Philosophy and death

Death & The Philosopher
Raymond Tallis on philosophical attitudes to non-being.

If Socrates is thanking someone for curing him of the disease of life, than how much courage does it take to end it? On the contrary, if one sees life as a disease in search of a cure, then at the very moment one comes to that conclusion why not end it all then and there.

Really, in one respect, Socrates is no different from the rest of us. There are either enough fulfillments and satisfactions in ones life to warrant continuing on with it or the pain and the suffering becomes so great that it is preferable to end it…even at the cost of having to abandon all the pleasures.

On the other hand, Socrates death also becomes entangled in politics. Those in power put him in a position where his death eventually becomes a philosophical issue for many. Was his a wise choice or not?

And then the part that revolves around God or “the gods” and religion.

From History.Com

“Although he never outright rejected the standard Athenian view of religion, Socrates’ beliefs were nonconformist. He often referred to God rather than the gods, and reported being guided by an inner divine voice.”

So, okay, what were his views on immortality and salvation? To the extent that anyone believes that both are in fact a part of their own future, death can only be that much more bearable. Perhaps even something to look forward to. It’s not for nothing that suicide is frowned upon by most denominations. After all, if they advertise paradise for all of eternity, why not get there as quickly as possible.

This of course is presented as a “noble death”. Or a “death with dignity”. One’s integrity remains intact. Even in the midst of a dysfunctional body, the spirit prevails. But, according to Timothy S Yoder from Marquette University, “Hume challenges some of the arguments for the existence of God, but repeatedly in his writings, he affirms God’s existence and speculates about God’s nature.”

No chronic diarrhea in Heaven one imagines.

Still, the bottom line I suspect is that the individual reactions to death of philosophers known and unknown will be all over the board. Just as with the rest of us. There are simply too many different “situations” that we can find ourselves in to ever suppose that a “philosophy of death” won’t be especially embedded in dasein.

Do you ever do philosophy that is not a comment on something someone wrote?

Well, let’s just say that I’ll stack up my contribution to philosophical discussion here to yours any day of the week. And twice on Sunday.

And what on earth could possibly be suspect about subscribing to philosophy magazines or reading the philosophy of others online and then reacting to the arguments of those examining issues that are philosophically important to you? For me, that’s identity, morality, language, religion, death, nihilism and determinism.

And then bringing those arguments to a site called I Love Philosophy?

That puzzles you?

No but you didn’t answer the question.

And twice on Sunday.

Note to others:

Not that it will stop him from following me around like a goddamn child and taking dumps on my threads.

On the philosophy board.

On the other hand, it does bring my threads to the top again.

Gee, maybe that was his plan all along!

?

Pedro…

Here is my very first thread at ILP: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=173346

It has nothing to do with death but that won’t stop you from making some inane comment about it. And it brings it back to the top today, right?

Then going back to to all of my earliest threads – ilovephilosophy.com/search. … start=1450 – one by one make more inane comments about them. And bring them all back to the top again here and now.

You’ll have literally hundreds of opportunities to make completely inane comments!!

And all of my threads will be reborn!!!

Thanks in advance buddy.

It’s a simple question really.

ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=196480

But don’t forget this:

That was neither a yes nor a no…

What can I say:

youtu.be/waf46eBajkw
youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0

Death & The Philosopher
Raymond Tallis on philosophical attitudes to non-being.

In a nutshell: options.

Ones that you have access to. And, in exercising them, the reactions of others to them.

And, when it comes to those options, the older and older you get, the clearer it becomes that “our flesh/ Surrounds us with its own decisions”. Which [perhaps ever and always] explains why God and religion will be the option of choice for the overwhelming preponderance of us. Indeed, I’d go there myself if I could figure out a way to think myself back into believing it is all actually true. That’s precisely – probably? – why I tend to thump on those here who refuse to actually make the attempt to demonstrate that it’s true themselves. Not that this actually seems possible.

Envy as much as anything. They are still able to accept that what they believe is true need be as far as they go in order to make it true. And I no longer can. So, in the face of the obliterated “I”, how do they not win?

Sure, that’s another frame of mind I would love to be able to think myself into accepting as an antidote to death. But, here and now, it is no less preposterous. In particular when I am doing something that brings me enormous satisfaction. I can only acknowledge that in death [at least as I understand it here and now myself] I will never ever get to experience it again. And there are lots and lots of experiences like that.

Yeah, if what you are experiencing now is “wretched”, death is easily construed in a whole other way. When I’m dead I never have to feel wretched again. Like that somehow makes the part where, for all of eternity, the joys you have in life are also gone forevermore go away.

So, it’s always going to be an actual existential balance: pleasure and pain.

More so than…philosophy?

Death & The Philosopher
Raymond Tallis on philosophical attitudes to non-being.

Come on, it is easier not to regret being nothing at all before you were born because then you hadn’t accumulated all of the things in your life you love that precipitates the feeling of dread at the prospect of losing them forever.

It’s not even close to being the same. Or not for me. But, sure, if you can think yourself into looking at it that way, more power to you. Anything that diminishes the dread works, right? It’s not as comforting as religion, but it’s not nothing either.

On the other hand, one thing to note about being nothing at all before you were born: no pain and suffering either. And that’s definitely not nothing.

As for this part…

…it’s entirely too abstract for me. Except as it relates to gaining or losing particular pleasures and particular pains. Which is entirely moot for all of the eternity that existed before I was able even to think through something like this.

