Philosophy of Death

A Passing Glance: Encounters with Deadness and Dying

by Sylwia Chrostowska

published in Beauty and the Abject (Peter Lang)

Death and Desires

by Ben Bradley

Co-authored with Kris McDaniel.  Forthcoming in James S. Taylor (ed.), The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death (Oxford University Press).

"Breaking Out of One's Head (& Awakening to the World)"

by Gregory Nixon

In JCER 2(7): Focus Issue on Self-Transcendent Experiences: Narrative & Analysis

Herein, I review the moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world.... more Herein, I review the moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world. It was a sudden, momentous event that is difficult to explain since transcending the self ultimately requires transcending the language structures of which the self consists. Since awakening to the world took place beyond the enclosure of self-speech, it also took place outside our symbolic construction of time. It is strange to place this event and its aftermath as happening long ago in my lifetime, for it is forever present; it surrounds me all the time just as the world seems to do. This fact puts into question the reality of my daily journey from dawn to dusk with all the mundane tasks I must complete (like writing of that which cannot be captured in writing). My linear march to aging and death inexorably continues, yet it seems somehow unreal, the biggest joke of all. Still, I here review the events leading up to my time out of mind and then review the serious repercussions when I was drawn back into the ego-self only to find I did not have the conceptual tools or the maturity to understand what had happened.

"Editor's Introduction: Transcending Self-Consciousness"

by Gregory Nixon

Editor's Introduction to Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research [JCER] 2(7): Focus Issue on Self-Transcending Experience: Narrative & Analysis [see in Books for the issue]

But, self-consciousness transcended (as opposed to self-dissolution, so the remembering self remains itself... more But, self-consciousness transcended (as opposed to self-dissolution, so the remembering self remains itself remembered) could have metaphysical implications: Those who have cultivated the transcending of self-consciousness in life, experiencing it over and over again and gaining a measure of control over the awakening, may well be able to retain the artifacts of selfhood – memories – as original awareness leaves the body behind, that is, in death. Just as the electricity continues after the light bulb darkens, in either case, life energy withdraws from the body but continues as unbound dynamism, but, in the latter case of self as silent witness, the memories of a lifetime may go with it, perhaps to enrich the manifold of experience in that source, which, in this way undergoes change and learning. Without those memories, able to withstand such radical decentering, the self dies with the body.

DERRIDA ON HEIDEGGER ON DEATH

by Iain Thomson

Fruktan inför döden? Reflektioner med utgångspunkt i några svenska filosofiska essäer

by Sven Bjerstedt

Bjerstedt, S. (1983). Fruktan inför döden? Reflektioner med utgångspunkt i några svenska filosofiska essäer.... more Bjerstedt, S. (1983). Fruktan inför döden? Reflektioner med utgångspunkt i några svenska filosofiska essäer. Filosofisk tidskrift, 4(1), s. 1-13.

Socrates' View of Death

by Eric Gallager

Wrote my freshman year for my Intro to Philosophy class with professor Mary Wood

In this paper I describe how Socrates came to his conclusion that death is not bad (as described in Plato's Apology),... more In this paper I describe how Socrates came to his conclusion that death is not bad (as described in Plato's Apology), and then show why this conclusion is false.