What Arguments Did Epicurus Use To Prove the Non-Existence of Life After Death?

    Alan Reyes has posed another deep question: "So to expand my question from earlier, how would Epicurus have proved the nonexistence of the afterlife either by way of direct empirical experience or by using a syllogistic argument form as he did with the swerve and the infinity of the universe?"

    You'll note that the way this is phrased the presumption is that Epicurus considered his arguments on the swerve and infinity to be based in syllogisms, and that may only be true in part. But for purposes of this discussion let's generalize the question and ask "What arguments did Epicurus use to 'prove' that there is no life after death?"

    I think it is fair to say that Epicurus used a number of arguments in addition to the contention in PD2 that death is nothing to us because all good and evil comes to us through sensation, and death is the absence of sensation. Probably the best source for a list of those arguments is going to be in Lucretius, particularly in Book Three. The argument occurs roughly in the following sequence, but this following list is not a statement of the argument. It's really necessary to go through Book 3 and pull the argument out of these topics:

    • Our mind and spirit is material, just like everything else, and although it is composed of very special particles, it too is physical and it is inseparable from the body and dies with it.
    • The Mind and body are born together and age together, and the mind can be sick just like the body can.
    • The mind may be composed of particles that are immortal, but it is not immortal itself. Even if the particles of our mind came together in the same arrangement in future ages, our minds would have no memory of being us as we are now, just as our minds now have no memory of ever being together in the same combination and arrangement in past ages.
    • Our minds and spirits are born and die with our bodies.
    • Our minds and spirits are able to experience things only through sensation, and death brings the end of all sensation, so the state of being dead is nothing to us, and time after our death has no more relevance to us than did the time before we were born.


    So with that as background, "What arguments did Epicurus use to 'prove' that there is no life after death?"

Finding Things At EpicureanFriends.com

Here is a list of suggested search strategies:

  • Website Overview page - clickable links arrranged by cards.
  • Forum Main Page - list of forums and subforums arranged by topic. Threads are posted according to relevant topics. The "Uncategorized subforum" contains threads which do not fall into any existing topic (also contains older "unfiled" threads which will soon be moved).
  • Search Tool - icon is located on the top right of every page. Note that the search box asks you what section of the forum you'd like to search. If you don't know, select "Everywhere."
  • Search By Key Tags - curated to show frequently-searched topics.
  • Full Tag List - an alphabetical list of all tags.