Is a Dead Person Mortal?

To be mortal is to be subject to death just as to be breakable is to be subject to breakage. But whereas a wine glass is fragile/breakable even if there is no future time at which it breaks, a man is mortal only if there is a future time at which he dies. If there is no future time at which he dies, then he is immortal. This is what we usually mean by 'mortal' and 'immortal.'

But what about my mother? She is dead. Is she mortal? Having died, she cannot die again. So there is no future time at which she dies. It follows that she is not mortal if mortality requires a future time at which the mortal individual dies. On the other hand, she is surely not immortal in virtue of having died. Is she then neither mortal nor immortal? Are dead people indeterminate with respect to this distinction? Or perhaps the dead are wholly nonexistent and for this reason have no properties at all.

An Aporetic Tetrad

a. Socrates is mortal.
b. Socrates is dead.
c. A man is mortal only if there is a future time at which he dies.
d. A man cannot die twice.

The limbs cannot all be true, yet each makes a serious claim on our acceptance.

I have a solution in mind. But let's see what the Londonistas have to say.

Posted

January 25, 2017

Aporetics, Death and Immortality

Bill Vallicella

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3 responses to “Is a Dead Person Mortal?”

David Brightly

January 26, 2017

Bill,
Is this a question specific to human mortality or is it about the language we use to express the coming in and going out of existence? If the latter consider the following story. There was once a famous diamond called the Noh-i-Koor. It shattered to pieces when being re-cut. Would we say:

a. The Noh-i-Koor is not forever.
b. The Noh-i-Koor is shattered.
c. A diamond is not forever only if there is a future time at which it shatters.
d. A diamond cannot shatter twice.

I think we would say,

a*. The Noh-i-Koor was not forever.

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Astute opponent

January 26, 2017

The medievals discussed this a lot, and many worm-eaten volumes are dedicated to the question. From my book on Scotus:

haec est vera ‘Caesar est homo mortuus’; sequitur ergo ‘non est homo’, quia quod cum denominatione repugnante praedicatur de aliquo, vere negatur ab eo.
“This is true: ‘Caesar is a dead man’; therefore, ‘He is not a man’ follows, because what is predicated of something with a conflicting determination is truly denied of it.”

‘This is a dead man’ does not imply ‘this is a man’, ergo ‘this is a dead man’ does not imply ‘this is mortal’.
See also this post of yours.

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BV

January 26, 2017

That’s a different puzzle, though closely related. I am not arguing from ‘A dead man is not a man,’ but from ‘If a man is mortal, then there is a future time at which he dies.’ (From Hugh Mellor, “In Defense of Dispositions.”)
To spell it out:
If a man is mortal, then there is a future time at which he dies.
Socrates is a man and he is mortal. Ergo:
There is a future time at which Socrates dies. But:
There is no such future time. Ergo:
Socrates is a man who is not mortal.
Your sol’n is to say that a dead man is not a man.
I suggest we define mortality a bit differently: If x is mortal, then there is some time (past, present, or future) at which he dies.
Is Scotus a presentist? If yes, then perhaps he would not be able to say this since I am quantifying over times whether present or not.

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Is a Dead Person Mortal?

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3 responses to “Is a Dead Person Mortal?”

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