Philosophy of Death?

HI guys, I'm new here but looking forward to getting involved in the community. I'm a second-year phd student working on a dissertation on contemporary American poetry.

At the moment I'm working on a chapter of my thesis that discusses elegy poetry - and how women factor into that genre. I was wondering if anyone on here could recommend me some texts on the philosophy of death or psychology of mourning? I'm familiar with Freudian theories on death (Mourning and Melancholia), Nietzsche and the like - but was wondering if you guys could suggest any others?

Thanks!

I know little about American poetry, but there are the reicarntional religious philosophies such as Buddhism and Hinduism. The most obvious link I can think of is Eliot in the Wasteland, though I wouldn't know idf this was reflected in contemporary poets. Perhaps Leonard Cohen hs done some - he was a Zen Monk for a while.

Reading the Phaedo seems fundamentally necessary.






J

I do not know anything about this topic but I was wondering if anyone here know the difference between ''assassination'' and ''being killed''?
since the title of the thread is about the philosophy of death I was wondering if this is ever discussed in this topic.
I did ask once about the difference between committing an act of suicide and killing one's self.
It is not clear where the differences stand.
I hope you do notmind me adding this.
Thanks!!

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Originally Posted by cacian

I do not know anything about this topic but I was wondering if anyone here know the difference between ''assassination'' and ''being killed''?
since the title of the thread is about the philosophy of death I was wondering if this is ever discussed in this topic.
I did ask once about the difference between committing an act of suicide and killing one's self.
It is not clear where the differences stand.
I hope you do notmind me adding this.
Thanks!!

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Well, I cannot say I am a linguistic expert but I'll give you my 2 cents on the topic. To me 'being killed' is exactly what it means; actually being killed. It doesn't matter by whom, just killed by another person or animal.

'Assasination' to me is something more specific. It brings to mind pictures of people dressed in black tredding the night and shadows to kill someone. So I would say assasination is more like a hit, in my mind at least.

'Being killed' can be used more generally, it refers to someone leaving life due to another killing him (for whatever reason, could even be an animal). Assasination would be more specific, I would say it refers more to someone leaving life due to someone paid to kill him.

While writing this I have come to realise that these two words are not so very different from each other as I had previously thought since what I have stated might not be whole truths.

To cover for myself, I'd like to add that this is from my point of view. If I were to write something I would use the two words like this.

Now I just hope that what I've said is still somewhat cohesive since that seems to be hard for me when writing in English lol.

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Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts

Reading the Phaedo seems fundamentally necessary.






J

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That is good advice from my friend Jack. It is a relatively short text, too, and beautifully written. You might not find Plato's (Socrates') syllogisms convincing (I certainly never did), but I understand you're looking for attitudes towards the subject besides arguments.

I've mentioned Matters of Life and Death (Regan et al) in these fora before for another reason. You've probably read it already. If not, I would definitely add it to the list. The second chapter, "The Right to Die", goes well beyond issues regarding euthanasia and should be of particular relevance to your work.

Good luck!

DH

The greatest philosopher of death in the 20th Century was surely Martin Heidegger. See his philosophy of Being-Towards-Death in the Second Division of Being and Time.

Following what Paul said about Eliot, I would imagine that Hart Crane might afford you something interesting. He tried to be more optimistic in his poetry than Eliot was but ended up committing suicide at the age of 32 (as I'm sure you already know). He appears to have been manic-depressive. I don't know of him writing any elegies as such, though I do know of one that was written for him. Also, he was a homosexual, which might discount him; although this might be construed as a manifestation of some latent tendency to exclude women from poetry...but I'm not sure if I would even touch that one. Moreover, as a boy he had a homosexual relationship with an older man--I'm not quite sure on the finer details of the affair. Anyway, such a relationship seems decidedly Ancient Greek, possibly tying in with Plato. But following that idea of homosexuality and exclusion, the opinions and theories of Oscar Wilde would appear to be the next logical step...or rather the prior step. Hope something here helps.

Just as in early life, men, no realizing they are going to die, develop fantasies about how much control over life they have, in late life, realizing that they are going to die, develop another fantasy about control over death. That's what a philosophy of death is about.

