A Stoic Remedy?

The Vagueness of Dying in Epicurean Thought: A Stoic Remedy?

A Master’s Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University

Graduate Program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies

Joel Christensen, Advisor

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts

Julia Andrina Greig

May 2021

2021

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the support of Professor Joel

Christensen and Professor Palle Yourgrau; I am grateful for their help and guidance.

I would like to express my deepest gratitude and indebtedness to Professor Joel Christensen in particular for his valuable advice, feedback, and encouragement.

I am also grateful to the Department of Classical Studies at Brandeis University for fostering my academic goals.

Dedicated to Dr. Emily Pickering

iii

ABSTRACT

The Vagueness of Dying in Epicurean Thought: A Stoic Remedy?

A thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts

By Julia Andrina Greig

“Death, which is the most horrifying of evils, is nothing to us; whenever we, on the one hand, exist, death is not present. On the other hand, whenever death is present, we, then, do not exist” (Ep. Men. 125). According to Epicurus, in section one hundred twenty-five of his “Letter to Menoeceus”, if death is the deprivation of all sense-perception and the annihilation of the subject, it cannot be bad, for there must be an existing person to perceive that harm. The

Epicureans, as James Warren suggests, therefore, advocated a sharp distinction between life and death. This paper argues that the clear threshold between existence and nonexistence that the

Epicureans were so keen to establish is not as unambiguous as they maintained, since the point at which a person can be said to have died is indeterminate. While there is a distinct difference between life and death, I contend that the boundary the Epicureans upheld is fuzzy; the process of dying—the move from life to death—could be an uncertain and potentially painful process that ought to be feared.

I aim to demonstrate, moreover, that the Stoic therapy for the fear of dying, primarily that of Epictetus and Seneca, mitigates our fears of this uncertain, nebulous stage and serves as a more effective palliative than the Epicurean by encouraging us to embrace uncertainty instead of resisting it. There is, according to the Stoics, a kind of certainty in uncertainty, namely that we know that we cannot know; acknowledging the insuperable epistemic gap with which we must all

contend acts as a kind of consolation, for it, to the Stoics, may compel us to adopt attitudes to overcome the fear of future uncertainty, namely the fear of dying and possible pain.

I seek to show (a) how the Epicurean therapy for the fear of dying is flawed, primarily by exposing a kind of logical vagueness that can be profitably analyzed as a sorites paradox; (b) how the Epicureans could have challenged the proposed sorites paradox; (c) why this vagueness ushers in a sort of uncertainty that harms the Epicurean hedonic project; (d) how Epictetus’ and

Seneca’s treatment for the fear of dying is more efficacious than the Epicurean; and (e) how

Epictetus’ and Seneca’s respective treatments could be challenged. I conclude that the Stoic therapy is more effective than the Epicurean, for the former fills the lacuna that the latter leaves open; dying, to the Stoics, ought not to be feared, but it is ultimately up to us whether we choose to adjust our mindset so as not to dread it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction ...... 1

2 The Epicurean treatment for the fear of dying: a sorites paradox? ...... 2

3 A Stoic remedy for the fear of dying? ...... 23

3.1 Epictetus and Seneca’s Stoic Cosmology ...... 24

3.2 Epictetus on Death and Dying ...... 26

3.3 Seneca on Death and Dying ...... 37

4 Conclusion: A Case for Stoic Therapy ...... 46

vi 1 Introduction According to the Epicureans, and, to an extent, the Stoics, to utter the statement “Socrates is dead” is to claim that Socrates does not exist.1 After Socrates drank the hemlock, and after the poison permeated his limbs and suffused his heart, Socrates died; he was annihilated from existence. Death, therefore, cannot be bad for us, for there must be a person to experience it. In order for Socrates to have been harmed by his death, he must have been present to perceive that harm; death cannot be bad for the absent subject.

While they reconcile the fear of death, or the state of being dead, the Epicureans and

Stoics say little about dying, or the transition between life and death. Our preoccupation with the uncertainty of dying may, the Epicureans and Stoics claim, foster a kind of paralyzing anxiety that may thwart our aspirations of living a good life.2 This paper aims to explore the weaknesses of the Epicurean therapy for the fear of dying and demonstrate that the Stoics (primarily

Epictetus and Seneca) propose therapies that serve as more effective palliatives. I will examine

(a) how the Epicureans and Stoics understand dying; (b) how each school of thought reconciles the fear of dying, namely the prospect of uncertainty and possible pain; (c) how the Epicurean and Stoic therapies for the fear of dying are potentially inefficacious; (d) how the Epicureans and

Stoics would respond to the challenges I present; and (e) why the Stoic therapy for the fear of dying serves as a more effective treatment.

1 According to Stephens: “Epicurus famously argued that death is nothing to us, and so nothing to fear (Letter to Menoeceus 124). The Stoics agreed with their Epicurean rivals that death is not to be feared, but they presented different reasons to support this judgment”. See Stephens 2014, 365 for a discussion of this intersection between Epicurean and Stoic philosophies of death. See also Annas 1992, 68 for an overview of the Stoic views on death as “the end of me”. 2 See KD 11 and EM 82.24. The Epicureans and Stoics understood “the good life” differently, and their respective views will be distinguished. See also Stephens 2014, 365 for a comparison. 1

I will begin by discussing the Epicurean views on dying and challenging them. The second half of this paper, which I divide into three sections (the first dedicated to an overview of

Stoic cosmology, the second to Epictetus’ views on death and dying, and the third to Seneca’s) will be devoted to the Stoic perspectives on these subjects.3 Within these sections, I will attempt to expose potential difficulties that arise with the Stoic arguments I investigate. I conclude with a discussion of why the Stoic therapy for the fear of dying is more effective than the Epicurean.

2 The Epicurean treatment for the fear of dying: a sorites paradox? Death, to Epicurus, amounts to the dispersal of the soul and, in turn, the deprivation of sense-perception.4 Furthermore, the Epicureans believed that the soul and the body are inextricably interwoven and are only capable of sentience as a unitary entity.5 When a sufficient number of soul atoms disperse, we no longer have sentience. The Epicurean treatment for the fear of death thus depends on a sharp division between life and death: we either are or are not.6

As a result, the Epicureans leave little room for a transitional stage; they neglect to address the process of dying—the move from life to death—in a satisfactory way.7 In order to fill the gap, I argue that Epicurus’ use of ὅσον in section sixty-five of the “Letter to Herodotus” introduces a

3 My reasoning for dividing the “Stoic section” of this paper in this way is motivated by the differences in Epictetus’ and Seneca’s arguments. While they both adopt views that are consistent with Stoic cosmological principles, their respective beliefs nonetheless diverge at times. 4 See KD 2, Ep. Men. 125, Ep. Hdt. 65. For an overview, see Warren 2004, 17-34. 5 See Annas 1992, 147-151 for a description of the soul’s relationship to the body. 6 See Ep. Men. 125. 7 See Warren 2002, 198-200 for a further discussion. Philodemus discusses dying in De Morte, whose response I will examine. Democritus, a predecessor of Epicurus, additionally addresses the process of dying and will also be discussed. 2

sorites paradox8 which muddles this boundary; while there is a sharp difference between life and death, the sorites paradox I am proposing functions as a constructive tool to examine and challenge the sharp boundary the Epicureans affirmed. The resultant fuzziness may imply that dying could be an uncertain and potentially painful process which ought to be feared. I will demonstrate (a) that the Epicureans established a clear boundary between existence and nonexistence; (b) how Epicurus’ characterization of death as the loss of a ὅσον number of soul atoms introduces a sorites paradox; (c) how the Epicureans may have reconciled this paradox; and (d) why the proposed sorites paradox introduces an element of uncertainty which is detrimental to the Epicurean hedonic calculus.

The margins of death are clear and distinct to the Epicurean.9 The Epicureans rely heavily upon the assumption that a person can only be harmed if she directly experiences and perceives that harm. Our sentience, according to the Epicurean, emerges from the interdependent nature of the soul and body. Lucretius likens the soul to a perfume in a bottle (DRN 3.323-330):

Haec igitur natura tenetur corpore ab omni, ipsaque corporis est custos et causa salutis; nam communibus inter se radicibus haerent nec sine pernicie divelli posse videntur. quod genus e thuris glaebis evellere odorem haud facile est, quin intereat natura quoque eius, sic animi atque animae naturam corpore toto extrahere haud facile est, quin omnia dissoluantur

Therefore, this nature is retained by the whole body and is itself the watchman of the body and the cause of its preservation. For they [the body and soul] are fixed to one another with shared roots nor do they seem to be able to be separated without death. In this way, it is not at all easy to extract the scent from small pieces of frankincense without its nature also undone, thus it is by no

8 The sorites paradox is a kind of paradox that is triggered by vague predicates. For example, the statement “the man is bald” admits borderline cases, for there are clear cases wherein the man is bald, clear cases wherein the man is not, and cases in between wherein it is unclear whether the man is or is not bald. See Keefe 2000, 6-19 for more information about vague predicates. See Keefe 2000, 18-26 and Dinis 2017, 1-3 for a more detailed description of the sorites paradox and forms of the paradox. 9 For a description that explains why the Epicureans maintained this thesis, see Warren 2002, 199-200. 3

means easy to extract the nature of rational and irrational soul entirely from the body without everything being dissolved.10

Just as the scent of a perfume fuses with the perfume itself, the soul, similarly, is inextricably entwined with the body.11 Lucretius distinguishes between two parts of the soul, the rational

(animus) and the irrational (anima). It should be noted, however, that although the soul is not uniform, the soul is not sundered into two. The whole soul, to Lucretius, is not rational; the animus is merely a constituent of a larger part, as a finger is to the entire body.12 Both Epicurus and Lucretius assert that the soul, although composite, is nevertheless unified. If either the animus or anima were to be destroyed, the other would also perish and this unity would collapse.

Hereafter, whenever I comment on the “soul”, I will be referring to this fundamental union between the anima and animus.13

Once the soul disperses from the body, it ceases to function as a soul and leaves behind a vacuous husk incapable of sensation.14 Sentience is impossible without this union between the soul and the body; once this amalgam disbands, the subject no longer remains and is annihilated.

Epicurus stresses the latter point in his “Letter to Menoeceus”, wherein he depicts life and death as mutually exclusive entities (Ep. Men. 124-125):

Συνέθιζε δὲ ἐν τῷ νομίζειν μηδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἶναι τὸν θάνατον· ἐπεὶ πᾶν ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν ἐν αἰσθήσει· στέρησις δέ ἐστιν αἰσθήσεως ὁ θάνατος...τὸ φρικωδέστατον οὖν τῶν κακῶν ὁ θάνατος οὐθὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ἐπειδή περ ὅταν μὲν ἡμεῖς ὦμεν, ὁ θάνατος οὐ πάρεστιν· ὅταν δ᾿ ὁ θάνατος

10 Latin text sourced from the Loeb Classical Library. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. I found this passage referenced in Annas 1992, 148n80. 11 See Annas 1992, 148 for an analysis of Lucretius’ analogy. 12 Annas suggests the rational soul is “a part of a whole, as much as a part as is a hand or an eye” (Annas 1992, 145). See Annas 1992, 144-147 for a detailed analysis of the rational-irrational soul relation, and Annas 1992, 147- 151 for a discussion of the “soul-body relation” (Annas 1992, 150). 13 See Annas 1992, 144-149 for an overview of the parts of the soul. 14 Annas claims that “[w]ithout the body, the soul no longer exists or functions as soul, but is just scattered atoms; without the soul, the body no longer exists or functions as a body, but is a mere corpse”. See Annas 1992, 149. 4

παρῇ, τόθ᾿ ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἐσμέν. οὔτε οὖν πρὸς τοὺς ζῶντάς ἐστιν οὔτε πρὸς τοὺς τετελευτηκότας, ἐπειδήπερ περὶ οὓς μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, οἱ δ᾿ οὐκέτι εἰσίν.

Get used to believing that death is nothing to us, since everything good and bad is perceptible and death is the deprivation of sentience...Therefore death, which is the most horrifying of evils, is nothing to us; whenever, in fact, we, on the one hand, exist, death is not present. On the other hand, whenever death is present, we, then, are not. Thus, it is a matter of no importance either to those who are living or to those who have died, since surely, on the one hand, it does not exist in the case of those who are living, and, on the other hand, those who are no longer do not exist.15

Death cannot be harmful; it poses no threat to the living as it is nothing (and fearing the prospect of nothing is irrational)16 and no threat to the dead as they cannot perceive: “Death is nothing to us, because [the body]17, after it is dissolved into its elements, lacks sensation and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us” (Ὁ θάνατος οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς· τὸ γὰρ διαλυθὲν ἀναισθητεῖ, τὸ δ’

ἀναισθητοῦν οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, KD 2).18 The boundary between life and death is a clear one: when death is present, we are not.

While the state of being dead itself may not be harmful, the process of dying—the transition from life to death—however, may indeed be painful and pose a harm to the subject.19

In order for a person to experience pain, her soul and body must be unified. Since both the body and soul (and the totality of the universe) consist mainly of atoms and void, the Epicureans adopted a physicalist ontology.20 Provided that there exist a sufficient number of soul atoms in a person’s body, her sentience is retained (Ep. Hdt. 65-66):

15 Although I consulted Annas’ translation here (see Annas 1992, 151), this translation is my own. Greek text sourced from the Loeb Classical Library. 16 See Ep. Men. 125. Since death is the total annihilation of the subject and not painful, fearing the prospect of death and the pain we falsely believe accompanies it would be irrational. Thus, our anxiety about the anticipation of death would be founded upon empty beliefs. See Warren 2004, 103 for a discussion of this assumption that the fear of death causes “empty distress”. 17 Hicks’ translation (1925) includes an omitted σῶμα, a suggestion which I have implemented here. 18 KD sourced from Usener 1887. 19 See Warren 2002, 201 for a description of why the pain of dying could be harmful. 20 See Annas 1992, 123-124 for a description of Epicurean ontology. 5

Διὸ δὴ καὶ ἐνυπάρχουσα ἡ ψυχὴ οὐδέποτε ἄλλου τινὸς μέρους ἀπηλλαγμένου ἀναισθητεῖ· ἀλλ᾿ ἃ ἂν καὶ ταύτης ξυναπόληται τοῦ στεγάζοντος λυθέντος εἴθ᾿ ὅλου εἴτε καὶ μέρους τινός, ἐάν περ διαμένῃ, ἕξει τὴν αἴσθησιν. τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ἄθροισμα διαμένον καὶ ὅλον καὶ κατὰ μέρος οὐκ ἔχει τὴν αἴσθησιν ἐκείνου ἀπηλλαγμένου, ὅσον ποτέ ἐστι τὸ συντεῖνον τῶν ἀτόμων πλῆθος εἰς τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς φύσιν. καὶ μὴν καὶ λυομένου τοῦ ὅλου ἀθροίσματος ἡ ψυχὴ διασπείρεται καὶ οὐκέτι ἔχει τὰς αὐτὰς δυνάμεις οὐδὲ κινεῖται, ὥσπερ οὐδ᾿ αἴσθησιν κέκτηται.

