Why Is It Important For Socrates Respond To Fear Of Death?

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Socrates was a Greek philosopher featured in Plato's five dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, and Phaedo. Socrates’ contributions to the world of philosophy were not fully appreciated until far beyond his death in 399 BC, but he has been credited for being one of the founders of modern-day philosophy. However, in his time, the general public saw his philosophical ways as impiety. This eventually led to Socrates being taken to court and sentenced to death. With his own death looming, Socrates delivered a speech in which he pointed out why he was not afraid of death.
Socrates believed that living life in fear of death would be foolish, because no one actually knows what awaits us when we expire. Death is and always will be an unknown …show more content…

These projects include family, friends, relationships, studies; anything the aforementioned person has worked on in their life. The thought of all these things coming to a permanent end can understandably give a person anxiety. To quote the lecture, which is paraphrasing Dastur's words, "Death is the end of all of my projects insofar as they are mine (e.g., the career I have built, the relationships I have nurtured with people, the person I have become, etc ... If these projects are extinguished, it seems like the meaning of existence is too." This bleak outlook on death is clearly quite different from Socrates' point of view. However, while many people today believe that death should be feared, I personally believe that it is important for us to analyze and consider Socrates’ view on death. For it is true, we cannot know what we do not …show more content…

Is it really so bad of a thing? What happens after one passes away?" Asking these questions will lead one to pursue the answers, which would likely lead to the answers discussed in this paper. We fear death because it marks the end of our projects. No one knows what awaits us when we die, so what happens after death and whether it's good or bad cannot be answered. The general mindset is that death is the worst possible thing, but there just isn’t anyway to know for sure. Death may be a start of a new life, a heaven, or a void. No one has died and come back to say, so any of those things could be a possibility. Regardless, accepting and overcoming the fear of death is essential for obtaining a similar mindset to Socrates and living life to its’ fullest and without

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