Yes, but here again that crucial distinction between something mattering existentially and nothing mattering essentially. That’s what life and death are teetering between. Only we have no idea how to grasp what this means either existentially or essentially.

Or, rather, not counting those of the James S. Saint sort here who have created these [at times] fantastically complex theories of everything “in their heads” in order to fully explain, well, everything. And that will certainly include all of their “pre-natal” years.

This part will obviously be more relevant to some than to others. But unless you believe in a religion that will reunite you with your loved ones in Heaven – or Hell? – once you are gone that’s their tragedy. And how can this possibly compare with your own. And even if I had many others who would miss me once I’m gone it doesn’t make me any less obliterated.

But, again, if you are able to believe and feel comforted by this, all the better.

Or, sure, revel in their death instead. But why should the “art of outliving” be any different from the “art of living” or the “art of dying”: rooted profoundly, unpredictably and problematically in dasein.

In fact, choosing the word “art” itself is telling. Unlike with philosophy with its logical and epistemological tools and science with its laws of nature, art is considerably more subjective. And definitely more subjunctive. Yet when some speak of the art of anything the implication is that it is somehow superior or preferable to other things.

Yet coping with the loss of others is always going to be embodied in how our lives predispose us to react. Think of how Meursault reacted to the death of his mother. And think of philosophers arguing over how far removed that might be from the “art of outliving”.

Or another reaction:

So much for the “art” of it. There is only believing that death is somehow subsumed in one or another God and religion, or that ultimately it is subsumed in the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless existence, and those we outlive and those who outlive us will have to come up with our own and their own “least ambiguous” reaction. Call it an art, call it something else. But there it is: the abyss that is oblivion.

A good thing if the alternative is ceaseless agony on this side of the grave, a bad thing if for each of us as individuals the pleasures still far and away outweigh the pain.

Iambiguous,

You have zero percent knowledge of the spirit world.

Everything you type is uneducated.

I’m going to take you back trillions of years in the past …

We all were never born and we all will never die. Very simple.

The problem with this is that we get EXTREMELY bored with forever!

So a bunch of spirits submitted a new plan that they thought could entertain us forever… we all looked at the plan and said, “why the fuck not?”

That’s all this is… “why the fuck not?”

Your entire lack of being in the spirit world is a result of you deciding to be asleep.

I’m waking you up. We need a new plan dude. This one doesn’t work.

You still have that “condition” I see. Not only that but it appears to be getting worse.

Fortunately, here at ILP, there’s a thread for that: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=195805

Death & The Philosopher
Raymond Tallis on philosophical attitudes to non-being.

There it is. A countless number of reactions that any of us might have in regard to death in general and to our own death in particular. Mine certainly being among the most pessimistic outlooks. Objectively, both my own life and death seem to be embedded in an insignificance that, in the context of all there is, and in a No God world, would seem to be far, far beyond encompassing in words. When one is but one of billions that the overwhelming preponderance of the global population are utterly oblivious to, how can one not but feel the futility of it all.

And yet that doesn’t make me any less preoccupied with sustaining whatever life I have left for as long as possible. It is simply part of the existential reality of living “my life” that I don’t spend a whole lot of time obsessing over the 'big picture". Not when I can only actually live my life from day to day intertwined in any number of very real contexts that generate any number of mental, emotional, psychological and physical experiences. Call it a paradox, call it an enigma, call it an anomaly, call it a conundrum.

The only thing I know for certain is that these individual reactions are no less the embodiment of dasein. And that it seems highly unlikely that philosophers will ever pin down the optimal or the ideal or the most rational reaction to death among our species.

On the other hand, my own reaction to reactions of this sort is empathic: that it seems preposterous to me beyond any attempt to communicate at all. It is precisely the elevated level of fulfillment itself when life is a banquet that sustains the despair one feels knowing that for all of eternity there are no more banquets to be had. Sure, a part of you can attempt to focus in on the fact that you are no longer around to sorely miss those banquets, and if that works, good for you. It just doesn’t work for me me given my own psychological predispositions rooted in my own life.

Exactly. And, again, depending on just how sumptuous the banquet that is your own has become. That’s why I have always imagined those “celebrities” who have had the most fulfilling lives being all the more distraught about their own death. They have so much more of the “good stuff” to lose.

The irony then being that if you want the least despair in the face of oblivion then have the most miserable life here and now.

Death, Faith & Existentialism
Filiz Peach explains what two of the greatest existentialist thinkers thought about death: Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers.

How does one go about discussing comprehensively that which one has not yet experienced? Even in “intellectual contraptions” the discussion is limited to sheer speculation once all of the facts about it from “this side of the grave” are taken into account.

Instead, we only know that we will experience it. And, then, deciding “here and now” if we we will be better off dealing with whatever possible reality there might be on the other side of the grave. And that’s all about tabulating the pleasure and the pain and then calculating how realistic the options are for effectuating constructive changes.

I’m still on the plus side here. So, I’m still around.

The rest then revolves by and large around the extent to which you are able to think yourself into believing in one or another God or one or another religion.

Thus…

Here however it might be more intriguing to explore death and existentialism from the perspective of those who were generally thought to be atheists and those who were generally thought to be theists. The theists being those like Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Buber.

Though in fact unlike you and I, they are all dead. So, unlike you and I, they either still do or do not have a perspective on death that you and I fumble about grappling with and grasping from this side of the grave.

With or without God and religion.