As a result, the soul, because it is in the body, never lacks sense-perception even if some other part has detached. But the things which are of this soul [the soul atoms] are destroyed once the container dissipates either completely or partially, if at any rate they persist, the soul will retain perception. But the rest of the bodily aggregate, both remaining whole and in parts, lacks sense- perception when that container is gotten rid of (whatever requisite quantity of soul atoms is enough at any point in time to comprise the nature of the soul). And, indeed, when the whole aggregate is destroyed, the soul is dispersed and no longer has the same abilities nor does it move in the same way, nor does it possess sense-perception as if it had not had perception at all.21

Once a ὅσον number of soul atoms, or enough, depart from the body, the subject is no longer experiencing sensation and, therefore, by Epicurean standards, dead. If the φύσις (“nature”) of the soul is measurable and quantifiable, there ought to be a πλῆθος (“number”) which separates the living from the dead. Epicurus, however, does not specify how many soul atoms are sufficient for life; he leaves it as ὅσον. While the Epicureans advocated a sharp boundary between life and death, Epicurus’ use of ὅσον introduces an element of vagueness that may mystify this threshold. This vagueness introduces a sorites paradox which can be formulated as follows by modus ponens:

1) One soul atom does not constitute the φύσις of the soul. 2) If one soul atom does not constitute the φύσις of the soul, then two soul atoms do not constitute the φύσις of the soul. 3) If two soul atoms do not constitute the φύσις of the soul, then three soul atoms do not constitute the φύσις of the soul. 4) If z soul atoms do not constitute the φύσις of the soul, then z + 1 soul atoms do not constitute the φύσις of the soul. 5) “A set of an arbitrarily large number of” soul atoms do not constitute the φύσις of the soul (Dinis, 2017, 3).

21 Greek text sourced from the Loeb Classical Library. This translation is my own, though I consulted Hicks’ (1925). 6

This conclusion leads to a paradox, for surely there exists a set containing a ὅσον number of soul atoms which constitute the φύσις of the soul.22

It may be argued that the Epicureans could reconcile the proposed sorites paradox by adopting the epistemic view, namely there is a sharp boundary between life and death, but it cannot be known; its vagueness is the result of ignorance.23 Thus, in this case, death bears no vagueness, and the Epicurean thesis that death is present when we are not is retained.

The epistemic view, however, in its attempt to demarcate this distinct boundary, falters.

For even if there were a hard line which divided existence and nonexistence, it could not be known by the subject. Coming to understand this boundary would require overcoming an insuperable threshold of knowledge—an epistemic peras—which cannot be traversed, for how can it be known when death occurs? According to Philodemus, our capacity to perceive dwindles the closer we approach this peras.24 Surely, the Epicurean could argue that death occurs spontaneously after x number of soul atoms disperse, and we simply do not know what x is. But such an epistemological gap would pose problems for the Epicureans. Because death is annihilation, there is no reason to fear it, but we arrive at this conclusion by subscribing to and understanding what the Epicurean ontology purports, namely that the physical world can be explained in terms of atom and void. Without this understanding, we fall victim to the uncertainty and become plagued by the what-if questions the Epicureans resolutely attempted to

22 Dinis catalogs two forms of the sorites paradox: the inductive and the conditional, the latter of which I have adopted and echoed here. See Dinis 2017, 2-3 and Keefe 2000, 18-20 for an analysis of the different forms of the sorites paradox. 23 See Keefe 2000, 62-84 for a detailed analysis of the epistemic view. 24 See Tsouna 2006, 100-103 for an overview of Philodemus’ treatment of dying. 7

eradicate.25 In KD 11, Epicurus describes the importance of understanding the physical world

(KD 11):

Εἰ μηθὲν ἡμᾶς αἱ τῶν μετεώρων ὑποψίαι ἠνώχλουν καὶ αἱ περὶ θανάτου, μή ποτε πρὸς ἡμᾶς ᾖ τι, ἔτι τε τὸ μὴ κατανοεῖν τοὺς ὅρους τῶν ἀλγηδόνων καὶ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, οὐκ ἂν προσεδεόμεθα φυσιολογίας.

If apprehensions at astronomical phenomena26 and death were by no means disturbing us, so that it may be nothing to us at all, and in addition not understanding the boundaries of pains and desires, we would not be in want of inquiring into natural causes and phenomena27.28

Epicurus, through this counterfactual claim, asserts that an investigation of φυσιολογία (“inquiry into natural causes and phenomena”) is necessary if we want to dispel our anxieties about the uncertainties of the world and death.29 Lucretius reiterates the importance of φυσιολογία (DRN

1.146-148):

Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest non radii solis neque lucida tela diei discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.

It is therefore necessary that all do away with this terror of the soul and obscurity, neither by the rays of the sun nor the day’s clear lights, but the appearance and law of nature.30

Making sense of our world and finitude brings us solace; “ignorance is not bliss” to the

Epicurean, but a monumental detriment to the attainment of pleasure (O’Keefe 2009, 135). A proper understanding of “the law of nature” is necessary for happiness, for even though the

25 See O’Keefe 2009, 133-135 for an analysis of how the Epicureans used their empiricism as a palliative for uncertainty. 26 See LSJ, “μετέωρος”, entry II.1. 27 See LSJ, “φυσιολογία”, entry I. 28 I found this passage referenced in O’Keefe 2009, 133. 29 Epicurus continues to stress this point in KD 12: “It would not be possible to eradicate the fear of the most important matters unless someone understood the nature of the whole and is suspicious about one of the things that happens according to myth. As a result, it would not be possible to take part of unmixed pleasure without inquiring into natural causes and phenomena” (Οὐκ ἦν τὸ φοβούμενον λύειν ὑπὲρ τῶν κυριωτάτων μὴ κατειδότα τίς ἡ τοῦ σύμπαντος φύσις, ἀλλ’ ὑποπτευόμενόν τι τῶν κατὰ τοὺς μύθους. ὥστε οὐκ ἦν ἄνευ φυσιολογίας ἀκεραίους τὰς ἡδονὰς ἀπολαμβάνειν). 30 I found this passage referenced in O’Keefe 2009, 135n3. 8

number of atoms which constitute us is finite, the number at which death occurs is nevertheless unknowable; there are certain limits to the physicalist view and what we can know about the physical world. Admitting this epistemological gap would pose a detriment to the Epicurean treatment for the fear of death, as it reintroduces the uncertainty that the Epicureans, through their physicalist ontology, so vehemently opposed.

One may contend that the Epicureans could reconcile the proposed sorites paradox by occasionally adopting a supervaluationist view.31 The Epicureans can be categorized as supervaluationists in two senses, namely because they (a) rejected that the principle of bivalence invariably holds and (b) retained a version of the law of excluded middle.32

Epicurus insisted on (a) to preserve agency. The Epicureans advocated “free agency”; they believed we, as rational beings, are responsible for our own actions (Annas 1992, 187).

Epicurus, along with Aristotle, posited that applying the principle of bivalence to future contingents would make the future necessary and our actions futile (Fat. x 21):33

Hic primum si mihi libeat assentiri Epicuro et negare omnem enuntiationem aut veram esse aut falsam, eam plagam potius accipiam quam fato omnia fieri comprobem; illa enim sententia aliquid habet disputationis, haec vero non est tolerabilis. Itaque contendit omnes nervos Chrysippus ut persuadeat omne ἀξίωμα aut verum esse aut falsum. Ut enim Epicurus veretur ne, si hoc concesserit, concedendum sit fato fieri quaecumque fiant (si enim alterutrum ex aeternitate verum sit, esse id etiam certum, et si certum, etiam necessarium: ita et necessitatem et fatum confirmari putat), sic Chrysippus metuit ne, si non obtinuerit omne quod enuntietur aut verum esse aut falsum, non teneat omnia fato fieri et ex causis aeternis rerum futurarum.

31 Supervaluationism permits borderline cases; it allows truth-value gaps. As Keefe rightly states: “[a]ccording to supervaluationism, by taking account of all precisifications we can provide the logic and semantics of vague language. It is proposed that a sentence is true iff it is true on all precisifications, false iff false on all precisifications, and neither true nor false otherwise” (Keefe 2000, 154). For an overview of supervaluationism, see Keefe 2000, chapter 7, “Supervaluationism'' passim; Dinis 2017, 6-8. 32 This is what Bown argues. See Bown 2016, 241. See Bown 2016 passim for a full analysis supporting the claim that the Epicureans adopted supervaluationist sympathies “at times” (Bown 2016, 268). 33 See Annas 1992, chapter 8. “Action and Freedom of Action” passim and O’Keefe 2005, Chapter 6, “The swerve and fate” passim for more information about agency in Epicureanism and the swerve. See O’Keefe 2005, 124-130 for the similarities between Epicurus’ and Aristotle’s views on the principle of bivalence and future contingents. 9

Here in the first place if I should be disposed to agree with Epicurus and deny that every proposition is either true or false, I would rather suffer a blow than acknowledge that all things happen by fate; for the former notion has something of an argument, the latter is truly not tolerable. And so Chrysippus strains every muscle to persuade us that every proposition is either true or false. For just as Epicurus fears that, if he shall have granted this, it must be conceded that whatever may happen happens by fate (for if one of the two should be true from eternity, it is also certain to be, and if it is certain to be, it is also necessary: in this way he thinks that necessity and fate are proven), Chrysippus likewise has feared that if he shall have not insisted that everything which may be stated is either true or false, then he could not hold that all things happen by fate and from eternal causes of future events.34

Although Cicero, in this passage, describes Epicurus as rejecting the principle of bivalence for all propositions, the phrase ex aeternitate verum (“true from eternity”), as Bown rightly indicates, suggests that Epicurus was primarily concerned about future contingents, especially since the demonstrative id in esse id etiam certum likely refers to an event which has yet to transpire, but that which is “to be”.35 Epicurus thus denied the principle of bivalence held for future-tensed propositions in an attempt to sidestep fatalism, which posits that things are eternally true and fixed.36

Similarly, Epicurus rejected the law of excluded middle—or at least a version of it—to circumvent fatalism. Disjunctions of contrary statements particularly worried Epicurus (Luc. xxx

97):37

Etenim cum ab Epicuro, qui totam dialecticam et contemnit et inridet, non impetrent ut verum esse concedat quod ita effabimur, ‘Aut vivet cras38 Hermarchus aut non vivet,’ cum dialectici sic statuant, omne quod ita disiunctum sit quasi ‘aut etiam aut non’ non modo verum esse sed etiam necessarium, vide quam sit cautus is quem isti tardum putant; ‘Si enim,’ inquit, ‘alterutrum

34 I found this passage in Bown 2016, 242. 35 See Bown 2016, 244 for an analysis of the phrase ex aeternitate verum. 36 See Barnes 2007, 21-22 and Bown 2016, 240-241 for an overview of Epicurus’ resistance to fatalism. See Bown 2016 passim and Bobzien 1999, 75-81 for an analysis of the fatalist arguments Epicurus opposed. 37 See O'Keefe 2005, 126 for an overview. 38 The Loeb reads eras; I have replaced eras with cras, which Barnes’ version of the text includes. See Barnes, 2007, 84. 10

concessero necessarium esse, necesse erit cras Hermarchum aut vivere aut non vivere; nulla autem est in natura rerum talis necessitas.’39

And indeed since they [the Stoics]40—in the case of Epicurus, who disdains and ridicules the dialectic—do not convince him to concede that that thing which we will state as a proposition41 is true in this manner, “either Hermarchus will be alive tomorrow or will not be alive”, while logicians postulate thus, namely that every disjunction which is of the sort “either yes or no” is not only true but also necessary, observe how this man [Epicurus] whom those think is stupid is guarded; “for if”, he says, “I shall have conceded that either of two is necessary, it will be necessary that tomorrow Hermarchus will be either alive or not alive; but there is no necessity of such a kind in the nature of things”.

Epicurus rejected p ∨ ~p is universally true (namely it did not hold for future contingents) because if it is true that either p or ~p, then either it is true that p or it is true that ~p. Epicurus adopted the belief that the statement: “Hermarchus will be alive tomorrow”, as a future-tensed proposition, is neither true nor false now. Thus, the statement “Hermarchus will not be alive tomorrow” is also neither true nor false now. Therefore, the statement: “Either Hermarchus will be alive tomorrow or Hermarchus will not be alive tomorrow” is false.42 Epicurus’ rejection of the latter statement would indicate a denial of excluded middle. Adopting the law of excluded middle, according to Epicurus, would compromise our “free agency” and, in turn, imply that future contingents are necessary and our actions pointless. It should be noted, however, along the lines which O’Keefe and Bobzien have suggested, Epicurus denies what Bobzien coins the

“semantic” law of excluded middle, according to which of every statement of the form p ∨ ~p, either p or ~p is true (Fat. xvi 37):

necesse est invito Epicuro alterum verum esse, alterum falsum, ut ‘Sauciabitur Philocteta’ omnibus ante saeculis

39 See Bown 2016, 256-257 for an additional analysis of this passage. Although I consulted Barnes’ translation, this is my own. See Barnes 2007, 84. 40 Barnes’ translation (2007) supplies “the Stoics” as the subject of impetrent, a suggestion which I have adopted here. 41 See Lewis and Short 1879, “effor”, entry II.2. 42 My analysis here is indebted to Barnes. See Barnes 2007, 85 for a discussion of this passage. 11

verum fuit, ‘Non sauciabitur’ falsum; nisi forte volumus Epicureorum opinionem sequi, qui tales enuntiationes nec veras nec falsas esse dicunt aut, cum id pudet, illud tamen dicunt, quod est impudentius, veras esse ex contrariis disiunctiones, sed quae in his enuntiata sint, eorum neutrum esse verum.

It is necessary, contrary to what Epicurus believes, that one proposition be true and the other false, as “Philoctetes will be injured” was true forever, and “Philoctetes will not be injured” false; unless by chance we wish to follow the belief of the Epicureans, who state that propositions of this kind are neither true nor false or, when they are ashamed of this, they nevertheless say the following, which is more shameless, namely that disjunctions from contrary statements are true, but the sort of propositions that are included in these statements, neither of them [the disjuncts] is true.

