bad thing. Instead, it targets certain destructive attitudes towards one's life that result in one fearing death. By helping relieve the interlocutor of these attitudes, the argument aims at reducing his fear of death. (shrink)

In The Paradigm of Recognition. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death Paul Cobben elaborates a paradigm of recognition based on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.

In Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement, Nicholas Agar presents a novel argument against the prospect of radical life-extension. Agar’s argument hinges on the claim that extended lifespans will result in people’s lives being dominated by the fear of death. Here we examine this claim and the surrounding issues in Agar’s discussion. We argue, firstly, that Agar’s view rests on empirically dubious assumptions about human rationality and attitudes to risk, and secondly, that even if those assumptions (...) are granted, the fears that Agar adverts to are unlikely to dominate people’s lives if and when radical life-extension is made possible. Further, we claim that the structure of the decision-making process around life-extension is unlikely to be the way that it would have to be in order for Agar’s claims about fear of death to make sense. Finally, we argue that Agar is implicitly committed to a narrow conception of human value. In response, we suggest that the pursuit of life-extension can itself be seen as an expression of certain important aspects of our distinctively human nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of EpicurusKelly E. ArensonDavid Konstan. A Life Worthy of the Gods: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus. Las Vegas-Zurich-Athens: Parmenides Publishing, 2008. Pp. xx + 176. Paper, $34.00.In this modestly expanded edition of his 1973 book, Some Aspects of Epicurean Psychology (Brill), David Konstan attempts to flesh out the Epicurean explanation of the causes of unhappiness: “empty beliefs” (kenodoxia)—most importantly, (...) the groundless fear of death—and the irrational desires that fuel and are fueled by them. Konstan’s central argument, preserved from the earlier edition, is deceptively simple: empty beliefs, according to Epicureans, are in large part the product of a symbolic association—a “linguistic confusion”—of the afterlife with certain real-life human ills, such as poverty and obscurity.In the first chapter, which is new to this edition, Konstan calls on psychology to flesh out the Epicurean understanding of empty fears and irrational desires—ancient psychology, that is: a science of the soul. Konstan’s reading of the relation between sensation (aisthēseis), the passions (pathē) of pleasure and pain, and belief (doxa) in Epicurean doctrine is unorthodox but thorough. Rather than mapping pathē onto either the soul as a whole or the body, Konstan assigns pathē to the non-rational part of the soul, the seat of sensation. He locates the emotions, which “do not seem to have a special name in Epicurean theory,” in the rational part (11). Crucial to this schema is Konstan’s claim, based on Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura and Diogenes Laertius’s doxography of Epicurus, that Epicureans did not consider emotions such as fear and joy to be pathē at all, since emotions depend on memory and reasoning, whereas pathē do not. The upshot is that fear, as a rational emotion, involves belief and evaluation, and is therefore susceptible to error; whence the psychological roots of pernicious “empty beliefs.”In chapter two, Konstan addresses the Epicurean conundrum of why humans are plagued by fears and anxieties when their needs are so basic. Konstan takes as an explanation of this phenomenon Lucretius’s analysis of irrational desires and their parasitic relationship [End Page 95] with baseless fears. Out of their fear of death—the fear to beat all fears, according to Epicureans—people irrationally desire goods such as wealth, power, and glory that they mistakenly believe will delay their descent into the underworld. Konstan contends that there was a “symbolic association between poverty and death’s antechamber” that was not merely metaphorical (45); to escape poverty is not to cheat something like death, but to cheat death itself, just as to pursue wealth is literally to pursue life. In their vain quest to waylay death, people resort to greediness, crime, deceit—in short, any behavior that could result in material gain. Unfortunately, these unsavory activities serve only to augment rather than assuage fears, since wrongdoers fear being punished for their illicit deeds. The fear of punishment in turn spurs more irrational desires, forming a vicious cycle of mutually reinforcing behavior and states of mind that are incompatible with tranquility.In the final two chapters, Konstan combs Epicurean social theory for the roots of irrational fears and desires and shows how Epicurean epistemology enables the sage to avoid them. Konstan argues that harmful fears and desires emerged when words came to refer not only to visible sensory phenomena, but also to abstract notions whose referents might be phantoms—misleading accounts of the gods and the limits of desire that do not correspond with reality. In addition, laws served to foment fears of divine retribution and death as lawmakers attempted to regulate behavior by disseminating myths about the wrath of the gods and the afterlife. In the final chapter, Konstan is on well-trodden ground when he claims that the Epicurean sage is able to control fears and desires by understanding the nature of reality, pleasure, and human needs.This book will primarily be of interest to scholars of Epicureanism; the sheer number of footnotes and the technical language make it rather inaccessible to the non-specialist. And the specialist may find that Konstan’s treatment of the... (shrink)

This paper discusses Robin Le Poidevin’s proposal that a commitment to the B-theory of time provides a reason to relinquish the fear of death. After outlining Le Poidevin’s views on time and death, I analyze the specific passages in which he makes his proposal, giving close attention to the claim that, for the B-theorist, one’s life is “eternally real.” I distinguish two possible interpretations of this claim, which I call alethic eternalism and ontic eternalism respectively, and argue, (...) with reference to statements by other B-theroists, that alethic eternalism is the only viable option. I highlight two problems for Le Poidevin’s proposal: firstly, even if alethic eternalism does provide a reason not to fear death, this same reason is available to A-theorists; and secondly, alethic eternalism does not in fact provide such a reason. Having critically assessed possible responses to these problems, I conclude that Le Poidevin’s proposal is unfounded. (shrink)

