Death: A Philosophical Inquiry

✍ Scribed by Fairfield, Paul

• Publisher: Taylor and Francis;Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

"From Nietzsche's pronouncement that "God is dead" to Camus' argument that suicide is the fundamental question of philosophy, the concept of death plays an important role in existential phenomenology, reaching from Kierkegaard to Heidegger and Marcel. This book explores the phenomenology of death and offers a unique way into the phenomenological tradition. Paul Fairfield examines the following key topics: the modern denial of death; Heidegger's important concept of 'being-toward-death' and its centrality in phenomenological ideas, such as authenticity and existence; the philosophical significance of death rituals: what explains the imperative toward ritual around death, and what is its purpose and meaning?; death in an age of secularism; the philosophy and ethics of suicide; death as a mystery rather than a philosophical problem to be solved; and the relationship between hope and death."--The publisher's description.

✦ Table of Contents

1. The denial of death --
   Denial and morality --
   Denial as pathology --
   Overcoming denial --
   2. Death rituals --
   Ritual and meaning --
   On the advantages and disadvantages of secularization for death --
   3. Voluntary death --
   The scientization of suicide --
   Existential rebellion --
   The meanings of suicide --
   4. Being-toward-death --
   Aspects --
   Authenticity and inauthenticity --
   Temporality and anxiety --
   5. Openness to mystery --
   Mystery --
   Familiarity --
   Humility --
   Acceptance --
   Openness --
   6. On speculation and hope --
   Knowledge and speculation --
   Hope --
   Conclusion : death as educator.

✦ Subjects

Attitude to Death;Death;Philosophie;Thanatology;Tod