Epicurus retains a kind of “syntactic law of excluded middle” of the schema p ∨ ~p which is always true when the disjunction is evaluated in its entirety, but denies that either of the statements included in the disjunction is true (Bown 2016, 258).43 Epicurus takes issue with the individual disjunct of a proposition, not the entire disjunction. Whereas the semantic law of excluded middle evaluates whether the individual disjunct of a contrary pair of statements is true, the syntactic law of excluded middle evaluates the statement as a whole. So, a statement of contrary pairs, then, given the tautological nature of the proposition p ∨ ~p, will always be true.44

Epicurus’ staunch rejection of the semantic law of excluded middle coupled with his denial of the principle of bivalence lend credence to the belief that the Epicureans could have been supervaluationists with respect to their treatment of future contingents. But their

43 Bown distinguishes between the two versions of excluded middle pithily and describes them in the following way: “Semantic LEM: For any time t and any utterance u, either u is true at t or ~u is true at t. Syntactic LEM: Any utterance that is an instance of the schema ‘σ or it is not the case that σ’, where ‘σ’ is to be replaced by a well-formed declarative sentence, is true at all times” (Bown 2016, 254). Credit is due to Bown, Bobzien and O’Keefe for their scrupulous analyses of Epicurus’ treatment of the principle of bivalence and law of excluded middle. See Bown 2016, passim; Bobzien 1999, 76-84; O’Keefe 2005, 126 and 126n6 (which also reflects Bobzien’s analysis). 44 See O’Keefe 2005, 126 and 126n6 for a discussion of how to distinguish between the semantic and syntactic laws of excluded middle. 12

supervaluationist sympathies do not reconcile the vagueness of death, for death itself is not a contingency to the Epicurean; there are certain conditions which obtain now that make it the case that I will die, namely that I am mortal.45 The Epicurean sage, therefore, cannot use supervaluationism as a means to escape the proposed sorites paradox, for he cannot circumvent the inevitability of death.46

One may reject the validity of premise one of the proposed sorites paradox and contend that one soul atom is enough to constitute the φύσις of the soul. The Epicureans do not specify whether a single soul atom suffices; we can infer from Ep. Hdt. 65-66 that there must exist some number n to comprise the φύσις of the soul; if n were zero, the soul would no longer exist.

Whether a person could perceive with one soul atom alone is not obvious, for we cannot detect soul atoms as we detect radiation with a Geiger counter. Rather, we can infer the existence of a soul from the effects it has on the body. In order to determine whether a single soul atom is enough for life, we must address how the Epicureans categorized soul atoms.

According to the Epicureans, the soul consists of four different kinds of atoms. Although each has different properties, the four kinds of atoms combined nonetheless constitute the unitary soul.47 Among the four classes, the fourth class of soul atoms, the nameless atom, serves as a kind of adhesive which unifies the soul; it is additionally “responsible for sensation” (Annas

1992, 139). A soul deprived of this fourth class would become inanimate and the other classes

45 The Epicureans believed that in order for something to be the case in the future, there must be a present state of affairs which cause that thing to occur in the future. See O’Keefe 2009, 78-80 for an overview. 46 Even if the Epicureans did subscribe to supervaluationism for all propositions, they would nevertheless need to respond to the pitfalls of higher order vagueness. The supervaluationist claims that a statement is either true or false if and only if it is true or false on all admissible precisifications, but the term “admissible” itself is vague, for there are borderline cases of “admissibility”. 47Annas likens the “‘single nature’” of the soul to a “living creature”, which, although capable of “smell, heat, and taste”, is nevertheless considered to be one entity. See Annas 1992, 140. 13

would cease to function. A single soul atom of the first, second or third class alone could not constitute the φύσις of the soul for it would need the fourth element to bind the remnants of the soul together. One could argue that a single soul atom of the fourth class could comprise the

φύσις of the soul without the need of other three classes. But while the fourth class is responsible for unifying the soul and sensation, all four kinds of atoms require one another in order to constitute the φύσις of the soul (DRN 3.262-265):48

Inter enim cursant primordia principiorum motibus inter se, nil ut secernier unum possit nec spatio fieri divisa potestas, sed quasi multae vis unius corporis extant.49

For the origins of the elements run among themselves with respect to their motions, such that not one could be sundered nor could its power become divided by space, but as if the multitude exists as a power of one body.50

Given the interpenetrative nature of the soul atoms, if these four classes were to separate, then the φύσις of the soul would collapse (Annas 1992, 140). Therefore, one soul atom, even if it were of the nameless type, could not constitute the φύσις of the soul, for it would require the other classes as well to vivify the soul; without the other classes, the nameless soul atom would have nothing to unify and, therefore, could not constitute the φύσις of the soul alone.

If we permit the validity of the first premise of the proposed sorites paradox, namely that one soul atom is not sufficient to constitute the φύσις of the soul, a problem arises for the

Epicurean hedonic calculus. The paradox challenges the sharp boundary between existence and

48 Annas describes the three other classes as “firelike”, “airlike”, and “pneuma-like” (Annas 1992, 137). See Annas 1992, 137-138 for an overview of these three classes of soul atoms. For a description of the nameless atom and its duties, see Annas 1992, 138-141. For a more in-depth discussion of its role in sensation, see O’Keefe 1997, 121- 124. 49 I found this passage in Annas 1992, 140n60. 50 Epicurus in Ep. Hdt. 63 briefly distinguishes between the different kinds of soul atoms; other sources describe the various classes as well. See Annas 1992, 137n51 for a list of these other sources. 14

nonexistence that the Epicureans strive to uphold and leaves room for a possible and— uncertain—intermediate stage, a concept with which the Epicureans were not comfortable. While the Epicureans do claim that death itself is not harmful—as it is not experienced—the intrinsic uncertainty of dying, however, ushers in a kind of fear, especially the fear that dying could be a prolonged and painful process. The prospect of both future uncertainty and pain would be detrimental for the Epicurean treatment for the fear of death and could constitute as a harm for the subject.51

One may object that the Epicureans could treat the process of dying as if it were any other pain.52 The Epicureans, to an extent, do address and distinguish between the fear of death

(the state of being dead) and the fear of pain; they attempt to mitigate the fear of dying by treating it as another pain. Neither excruciating pain nor prolonged pain ought to be feared as the former is transitory and the latter is endurable (KD 4):

Οὐ χρονίζει τὸ ἀλγοῦν συνεχῶς ἐν τῇ σαρκί, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν ἄκρον τὸν ἐλάχιστον χρόνον πάρεστι, τὸ δὲ μόνον ὑπερτεῖνον τὸ ἡδόμενον κατὰ σάρκα οὐ πολλὰς ἡμέρας συμβαίνει. αἱ δὲ πολυχρόνιοι τῶν ἀρρωστιῶν πλεονάζον ἔχουσι τὸ ἡδόμενον ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἤ περ τὸ ἀλγοῦν.

Feeling bodily pain53 does not last unremittingly in the body, but, moreover, that which is most severe is present the least amount of time. In contrast, pain that barely surpasses pleasure does not persist through the body for many days, and those long-term ailments have pleasure which is greater than the pain in the body.54

51 See Warren 2002, 199-201 for an analysis of why the Epicureans were uncomfortable with this intermediate stage and why the prospect of dying could be harmful. 52 One may argue (a) dying is not painful and assuming that it is painful is a matter of empirical dispute, and (b) dying does not necessarily have to be the most painful part of a person’s life. While I acknowledge that both (a) and (b) are possible, I would maintain that dying nonetheless ought to be feared as it is the uncertainty of dying and the prospect of possible pain that cause distress now and ultimately interfere with a person’s pursuit of tranquility. 53 See LSJ, “ἀλγέω”, entry I. 54 While I consulted Hicks’ translation (1925), this is my own. 15

The process of dying, therefore, is either transient or sufferable, for the pain is either so agonizing that it immediately results in death or dull enough to endure.55 Philodemus advocates the brevity of dying, for soul atoms, upon death, ἐξίπταται or “dart” out of the body (Phld. De

Morte 8.13-8.33):

λ[επ]τομερὴς γὰρ οὖσ]α καὶ τελέως εὐκίν[ητος ἡ] ψ[υ]χὴ κα[ὶ δι]ὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἐκ µικροτάτ[ω]ν σ[υν]εστηκ[υῖα καὶ λει]οτάτων καὶ περιφε[ρε]στά[τ]ων …]σ[…]μένη καὶ παρὰ τοῦτο πολλὴν ἀ]πορία[ν π]αρέ[χ]ουσα, πῶς οὐ[κ] ἐξίπτα- ται λ [………]ων πόρων ἐν τῆι σα[ρ- κὶ… [.... κ]ἂν εἴ τις, ἐπειδήπερ [ἐκ τοιούτω[ν] συνέστηκεν, [ἀ]ξιώιη δ[ι- α{ι}ττόντων κατὰ τὴν σύνκρισ[ιν πάν- τως μεθ’ ἡδονῆς γίν[εσθαι τὰς τε- λευτάς, οὐκ ἂν άπιθαν

For the soul, being composed of small particles and completely agile and, on account of this, made up from the smallest, smoothest and roundest [atoms], [when it is dispersed]56, and in addition to this, producing much difficulty, how wouldn’t it dart out, due to the [fine]57 pores in the flesh… if someone, since [the soul] arises from these such things, might think it right that deaths happen with pleasure when they [the parts of the soul], according to judgement, scatter completely, [his reasoning] would not be unpersuasive.

Due to their smallness and mobility, soul atoms scatter quickly. Though death may be painful, the pain is swift, for as we transition between life and death our ability to perceive deteriorates.

This loss of sensation results in a reduced capacity to experience pain because the soul atoms required for sensation dissipate as the subject dies; the pain of dying thus grows faint as each

55 See Warren 2002, 202 and Warren 2004, 10-15 for a description of how the Epicureans understood and diffused the fear of pain. 56 De Morte text sourced from Henry 2009. Henry supplements his translation by including “when it is dispersed”, a suggestion that I have reflected in my own. Although I consulted and at times reflected Henry’s translation, this is primarily my own. See Henry 2009. 57 Per Henry’s recommendation, I have incorporated “fine” in my translation. See Henry 2009. 16

soul atom disperses.58 But Philodemus faces a challenge similar to that posed to Epicurus, namely the number of atoms required for sense-perception is fuzzy; it is not clear how many soul atoms Philodemus requires for a subject to perceive. Suppose I lose an eyelash, a skin cell, or a mere blood cell and the atoms which make-up these entities, surely I am still able to perceive just as well as I did prior to these losses even though I possess fewer atoms. The sorites paradox re- emerges; perception ceases only when enough atoms dissipate, but this quantity is not clear.

Philodemus’ hypothesis, furthermore, may imply a correlation between the experience of pain and the number of soul atoms a subject retains; because a person with fewer soul atoms would be perceiving less, she would experience less pain.59 If we accept Epicurus’ claim that the soul is intertwined with the body and parts of the soul dissipate “once the container dissipates either completely or partially”, then, some soul atoms will disperse upon, for example, the amputation of my arm (Ep. Hdt. 65). But suppose that I existed only as an armless torso, and a truck runs me over while I am in this state. Is my pain less intense than the fully-limbed pedestrian, Dave, who was also hit by the truck? If Dave has more soul atoms by virtue of the fact that he has more limbs, then he should experience and perceive more pain. But we can imagine a scenario wherein my pain is conceivably worse than Dave’s although I possess fewer soul atoms and am therefore perceiving less. This scenario, however, violates our intuition of pain and ignores, for example, a person’s subjective experience of pain.

58 For a further discussion of Philodemus’ views on dying and his argument that our capacity to perceive diminishes while dying, see Warren 2002, 201 and Tsouna 2006, 100-103. 59 There is a critical mass of soul atoms at which, according to the Epicureans, a person stops perceiving and is said to be dead (as is apparent in Ep. Hdt. 65). But until a person reaches this point, she gradually loses perception. It is not clear, however, how many soul atoms are sufficient for perception. Another sorites paradox emerges; for at what point am I incapable of, for example, tasting the sweetness of an apple or smelling cinnamon? 17

One may object that dying could in fact be pleasurable or need not be painful.

Philodemus, for example, argues that dying may be a pleasant experience due to the λεπτομερής

(“fine-textured”60) and εὐκίνητος (“agile”) nature of the soul atoms (Phld. De Morte, 8.13-14). It is possible for dying to be a pleasant process—perhaps we are mistaken to believe that dying is painful. The prospect of future pain poses a harm to us; but the prospect of a future delight, moreover, is not something to fear. Philodemus’ appealing conjecture, however, seems implausible. Surely, the person who is clenching his gut in agony after being shot would not die in ecstasy. And how can we know whether dying is pleasurable? At what point are we no longer able to express how we feel and what we experience? It seems unlikely that the man who was shot would proclaim his pleasure (if he were to experience it) in his final moments, for he may be incapable. We simply do not know whether dying is pleasurable; the dispersion of atoms could be incredibly painful. What troubles the Epicurean most of all is this uncertainty and the prospect of possible pain; both the former and latter undermine the goal of the Epicurean hedonic calculus which primarily seeks to dispel the anxiety that accompanies the uncertainty of death through an empirical understanding of the world.

In addition, Epicurus, upon his death bed, famously conjures up pleasant memories in an attempt to mitigate his pain.61 This mind over matter tactic may serve as a kind of analgesic for the Epicurean sage, but would likely only work to a limited extent and for few people.62 For

60 A translation which I have borrowed from Henry 2009. 61 For a discussion of Epicurus’ solution to the fear of dying and its criticisms, see Warren 2002, 202. 62 It seems unlikely that, moreover, in the case of Epicurus, he would be able to recall pleasant memories while dying, for his capacity to remember likely dissipates as he dies and loses sentience. Since the nameless soul atom in particular is responsible for memory, once either enough nameless atoms disperse or a sufficient number of soul atoms from the other three classes scatter (and therefore the nameless atom would have nothing to unify), a person would be incapable of remembering. It is not clear, however, as previously stated, how many soul atoms are required for sensation. See Annas 1992, 139 for a description of the roles of the nameless atom. 18

some, happy memories may provide a temporary respite from agony. Recalling the happy memory of my cat may ameliorate the pain of my migraine to a certain degree; it would serve as a temporary distraction, merely a transitory interlude from the pain to which my mind will ultimately return. The severity and circumstances of a pain may also influence a person’s capacity to recall pleasant memories. Remembering my pleasant experiences with my cat while enduring a migraine seems more feasible than doing such while, for an example, piranhas consume my flesh.

Furthermore, some may become habituated to their own happy memories, and such memories may lose their potency over time. Surely, one may argue that I could recall other pleasant memories, but suppose I am unable to retrieve them (perhaps due to dementia or a brain injury). In this case, I may be able to recall only unpleasant memories or nothing at all. Thus, in addition to my physical pain, I would also suffer from emotional distress (if the former) or be anguished by extreme confusion (if the latter), which would only exacerbate my already seemingly miserable state.

In addition, recalling solely pleasant memories may be an unconscionable task (Fin.

2.104-2.105):

Primum in nostrane est potestate quid meminerimus? Themistocles quidem, cum ei Simonides an quis alius artem memoriae polliceretur, ‘Oblivionis,’ inquit, ‘mallem; nam memini etiam quae nolo, oblivisci non possum quae volo.’63

First, do we have the ability to decide what we shall have remembered? Indeed Themistocles, when Simonides or some other was promising the craft of memory to him, said “I would prefer to forget—for I also remember those things which I do not wish to remember, I am not able to forget those things that I wish to forget”.

