Matt asked:

Does the root of every human fear lie in a fear of death? For example: fear of the dark equals fear of
the unknown, and the unknown may cause me harm (leading to death). The fear of anything that
causes physical pain can also be traced to a fear of death because pain is simply the mind's warning
signal that something is possibly endangering your life. I am writing a research paper on this, and
have been scouring for information on this philosophy, but have come up short.

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Why do we fear death? Have you asked yourself that? Is it rationalto fear death? Some philosophers
think it isn't. If they are right, and you are right that all fears derive from the fear of death, then it would
follow that a fully rational person would not fear uncaged tigers or earthquakes or hypodermic
needles discarded in alleyways or maniacs with guns. I take that to be an absurd conclusion.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus argued:

Death is nothing to us...It does not concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it
is not, and the latter are no more.

Epicurus was an atomist. He believed that at death the human body is dissolved into the atoms into
which it is composed. Philosophers have taken him to be saying something stronger than merely,
"Don't worry, there is no place such as Hades that you go to when you die." There is no subjectwho
undergoes the transition from life to death. "Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience
death" (Wittgenstein Tractatus6.4311).

You can argue the point. If life is good, then death deprives me of something good, which is bad. But
in what sense does that concern me? I won't be around to miss anything. Yes, but surely if I am told I
am going to die tonight, then I miss the things I was looking forward to enjoying tomorrow now.

I actually think we need something a bit stronger than Epicurean atomism, if we want to show that all
such 'fears' for a future reality where I am absent are irrational. In Naive Metaphysics (Chapter 9,
p.120) I argue that the fear of death is irrational because there is no "I" that exists from day to day, or
hour to hour:

My subjective world can never die, can never cease to continue, for with every new moment it
is as if it had never existed, and will continue no longer than that very moment.

In the light of the illusoriness of personal identity, I would therefore distinguish practicalfear and
metaphysicalfear. Practical fears are for things that we experience, that we go through, that are part
of our lives. Those things are real. So the process of dying is very real, is very much something to
fear. Metaphysical fear, such as the fear of death as such, the sheer absence of "I" from the world,
concerns something unreal and is therefore irrational.

Geoffrey Klempner