I wanted to write something about the late first and early second century philosopher Epictetus’s idea concerning death. The Roman was a well read individual who actual spent time as a slave during the reign of Nero. The Emperor Domitian banished philosophers from Italy so the freed slave move to Greece where he established a school. Because he wrote a lot; primarily his ‘Discourses’ history informs us of his way of thinking about many concerns. What is remarkable about his view of life is that it is similar in outlook to the 20th century French philosopher of Existentialism/aka French rationalism, Jean Paul Sartre.
Epictetus and Sartre each regarded the human mind and its content as existing within the control of the individual. Some things are within our control and somethings aren’t. Those things within our control are easy to think about and those without one’s control are not to be too concerned about since the thought one uses about such things and relationships exists within the individual mind. One shouldn’t allow one’s own thought to act like a dog chasing its own tail around in a circle. That is an individual shouldn’t create or generate thoughts to be fearful of or deceive oneself about the reality of one’s thinking or necessity for thinking particular things; that existential viewpoint covers even death.
Epictetus believe there is nothing to fear of death because if there is, the fear is created within one’s own thought. Dividing things within one’s control and things that aren’t, death is finally one of the things that aren’t and so one should not spend much thought being troubled about it. Epictetus and Stoics believed God rules nature and the natural order. God’s will and nature has its course and the things it has given to an individual, such as life or real estate it can recover and return to other purposes-even the lives of others.
Though Sartre believed that death is “the complete triumph of the other” he does not well describe what the heterodox otherness is, or who it is-perhaps nature or God or God through nature that is not the content of one’s own thought. In that regard neither Sartre or Epictetus are solipsists.
There is an implicit valid logic regarding the Stoic outlook on death and the unknown. One should not invent troubling thoughts concerning things one hasn’t muck knowledge of nor control over. Epictetus apparently knew little of Jesus Christ and the way to eternal life in the gospel; he believed in God or Zeus as an omnipotent ruler of nature. He has read Plato and Aristotle apparently being in agreement with the heterodox nature of the phenomenality of life.
Garrison Gibson: books and blog 