QuestionsShould we fear death?To philosophise is to learn how to die
Should we fear death?Nothing to fear

To philosophise is to learn how to die

Learning to die

Michel de Montaigne 1533 · 1592'Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice': our customs are not the measure of everything.
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What it claims

Thinking constantly about death sets us free: all wisdom comes down to teaching us not to fear dying.

Why

Death frightens us because it is strange; thinking of it constantly makes it familiar and takes away its power.

The same idea through history
Cicero45 BCIn the Tusculan Disputations, Cicero reports the saying after Socrates: the whole life of philosophers is a meditation on death. It is the source Montaigne names at the start of his chapter.
Michel de Montaigne1580Montaigne draws a method from it: think of death on every occasion to take away its strangeness, and so win freedom. The version presented here.
In short

"To philosophise is to learn how to die" is an argument by Michel de Montaigne (Essays I, 20, "That to study philosophy is to learn to die", 1580) on the question "Should we fear death?" (answer: nothing to fear). Its claim: Thinking constantly about death sets us free: all wisdom comes down to teaching us not to fear dying. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P2). AskPhilosophy presents 2 objections, 0 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Essays I, 20, "That to study philosophy is to learn to die"
Valid with an implicit premise

Montaigne takes up a saying of Cicero's, which goes back to Socrates: to philosophise is to learn how to die. His idea is practical. Death frightens us mostly because it is a stranger to us. If we keep company with it in thought, it loses its power, and we stop being slaves to fear. But the same Montaigne, later on, will say almost the opposite.

P1If we think about death on every occasion, it becomes familiar to us: it loses its strangeness.
P2 · implicit premiseWhat has become familiar no longer frightens us: the fear of death comes mostly from its strangeness.
P3Whoever no longer fears death is free: he has no reason to give way or to serve out of fear of losing his life.
Therefore thinking constantly about death sets us free: all wisdom comes down to teaching us not to fear dying.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P2, the computer finds someone who thinks about his death all the time, for whom it has become familiar, who is still afraid of it, and who is therefore not free.
With P2, the conclusion follows: thinking about death makes it familiar (P1), the familiar no longer frightens (P2), and whoever no longer fears is free (P3). Montaigne does not state P2 in these words: it is the hidden bridge. It is also the weak point: we get used to many things, but is that true of our own death, which we will only live once?
Analogy. A child is afraid of the dark as long as he does not know what is in his room. If he goes in every evening with a lamp, he comes to know every corner, and the dark no longer stops him. Montaigne proposes visiting death in the same way, until it has no unknown corner left.

Objections

2

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Montaigne himself, later 1588 · attacks the conclusion

In the last book of the Essays, Montaigne writes: "We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care of life." Preparing for death spoils life.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Montaigne in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Montaigne does not go back to chapter I, 20 to correct it; the two texts stay side by side in the Essays. To be read together: the first advises thinking about it constantly, the second not worrying about it (III, 12: "If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself; nature will, at the time, fully and sufficiently instruct you").
Where the debate stands (our summary)This passage can be read as a change of mind (from preparation to trust in nature) or as the same idea carried further: death needs no effort. Our summary: the underlying question remains open, should we prepare for it or let it come?
Spinoza 1677 · attacks premise 3

Thinking about death means thinking of it as an evil, and knowing an evil produces only sadness and fear. The free man, guided by reason, therefore thinks of nothing less than death; his wisdom is a meditation on life. See the argument "Meditating on life, not death" (spinoza-mort).

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1677, after the author's death (1592).
Where the debate stands (our summary)Both sides agree on the goal (not being ruled by fear) and part on the means: Montaigne wants to think about it to tame it, Spinoza wants to forget it in order to live. Underlying disagreement: can one think about one's death without thinking of it as an evil?