Death: Philosophical Soundings

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This work consists of two parts: an essay on the meaning of death by an American philosopher, and a selection of classic writings by some of the greatest minds on the meaning of death. Professor Fingarette faces up to the reality of death and demolishes some popular errors in our thinking about death. He examines the metaphors which can mislead us: death as parting, death as sleep, immortality as the denial of death, and selflessness as a kind of consolation. He thinks through some of the more illuminating metaphors: death as the end of this world for me, death as the conclusion of a story, life as a ceremony, and life as a tourist visit to earth. Fingarette goes on to discuss living a future without end and living a present without bounds. The author offers no facile consolation, but he identifies the true root of fear of death, and explains how the meaning of death can be reconceived. Following Professor Fingarette's essay "My Own Path", this book includes selections from the Baghavad Gita, Arthur Schopenhauer, Sigmund Freud, Chuang Tzu, David Hume, Albert Camus, Blaise Pascal, Leo Tolstoy, Eugene Ionesco, Marcus Aurelius, Michel de Montaigne and Bertrand Russell.