{"id":11069,"date":"2010-12-09T12:17:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T12:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/09\/the-epicurean-death-argument-and-nihilism\/"},"modified":"2010-12-09T12:17:13","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T12:17:13","slug":"the-epicurean-death-argument-and-nihilism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/12\/09\/the-epicurean-death-argument-and-nihilism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Epicurean Death Argument and Nihilism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Epicurus1\"<\/a> A reader suggests that the "Epicurean argument leads to nihilism. Why live if death is not an evil to you? (assuming there is no one to grieve you)."<\/span><\/p>\n

In Letter to Menoeceus<\/em>, Epicurus makes the point that death is ". . . of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.  It is therefore nothing either to the living or the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are." (125)<\/span><\/p>\n

If this is the Epicurean argument, then I do not see how it leads to nihilism, if 'leads to' means 'entails' and if nihilism is the view that life is not worth the trouble.  The Epicurean point is not that death is good but that it is axiologically neutral: neither good nor bad.  This follows from his assumption that ". . . all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death."  If being dead were good, then I think one could reasonably infer nihilism.  For if being dead were good, then being alive would be either bad or neutral, both of which are forms of nihilism. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the Epicurean view is that being dead is value-neutral whence it follows that being alive is either good or bad, and only one of these is nihilism.  Therefore, the Epicurean position does not entail nihilism.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is worth noting that the historical Epicurus had a therapeutic end in view: he wanted to relieve us of our fear of death.  This soteriological motive is at the back of his claim that death is nothing to us.  Because it is nothing to us, we have nothing to fear from it.  So if you accused him of nihilism he would probably respond with au contraire<\/em> or rather the Greek equivalent.  He would probably say that his purpose is a life-affirming one.  His aim is to make men happy by removing from them the fear of death.<\/span><\/p>\n

To clear Epicurus of the charge of nihilism is of course not to pronounce his position probative.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader suggests that the "Epicurean argument leads to nihilism. Why live if death is not an evil to you? (assuming there is no one to grieve you)." In Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus makes the point that death is ". . . of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when … Continue reading “The Epicurean Death Argument and Nihilism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[184,397],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death-and-immortality","category-epicureanism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}