Fear of death

Death is scary—that’s pretty much universal.  There’s all sorts of reasons for being afraid of death e.g. fear of infiniteness, finiteness, meaninglessness, nothingness, the unknown, or of the cessation of being.  Yet Socrates evidently marches toward his death without complaint, without fear, and doesn’t postpone his death for even a second despite his having multiple opportunities to do so.  

A Socrates-like acceptance of death is unusual in Western society.  Granted, there are those who are accepting of the finitude of their bodies and feel content at the approach of death.  But death arrives in all sorts of circumstances:  sometimes it’s expected as in the case of those with terminal diseases or the elderly; sometimes it’s not expected like with fatal shootings or a fatal heart attack in an otherwise healthy person; sometimes there’s suffering such as with terminal patients, and other times it’s quick and (so we are told) painless like with lethal injections or fatal accidents.  If there’s anything that human beings have in common with each other (besides our humanness), it’s that we were all born at some point and we are all going to die at another point.  

To reiterate—death is scary.  For most of us.  If we’re not scared of death now, it’s likely we were at some point in our lives.  

So what was Socrates’ secret to approaching death fearlessly and even joyously?

Three beliefs:  1) the soul is immortal; 2) his practice of philosophy has suitably purified his soul so that the afterlife will be a good afterlife; 3) if he is wrong and there is no afterlife, then he has still led an incredible life. 

If we look at that again, we’ll notice that Socrates explains how he is comfortable with his own death.  There’s no discussion of the devastating process of dying and how that affects personhood no discussion of the loss of loved ones.  There’s no discussion of the process of grieving or how to do it.  Instead, Socrates tells us that “any man that you see resenting death was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body, and also a lover of wealth or honors, either or both” (68b).  Later, Socrates rebukes others for grieving over his impending death and sends away the women for crying over him.  

What do we do with the complexities surrounding death?  How do we grieve properly?  Death is just as much a part of life as living is and yet society seems entirely inept at dealing with it.  Socrates is aware of the relationship between living and dying, so consider this post as a teaser for the multiple issues that arise in Phaedo.