Talking about the Un-talked: Philosophy of Death

The Death of Socrates by Giambettino Cignaroli

Well, if you, dear reader, have (accidentally) landed up on this page, I insist you to stay and not get taken aback with reading the title. I understand that the majority of humankind have an aversion to the concept of ‘death’, so much so, we don’t even encourage any conversation related to it.

But, Philosophy being a discipline harnessing the love for wisdom, it inadvertently concerns itself with everything and anything. With the same spirit, I also wish to delve into the understanding of this much avoided topic.

There is life and then there is death. How so ever we might want to disregard the relation- can one exist without the other? Let me give you an obvious answer-no. Life comes with death ‘handy’, the two are inseparable. The time between the two varies for everyone, but the certainty does not. And that’s precisely why, I believe, a discourse on death becomes all the more important. However, there is no certainty to the occurrence of death per se, so we are bound to speak of it in metaphors, in relations and up to the best of our capacity. (1)

Socrates said that a ‘true philosopher does nothing but practices dying and being dead’. So, as per the Greek Philosopher’s conception, Philosophy is for us, a practice of dying.(2) Epircurus, one of the most prominent Hellenistic philosophers, said ,“Death is nothing to us. When we are, death does not come, and when death comes, we are not.” This, I believe, should be understood in the sense that death is taken to be a cessation of the individual. As long as we exist, there cannot be death; but the moment there is the advent of death, we cease to exist.

However, my conception slightly differs from the Epicurean thought. My belief says that we carry the possibility of death from the moment we are born. It is not something we can abandon. Yes, we can and as we usually do, abandon the thought of it. Spinoza, in his Ethics, states, “free man should think of nothing less than death because wisdom in the modern era is focused on contemplations about life, not death.” (3) Bitter truth, but we are obsessed with our lives. Spinoza encourages us to contemplate on death- which is to be the end of all of us.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not saying that we, as humans, should give up all attempts on deliberating on our lives, attempts to work on it. But, my point here is that deliberations on life should also include contemplating on death. Our understanding of death will help us construct and direct our lives in a certain manner- to live consciously of the reality hanging over our heads at all times. Well, Nietzsche will certainly frown upon my views, since he advocated for thoughts of life over the thoughts regarding death. But, I continue to battle that whatsoever we try, death is something we cannot contest; therefore, better to make our peace with it and gain clarity of it’s understanding.

However, there is one philosopher who argues the point I am trying to articulate here. Heidegger, considers that knowledge about death leads to understanding of existence and that knowledge of existence will result in knowing the universe. He understood death as the full characteristics of humanity. He argued, “the end of the world is death. The ‘end’ that belongs to existence limits and defines the whole of Existence…death is just a fellow Existence”.(4)

But one can only ‘deliberate’ on these matters. There is nothing you, as a reader or I, as the one authoring this piece can do. We are left with thoughts and attempts at identifying if this is the right way to think about death. But, I will leave you with a closing thought, as long as we are thinking about death- we are progressing somewhere- at least in being somewhat different from the vast majority which remains consumed with their ‘living lives’. To close this piece, leaving all of us with an excerpt from Will Durant’s writings: (5)

The average man [woman] cannot reconcile himself [herself] to death; therefore

he [she] makes innumerable philosophies and theologies; the prevalence of a

belief in immortality is a token of the awful fear of death. (Durant, 1977, p. 328)

Endnotes:

1. Jeff Mason, Death and Its Concept, available at: https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/17-death-and-its-concept (last visited; 19 September 2021)
2. What’s So Bad About Death? available at: https://humanities.byu.edu/whats-so-bad-about-death/ (last visited: 19 September 2021)
3. Zohreh Shariatinia, Heidegger’s ideas about death, Pacific Science Review B: Humanities and Social Sciences, Volume 1, Issue 2 (July 2015)
4. Id. 3
5. Philosophical, Psychological & Spiritual Perspectives on Death & Dying, available at: https://digitalcommons.nl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=faculty_publications (last visited: 19 September 2021)