Epicurus' second remedy : death is nothing to us
Date
2003
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch University, Department of Ancient Studies
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
(Shakespeare, Julius Caesar II, ii, 32-37)
That death is complete extinction is the message forcefully driven home by the Epicurean
analysis of the soul as a temporary amalgam of atomic particles . . . The moral corollary,
that you should not let the fear of death ruin your life, is a cardinal tenet of Epicurean
ethics. (Long and Sedley 1987:153)
The second remedy of the tetrapharmakos concerns the second of the two great fears to
which man is subject: death. Frischer (1982:208) observes that the Epicureans regarded
death as “more damaging to peace of mind than all other fears except fear of the gods”.
The Epicurean position is stated clearly in the surviving writings of the Master, and it is
necessary to go directly to the ipsissima verba as our starting point, and then to augment
our understanding of Epicurus’ words with further passages from later Epicureans and
other philosophers. In these writings we shall see that death, as the material dissolution
of body and soul, is a process at once natural, inevitable, and final.
Description
CITATION: Bjarnason, P. E. 2003. Epicurus' second remedy : death is nothing to us. Akroterion, 48:21-44, doi:10.7445/48-0-97.
The original publication is available at http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/pub
The original publication is available at http://akroterion.journals.ac.za/pub
Keywords
Epicureans (Greek philosophy), Fear of death
Citation
Bjarnason, P. E. 2003. Epicurus' second remedy : death is nothing to us. Akroterion, 48:21-44, doi:10.7445/48-0-97