On Death
E867178
"On Death" is a lost philosophical work by the ancient Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias of Cyrene, reputed for its starkly pessimistic arguments about life and the appeal of death.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| On Death canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10497062 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: On Death Context triple: [Hegesias of Cyrene, associatedWithWork, On Death]
-
A.
Life After Death
Life After Death is the posthumously released double album by The Notorious B.I.G., widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop records of all time.
-
B.
Life-in-Death
Life-in-Death is a supernatural female figure in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," symbolizing a fate worse than death by condemning the Mariner to endless suffering and wandering.
-
C.
Death Is Certain
Death Is Certain is a critically acclaimed 2004 studio album by Detroit rapper Royce da 5'9", noted for its dark, introspective themes and sharp lyricism.
-
D.
The Funeral
"The Funeral" is a 1701 comedic play by Richard Steele that helped establish his reputation in early 18th-century English drama.
-
E.
The Funeral
The Funeral is a 1996 crime drama film directed by Abel Ferrara, featuring Chris Penn alongside Christopher Walken and Vincent Gallo in a bleak tale of a gangster family's grief and revenge.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: On Death Target entity description: "On Death" is a lost philosophical work by the ancient Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias of Cyrene, reputed for its starkly pessimistic arguments about life and the appeal of death.
-
A.
Life After Death
Life After Death is the posthumously released double album by The Notorious B.I.G., widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop records of all time.
-
B.
Life-in-Death
Life-in-Death is a supernatural female figure in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," symbolizing a fate worse than death by condemning the Mariner to endless suffering and wandering.
-
C.
Death Is Certain
Death Is Certain is a critically acclaimed 2004 studio album by Detroit rapper Royce da 5'9", noted for its dark, introspective themes and sharp lyricism.
-
D.
The Funeral
"The Funeral" is a 1701 comedic play by Richard Steele that helped establish his reputation in early 18th-century English drama.
-
E.
The Funeral
The Funeral is a 1996 crime drama film directed by Abel Ferrara, featuring Chris Penn alongside Christopher Walken and Vincent Gallo in a bleak tale of a gangster family's grief and revenge.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (33)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
ancient Greek philosophical text
ⓘ
lost philosophical work ⓘ |
| argumentStyle | extreme consequentialist hedonism ⓘ |
| associatedWithCity | Cyrene ⓘ |
| attributedTo |
Hegesias the Death-Persuader
ⓘ
linked to:
Hegesias of Cyrene
|
| author | Hegesias of Cyrene ⓘ |
| culturalContext | Greek philosophy in Cyrenaica ⓘ |
| ethicalStance |
questioning of the value of continued life
ⓘ
radical pessimism ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
impossibility of secure happiness
ⓘ
prevalence of pain over pleasure in life ⓘ |
| genre | philosophical prose ⓘ |
| historicalPeriod | Hellenistic period ⓘ |
| influenceOn | reputation of Hegesias as a pessimist ⓘ |
| knownFrom |
Cicero
ⓘ
later doxographical tradition ⓘ secondary reports by later authors ⓘ |
| language | Ancient Greek ⓘ |
| mainTheme |
appeal of death
ⓘ
pessimism about life ⓘ suffering in human life ⓘ |
| philosophicalSchool |
Cyrenaic school
ⓘ
linked to:
Cyrenaic school of philosophy
|
| philosophicalTradition | hedonism (Cyrenaic variant) ⓘ |
| positionOnDeath |
death is not an evil
ⓘ
death may be preferable to life ⓘ |
| positionOnLife | life is predominantly painful ⓘ |
| reception | considered morally dangerous by some ancient authorities ⓘ |
| regionOfOrigin |
Ancient North Africa
ⓘ
linked to:
North Africa
|
| survivalStatus | extant only in fragments and testimonia ⓘ |
| topic |
nature of happiness and pain
ⓘ
rational evaluation of life and death ⓘ suicide ⓘ |
| workStatus | lost ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: On Death Description of subject: "On Death" is a lost philosophical work by the ancient Cyrenaic philosopher Hegesias of Cyrene, reputed for its starkly pessimistic arguments about life and the appeal of death.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
Death-Persuader