Quotation
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“Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.”
Epicurus · Epicureanism · Ancient · c. 300 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that death is nothing to us because the dead have no sensation, so fear of being dead confuses a blank with a harm you will feel. A competing reading, the deprivation account, says death can harm you by cutting off the life you would have had, even if there is no subject left to suffer. The argument sits in the Letter to Menoeceus, one of the four cures on which his tranquillity depends. The physics of atoms is what is supposed to underwrite it.
Did Epicurus really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The letter is the main surviving statement of his ethics, preserved by Diogenes Laertius. This is a close translation of the famous argument.
Where it comes from
Letter to Menoeceus, in Diogenes Laertius 10.124–125
Approximate date: c. 300 BCE.
How to use it
Fear of a parent's dying, of pain, of unfinished duties, is a different item from fear of being a corpse. A will, a conversation, a hospital bag belong to the first list. Epicurus thinks the second fear is a confusion, and mixing the lists makes both harder to face on an ordinary Tuesday.
A mindset reading
The argument does not call grief silly, and it does not say a shortened life is unimportant. It says the condition of death is not an experience happening to you. The habit is to separate harms you can meet from the blank you are treating as a pain.
Understand the philosophy
Epicurus is answering the fear that keeps people from a stable pleasure. 'Nothing to us' means nothing that can be sensed, and sensation is his test for what can harm or benefit. When the soul's atoms disperse, there is no one there. The letter is doing ethics with a piece of physics attached.
- death
- mind
- happiness
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that death is nothing to us because the dead have no sensation, so fear of being dead confuses a blank with a harm you will feel. A competing reading, the deprivation account, says death can harm you by cutting off the life you would have had, even if there is no subject left to suffer. The argument sits in the Letter to Menoeceus, one of the four cures on which his tranquillity depends. The physics of atoms is what is supposed to underwrite it.
Did Epicurus really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The letter is the main surviving statement of his ethics, preserved by Diogenes Laertius. This is a close translation of the famous argument.
Which work is it in?
Letter to Menoeceus, in Diogenes Laertius 10.124–125 Approximate date: c. 300 BCE.