The Meaning of Death
Laszlo Makay, George Marosan Jr. and David Vatai consider whether death destroys meaning or creates it.
And these definitions are pertinent by and large to human interactions in the either/or world. The hard sciences are bursting at the seams with facts about life that we here rarely get into debates about. Let alone heated debates. And even the soft sciences have accumulated a large number of psychological, social and political facts about our relationships which are widely accepted. Definitions sustaining rational thinking here make a lot of sense if our communication is going to be intelligible at all.
And, in turn, biologically, physically, phenomenologically, there are any number of apparently objective truths about death. How we die. What we can die from. What keeps death at bay. And we are able to acquire more precise knowledge over time.
Thus:
Still, the bottom line is that one way or another we will die and there will be a way in which to establish it. Where the definitions give way to debate, however, is when life and death are intertwined or pitted against each other in one or another ontological and/or teleological assessment which all others are meant to share.
The purpose of life, the meaning of death. You tell me: how close have philosophers come to establishing this? Link me to what you consider to be the best arguments.
Instead, these questions and answers are still largely reserved for the hard guys:
On the other hand, in grappling with an understanding of your own life and death, is this the place that you would start? Or would you concede that biologically, chemically, physically, “I” is ever and always embedded in the parameters of the either/or world. In nature. But what of nurture? What of the social, political and economic parameters of “I” in the is/ought world of conflicting goods.
How might “I” here be profoundly more problematic?