Death Is Nothing To Us - Epicureanism | Coursera (2023)

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Death Is Nothing To Us - Epicureanism | Coursera? ›

This echoes the fuller Epicurean slogan: “Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain.”

To Epicureans, death is annihilation, the breakdown of the atomic connections that make us ourselves, and there is no afterlife. While oblivion might sound scary, in his Letter to Menoeceus Epicurus famously taught (Ep. Men.

Quote by Epicurus: “Death is nothing to us.

“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And once it does come, we no longer exist.” Epicurus was viewed as dismissive of religion and therefore disliked by much of Greece. He did however gain a small but very loyal following.

Epicurus believed that our fear of death is the worst fear we face in life because it pervades our thoughts while we are alive. According to Epicurus our fear of death stops us from living. To live properly and happily we must rid ourselves of the fear of death.

Epicureanism. The Epicureans emphasise that death is complete extinction and that there is no life after death. Epicureanism is based on the atomism of Democritus, which sees the soul as a temporary amalgam of atomic particles, which has no eternal existence.

For Seneca and the other Roman Stoics, death was “the master fear,” and once someone learns how to overcome it, little else remains fearful either. If you don't remember that your time is limited and finite, you are much more likely to take things for granted.

As he puts it, “Death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist.” This outlook combines one insight with two errors. Once we are dead, we cannot be harmed, and in that sense, we have no reason to fear death.

“The dead have no sensation, or as they say it's a migration of the soul from here to some other place,” Socrates asserted, and went on that if death is as sensationless as a dreamless sleep, then it would be a great benefit.

Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death.

What is the Epicurean motto of life? ›

Epicureanism was later summed up as a motto: eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.

Instead, the Epicureans believe death should be embraced as a natural and inevitable part of life. The Stoics, on the other hand, believe that death is not the end of a person's existence. Instead, they believe in the immortality of the soul.

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' main argument against this fear is the “no subject of harm” argument. If death is bad it has to be bad for somebody. But death cannot be bad for the living, since they are alive, nor for the dead, since they don't exist.

Epicurus developed an unsparingly materialistic metaphysics, empiricist epistemology, and hedonistic ethics. Epicurus taught that the basic constituents of the world are atoms, uncuttable bits of matter, flying through empty space, and he tried to explain all natural phenomena in atomic terms.

For Epicurus, the most pleasant life is one where we abstain from unnecessary desires and achieve an inner tranquility (ataraxia) by being content with simple things, and by choosing the pleasure of philosophical conversation with friends over the pursuit of physical pleasures like food, drink, and sex.

Epicureanism divided pleasure into two broad categories: pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind. Pleasures of the body involve sensations of the body, such as the act of eating delicious food or of being in a state of comfort free from pain, and exist only in the present.

For the Epicureans, what happens at death? The soul and body both disintegrate back into atoms.

Epicurus maintains that soul atoms are particularly fine and are distributed throughout the body (LH 64), and it is by means of them that we have sensations (aisthêseis) and the experience of pain and pleasure, which Epicurus calls pathê (a term used by Aristotle and others to signify emotions instead).