63 I found this passage referenced in Warren 2002, 202. 19

Is it within our capacity to choose which memories we want to remember? While lying in bed, weathering my migraine, I fondly remember the first time petting my cat, but what hinders my mind from wandering? Perhaps I also recall the time when my cat was run over by a car and subsequently put to sleep. The Epicurean may be able to execute some semblance of control over his anxieties about death and dying, but he could likely not prevent the impulses of the meandering mind.

The Epicurean therapy, by emphasizing the intensity and transitivity of the pain of dying, shifts the focus from dying to death, or the state of being dead, where, as Warren rightly points out, the Epicureans are more at ease.64 Pain, however, is nevertheless a harm to the

Epicurean. Given the vagueness of death, and while the state of being dead is not itself harmful, dying very well could be by virtue of the pain that could accompany it, namely the possibility of prolonged and intense pain, which the Epicureans neglect to address.65

This is especially troubling for the Epicurean hedonic calculus. The Epicureans espoused the belief that pleasure, which they characterized as the attainment of ataraxia and aponia—the absence of psychological and physical pain—makes a life worthwhile (Ep. Men. 128-129):66

τούτου γὰρ χάριν πάντα πράττομεν, ὅπως μήτε ἀλγῶμεν μήτε ταρβῶμεν...καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος λέγομεν εἶναι τοῦ μακαρίως ζῆν· ταύτην γὰρ ἀγαθὸν πρῶτον καὶ συγγενικὸν ἔγνωμεν, καὶ ἀπὸ ταύτης καταρχόμεθα πάσης αἱρέσεως καὶ φυγῆς καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτην καταντῶμεν

For we do everything for this reason, that we neither feel pain nor fear...because also we say that pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily, for we recognized this thing as the first and common good. And we begin every choice and avoidance from that principle and we return to it.

64 See Warren 2002, 201-202 for a discussion. 65 See Warren 2004, 14-15 for an analysis of the Epicureans’ “weak argument” against the fear of dying. 66 See Warren 2004, 153-158 for a discussion of ataraxia. 20

The unrelenting dread of looming death and its uncertainty pose a monumental hindrance to the attainment of ataraxia and aponia for the Epicurean. If the fear of death, or the state of being dead, presents such a major impediment to the pursuit of pleasure by virtue of the crippling anxiety it induces, then removing this anxiety is necessary for living a good life. While the

Epicureans do allay the fear of death, they fail to undertake dying itself, which, given the fuzzy and indistinct boundary between existence and nonexistence, ought to be feared.

It can additionally be argued that the process of dying is not a quantitative process, but a qualitative one, namely there is no specific number of soul atoms at which death occurs.67

Democritus, a predecessor of Epicurus, contrary to what the Epicurean posited, affirmed this gradualist approach (Celsus, De Med 2.6.14):

Quin etiam vir iure magni nominis Democritus ne finitae quidem vitae satis certas notas esse proposuit, quibus medici credidissent: adeo illud non reliquit, ut certa aliqua signa futurae mortis essent.

As a matter of fact, even the man of legitimately great renown, Democritus, put forward that the incontrovertible signs of a life that has ended, the sort of signs which physicians had every confidence in, are not indeed sufficient. And, moreover, he did not subscribe to that view, namely that there were unquestionable signs of looming death.68

According to Democritus, the dividing line between life and death lacks demarcation; death is a gradual process because, as Democritus claims, corpses are capable of sense-perception and retain some degree of “psychic functioning”.69 Dying may be a gradual process, but even if this claim were to be contended, one would have to address whether consciousness itself can be measured and delineated. Even if one were to propose a person loses consciousness piecemeal, a

67 I am grateful to James Warren for bringing this objection to my attention. 68 I found this passage referenced in Warren 2002, 197. 69 Quoted from Warren 2002, 198. For a discussion of Democritus’ conjecture that corpses perceive, see Warren 2002, 198. 21

gradualist conceptualization of consciousness is confronted by the same vagueness which the

Epicureans must face, namely that there is no obvious point at which a person no longer has consciousness.

Furthermore, an exploration of the vagueness of consciousness would entail defining consciousness, a complex endeavor which exceeds the scope of this paper. I would argue, however, that the Epicureans would characterize consciousness as tantamount to the functions of the soul and ultimately adopt a physicalist view, specifically that consciousness is a material entity composed of atoms and void.

The Epicurean physicalist ontology advocated that the soul, which is responsible for sense-perception, consists solely of atoms and void. The Epicureans, furthermore, believed that death cannot be harmful, for it amounts to the dispersion of soul atoms and, in turn, the deprivation of sense-perception; because there is no one to perceive and experience death, it therefore cannot be bad for the subject.

Epicurean physicalism, however, neglects to address the intermediate stage between life and death, namely the process of dying, sufficiently. While there is a sharp difference between life and death, I have nonetheless shown that the sharp boundary between existence and nonexistence the Epicureans endorsed is vague, for it is unclear how many soul atoms are required for a person to be declared dead. This fuzziness introduces an element of uncertainty the

Epicureans vehemently sought to reconcile through their hedonic calculus and epistemology, for

‘the good life’, to the Epicurean, is characterized by the pursuit of ataraxia and aponia, or the absence of mental and physical pain, and may be acquired through an empirical understanding of the kosmos. Thus, the Epicureans attempted to evade the transitional stage between life and death

so as to avoid confronting the uncertainty and dread of dying, and, instead, stress how it ultimately leads to nonexistence, which ought not to be feared.

I have demonstrated that the Epicurean treatment does not reconcile our anxieties about the uncertainty of dying, for there is a detrimental lacuna in their therapy that not only challenges their fundamental philosophical objectives, but also introduces an element of uncertainty that, perhaps, ought to be dreaded. One may turn to the Stoics for a potential treatment which may serve to mollify the fear of the uncertainty of dying, that, I argue, can fill the gap the Epicureans disregard.

3 A Stoic remedy for the fear of dying? In the following three sections, I will demonstrate how the Stoics attempt to bridge the gap the Epicureans have left open, namely by focusing on works by two Stoic philosophers:

Epictetus and Seneca. My decision to focus on these two philosophers is motivated primarily by how much the two have written on death and dying as well as their mutual interest in the subject matter. While the beliefs of these two philosophers diverge at times, both nonetheless propose, directly or indirectly, therapies for the fear of death and dying that can be intelligibly contrasted and dissected. I will (a) begin by discussing the Stoic cosmological principles that both Epictetus and Seneca adopted; (b) discuss the views of Epictetus and his proposed therapy (as well as some complications); and (c) address the beliefs of Seneca and raise potential concerns.

3.1 Epictetus and Seneca’s Stoic Cosmology Epictetus’ and Seneca’s treatments for the fear of death and dying are rooted in Stoic cosmological principles. Both death and dying are merely part of a larger cosmic cycle that is dictated by a divine logos, or Nature, which imbues and permeates all souls and animates them with a kind of breathy substance (pneuma).70 When we die, our souls, as a fragment of the cosmic pneuma, are re-absorbed into Nature; we, ultimately, as finite beings, must return to our source (Disc. ii 6.11-15):

Ἐπεί τοι τίνος ἕνεκα γίνονται στάχυες; οὐχ ἵνα καὶ ξηρανθῶσιν; ἀλλὰ ξηραίνονται μέν, οὐχ ἵνα δὲ καὶ θερισθῶσιν; οὐ γὰρ ἀπόλυτοι γίνονται. εἰ οὖν αἴσθησιν εἶχον, εὔχεσθαι αὐτοὺς ἔδει, ἵνα μὴ θερισθῶσιν μηδέποτε; τοῦτο δὲ κατάρα ἐστὶν ἐπὶ σταχύων τὸ μηδέποτε θερισθῆναι. οὕτως ἴστε ὅτι καὶ ἐπ᾿ ἀνθρώπων κατάρα ἐστὶ τὸ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν· ὅμοιον τῷ μὴ πεπανθῆναι, μὴ θερισθῆναι. ἡμεῖς δ᾿ ἐπειδὴ οἱ αὐτοί ἐσμεν, ἅμα μὲν οὓς δεῖ θερισθῆναι, ἅμα δὲ καὶ αὐτῷ τούτῳ παρακολουθοῦντες ὅτι θεριζόμεθα, διὰ τοῦτο ἀγανακτοῦμεν. οὔτε γὰρ ἴσμεν τίνες ἐσμὲν οὔτε μεμελετήκαμεν τὰ ἀνθρωπικὰ ὡς ἱππικοὶ τὰ ἱππικά.

You know, for what reason do ears of corn come into being, in order that they might also not dry out? But, on the one hand, they become dry, in order to, on the other hand, also that they might be harvested? For they do not exist of and for themselves. If, in fact, they were experiencing sensation, would it not be fitting for them to pray lest they never be harvested? And this in fact is a curse against corn, namely not being harvested. In this way, you know that it is also a curse upon human beings not to die; it is like not becoming ripe, namely not being harvested. Since we are the very people who at the same time both need to be harvested and also acknowledge that very thing that we need to be harvested, we are vexed. For we neither know who we are nor what things that are intrinsically human we have taken care of as horsemen have taken care of horses.71

Just as we plant seedlings with the intention of harvesting and consuming their fruits, Nature, too, brings us into being (γίνονται) and harvests and consumes us as a part of the cosmic cycle.72

To fear our mortality is foolish, for to do so is to be confused about how the cosmic cycle functions. Furthermore, it is a “curse” upon corn (κατάρα) never to be harvested, for the denial of

70 For an overview of Stoic pneuma see Annas 1992, 43-47. 71 Passage found in Stephens 2014, 369. For a discussion of this passage, see Stephens 2014, 369. 72 Stephens remarks: “The analogy Epictetus implicitly makes is that just as human beings sow, tend, harvest, and consume grain in an agricultural cycle, the cosmos similarly gives birth to, rears, harvests, and consumes us in nature’s all encompassing cycle”. See Stephens 2014, 369 for an overview of Epictetus’ agricultural analogy. 24

such would defy the necessary cosmic pattern; similarly, it is a curse upon humans to pray for immortality; it is crucial to Epictetus that his readers understand that their deaths, are, as

Stephens explains, “necessary, routine, [and] utterly benign processes in agreement with the rhythms of nature”, and to exist eternally and externally to Nature would be to resist the cosmic order (Stephens 2014, 369). Understanding how we are intertwined with Nature and that our deaths are merely part of the organic cycle is necessary to quell our anxieties about death and dying, for to oppose the organic cycle is to live irrationally and thus, to live a life not worthwhile.73 Seneca, furthermore, also notes the importance of the divine cosmic cycle (EM

12.6-8):

Tota aetas partibus constat et orbes habet circumductos maiores minoribus...Angustissimum habet dies gyrum, sed et hic ab initio ad exitum venit, ab ortu ad occasum. Ideo Heraclitus, cui cognomen fecit orationis obscuritas, “Unus,” inquit, “dies par omni est.” Hoc alius aliter excepit. Dixit enim parem esse horis, nec mentitur; nam si dies est tempus viginti et quattuor horarum, necesse est omnes inter se dies pares esse, quia nox habet, quod dies perdidit. Alius ait parem esse unum diem omnibus similitudine; nihil enim habet longissimi temporis spatium, quod non et in uno die invenias, lucem et noctem, et in aeternum dies vices plures facit istas, non alias contractior, alias productior. Itaque sic ordinandus est dies omnis, tamquam cogat agmen et consummet atque expleat vitam.

An entire lifetime consists of parts; it has great spheres which have been led around smaller...the day is the smallest circle, and yet this proceeds from the beginning to the end, from the rising to the setting. Therefore Heraclitus, to whom obscurity of speech has made his name said “one day is equal to all”. Another has received this in a different way: for it is claimed that a day is equal to [its] hours, [and] he does not speak falsely; for if a day is a time period of twenty-four hours, it is necessary that all days be equal amongst themselves, because the night holds that which the day has irrevocably lost. Another affirms that one day is equal to all with respect to similitude; for the interval of longest time holds nothing of the sort which you find in one day, primarily day or night, and days make those many alterations eternally, not some shorter, and not some longer. Thus, every day must be regulated as if it would run its course and bring about and complete life.74

73 For an overview and discussion of Epictetus’ views of how an understanding of the organic cosmic cycle is necessary to mitigate our fears of death and dying, see Stephens 2014, 369. 74 Passage found in Edwards 2013, 325-326. See Edwards 2013, 325-326 for a discussion. While I consulted Gummere’s translation (1917), this is my own. 25

A day is tantamount to a lifetime, according to Seneca. And just as the light of day yields to darkness, our existence, too, will be extinguished. We are merely participants in the agmen or course of nature that will invariably come to a close. Seneca, in addition, implores us to treat each day as if it were our last (Itaque sic ordinandus est dies omnis, tamquam cogat agmen et consummet atque expleat vitam); we may also interpret along the lines of which Edwards has already suggested that life is a kind of “sphere” (orbes) that encapsulates a perfect and complete revolution—another revolution of the divine organic cycle—once it ends.75

Death and dying, thus, are parts of this cosmic cycle; and while how we die and when we die may be uncertain, it is nevertheless an inevitability to which we must succumb. Resisting the unavoidable perpetuates in us a kind of unnecessary fear that constricts our ability to live the best

Stoic life, namely to live virtuously, and is detrimental to our pursuit of happiness.76

3.2 Epictetus on Death and Dying One may contend that yielding to the cosmic cycle and Nature and, in a sense, adopting a kind of radical acceptance of future uncertainty, is ineffectual, for while we can accept that we die, we tremble at how and when we may die. The fact that we are a mere constituent of a larger whole, as an hour is to day,77 does not alleviate our anxiety about and fear of the potential pain and uncertainty that may accompany dying. For while death itself, which Epictetus and Seneca, like the Epicureans, defined as the separation of the soul from the body and the discontinuation

75 See Edwards 2013, 326 for a discussion of this view. 76 See Stephens 2014, 365 for a discussion of Stoic eudaimonia. 77 Epictetus, through argument by analogy, argues that just as an hour is a part of a day, a person is a part of a whole, and just as hours come and go, a person must also come and go (as dictated by the cosmic cycle). See Stephens 2014, 378 for a discussion of this argument. 26

of personal identity,78 dying, the transition from life to death, poses more unknowns; our souls will inevitably leave our bodies when we die and we will no longer exist, but the process that leads up to this could be very painful or pleasurable, or prolonged or brief.

Epictetus would respond to this objection by contending that regardless of how we die

(may it be swiftly in a car accident, lengthy through a painful terminal cancer, or in ecstasy while engaging in intercourse) we nevertheless arrive at the same conclusion: death. Epictetus stresses this point that all roads are equal (Disc ii 6.17-19):

εἰ δ᾿ ὡς δύσκολα καλεῖς, ποίαν δυσκολίαν ἔχει τὸ γενόμενον φθαρῆναι; τὸ δὲ φθεῖρον ἢ μάχαιρά ἐστιν ἢ τροχὸς ἢ θάλασσα ἢ κεραμὶς ἢ τύραννος. τί σοι μέλει, ποίᾳ ὁδῷ καταβῇς εἰς Ἅιδου; ἴσαι πᾶσαί εἰσιν.

