The 'fear of death' is a composite experience encompassing:
(1) the abstract, objective, external, empirical fact of biological death;
(2) our personal, subjective, emotional fear of ceasing-to-be
—which arises from our awareness of our own finitude, and
(3) our ownmost ontological anxiety
—our Existential Predicament disguised as the fear of ceasing-to-be.
This least understood and most repressed existential dimension of death
will be the central focus of this phenomenological investigation.

    Whenever "death" is mentioned, we think first of biological death,
but this tendency to focus exclusively on the objective, terminal fact of dying
may well be a trick of thought designed to protect us
from noticing our fear of ceasing-to-be or our even deeper ontological anxiety.
We have other protective techniques as well:
religious illusions, philosophical desensitization, and diversionary small-talk.
Most of these distracting ploys amount to seeing death exclusively
as an objective event, which befalls all living organisms eventually.
Somehow we must reverse this tendency
to obscure, evade, and deny the deeper dimensions of death.

OUTLINE:

I. REPRESSING OUR FEAR OF CEASING-TO-BE

II. REPRESSING ONTOLOGICAL ANXIETY
    Religious Illusions about Death.
        1. Immorality.
        2. Resurrection.
        3. Reincarnation.

III. DISTINGUISHING THE TWO DEEPER DIMENSIONS OF DEATH
    Five Critical Differences between
            the Fear of Ceasing-to-Be and Ontological Anxiety.
        1. Ceasing-to-Be Threatens Specific Values.
        2. The Fear of Ceasing-to-Be Always Has a Cause.
        3. The Fear of Ceasing-to-Be is Temporary.
        4. The Fear of Ceasing-to-Be is Limited and Isolatable.
        5. The Fear of Ceasing-to-Be Can be Confronted.

IV. FEELING THE 'FEAR OF DEATH'

V. MORE THREATENING THAN DEATH

VI. ONTOLOGICAL ANXIETY AS THE IMPETUS FOR AUTHENTICITY

VII. FREEDOM FROM ONTOLOGICAL ANXIETY

POSTSCRIPT: DOES ANYTHING HAPPEN AFTER DEATH?

    James Park is an existential philosopher.
This presentation is based on the longest chapter of his largest book:
Our Existential Predicament: Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death,
Chapter 9 "An Existential Understanding of Death".

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