DEATH AND PHILOSOPHY
Thinkers such as Camus and Heidegger brought the idea of death to prominence in the twentieth century, but death as a topic has preoccupied philosophers since Greek times. This collection brings together well-known writers both from within philosophy and outside, providing a range of perspectives from the philosophical to the personal (including one account of a near-death experience) and the literary to the aesthetic.
Death and Philosophy is a collection that encompasses a range of different approaches. Many of the essays show the influence of recent continental philosophy, the rejection of merely technical accounts of death, the idea that death in some sense gives value to life, the contrary idea that death renders life ultimately meaningless, the idea that death is part of a narrative that can be retold in many different ways. Several essays are concerned with Heideggers notion of Being-unto-Death; others are strongly influenced by Asian philosophy, bringing in Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan thought. Still other writers consider the analytic tradition, trying to get clear about a subject whose very nature invites denial and lack of clarity. For many of the essays in this volume, the significance of death is not to be found somehow in the cessation of existence but in the relation between death and a vital and fulfilled human life.
Death and Philosophy is written with the general reader in mind. However, it will be of particular interest to philosophers, or those studying religion and theology.
Jeff Malpas is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Murdoch University, Western Australia; he is currently Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning and editor of Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan. Robert C.Solomon is Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Business and Philosophy and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published widely, including The Passions, In the Spirit of Hegel, About Love, A Passion for Justice, Ethics and Excellence, Up the University, and co-edited with Kathleen M. Higgins the Routledge History of Philosophy volume on German Idealism.
DEATH AND PHILOSOPHY
Edited by Jeff Malpas and RobertC.Solomon
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
1998 for editorial and selection matter, Jeff Malpas and Robert
C.Solomon;
individual articles, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Death and philosophy/edited by Jeff Malpas and Robert C.Solomon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Death. I. Malpas, J.E. II. Solomon, Robert C.
BD444.D367 1998
128'.5dc21
ISBN 0-203-19515-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26311-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-19143-2 (hbk)
0-415-19144-0 (pbk)
TO WHANGAITI
THE CONTRIBUTORS
Roger Ames is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii, in Honolulu, and editor of the journal Philosophy East-West. His books include The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought and (with J.Baird Callicott) Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. He is the author of numerous articles on aspects of Chinese philosophy and culture as well as the editor of a number of collections.
Betty Sue Flowers is Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Browning and the Modern as well as of a number of volumes of poetry including Extending the Shade.
Kathleen Higgins is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Nietzsches Zarathustra and (with Robert C. Solomon) of A Very Brief History of Philosophy as well as editor (with Bernd Magnus) of The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche.
Tem Horwitz is the managing partner of Horwitz-Matthews, in Chicago Illinois, and, in addition to his business activities, has authored or edited several books on a variety of subjects, founded Cloud Hands, and been recognized for his photographic work.
Peter Kraus is a recently graduated postgraduate student at the University of Auckland and is working on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. He is also the host and organizer of the conference from which most of these essays originated.
Peter Loptson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Saskatchewan and the (English-language) editor of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review. He is the author of Theories of Human Nature, and editor of Anne Conways Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. He has published many articles on a variety of topics including the history of philosophy, modal logic, philosophy of history, and metaphysics.
Jeff Malpas is currently a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning and the editor of The Philosophical Papers of Alan Donagan. He has published on a variety of topics in scholarly journals and has recently completed a book on the nature and philosophical significance of place.
Graham Parkes is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii. He is the editor of Nietzsche and Asian Thought and Heidegger and Asian Thought, translator of The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism by Nishitani Keiji and Heideggers Hidden Sources: East-Asian Influences on His Work by Reinhard May, and author of Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsches Psychology. Ivan Soll is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is the author of An Introduction to Hegels Metaphysics and of a number of articles on Hegel, Nietzsche and others.
Robert C.Solomon is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of numerous books and articles covering a wide range of philosophical topics. His most recent publications include Ethics and Excellence, A Passion for Justice and, with Kathleen Higgins, A Short History of Philosophy.
Reinhard Steiner is Professor of Art History at the University of Stuttgart. He is the author of books on Leonardo da Vinci, Egon Schiele and the figure of Prometheus in art, as well as articles in aesthetics and art history.
Robert Wicks is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Auckland. He has written on the aesthetics of Kant and Hegel, and on Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Foucault. He has a special interest in the experiential and psychological aspects of philosophical theories.