But if you call upon troublesome things in this way, what kind of difficulty in being destroyed does the thing which exists have? The instrument of destruction is a dagger, or wheel, or sea, or tile, or despot. Why do you care by which kind of road into Hades you go down? All are equal.79

Regardless of how one person or another dies, or what road they go down, they both arrive at the same destination.80

78 Lucretius in DRN also adopts the belief that death is the cessation of personal identity. See DRN 3.854-861. See Stephens 2014, 379 for a discussion of Epictetus’ views of personal identity and its relationship to death. Seneca appears to have mixed views on death and its relationship to personal identity; on the one hand, he states that “Nature dispossesses you at your departure as at your entrance” (Excutit redeuntem natura sicut intrantem, EM 102.25), and, on the other hand, remarks that “that dastardly day, which you dread as if the last one, is the birthday of [your] eternity” (Dies iste, quem tamquam extremum reformidas, aeterni natalis est, EM 102.26). It is not clear how to reconcile these two views, but I would contend that Seneca believes that personal identity is intertwined with the body, and, when a person dies, he is stripped of his identity, but the wisp of the cosmic pneuma that imbues him with life is eternal and will persist not as that person but as pneuma. What is perplexing, however, is the implied possessive adjective “your”, which would indicate a kind of postmortem survival of the soul. I do not have a solution to this tension, but it is possible that Seneca could be alluding to Platonic metaphysics and eschatology. Annas contends that “Souls last longer than bodies [in Stoic accounts], but they are not immortal. And what survives is not the individual personality; death is the end of me and will not be rewarded or punished for what I have done” (Annas 1992, 68). One may speculate that Seneca incorporated Platonic eschatology into his own and deviated from the traditional Stoic views of postmortem survival as described by Annas. See Nietmann 1966, 85-86 for a discussion of this tension and Long 2017, 222-223 for an overview of Seneca’s mind/body dualism. While I consulted Gummere’s translation (1925), the above translations are my own. 79 Passage found in Stephens 2014, 379. For a discussion, see Stephens 2014, 379. While I consulted Oldfather’s translation (1928), this is my own. 80 Seneca, whose views will be discussed, in contrast, bites the bullet and admits that death is a kind of “great monster” that ought to be tamed. See EM 82.24. 27

While it may be the case that all lives culminate in death, or all roads lead to the same destination, some roads are longer than others; dying by a painful terminal cancer that may persist for years seems worse than dying swiftly in a car accident.81 Epictetus would respond by proclaiming that a life in which a person cannot carry out the deeds and activities that define and constitute that person is not worth living and ought to be avoided (Disc. i 2.25-27):

Τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον καὶ ἀθλητής τις κινδυνεύων ἀποθανεῖν, εἰ μὴ ἀπεκόπη τὸ αἰδοῖον, ἐπελθόντος αὐτῷ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ (ἦν δ᾿ ἐκεῖνος φιλόσοφος) καὶ εἰπόντος “ἄγε, ἀδελφέ, τί μέλλεις ποιεῖν; ἀποκόπτομεν τοῦτο τὸ μέρος καὶ ἔτι εἰς γυμνάσιον προερχόμεθα;” οὐχ ὑπέμεινεν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐγκαρτερήσας ἀπέθανεν...τοιοῦτόν ἐστι τὸ κατὰ πρόσωπον· οὕτως ἰσχυρὸν παρὰ τοῖς εἰθισμένοις αὐτὸ συνεισφέρειν ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐν ταῖς σκέψεσιν. “ἄγε οὖν, Ἐπίκτητε, διαξύρησαι.” ἂν ὦ φιλόσοφος, λέγω, “οὐ διαξυρῶμαι.” “ἀλλ᾿ ἀφελῶ σου τὸν τράχηλον.” εἰ σοὶ ἄμεινον, ἄφελε.

In this way, is the athlete too running the risk of dying unless his penis was cut off...when his brother approached him (and that one was a philosopher) and said: “come on, brother! What are you about to do? Are we cutting off this part and still going before the gymnasium?” He did not submit, but, having remained firm, died...it is a thing such as this that is in accordance with one’s persona82 (πρόσωπον); in this way, it is a strength among those to whom it is accustomed to contribute something from themselves in the investigation. “Therefore, come on, Epictetus, shave yourself”. “If I am a philosopher”, I say, “I will not shave it off”. “But I will take off your neck”. If it is better for you, brother, [then do it].83

The Olympic athlete refuses surgery so as not to jeopardize his prosopon (πρόσωπον), or the kind of person he is, for castration would feminize him and, as a result, ostracize him from society and foil his aspirations.84 Similarly, Epictetus refuses to shave his beard so as to avoid

81 An observation similarly made by Stephens. See Stephens 2014, 379. 82 Seneca uses persona in a similar fashion, namely as a way to describe the kind of person someone is as dictated not only by the divine plan, but also by a person’s role in society. Frede remarks: “Seneca in Ep. Mor. 94.1 talks about a part of moral philosophy which tries to formulate precepts, not for man in general (‘in universum. . . hominem’), but ‘propria cuique personae’. Again, it becomes clear from the context that this must mean, not precepts ‘specific for each person’, but ‘appropriate for each sort of person’. For he goes on to talk about precepts for people who are husbands or fathers, or masters of slaves. If, with this in mind, we check other passages in which ‘prosopoti’ and 'persona' are used for human beings, it turns out that it is hardly ever used in the ordinary sense of 'person', but usually in the sense of ‘sort of person’”. See Frede 2007, 158-160 for this parallelism between Epictetus’ use of πρόσωπον and Seneca’s use of persona. 83 For a discussion of this passage, see Stephens 2014, 373-375. 84 A translation borrowed from Stephens 2014, 373n20. The Stoics adopted the belief that human beings have roles that are dictated by Nature and follow the divine plan. The rational person conforms to the kind of person she is. Human beings, as Epictetus describes in Disc. 17, play a sort of role as if an actor would in a play. Just as the 28

compromising his identity as philosopher; he does not imply that he must have a beard in order to philosophize, but identifies his facial hair with his own identity and “self-image” as a philosopher (Stephens 2014, 375).85 Nonetheless, while the Olympic athlete does not die as a result of suicide, Epictetus does contend that if a life becomes so bad that a person cannot exercise his prosopon, then suicide may be warranted, for living a life not in harmony with one’s prosopon is not worth living (Disc. iv 26-28):

ἐκχεθήσεται τὸ ἔλαιον, ἀπολεῖται τὰ σκευάρια, ἀλλ᾿ ἐγὼ ἀπαθὴς ἔσομαι. ἐμπρησμὸς ἔσται ἐμοῦ μὴ παρόντος καὶ ἀπολεῖται τὰ βιβλία, ἀλλ᾿ ἐγὼ χρήσομαι ταῖς φαντασίαις κατὰ φύσιν. ἀλλ᾿ οὐχ ἕξω φαγεῖν. εἰ οὕτως τάλας εἰμί, λιμὴν τὸ ἀποθανεῖν. οὗτος δ᾿ ἐστὶν ὁ λιμὴν πάντων, ὁ θάνατος, αὕτη ἡ καταφυγή. διὰ τοῦτο οὐδὲν τῶν ἐν τῷ βίῳ χαλεπόν ἐστιν. ὅταν θέλῃς, ἐξῆλθες καὶ οὐ καπνίζῃ.

The oil will be spilled, the paltry garments will perish, but I will be unaffected. There will be a fire when I am not present and the books will perish, but I will rely on my impressions according to nature.86 Yet I will not be able to eat; if in this way I am suffering, dying is a harbor. And this is the harbor of all people—death—this is a way of escape. It is on account of this that none of the things in life are hard to bear; whenever you are willing, you go out and you do not suffer from the smoke.

Death, to Epictetus, is a kind of outlet from suffering. In this way, we need not endure superfluous pains and adopt ways of living that are not suited to us, for we can always escape from a life not worthwhile. Epictetus also states (Disc. i 25.18-21):

καπνὸν πεποίηκεν ἐν τῷ οἰκήματι; ἂν μέτριον, μενῶ· ἂν λίαν πολύν, ἐξέρχομαι. τούτου γὰρ μεμνῆσθαι καὶ κρατεῖν, ὅτι ἡ θύρα ἤνοικται.

director assigns you the role of, for example, a beggar, Nature, similarly, assigns you the role of, perhaps, a philosopher or an Olympic athlete. Nature endows us with characteristics that appeal to certain proclivities. If, for instance, a person is born with a debilitating speech defect (an example which I borrow from Frede, see Frede 2007, 166), he likely ought not to become an orator; it is our duty to act rationally and adhere to the roles that are entrusted to us from Nature. See Frede 2007, 164. Also see Stephens 2014, 367; 372-378 for a discussion of the meaning of prosopon and Epictetus’ adoption of the phrase. 85 See Stephens 2014, 375 for a discussion of how Epictetus’ understands pogonotomy in reference to one’s prosopon. 86 The reception of impressions is more, to the Stoic, than passively receiving “raw data”; perceiving is a matter of thinking and engaging with our rational faculties, and, in turn, engaging with the divine logos (Annas 1994, 75). See Annas 1994, 69-85 for a detailed discussion of Stoic accounts of perception. For more information about φαντασία (phantasia), see Annas 1994, 85. 29

Has something produced smoke in the house? If moderate, I remain. If exceedingly much, I go out. For one must remember and adhere to this, namely that the door stands open.87

Once the smoke becomes unbearably suffocating, one can exit the house; similarly, if life’s adversities become too overwhelming, one can always take her own life.

But surely one could adopt a new prosopon if he must. The programmer (whom I will refer to as Steve) who lost his hands in a car accident could undoubtedly take on a different prosopon. But, according to Epictetus, if Steve were to do so and become, for example, a teacher, he would be a different person.88 To live as another person, to adopt a new prosopon would be to live a life not suited to yourself nor to the life dictated by the divine plan and would, ultimately, be a life not worth living; “you let yourself down, do not take yourself seriously, and undermine yourself” (Frede 2007, 157).

It is not clear, however, whether the programmer goes out of existence when he becomes a teacher. Suppose, for example, Steve acquires bionic hands and resumes his programming career after a brief period in which he was a teacher. Does Steve, in this case, go out of existence and come back into existence? If we succumb to Epictetus’ belief that personal identity is intertwined with a person’s role in society and his character, or, “the sort of person he is”89, then the programmer should come in and out of existence. But herein lies a tension, for Epictetus also believes that death, which is synonymous with nonexistence, is the termination of personal identity, and characterizes it as the separation of the soul from the body.90 When Steve dies, he

87 While I consulted Oldfather’s translation (1925), this is my own. 88 See Frede 2007, 156-157 for a discussion of how a person’s role in society contributes to his prosopon. 89 A translation that I have borrowed from Frede. See Frede 2007, 155-156. For a more detailed discussion of Epictetus’ use of prosopon, see Frede 2007 passim and Stephens 2014, 376-377. 90 See Stephens 2014, 379 for an overview. Seneca also adopts this belief; see Nietmann 1966, 85 for a discussion. 30

no longer exists; the material substance that once constituted Steve is subsumed into the cosmic pneuma and is recycled; that which we are given, we must return (Ench. 11):

Μηδέποτε ἐπὶ μηδενὸς εἴπῃς ὅτι “ἀπώλεσα αὐτό,” ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι “ἀπέδωκα.” τὸ παιδίον ἀπέθανεν; ἀπεδόθη. ἡ γυνὴ ἀπέθανεν; ἀπεδόθη. “τὸ χωρίον ἀφῃρέθην.” οὐκοῦν καὶ τοῦτο ἀπεδόθη. “ἀλλὰ κακὸς ὁ ἀφελόμενος.” τί δὲ σοὶ μέλει, διὰ τίνος σε ὁ δοὺς ἀπῄτησε; μέχρι δ᾿ ἂν διδῷ, ὡς ἀλλοτρίου αὐτοῦ ἐπιμελοῦ, ὡς τοῦ πανδοχείου οἱ παριόντες.

Never should you say about anything that “I lost it”, but that “I gave it back”. Has your child died? He has been given back. Has your wife died? She has been given back. “I had my estate taken away”. All right, and this has been given back. “But it was a base man who took it away”. But why does it concern you for what reason the giver demanded it back from you? And as far as he would give it to you, take care of it as though it does not belong to you, as those who pass by regard an inn.91

We, as material bodies, must ultimately surrender our material constitution to the divine logos and, in turn, surrender our prosopon. Once we have given it back, we no longer exist. But Steve does not go out of existence when he becomes a teacher, for we can still, nevertheless, talk about

Steve as a teacher; we do not say “after Steve got into an accident, he died”, but “after Steve got into an accident, he became a teacher”. We still refer to Steve as a living being, but as one with a different prosopon. This is complicated, however, by the fact that the Stoics advocated numerical identity (Nemesius, Nat. hom. 37.76-95):

οἱ δὲ Στωϊκοί φασιν ἀποκαθισταμένους τοὺς πλανήτας εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ σημεῖον κατά τε μῆκος καὶ πλάτος ἔνθα τὴν ἀρχὴν ἕκαστος ἦν ὅτε τὸ πρῶτον ὁ κόσμος συνέστη, ἐν ῥηταῖς χρόνων περιόδοις ἐκπύρωσιν καὶ φθορὰν τῶν ὄντων ἀπεργάζεσθαι, καὶ πάλιν ἐξ ὑπαρχῆς εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ τὸν κόσμον ἀποκαθίστασθαι, καὶ τῶν ἀστέρων ὁμοίως πάλιν φερομένων ἕκαστα τῶν ἐν τῇ προτέρᾳ περιόδῳ γενομένων ἀπαραλλάκτως ἀποτελεῖσθαι. ἔσεσθαι γὰρ πάλιν Σωκράτην καὶ Πλάτωνα καὶ ἕκαστον τῶν ἀνθρώπων σὺν τοῖς αὐτοῖς καὶ φίλοις καὶ πολίταις, καὶ τὰ αὐτὰ πείσεσθαι, καὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς συντεύξεσθαι καὶ τὰ αὐτὰ μεταχειριεῖσθαι, καὶ πᾶσαν πόλιν καὶ κώμην καὶ ἀγρὸν ὁμοίως ἀποκαθίστασθαι· γίνεσθαι δὲ τὴν ἀποκατάστασιν τοῦ παντὸς οὐχ ἅπαξ ἀλλὰ πολλάκις· μᾶλλον δὲ εἰς ἄπειρον, καὶ ἀτελευτήτως τὰ αὐτὰ ἀποκαθίστασθαι· τοὺς δὲ θεοὺς τοὺς μὴ ὑποκειμένους τῇ φθορᾷ ταύτῃ, παρακολουθήσαντας μιᾷ περιόδῳ γινώσκειν ἐκ ταύτης πάντα τὰ μέλλοντα

91 Lucretius similarly characterizes life as something that ought to be returned and never fully possessed: “In this way, one thing will never cease to arise from another, and life is given to no one to possess, [but] to all to rent” (sic alid ex alio numquam desistet oriri vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu, DRN 3.970-971). Simone Weil also adopts this view, namely that life, as a kind of gift from God, must be returned. See Wolfteich 2001, 370-371 for a discussion. 31

ἔσεσθαι ἐν ταῖς ἑξῆς περιόδοις· οὐδὲν γὰρ ξένον ἔσεσθαι παρὰ τὰ γενόμενα πρότερον, ἀλλὰ πάντα ὡσαύτως ἀπαραλλάκτως ἄχρι καὶ τῶν ἐλαχίστων.

