2020-2021 Academic Catalog

May 02, 2024

2020-2021 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

PHIL 124 - Philosophy of Death

Is death a big nothing? Can any part of us survive it? (Materials only? Worldly influences? Patterns exportable to other brains or a hard drive? Personal information in the memory bank of the universe? A soul? Karmic traces?) When is death? (Irreversible loss of cognitive function? Whole brain expiry? Decease of the organism? Separation of mind from body? Dissolution of the ‘aggregates’?) Must we first agree about human nature and personal identity before we can know what a human death is? Is “death” a social construction, then? (Conceptions and experiences of death do vary, and yet mustn’t there be a fact of the matter?) Why is death? Does death evolve? (Yes.) Is death something bad? Is there anything good about it? What is it to die a good death? Can a suicide ever be a good death? What is it to die an ‘authentic’ death? What is it to live toward death? To live mindful of death? What if anything is gained by pondering unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions about death? Focusing Western thought, with occasional forays into Asian traditions, we ponder human death as a social relationship and as an irreducibly individual event, the death of species, the death of ecosystems, the possible death of nature, and the vivid gift of living.

Course Designation/Attribute: VP

Anticipated Terms Offered: every three years