We will all, presumably, die one day. That much is certain. But how we die, is at least somewhat, up to us. And how we understand death will dramatically change how we face it. We can turn to five of history’s most influential philosophers for wisdom, and maybe solace, as we meet our maker, writes Steven Luper.

How we view the nature and significance of death depends principally on what we take ourselves to be and what makes our existence good or bad, so modifying the latter can change the former.  In what follows I illustrate this dependence by sketching five distinctive philosophical perspectives on death:  the views of Gautama, Socrates, Epicurus, Zeno (and other Stoics), and Nietzsche.

Of the many views of death that philosophers have developed, the strangest by far is that of Siddhārtha Gautama, the man who came to be known as Buddha.  His approach was shaped by his unusual views about the contents of the world.  Take an ordinary object such as a chair or say an armadillo.  Typically, it seems, such objects exist for years. But what is it for such an object to persist over time?  Finding himself unable to supply a plausible answer to this question, Gautama concluded that objects don’t persist.  More precisely, there just are no persisting objects.  But doesn’t that mean that the object that was named “Gautama” itself does not exist?  It does.  And the same goes for all of the rest of us: despite appearances to the contrary, we just don’t exist!

Gautama found it difficult to explain his view, known as the no-self doctrine, to others.  To some, it seemed incoherent.  He seemed to be saying “I don’t exist,” which invites the question, “who is saying that he does not exist?”  Critics asked him:  which is it?  Do you exist or do you not exist?  Knowing that either reply seemed to presuppose his existence, he replied:  neither.

The implications concerning death are perhaps even more confusing.  Given that we do not exist at all, we never cease to exist.  But to say that we never cease to exist, that we never die, is misleading, as it suggests that we are immortal.  For Gautama, we are not immortal, but neither are we mortal.  We never die for the bizarre reason that we never exist.  Still, we have nothing to fear in death, no reason to think it is bad to die.  Death never gets its grip on us.  Indeed, it cannot possibly matter that anything, including ourselves, comes to an end, as the persistence of all things is an illusion. Only the ephemeral is real.

Shouldn’t we be upset about the fact that we do not exist?  Not if we accept Gautama’s advice about happiness.  He said that the way to happiness is to reshape what we care about, as the chief cause of unhappiness is unfulfilled desires.  We should simply stop caring about things we are unlikely to have.  In particular we should eliminate all desires that presuppose that we exist, as most desires do. That done, our nonexistence gives us nothing to be upset about.

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Philosophical reflection encourages us to rid ourselves of mundane concerns. It helps us to pare away all physical features from our conceptions of ourselves, and identify solely with the intellect.

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Socrates, perhaps the most famous ancient Greek philosopher (but rivaled by his student Plato), developed views concerning death that could scarcely have been more different than Gautama’s.