And the Stoics say that when the planets, once they return to the same celestial sign, both in relation to length and width, where each was at the beginning when the kosmos was first put together, at specified periods of time the planets bring about a conflagration and a destruction of all existing things. And once more the kosmos are restored to the same state anew and, similarly, when the stars move again each thing which happened in a former period will occur again indistinguishably from previous periods. For again there will be a Socrates and Plato and each one of humankind with the same people and beloved citizens, and they will suffer the same things and befall the same things and pursue the same things and, similarly, every city, village and country will be restored. And there comes into being a periodic return of every thing not once but many times, but rather infinitely, and the same things are restored without end. And the gods who do not submit to destruction, because they are aware of that single period [and] from it they know all things that will happen in subsequent periods. For there will be nothing unusual to the things which occurred formerly, but all things will be indistinguishable [from previous periods] right up to the uttermost details.92

Each period consists of the same people and same events that are identical to those which existed and transpired in previous periods. The Stoics also adopted the identity of indiscernibles; so, the

Plato that will exist in future periods, by virtue of having all of the same properties and experiences as the Plato in prior periods, must be the same Plato.93 Thus, one may reason from this passage that the Stoics espoused numerical identity. If this is the case, then it can be inferred that diachronic unity, for Epictetus, consists of the persistence of one’s prosopon over time.

Steve is not the same person once he becomes a teacher for he is no longer numerically identical

92 Passage found in Long 2006, 256-257. For a discussion of Stoic conflagration see Long 2006 passim. For a more targeted discussion about Stoic conflagration and personal identity, see Long 2006, 275-277. While I consulted Long’s translation (2006), this is primarily my own. One may argue that if these periods are indistinguishable, then how can we mark them as numerically distinct? Since the Stoics endorsed the identity of indiscernibles, it seems as though that each conflagration ought not be distinct from its former iterations. Long 2006 attempts to reconcile this through an argument by analogy, wherein he compares Stoic conflagrations to the rewinding of a video cassette; the events that unfold in a movie happen only once with respect to the characters in that movie; Sigourney Weaver, in Aliens, returns to the alien planet, LV-426, rescues a child, and survives, but she carries out these things only once. But Nature, as an entity that exists externally to time, can rewind and replay the cassette. In this way, Sigourney Weaver repeats herself again and again; she boards the same spaceship, engages in the same dialogue and rescues the same child. Thus, according to Long, “there can be a genuine sequence of numerically identical [Sigourney Weavers] and [Sigourney Weaver] actions. Each playing of the cassette will occupy a different slice of global time, and so there will be a type-identical recurrence of each world, taken as a whole. Yet all the contents and events of each world will be numerically the same”. See Long 2006, 279-280 for his analogy and a discussion. 93 See Long 2006, 276 for a discussion of how the Stoics “defended the identity of indiscernibles”. 32

to Steve the programmer; he is, to an extent, qualitatively identical. Therefore, Steve must go out of existence and then come back into existence once he resumes his life as a programmer. But

Epictetus’ Stoic cosmology would not allow such a thing, for Steve to exist no longer must mean that Steve has been irretrievably consumed by the cosmic pneuma.

A further complication arises, for the Stoics believed in a kind of eternal recurrence wherein a great conflagration consumes the totality of the universe, and everyone and everything is resurrected post-conflagration. As stated above, Plato, now, is the same Plato as the Plato from previous periods; he is numerically identical; the Stoics did not believe in clones.94 So, technically, Steve would “come back” into existence post-conflagration and be numerically identical to the pre-conflagration Steve. But Epictetus must confront a kind of tension, for the

Steve that exists between conflagrations, in a given lifetime or period, cannot come back into existence if death is in fact the termination of personal identity (as well as the separation of the soul from the body) and simultaneously resume his life as a programmer after adopting a different prosopon (which would, in turn, make him a different person).

It is imperative to mention, however, that there lies within Stoic theories of personal identity a kind of paradox. One may contend along the lines of which Yourgrau has argued that death does not result in the termination of personal identity, for we can still talk about the deceased and nevertheless understand that we are talking about that person. For example, when

Socrates died, he ceased to exist, but he did not cease being Socrates, otherwise, we could not say that it was Socrates who had died. There seems to be a kind of indelible essence (or

94 According to Long: “In Stoic metaphysics the individual Socrates is ‘peculiarly qualified’, which means that he can have no indistinguishable clone. Something which ‘is no different from’ Socrates must be absolutely identical to Socrates”. See Long 2006, 275. 33

essence*, according to Yourgrau) assigned to Socrates that has always persisted (prenatally) and will persist (posthumously).95 The Stoics would have trouble reconciling this view with their ontology, for while they maintain that death consists of the termination of personal identity, they would also argue that we can nevertheless talk about the deceased in a meaningful way, namely that they subsist.96 For example, even if Dion is dead, we can nevertheless speak of him either truly or falsely using his name.97 This would imply that there must be a kind of identity attached to Dion that endures posthumously. But if death is the termination of personal identity, then it would be impossible to speak of Dion meaningfully; the Stoics, thus, have backed themselves into a corner, for they would need to reconcile how Dion can be both spoken of meaningfully

(and subsist) while simultaneously not be spoken of.

If, however, we adopt the belief that death is the termination of personal identity, as

Epictetus espouses, then, according to Epictetus, if a person can no longer exercise her prosopon, she may consider suicide. But even if we grant suicide to be a viable escape from life’s troubles, how could we overcome our visceral fear of death and aversion to suicide? Epictetus would respond by claiming that our instinctive reluctance to take our own lives is unfounded, for once

95 See Yourgrau 2019, 24-25; 101 for a discussion of this view. 96 See Annas 1992, 79 and Bailey 2014 passim for an overview of Stoic subsistence. Not all Stoics, however, maintained the thesis that death is the cessation of personal identity. See Celkyte 2020 passim for a discussion of the divergent views of personal identity in Stoic thought. 97 See Bailey 2014, 280 for a discussion. While the posthumous Dion can be referred to by using his name, one cannot use indexicals to refer to him. According to Bailey: “But now suppose Dion has died. In those circumstances, I express a true proposition if I say ‘Dion is dead’, since the predicate ‘is dead’ now obtains at Dion; equally some portion of the truth occupies the propositional office expressed by ‘Dion is dead’. But if in these circumstances I say instead ‘This one is dead’, hoping to pick out the late Dion demonstratively, I do not manage to express any proposition. For according to the Stoics, Dion’s death has voided all those true or false sayables that formed the content of any sentences containing demonstrative reference to him. One may still speak of him, and speak truly, using his name. But one cannot succeed in expressing anything true or false of him by making use of a would be deictic way of referring to him”. See Bailey 2014, 280. 34

we understand death to be another feature of the cosmic cycle, we understand its innocuousness

(Disc. ii.1.15-17):

ὡς γὰρ τοῖς παιδίοις τὰ προσωπεῖα φαίνεται δεινὰ καὶ φοβερὰ δι᾿ ἀπειρίαν, τοιοῦτόν τι καὶ ἡμεῖς πάσχομεν πρὸς τὰ πράγματα δι᾿ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ παιδία πρὸς τὰς μορμολυκείας. τί γάρ ἐστι παιδίον; ἄγνοια. τί ἐστι παιδίον; ἀμαθία. ἐπεὶ ὅπου οἶδεν, κἀκεῖνα οὐδὲν ἡμῶν ἔλαττον ἔχει· θάνατος τί ἐστιν; μορμολύκειον. στρέψας αὐτὸ κατάμαθε· ἰδοῦ, πῶς οὐ δάκνει·

For as masks appear frightful and menacing to children on account of their ignorance, we also experience something similar to things in no different way than children do in reference to the bogeyman. For what is a child? Ignorance. For what is a child? Foolishness. Since whenever a child has knowledge, he has nothing worse than us. What is death? The bogeyman. Turn it aside and thoroughly learn it; see, it by no means bites.98

Death is like a frightful mask, upon further examination, we realize that is nothing to fear; our anxiety about death is the result of ignorance. Once we accept death as inevitable and our attempts to resist it as unreasonable (for opposing the divine plan and the order of the cosmic cycle would be irrational), we realize that “it by no means bites” (πῶς οὐ δάκνει). There is a kind of consolation in the ineluctable, for the insuperability of death compels us to adopt attitudes that can either mitigate our anxiety about death or exacerbate it. By advocating a kind of radical acceptance to fate and compliance as well as trust in the divine plan, Epictetus would urge us to

“thoroughly learn” (κατάμαθε) about death and, in doing so, compels us to realize that our anxieties are baseless. A life characterized by a paralyzing anxiety that foils a person’s ability to practice her prosopon, after all, is not one worth living, but it is “up to us” (ἐφ᾿ ἡμῖν) to consider what attitudes we can adopt to make life worthwhile.99

While it is our choice to decide whether to embrace attitudes to alleviate our anxieties about death, if a life becomes bad enough, we can exit. One may argue, however, if it is the case

98 While I consulted Oldfather’s translation (1925), this is primarily my own. 99 See Disc. 1.22.9-12 for Epictetus’ discussion of what is “up to us” (ἐφ᾿ ἡμῖν). 35

that a person’s identity is equated with one’s prosopon and that when Steve, for example, becomes a teacher he becomes a different person, there is neither a need nor possibility for suicide since Steve has already ceased to exist. This poses a challenge; Epictetus would likely advocate suicide when Steve recognizes he can longer continue programming (perhaps upon waking up in the hospital and realizing he no longer has hands). An element of vagueness arises here, for it is not clear at what point Steve becomes a different person; when is someone no longer himself? Is it immediately after Steve loses his hands? Is it when he decides to enroll in a teaching school? The point at which we can decisively say that Steve is no longer numerically identical is nebulous. Epictetus seems to be inadvertently admitting that once, for example, Steve becomes a teacher, there is still nevertheless an element of Steve-ness that persists, but if Steve becomes a different person after he loses his hands, then there is no persistence of the self and no need for suicide.

This tension is difficult to reconcile, for “Steve the teacher”, according to Epictetus, is not the same person as “Steve the programmer”; the latter, in fact, ceases to exist once the former is adopted. Epictetus must consider whether the cessation of the self (the cessation of one’s prosopon) is in fact a kind of death and what survives is not me, but someone else; but if he concedes this point, he must also reconcile how this characterization of death as the cessation of one’s prosopon correlates to his other criterion of death, namely as the separation of the soul from the body.

Despite the evident difficulties in Epictetus’ philosophy of death, he aims, primarily, through his therapy, to ameliorate anxieties about the fear of dying by proposing that (a) it is merely a part of the divine plan to which we, if we are rational, must succumb; and (b) if a life becomes

bad enough such that person can no longer practice her prosopon, then she ought to consider suicide as a viable escape. Epictetus’ views, however, are complicated by his criterion for personal identity, namely that a person is said to be numerically identical to his former and future self provided that he possesses the same prosopon. But it is not clear whether a person, if he were to adopt a new prosopon, would go out of existence.

Furthermore, Epictetus must also reconcile how we can nevertheless talk about the deceased meaningfully if death is in fact the termination of personal identity and why, if latter is the case, suicide would be warranted. While there are serious complications with Epictetus’ beliefs, they do nevertheless provide some semblance of comfort: while it is true that death and dying are inevitable, Epictetus proposes that we can nonetheless “thoroughly learn” (κατάμαθε) about them and realize, by contemplating philosophy, that they are truly innocuous. Ultimately, how we want to view and feel about the inevitable boils down to the attitudes we wish to espouse, and it is Seneca who informs us further of what attitudes to adopt and why they are worth adopting.

3.3 Seneca on Death and Dying Seneca agrees with Epictetus that death is the separation of the soul from the body,100 but unlike Epictetus who argues that our fear of and anxiety about death are unfounded, Seneca admits that death and dying do induce a kind of visceral fear (EM 82.21-82.24):

At ille Leonidas quam fortiter illos adlocutus est! “Sic,” inquit, “commilitones, prandete tamquam apud inferos cenaturi.”...Non trecentis, sed omnibus mortalibus mortis timor detrahi debet. Quomodo illos doces malum non esse? Quomodo opiniones totius aevi, quibus protinus infantia inbuitur, evincis? Quod auxilium invenis inbecillitati humanae? Quid dicis, quo inflammati in media pericula inruant? Qua oratione hunc timendi consensum, quibus ingeni viribus obnixam

100 See EM 37.10. 37

contra te persuasionem humani generis avertis? Verba mihi captiosa conponis et interrogatiunculas nectis? Magnis telis magna portenta feriuntur.

But that Leonidas has addressed those men rather bravely! “Thus”, he said, “comrades, eat breakfast as if [you all] are about to eat at the house of Hades”... It is not for the Three Hundred, but the fear of death ought to be taken away for all the mortals. How do you convince those men that it is not evil? How do you conquer the beliefs of every age, those beliefs which constantly imbue us from infancy? What antidote do you devise for human helplessness? Inflamed by what do [they] rush into the middle of danger? With what speech do you drive away this common feeling of fear? With what power of genius do you drive away [this] unwavering conviction opposing you? Do you offer captious words and bring forward syllogisms? Great monsters are slain by great weapons.

Whereas Epictetus would argue that death and dying, if we thoroughly understand what they are, ought not to be feared, Seneca, on the other hand, characterizes death as a “great monster”

(magna portenta) that requires great weapons to slay. He claims that the fear of death cannot be overcome with petty objections and mere dogma, but he calls for action; by comparing the human condition of all mortals to soldiers, Seneca is, in a sense, attempting to mobilize us to quash our fears of death, for it too is a battle which we must all engage in.

