Arthur Schopenhauer and the fear of death

Abstract

All that is known in the phenomenal world are forms of objectification of the Will. The Will is treated by Schopenhauer as blind, arbitrary, tyrannical and brutal, being responsible for all the suffering of life. Among the various existential fears and fears, death is the greatest among them, the idea of finitude is what most terrifies the human being. Knowing this, Arthur Schopenhauer developed a philosophical thought about death that provides a possible answer to the said common affliction to humanity. Death and life would be partitions of the same cycle in which there are two extremes of non-being: the before life and the after death. If life and death form a unity, what makes the individual fear death, but not life (in the same intensity)? Schopenhauerian thought shows that they should likewise fear life, since it can be even worse. Death to the subject is only a cessation of consciousness, which is only the result of organic life and not the cause of it. The lack of consciousness of death and the mere awareness of the present (nunc Stans) has as consequences anxieties and frustrations of not being able to reach eternity. Thus, the present work problematizes the "philosophy of death" in Schopenhauer and the relationship with the indestructibility of our being-in-itself. It seeks to indicate possibilities for mitigating the fear of death through two ways: self-knowledge as Will (metaphysical/knowledge) and the search for a life more bearable and less unhappy possible (eudemonological). Thus, realizing as constituent of a being-in-itself that it is impossible to be annihilated with death, or accepting the impossibility of a life absent pain, Schopenhauer shows direct ways to overcome and mitigate fear of dying - and many other existential fears.