Internal Rhetorics: Toward a History and Theory of Self-Persuasion is a fitting title for Jean Nienkamp’s book. “Internal Rhetorics” appropriately labels the subject of the study being investigated. The term “internal rhetoric” can be seen as being—as Nienkamp observes—both “obvious and paradoxical”. It is obvious in that it is used in reference to the study of persuasive techniques we use on ourselves. It seems paradoxical, however, to those in the Western tradition who follow Plato in distinguishing the art of rhetoric (...) from the art of philosophy or thought. The study of internal rhetoric is thought by Nienkamp to be a study of mental activity—that of both clarification and of deliberation. As the study is developed, Nienkamp argues that mental activity consists of a number of voices interacting in an attempt to persuade the mind of their influence. This interaction is “internal” in the sense that it happens within the “scene” contributed by the body. (shrink)

The article examines the “philosophy of anxiety” of early Heidegger. The influence of Niet­zsche on the young philosopher is noted, as well as the traumatic experience of World War I, which very strongly influenced the worldview of the author of Being and Time, making him reconsider, among other things, his attitude to the “system of Catholicism”. The article examines Heidegger’s description of the situation where one is seized by anxiety, where one would not expect it at all, where one normally (...) feels at home. Normally, being fallen, that is, being in the world and bustling with daily chores, one feels secure in the midst of beings, at home. However, something happens to him that robs him of his tranquility. This occurs because the existent (Dasein) is disturbed im Grunde seines Seins, at the core of his being; one is aware of his own mortality and the finitude of being, which constitutes a threat, opening the possibility of anxiety (immortal beings, such as angels, treat being dif­ferently, for them the analysis of Dasein is irrelevant). Fear belongs to the ontic, it relates to the fallen state. When one ascends to the Nothingness, which is revealed as Being, that is, when one rises above being in some respect, one surpasses fear as well. In the course of the article, the question of translating some of Heidegger’s concepts into Russian is dis­cussed, which is an urgent task for the Heideggerian studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychological CourageDaniel Putman (bio)AbstractBeginning with Aristotle philosophers have analyzed physical courage and moral courage in great detail. However, philosophy has never addressed the type of courage involved in facing the fears generated by our habits and emotions. This essay introduces the concept of psychological courage and argues that it deserves to be recognized in ethics as a form of courage. I examine three broad areas of psychological problems: destructive (...) habits; irrational anxieties; and psychological servitude in which one individual emotionally controls another. Psychological courage is the strength to confront and work through these problems. Such courage involves facing our deep-seated fear of psychological instability. I conclude that the development of psychological courage is essential to the well-being of many people.Keywordscourage, Aristotle, habits, dependency, rashness, cowardice, anxiety disorders, patienceThe virtue of courage exhibits different forms in human life. Types of courage can be broadly differentiated in terms of the fear which must be faced and the goal to be attained. Two forms of courage have been discussed at some length in the history of ethics. “Physical courage” is characterized by overcoming a fear of death or physical harm. The goals to be achieved by its exercise are traditionally defined by society or by the requirements of survival. The paradigmatic example is Aristotle’s (1987) brave soldier who faces death to defend his city (1115a25–35). Another example would be bravely defending self and family against a threat from nature such as a flood or dangerous carnivore. The second form, “moral courage,” also has some allusions in Aristotle (1115a12–13; 1115b1–2), but Plato’s portrayal of Socrates is in many ways the archetype for moral courage in Western philosophy. While Socrates is also said to have displayed physical courage in defending Athens, it is his fearlessness in defending a deeply held greater moral good against society which has inspired untold numbers of Plato’s readers, from the Stoics to today’s students. 1 In moral courage the major fear is loss of ethical integrity or authenticity, but moral courage is also tied to dealing with social disapproval (Martin 1986, ch. 4; Walton 1986). The person confronting her peer group over a racist joke displays moral courage. In acting courageously the individual maintains moral integrity while at the same time overcoming the fear of being rejected by friends. Other examples abound: the whistle-blower facing ostracism from colleagues for calling attention to injustice in the workplace, or the Quaker or Buddhist protesting against a manufacturer of armaments. Examples of physical and moral courage often overlap. Gandhi (as well as Socrates) exhibited moral courage while facing death, and a soldier in battle may have to deal with peer rejection of his heroic actions. However, the distinction, while imprecise, does speak usefully to quite different forms of courageous experience. [End Page 1]In this paper I want to introduce a third form of courage almost never discussed in the literature. Best called “psychological courage,” it is a form of the virtue which millions of human beings have to possess and exercise on a regular basis. The fear to be faced is not usually that of physical harm, nor is it fear of social ostracism. Nor is loss of moral integrity a major concern. The fear centers around a loss of psychological stability. I speak of the courage it takes to face our irrational fears and anxieties, those passions which, in Spinoza’s terms, hold us in bondage. These can range from habits and compulsions to phobias. Aristotle would have classified many of these under lack of temperance. A drinking habit or an irrational fear of open spaces reflects a lack of proper balance regarding the pleasures of life. But facing and working through these habits or anxieties can involve courage for several reasons. First, to admit the problem is to face the possibility of being stigmatized by society. In this sense psychological courage has some similarities to moral courage. Second, a great deal of pain, physical and psychological, can be involved in confronting the anxiety or changing the habit, and the individual knows this beforehand. Third, and most significant to this form of courage, the stability... (shrink)