An Evaluation of Epicurus and Lukretius' Perceptions of Death and Non-Existence

Year 2018, Volume: 8 Issue: 1, 357 - 376, 21.07.2018

Mustafa Çakmak

https://doi.org/10.18491/beytulhikme.446511

Abstract

Death is an undeniable
fact of life. Whether it is a bad or feared thing is an important
discussion that can be brought back to the ancient Greek philosophers.
This article is primarily concerned with the discussion on what grounds
Epicurus's thesis "death, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death
is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist,"
and to what extent satisfactory results are reached. Later, it tries to
investigate how Lucretius, who is regarded as the successor of
Epicurus, derives the result of meaningless of fear of death from the
symmetrical relationship between prenatal and post-mortem
non-existences. Finally, it refers to the modern asymmetric approaches
which argue that, contrary to Lucretius's claim, the relationship
between these two periods of non-existence is not symmetrical, because
there are serious differences between the later birth and the later
death of people, given their deprivations. This article argues that
death has a mystery that raises the anxiety that comes from the nature
of death; however, it defends the idea that it makes a significant
contribution to the meaning of life.

Keywords

Death, Epicurus, Lucretius, non-existence, symmetry argument

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