Even in the worst circumstances, philosophers didn't go postal. They went, to speak in federal metaphorese, Social Security. Philosophers on the whole got as close to eternal life as one could without drinking the religious Kool-Aid. So despite having forced, like many a philosophy graduate student, Plato's Crito down undergraduate throats in a lecture course or two, I considered death's relevance to philosophy adventitious at best. "How should one live?" remained the quintessential question, not how to fold one's cards.
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Apparently those in the field of Derrida, Plato et al have longer lifespans.