Anticipating Annihilation

Abstract

According to Epicureans, anticipating one's own annihilation ought not to be a frightening experience. Non‐existence precludes the possibility of sensation, and hence annihilation can be neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And that which cannot be felt is unworthy of fear. Certain objectors to this claim have asserted that one's own annihilation really is a terrifying prospect. Against this assertion, I argue that those who make it are guilty of precisely the kind of confusion that Epicurus and his disciples alert us to, namely that of projecting ourselves into the thought of our own non‐existence. A further objection to Epicureanism involves the claim that, since the fear of death is merely the converse of the love of life, the one cannot be extinguished without inevitably extinguishing the other (to inevitably disastrous effect). I argue that this objection relies upon an exaggeration of thanatological fear's power and an unduly pessimistic assessment of human reason's capacity to positively modify emotional states and dispositions. I conclude that neither of the objections considered here has vindicated the fear and anxiety commonly associated with anticipating one's annihilation, and that the Epicurean attempt to deflate these debilitating emotions remains valid.

Notes

1. For Socrates' comparison of the after‐death state with dreamless sleep, see Plato (1997), p. 35 (40c–e). A selection of poems that link death and sleep can be found in De la Mare ([1939] 1984), p. 421 ff.

2. In fact, Lucretius argues at one point that even the prospect of being reconstituted after one's death ought to be of no concern to us now. The argument implies that mere identity of constitution is insufficient for psychological identity, but I cannot go into the details here. The relevant passage is De Rerum Natura III.843 ff., and it is well discussed by Warren (2001).

3. The best place to find a concise exposition of Epicurus's conception of nature is his Letter to Herodotus (in, e.g., Epicurus: The Extant Remains, pp. 18–55).

4. My doubts about annihilationism are not doubts that our own annihilation seems probable. I am merely doubtful that all other theories can be ruled out completely.

5. “Nam istuc ipsum, non esse, cum fueris, miserrimum puto” (Cicero 1927, p. 17 [I.vi.12]).

6. Plutarch, Non Posse Suaviter Vivi Secundum Epicurum, 26.1104e, quoted in Segal (1990), p. 14.

7. See Patañjali (1990), p. 60 (II.9): “Desire for continuity (abhinivesa), arising even among the wise, is sustained by its own essence.” Trans. modified.

8. See, e.g., the statements on “non‐attachment” (vairagya) at Yogasutra, I.15–16, where the “highest” (param) is said to be “thirstlessness for the gunas”, i.e. for the strands or fundamental constituents of phenomenal existence, and to be due to the “vision of the self” (purusha‐khyateh). Cf. I.3: “Then the seer abides in its own form.” My trans.

9. See Lucretius, ibid. III.881–83: “[…] neque enim se dividit illim, | nec removet satis a proiecto corpore et illum | se fingit sensuque suo contaminat astans.” My trans.: “[…] for he does not divide himself from that, does not remove himself sufficiently from that thrown‐away body; he imagines himself as that, and, standing beside it, contaminates it with his own sensation.”

10. See Plutarch, Non Posse, 30.1106f, quoted in Segal (1990), p. 15.

11. The same confused point was made in the twentieth century by Miguel de Unamuno: “And I must confess, painful though the confession be, that in the days of the simple faith of my childhood, descriptions of the tortures of hell, however terrible, never made me tremble, for I always felt that nothingness was much more terrifying. … It is better to live in pain than to cease to be in peace” (The Tragic Sense of Life, Trans. J. E. Crawford Flitch, quoted in Luper‐Foy (1993), p. 388 n.1).

12. The clarity with which Silverstein lays out the Epicurean position should not be taken as an endorsement of that position, as Silverstein's ultimate aim is to refute it. His argument is an interesting one, but it cannot be dealt with in the present article.

13. I do not wish to labour the point; but in case someone were to insist that it is perfectly conceivable that someone in dire circumstances might genuinely prefer to kill herself than to go on living, I should add that the Epicurean need not object to this way of describing the person's mental attitude (i.e. as one of preferring). However, it remains the case that it is now, within life, that she prefers to die. What is not the case is that death will be a preferable state (or a less preferable or a purely neutral one) for her to be in after her death. She might, in confusion, think it will be, but she would, on the Epicurean view, be wrong.

14. Here I have in mind Charles Segal, esp. in his (1990), Ch. 10.

15. Cf. Segal (1990), p. 238: “To overcome our denial of death and thus bring the fears of it into the light where they can be dealt with therapeutically, Lucretius must make death real and present to us as a process.”