The antidote to the fear of death and dying, to Seneca, comes in the form of a kind of exposure therapy,101 wherein a person rehearses and imagines her own death to such an extent that when it invariably comes, she is equipped to handle it with ease (EM 70.16-18):

Nemo nostrum cogitat quandoque sibi ex hoc domicilio exeundum...Vis adversus hoc corpus liber esse? Tamquam migraturus habita. Propone tibi quandoque hoc contubernio carendum; fortior eris ad necessitatem exeundi. Sed quemadmodum suus finis veniet in mentem omnia sine fine concupiscentibus? Nullius rei meditatio tam necessaria est. Alia enim fortasse exercentur in supervacuum. Adversus paupertatem praeparatus est animus; permansere divitiae. Ad contemptum nos doloris armavimus; nunquam a nobis exegit huius virtutis experimentum integri ac sani felicitas corporis. Ut fortiter amissorum desideria pateremur praecepimus nobis; omnes, quos amabamus, superstites fortuna servavit. Huius unius rei usum qui exigat dies veniet.

101 According to Rothbaum and Schwartz, exposure therapy is a kind of treatment used for anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorders that “requires the patient to focus on and describe the details of a traumatic experience. Exposure methods include confrontation with frightening, yet realistically safe, stimuli that continues until anxiety is reduced”. See Rothbaum and Schwartz 2002, 59 for an overview. 38

Not one of us meditates on this idea that there is a time when one must depart from this little house of his [his life]. Do you wish to be free from this body? Dwell in it just as though you are about to depart from it. Posit that at some point that you must be deprived of this apartment; you will be braver against the inevitability of dying. But how will his end come into one’s mind when people are desirous of all things without an end? No contemplation of this thing is so necessary, for the other things are perhaps exercised in vain. The soul has been equipped to oppose poverty; riches endure. We have armed ourselves to disdain suffering; the luck of an unimpaired and healthy body never required from us a test of this virtue. As we have instructed ourselves to endure the grief of those lost more bravely, fortune has protected everyone surviving, those whom we were loving; the day will come which will require the use of this one thing.102

Given the imperative force of prono, we can see that Seneca is imploring his readers to understand the fact that they will ultimately perish, but they are nevertheless equipped

(armavimus) not only to confront death, but also to disdain it (contemptum).103 Seneca’s use of doloris refers both to death in this context, but also to suffering and pain more broadly. Through this kind of training or self-instruction, we can not only conquer our fears of death, but also fears of dying and other dolores. Seneca’s exhortation to his readers to despise death and dolores, literally to arm ourselves against them, as well as treat them as “great monsters” (magna portenta), suggests that death and dolores (including the process of dying) are things to overcome; they are a final and ultimate test of one’s courage and character.

But if death, to the Stoics, amounts to the separation of the soul from the body and nonexistence,104 then why would it matter if we die courageously? Surely, I could embrace an attitude that advocates adopting a kind of apathetic numbness towards death and dying. Suppose, for example, that someone, in lieu of mentally rehearsing his death and enduring the accompanying emotional toil (per Seneca’s advice) chooses instead to engage in recreational

102 Passage found in Edwards 2013, 329. For a parallel passage, see EM 30.18. See Edwards 2013, 329-330 for a discussion of Seneca’s proposal to nullify future dolores through repeated exposures. 103 The subject of armavimus, moreover, is plural, perhaps suggesting that the “equipping” in question is something that behooves all mortals, for the fear of dying is a kind enemy against which we all must contend. 104 See EM 37.10. 39

drugs which nullify his anxieties towards life’s dolores. The drug-user does not act bravely and yet does not fear death and his dolores; why does courage matter?

To Seneca, the drug-user is wasting his life; courage matters because the ultimate aim in a life, to the Stoic (including both Seneca and Epictetus), is living according to the divine plan.

To live according to the divine plan, or Nature, amounts to (a) living rationally, (b) pursuing wisdom, and (c) striving for virtue.105 Seneca would criticize the drug-user for indulging in meaningless bodily pleasures. Living, to Seneca, means living towards (a), (b), and (c),106 for they are fundamental for a good life and for procuring tranquility; a person who deviates from these things is not truly living and is, in turn, wasting his time and his life.107

Time, to Seneca, is something that we cannot waste, for we cannot depend on the future to live; we must, he insists, embrace the present as only ours.108 Thus, the notion of time is heavily interwoven in Seneca’s therapy for death and dying. According to Seneca, dying ought not to be feared for we have already experienced it; we die a little each day (EM 24.20):109

Cotidie enim demitur aliqua pars vitae, et tunc quoque, cum crescimus, vita decrescit. Infantiam amisimus, deinde pueritiam, deinde adulescentiam. Usque ad hesternum, quicquid transit temporis, perit; hunc ipsum, quem agimus, diem cum morte dividimus. Quemadmodum clepsydram non extremum stillicidium exhaurit, sed quicquid ante defluxit, sic ultima hora, qua esse desinimus, non sola mortem facit, sed sola consummat; tunc ad illam pervenimus, sed diu venimus.

For every day some part of life is taken away, and even then when we grow, life dwindles. We lost our infancy, then our boyhood, then our youth. Right up to yesterday, whatever time has passed by, has perished; we split up this very day, the day which we are spending, with death.

105 For an overview of Seneca’s understanding of wisdom and virtue, see Edwards 2013, 327; Noyes 1973, 237. For a more detailed discussion of the role of wisdom in one’s preparation for death, see Caponigri, 1968 passim. 106 See Edwards 2013, 327 for an overview. Seneca addresses the point that the self-indulgent waste their lives in EM 122.2. Edwards suggests that Plato’s Phd. may have some influence here, namely with respect to the notion that the body is a tomb from which the philosopher must escape in order to live truly. See Edwards 2013, 327n20. 107 See Edwards 2013, 327 for a discussion. 108 See Edwards 2013, 327-330 for a discussion. 109 For an overview, see Edwards 2013, 329-330. 40

Just as how the last drop of water does not empty the water-clock, but whatever flowed down previously empties it, likewise the final hour, in which we cease to exist, alone does not bring about death, but the final hour alone completes death; at that very time we arrive at that thing [death], but we have come into such a state for a long while.

The last drop of the water-clock does not empty it, the last drop completes the process. Similarly, because death consumes each passing moment, when we die, we do not surrender the totality of our lives, but the sliver of life that remains.110 We are already familiar with death and are constantly in the process of dying; although the fear of death and dying are things that must be conquered with intrepidity, they are not “great unknown[s]” that ought to be feared in excess

(Edwards 2013, 330). If anything, our ineluctable finitude should motivate us to live in the present and live well, for we cannot overturn the water-clock.

Surely, one could contend that the practice of mentally rehearsing one’s death does not mollify our anxieties about future uncertainty and potential pain (dolores). Even though Seneca may inspire us to embrace the present, the prospect of both future uncertainty and possible pain, however, is something to be feared and can be debilitating now. But is it not the fact that the future is uncertain that motivates us to embrace the present? According to Seneca, the future is aliena111, or not our own, but we are, however, in possession of the present. And in order to value our time fully and “make the most” of our existence, we must do so now. There is a kind of urgency in living in the present and not concerning ourselves with the future, for we cannot depend on it; living well and with tranquility means living now.112

110 See Noyes 1973, 231 and Edwards 2013, 329-330 for overviews of this passage. 111 See EM 1.3 and 74.73. See Edwards 2013, 327-328 for an overview of how Seneca characterizes the past and future as aliena to us. 112 One may contend that, despite a person’s effort to remain ‘in the present’, she nonetheless possesses a “bias towards the future”, especially with respect to the prospect of a future pain or dolor. See Parfit 1986, 165-166 for a discussion of future bias. 41

There seems to be, however, a kind of catch-22 conundrum that arises with Seneca’s proposal to live now. If it is the case that it is one’s goal to carry out (a), (b), and (c) with the overall aim of acquiring what Edwards refers to as “mental tranquility”, then (a), (b) and (c) ought to be sought immediately.113 But couldn’t this sense of urgency and constant confrontation with looming death induce a kind of anxiety that may itself preclude one’s aim of attaining tranquility?114 Surely, there must be a point at which this urgency to live now has a paralyzing and crippling effect. One may look to the Doctor Who franchise for a parallel example; when children are exposed to apertures in the space-time continuum (known as the “untempered schism” in the Doctor Who universe) and, in turn, witness the unrestrained force of time, some, according to the tenth Doctor, “would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad”.115 While it is the imminence of death that encourages us to value our time, it also forces us to recognize its precariousness, which may be something that inspires us, urges us to run away or causes us to go insane.116

113 See Edwards 2013, 329. 114 Warren observes a similar catch-22 scenario with respect to the Epicurean attainment of ataraxia. See Warren 2004, 155-159. See also Sanders 2011, 230-231 for a discussion of Warren’s “catch-22 situation”. 115 See “The Sound of Drums,” 25:49-25:58. 116 See Edwards 2013, 329 for a discussion of how Seneca stresses this urgency and how “the imminence of death... renders time so valuable, so precarious”. One may also consider Heidegger, who remarks that the acknowledgement of one’s finitude “radically individuates” Dasein (Thomson 2013, 272). See Thomson 2013, 272-273 for an overview of the relationship between the death of Dasein and authenticity. One may contend that the Stoics possess a kind of will to virtue that would prevent them from succumbing to these anxieties. Either running away or becoming insane as a result of confronting the precariousness of time would be, to the Stoic, a vice (perhaps cowardice) that must be corrected. Carrying out this kind of self-critical evaluation, however, may be impossible if a person were to become so paralyzed by fear such that she is unable to reflect and scrutinize her own vices (an observation Miller similarly makes, see Miller 2015, 167). Seneca may respond to this objection, as Miller suggests, by encouraging us to befriend those who can help us identify vices and correct them for us. This proposal, however, seems contingent upon whether a person is able to make and sustain friendships. The practicing Stoic, who, for example, lives in solitude likely cannot rely on others to identify her shortcomings. One could contend it is the responsibility of the Stoic to befriend others and engage in meaningful relationships (as Seneca seems to argue in On the Tranquility of Mind 7.3, see Miller 2015, 167 for a discussion). But is it not possible that a person can become so incapacitated by anxiety that even her friends could not sway her? If it happens that I become so emotionally paralyzed such that I am unable to exercise (a), (b), and (c), a friend, according to Seneca, could confront me about 42

Furthermore, what if one is so chronically incapacitated that she is unable to exercise her mental training? According to Seneca, suicide may be warranted under such circumstances (EM

58.36):

Morbum morte non fugiam, dumtaxat sanabilem nec officientem animo. Non adferam mihi manus propter dolorem; sic mori vinci est. Hunc tamen si sciero perpetuo mihi esse patiendum, exibo, non propter ipsum, sed quia inpedimento mihi futurus est ad omne, propter quod vivitur. Inbecillus est et ignavus, qui propter dolorem moritur, stultus, qui doloris causa vivit.

I will not flee illness by pursuing death, as long as it is remediable and not thwarting my soul. I will not lay hands on myself because of pain; thus, to die is to be defeated. Nevertheless, if I shall have understood this thing must be endured by me constantly, I shall withdraw, not because of that dastardly thing itself [pain], but because it will pose a hindrance to me with respect to every reason that I live for. He who dies because of pain is weak and cowardly; stupid is he who lives on account of pain.117

Seneca advocates suicide at the right time; as Epictetus similarly argues, death can serve as a kind of escape from dolores provided that a life is bad enough. Nonetheless, the person who takes his own life after experiencing a mild transitory pain, to Seneca, is a coward (ignavus), but he who lives a life solely characterized by chronic pain such that he is unable to live virtuously may consider suicide. While it may take courage to confront one’s dolores, it also takes a kind of courage to hasten death.118 But while Seneca describes death as extending libertas recedendi

(freedom to withdraw),119 he stresses that one use his ratio (calculation) in considering when to withdraw.120

my (what the Stoics may consider) cowardice. There must be a point, however, at which a person cannot be rescued from her own vices and is, in a sense, ‘too far gone’ and, as a result, can neither recognize her vices nor rectify them. See Miller 2015, 167-168 for a discussion and overview of Seneca’s views on friendship as a means to identify and correct vice. 117 Passage found in Seidler 1983, 433n14. While I consulted Gummere’s translation (1917), this is primarily my own. 118 See Seidler 1983, 433n14 for an overview of Seneca’s views towards suicide and when it is warranted. 119 See EM 22.5. 120 See EM 14.2; 24.24 and 98.16 for instances of ratio (as indicated by Edwards 2013, 332n41). See Edwards 2013, 332 for an overview of Seneca’s understanding of ratio. See Edwards 2013, 334 for a discussion of the phrase “libertas recedendi” and its significance. 43

But when exactly is the right time and how do we know? Seneca would reply that one’s ratio would determine when it is appropriate to die.121 Surely, we all have different thresholds for such dolores; the loss of Steve’s hands may cause him a lifetime of despair that may warrant suicide, whereas the death of one’s cat may perpetuate an irreconcilable grief that could persist for a number of years. There are no objective criteria for considering the right time to die, what may seem trivial to one may be debilitating to another. Seneca concedes this point (EM 70.11):

Non possis itaque de re in universum pronuntiare, cum mortem vis externa denuntiat, occupanda sit an expectanda. Multa enim sunt, quae in utramque partem trahere possunt.

Thus, concerning a matter you could not proclaim universally, namely when an external force signifies death, whether it must be anticipated or awaited. For there are many things which can influence someone either way.122

As Edwards rightly points out, “there is no general answer”,123 but the door, as Epictetus similarly states, remains nonetheless open (EM 26.10):

Qui mori didicit, servire dedidicit; supra omnem potentiam est, certe extra omnem. Quid ad illum carcer et custodia et claustra? Liberum ostium habet.

121 Nietzsche, who similarly advocated suicide, or voluntary death at the right time contended with a similar difficulty. He claims that suicide is warranted when a person has achieved her goals and has an heir, or an individual who can continue her projects. See Stellino 2020, 132-133 for a discussion. Nietzsche, in section 185 of The Wanderer and His Shadow, distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary death: “What is more rational, to stop the machine when the work one demands of it has been completed—or to let it run on until it stops of its own accord, that is to say until it is ruined? Is the latter not a squandering of the cost of maintenance, a misuse of the energy and attentiveness of those who service it? Does it not mean throwing away that which is badly needed elsewhere? Will the fact that many of them are maintained and serviced to no productive end not even propagate a kind of contempt for machines in general?” (passage found in Stellino 2020, 138). The idea is as follows: it is more rational to stop the machine once it has fulfilled its duties rather than have it deteriorate to a complete state of ruin. Similarly, Nietzsche argues that once a person has fulfilled her goals or “existential task”, she may consider suicide rather than confront the agony of death, the troubles of old age, and protracted weariness (Stellino 2020, 140). It is not clear, however, how Nietzsche characterizes rationality; he, according to Stellino, “appeals to a common-sense notion of rationality, which remains vague and indefinite” (Stellino 2020, 140). It should be noted, however, that Nietzsche likely adopted Stoic views towards suicide, but, unlike the Stoics, Nietzsche abandons the “moral dimension” imbedded in Stoic views on suicide; he instead understands suicide as a kind of “freedom from moral and religious imperatives”, not as an opportunity to preserve one’s moral rectitude. See Stellino 2020, 146 for a comparison between and discussion of Seneca’s and Nietzsche’s views on suicide. 122 Passage found in Edwards 2013, 333. While I consulted Edwards’ translation, this is my own. 123 See Edwards 2013, 333 for a discussion of Seneca’s ambiguous views towards suicide. 44

One who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. He is beyond external influence and certainly beyond everyone. What to that one is a prison, and guards, and prison walls? The door remains open.124

The “open door” serves as an egress from the troubles of life, but, for Seneca, exercising one’s ratio is imperative in considering when to exit. One may contend that our willingness to exit may be foiled by our instinctive disclination towards suicide. Even though a person may resolve to die

(informing her decision based on her ratio), she nonetheless may be dissuaded by fears of uncertainty and the prospect of possible pain. Seneca may respond by reminding her of the fundamental telos of the Stoic life: to live virtuously and to live rationally;125 when life becomes bad enough such that a person is no longer able to engage in her projects and live virtuously, she may consider exiting. Seneca may also encourage her to return to her Stoic virtues, namely that the anxiety about and fear of death and dying are things that are emblematic of cowardice.126 The

Stoic ought not succumb to vice, but to live in accordance with virtue and reason, and, ultimately, in accordance with Nature. The Stoic sage, thus, who has truly confronted her cowardice and undergone her mental training would have nothing to fear. But, ultimately, it is up to her whether she chooses to embrace attitudes to arm herself against future uncertainty.

