Euthophro Dialogue

Presentation is on death and afterlife. I will briefly define death and critically discuss the topic using evidence-based literature. However, a sound analysis will show my personal academic development.

Death is an inevitable permanent lack of existence Nagel (1979) caused by different motives. Defining death is challenging because different professionals defines death according to their specialism. However, death is a total dysfunction of human organs and the absence of a pulse. Nagel views death as a disturbing occurrence due to its life's deprivation, Socratics thought of death as liberation, relocation of a once caged soul (Apology). However, Epicureans view death as annihilation and a total lack of awareness as well as a terminator of all activities.

Other philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, and Augustine view death as a temporary state as they believe in the afterlife.The three have individual views but the similarities between their views in regards to afterlife are vivid. They all believed that the soul is infinity. Plato claimed that the soul is the holder of all past and present knowledge; this has a link with the theory of the slave boy and Socrates.

I suppose that it is normal to fear death, especially in a non-philosophical world. However, as much as most people fear death, Lucretius, Epicurus, Socrates, and others have their own reasons for not fearing death. These philosophers find it irrational to fear death and argue that as long as none of the living has experienced death then fearing it is irrational. However, Socrates viewed death as an opportunity of being in the afterlife era and a divine blessing (Phaedo). Socrates's ethics in regards to life after death differs from that of Epicurus and Lucretius who sees life as vanish once death takes over.

Tsitsi Davies

24/11/2011

Epicurus believed in good living and urged humankind to enjoy life and its pleasures whilst they can because he believed that humans live once and die forever. He implemented a framework to illustrate his view of a one life. The framework emphasises on his belief of birth and death as equally the same as they are both the unknown before and after they are present. His equilibrium is a pattern of non-existence-birth-life-death-non-existence. He was in a way saying that nothing existed before birth and so shall it be after death (symmetry). Epicurus believed the soul is as if atoms in which once death takes over will vanish into the empty spaces of the universe, he got that theory from Democritus's view of atoms. Epicurus does not believe in unnatural desires because he saw them as the root of all worries. However, Epicureanism concludes that the soul evaporates just like the steam from the iron, or just like smoke and there is no life beyond the grave.

Plato stated that a person is composed of three entities, which are a body, mind, and the soul. He believed that a body, mind, and the soul are immature at birth but develops in stages. He classified the developmental stages as birth -childhood -adulthood. However, Plato believed in a conscious life at birth, which lacks awareness of the surroundings. Development of knowledge starts at childhood whereby a child will be implementing practical skills learnt from the soul. Plato saw a full-developed human entity at adulthood in which knowledge and consciousness is fully active. According to the analogy, Plato stated that death must come from a life and life from death.