Heidegger's philosophy of death is not a fantasy about controling death. It is acknowledging the fact that death is inevitable and thus becoming Being-Towards-Death. It is deciding to, as the country-rock tune puts it, "live like you were dying". When a person is acutely aware of their mortality they don't bumble about and waste time, nor do they act in thoughtless ways.
Heidegger reminds us that death is the one possibility that negates all other possibilities and so the choice to die is the greatest choice a man can make. Given the obvious fact that we didn't choose to be born and were instead thrown into life, those who refuse to be thrown out of life, but instead die at a time of their own choosing, are, seen from this philosophical perspective, heroic. There is an interesting character named Kilrilov in Doestoyevsky's novel "The Possessed" that believed suicide even transcended mere heroism and actually imparted divinity!

On Death and Dying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

very nice .this is a goods ide

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Originally Posted by Des Essientes

Heidegger's philosophy of death is not a fantasy about controling death. It is acknowledging the fact that death is inevitable and thus becoming Being-Towards-Death. It is deciding to, as the country-rock tune puts it, "live like you were dying". When a person is acutely aware of their mortality they don't bumble about and waste time, nor do they act in thoughtless ways.

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These idea are not new to Heidegger - they go back to Epicurus and the Stoics - and these Ancient writers are much easier to understand than Heidegger! Check out "What is ancient Philosophy?" by Pierre Hadot for starters.

Also, Heidegger uses an overly complex language to express platitudes and the ideas of other philosophers. I mean "Being-Towards-Death". Come on! Who uses language like that? Trite, meaningless, over-complicated... The age of modernist obfuscation is over, it's time to read readable philosophers again...

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Originally Posted by Des Essientes

Heidegger reminds us that death is the one possibility that negates all other possibilities and so the choice to die is the greatest choice a man can make.

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To paraphrase Montaigne, you don't have any choice in it, mate. If you are worried about death, don't worry, death will soon teach you about death. (Montaigne is wonderful on the subject of death.)

Perhaps you should research different religious views on eschatology?

Denizen - is that picture the frontspiece of The Last Man by Mary Shelley? I have the book somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

Denizen - is that picture the frontspiece of The Last Man by Mary Shelley? I have the book somewhere.

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It's used on that book cover, yes. It's also used on some editions of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

These idea are not new to Heidegger - they go back to Epicurus and the Stoics - and these Ancient writers are much easier to understand than Heidegger! Check out "What is ancient Philosophy?" by Pierre Hadot for starters.

Also, Heidegger uses an overly complex language to express platitudes and the ideas of other philosophers. I mean "Being-Towards-Death". Come on! Who uses language like that? Trite, meaningless, over-complicated... The age of modernist obfuscation is over, it's time to read readable philosophers again...



To paraphrase Montaigne, you don't have any choice in it, mate. If you are worried about death, don't worry, death will soon teach you about death. (Montaigne is wonderful on the subject of death.)

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Claiming that Hiedegger was expressing platitudes shows that you have failed to grasp the meaning of his destruction of Western metaphysics. His style of writing may be difficult, and his use of hypens may be a little ponderous, but nothing he wrote was either trite or meaningless.
You need to check yourself before you offer people on this forum advice about "where to start," because your inane claim about death that "you don't have any choice in it, mate" shows you don't even understand Heidegger's point, which is that, while we are all doomed to die, we do have the choice to die on our own terms, at a time of our own choosing, rather than waiting for nature or an accident to kill us.
It is time for you to stop denigrating thinkers you do not understand. The time has passed for superficiality in philosophical analysis.

It's not American but in 'Anna Karennina' the only titled chapter is called 'Death.' From what I can remember it's a dragged out burden for all concerned, but also a learning process and a character comes to see his wife in a whole new way, born out of the tragic circumstances of his brother's life slowly and excrouciatingly ebbing away.

Kierkegaard has some interesting thoughts on death and despair.

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Originally Posted by plath

At the moment I'm working on a chapter of my thesis that discusses elegy poetry - and how women factor into that genre. I was wondering if anyone on here could recommend me some texts on the philosophy of death or psychology of mourning? I'm familiar with Freudian theories on death (Mourning and Melancholia), Nietzsche and the like - but was wondering if you guys could suggest any others?

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One place to look is the writings of Raymond Moody. He coined the word "near-death experience" and got me interested enough to read some of Plato (Phaedo, that Jack of Hearts mentioned, and the last book of the Republic). It is a different approach to death than I suspect Freud or Nietzsche would present, or the Stoics or Heidegger, but I haven't read these others so that is just an assumption on my part.