Seneca recognizes that the fear of future uncertainty is something with which we must all contend, but it ought not to be feared provided that we reorient our ways of thinking. Like

Epictetus, Seneca encourages us not to resist the organic cosmic cycle but accept that we are destined to perish. He implores us both to arm ourselves (armavimus) against death and other

124 Passage found in Edwards 2013, 335. This translation is my own, though Edwards’ translation was also consulted. 125 For a discussion of Stoic eudaimonia as the telos of life, see Becker 2017, 139. 126 See Miller 2015, 166-168 for an overview of the Stoic understanding of courage, cowardice, and vice. 45

dolores by hardening our minds through consistent mental training and use our time wisely. He, furthermore, like Epictetus, advocates suicide when life becomes so unbearable that a person can neither live virtuously nor carry out her goals and heavily emphasizes suicide at the right time.

Seneca’s therapy, however, is problematic at times. His exhortation to live now, for example, may have a paralyzing effect, for the very recognition of fleeting time and imminent death may induce a crippling anxiety that ultimately hinders a person from living now. Furthermore, his views on suicide, namely his beliefs about the right time to die are ambiguous and unresolved.

Despite these challenges, Seneca’s therapy succeeds in that it provides us with useful tools to help us confront and mollify our anxieties about future uncertainties by imploring us to adopt attitudes that can facilitate our ultimate aim in life: to live virtuously and thus live happily,127 but whether we choose to utilize these tools is ultimately up to us.

4 Conclusion: A Case for Stoic Therapy Both the Epicureans and the Stoics sought to alleviate fears of death and dying for they believed that the anxiety these things induce may preclude one from attaining a good life. While the Epicureans and the Stoics differed about how to characterize ‘the good life’, they both nonetheless thought that the dread of looming death coupled with the uncertainty of dying ought to be squashed. Furthermore, both the Epicureans and, to an extent, the Stoics believe that death itself, the state of being dead, amounts to nonexistence, and they characterize death as the separation of the soul from the body. But while they agree that death is nothing to us, the

127 See Becker 2017, 89 for a discussion of the Stoic view that “virtue [is] sufficient for happiness”. 46

Epicureans and Stoics differ with respect to their approaches to the fear of dying, or the transition between life and death. In this section, I aim to show how and why the Stoic therapy for the fear of dying suffices as a more efficacious therapy than that posed by the Epicureans, namely by demonstrating how the Stoic emphasis on the embracement of uncertainty rather than the

Epicurean resistance to uncertainty mitigates our anxieties about dying. I will start by summarizing the Epicurean and Stoic therapies and then conclude with an explanation of why the Stoic treatment is more effective.

I have shown, on the one hand, how the Epicurean therapy for the fear of dying falters on account of its unwillingness to address the transition from life to death sufficiently as well as its inability to reconcile a kind of logical vagueness that I propose. I have also demonstrated that the

Stoics, namely Epictetus and Seneca, put forward therapies that seek to alleviate the fear of dying by encouraging us to embrace attitudes to overcome it. Epictetus’ and Seneca’s palliatives, however, although problematic at times, nonetheless serve as pragmatic therapies that can be utilized to embrace uncertainty, unlike the Epicureans, whose physicalist dogma does not permit or leave room for uncertainty.128

The Epicurean therapy for the fear of dying primarily pivots on their physicalist ontology, which posits that the totality of the universe consists of atoms and void. The soul does not escape this physicalist view; the soul, too, according to the Epicurean, is a material entity which is composed of fine particles and void. Socrates is said to have died upon the dispersal of his soul atoms, a time at which he is deprived of his sentience and is utterly annihilated. Death, to the

128 See Miller 2015 passim for a discussion of Stoic pragmatism. 47

Epicurean, thus ought not to be feared, for it is impossible for the subject to be cognizant of it; when death is present, we are not.

The Epicureans thus attempted to dispel the fear of death by advocating a sharp boundary between existence and nonexistence. But this threshold is not as unambiguous as the Epicureans had maintained, for the number of soul atoms which constitute a person is indistinct and vague.

This vagueness may be profitably analyzed as a sorites paradox, which may serve as a useful tool to evaluate the fuzzy boundary between life and death. Neither the epistemic view nor the supervaluationist approach reconciles the proposed sorites paradox. The disquieting uncertainty of imminent death and prospect of possible pain undermine the efficacy of the Epicurean project and, perhaps, lend credence to the belief that death ought to be feared. The transition from existence to nonexistence is not like turning off a light switch; there is an uncertain, nebulous stage in between.

The Stoics, to an extent, bite the bullet and acknowledge this uncertainty, namely that dying poses insurmountable unknowns. Epictetus and Seneca compel us to accept that we will die even though we do not know how or when and to trust in the divine plan. Epictetus encourages us to recognize how we inevitably will be consumed by Nature, and Seneca implores us to envision dying and other dolores habitually so as to harden our souls for the inexorable.

Above all, both Stoics argue that to oppose Nature is to oppose reason, and to oppose reason is to live unhappily.

The fundamental difference between the Epicurean therapy for the fear of dying and the

Stoic, moreover, consists in that Epictetus and Seneca succumb to the belief that dying—though uncertain—is merely another part of life—a part of the organic cycle—and can either be met

with agony and fear or radical acceptance and bravery. The Epicureans, in contrast, evade the subject, for the thought of a vague intermediate stage between existence and nonexistence compromises their primary philosophical aim, namely to explain natural phenomena and settle uncertainty through their empiricist epistemology.

Epictetus and Seneca, furthermore, to an extent, do not reconcile the logical vagueness of dying which arises in the Epicurean therapy. It is important to note that Epictetus and Seneca subscribed to a different kind of ontology, and, in this sense, one could argue that the Stoic views on dying and the Epicurean are not strictly comparable. I concede that this poses a challenge, but

I nonetheless maintain that while it is not logical vagueness that the Stoics must confront, both the Epicureans and Stoics must face and remedy the potentially debilitating anxiety that accompanies the ubiquitous uncertainty of dying, a concept which the Epicureans resist and the

Stoics welcome. The Epicureans promise to reconcile our fears through their atomism, namely that dying ultimately leads to nonexistence, and to fear nonexistence is to fear nothing. The

Stoics, on the other hand, in a sense, bridge the gap that the Epicureans overlook by conceding that dying does pose a kind of uncertainty but that it ought not to be feared, for, while the inevitability of death can nevertheless be daunting, the Stoics stress that whether we fear dying or welcome it is up to us (ἐφ᾿ ἡμῖν); we can either be paralyzed by looming death or reshape our point of view so as not to be apprehensive, but to be accepting.

Unlike the Epicureans who promise and assure us that the fear of dying is founded upon empty beliefs, Epictetus and Seneca incentivize us to embrace uncertainty and adopt attitudes to overcome the fear it induces. In this sense, the Stoics advocate a kind of therapy that seeks to quell anxieties about dying through action, primarily by espousing beliefs that can mitigate our

anxieties about dying, whereas the Epicurean therapy is mired in dogma. The cure for the uncertainty of dying, then, is embracing the fact that there lies within it a kind of certainty; in other words, we know that we cannot know, but we can reconcile our fears of the unknown by reshaping our ways of viewing uncertainty.

I have shown that the Epicurean therapy for the fear of dying fails; it does not remedy the unnerving uncertainty it guarantees to resolve through its physicalist ontology. The failure of the

Epicurean therapy lies in its reluctance to concede that we are ignorant of life’s most unknown and looming terrors, which can be most effectively mitigated, the Stoics argue, by acknowledging instead of compensating for the insuperable epistemic gap with which we must all contend. A further examination, however, of how both the Epicureans and the Stoics understand personal identity is warranted, for while death deprives us of existence, and, according to the Epicureans and some Stoics, personal identity, then they must confront how it is that we can speak of the deceased. While it may be the case that Socrates ceases to exist, we can nonetheless say true and false things about him as well as talk about him as a person with a kind of identity that persists posthumously. The case for Epicurean and Stoic subsistence, especially with respect to people that no longer exist, must somehow reconcile a glaring contradiction, namely how we can speak of and yet not speak of the dead meaningfully.

REFERENCES

“A Notion of a Person in Epictetus.” The Philosophy of Epictetus, by Michael Frede, Scaltsas and Mason, 2007, pp. 153-168. Bailey, D. T. J. "The Structure of Stoic Metaphysics." Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 46.: Oxford University Press, August 18, 2016. Oxford Scholarship Online. Date Accessed 3 Apr. 2021 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198712923.001.00 01/acprof-9780198712923-chapter-7. Barnes, Jonathan. Truth, Etc.: Six Lectures on Ancient Logic, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis- ebooks/detail.action?docID=416012. Becker, Lawrence C. A New Stoicism. REV - Revised ed., Princeton University Press, 2017. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1pd2k82. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. Bobzien, Susanne. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1999. pp. 75-84. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3052756. Bown, Alexander. "Epicurus on Bivalence and the Excluded Middle". Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 98.3 (2016): 239-271. https://doi.org/10.1515/agph-2016-0012. Accessed 24 Oct. 2020. Caponigri, A. Robert. “Reason and Death: The Idea of Wisdom in Seneca.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, vol. 42, 1968, pp. 144-151. Celkyte, Aiste. "The Soul and Personal Identity in Early Stoicism: Two Theories?" Apeiron, vol. 53, no. 4, 2020, pp. 463-486. https://doi.org/10.1515/apeiron-2017-0038. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. “Chapter 6: The Swerve and Fate.” Epicurus on Freedom, by Tim O'Keefe, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 123–152. Dinis, Bruno. "Old and new approaches to the sorites paradox." arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.00450 (2017). Accessed 24 Oct. 2020. Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II: Books 6-10. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Loeb Classical Library 185. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. Edwards, Catharine. "Ethics V: Death and Time". Brill’s Companion to Seneca. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004217089_029 Web. Epictetus. Discourses. Translated by W. A. Oldfather. Loeb Classical Library 218. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928. Epicurus, and Hermann Usener. Epicurea. Lipsiae: In aedibus B.G. Teubneri, 1887. “Friedrich Nietzsche: A Free Death at the Right Time.” Philosophical Perspectives on Suicide, by Paolo Stellino, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020, pp. 123-178.

Keefe, Rosanna. Theories of Vagueness. Cambridge University Press, 2000. 51

Long, A. A. “Seneca and Epictetus on Body, Mind and Dualism.” From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, edited by Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 214–230. Miller, Steven A. “Toward a Practice of Stoic Pragmatism.” The Pluralist, vol. 10, no. 2, 2015, pp. 150–171. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/pluralist.10.2.0150. Accessed 3 Apr. 2021. Nietmann, William D. “Seneca on Death: The Courage To Be or not To Be.” International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1, 1966, pp. 81–89. Accessed 1 Apr. 2021 Noyes, Russell. “Seneca on Death.” Journal of Religion and Health, vol. 12, no. 3, 1973, pp. 223– 240. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27505179. Accessed 12 Mar. 2021.

O'Keefe, Tim. Epicureanism, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1886842.

---. Epicurus on Reductionism, Determinism and Freedom, The University of Texas at Austin, Ann Arbor, 1997. ProQuest, https://search-proquest- com.resources.library.brandeis.edu/docview/304374244?accountid=9703. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons, Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1986. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis-ebooks/detail.action?docID=728732. “Part Three: The Epicureans”. Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, by Julia Annas, University of California Press, 1992, pp. 124–199. “Part Two: The Stoics”. Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind, by Julia Annas, University of California Press, 1992, pp. 37–120. “Philodemus and the fear of premature death”. Epicurus and the Epicurean Tradition, edited by Jeffrey Fish, and Kirk R. Sanders, Cambridge University Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis-ebooks/detail.action?docID=674633. Philodemus, ca. 110-ca. 40 B.C.. Philodemus, On Death. Translated by W. Benjamin Henry. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.08825.0001.001. Rothbaum, Barbara Olasov, and Ann C Schwartz. “Exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder.” American journal of psychotherapy vol. 56,1 (2002): 59-75. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2002.56.1.59. Accessed 1 April 2021. Seidler, Michael J. “Kant and the Stoics on Suicide.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 44, no. 3, 1983, pp. 429–453. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2709175. Accessed 11 Mar. 2021. Seneca. Epistles, Volume I: Epistles 1-65. Translated by Richard M. Gummere. Loeb Classical Library 75. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917. Stephens, W.O. “Epictetus on Fearing Death: Bugbear and Open Door Policy.” Ancient Philosophy (Pittsburgh, Pa.), vol. 34, no. 2, 2014, pp. 365–391. “The Stoics on world-conflagration and everlasting recurrence”. From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, by Long, A. A., Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brandeis- ebooks/detail.action?docID=3053195. 52

“The Sound of Drums”, Doctor Who, written by Russel T Davies, season 3, episode 13, The British Broadcasting Corporation, 2006. Thomson, Iain. “Death and Demise in Being and Time.” The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger's Being and Time, edited by Mark A. Wrathall, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013, pp. 260–290. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Tsouna, Voula. “Rationality and the Fear of Death in Epicurean Philosophy.” Rhizai. A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science. 2006. 1:79-117. Accessed 24 Oct. 2020. Warren, J. I. “Democritus, the Epicureans, Death, and Dying.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 1, 2002, pp. 193–206. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3556451. Accessed 24 Oct. 2020.

---. Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Wolfteich, Claire. “Attention or Destruction: Simone Weil and the Paradox of the Eucharist.” The Journal of Religion, vol. 81, no. 3, 2001, pp. 359–376. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1206400. Accessed 4 Apr. 2021. Yourgrau, Palle. Death and Nonexistence. Oxford University Press, 2019.