Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Death and Immortality

  • Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust

    "Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. How real can we…

  • A Vocation, not a Job

    Heading out the door for a walk, the wife invited me along. I told her I had too much to do, that the clock was running, the format sudden death, the time-control unknown.  "But you're retired." I reminded her that philosophy is my vocation.  One can be retired from the largely meaningless job of teaching…

  • Mortalism

    According to Peter Heinegg, mortalism is "the belief that the soul – or spark of life, or animating principle, or whatever — dies with the body. . . ." (Mortalism: Readings on the Meaning of Life,  Prometheus, 2003, p. 9). Heinegg was raised Catholic and indeed was a member of the Jesuit order for seven years.…

  • Can the Existence of God be Proven?

    A reader inquires, I was wondering whether you had any direction you could offer for rational arguments for God's existence? If you are looking for arguments that are not merely rational, but rationally compelling, I don't believe that there are any.  I also believe that there aren't any such arguments for the nonexistence of God. …

  • Can a Dead Animal be Buried?

    Arguably not. Here is an argument: 1) A dead animal can be buried if and only if it is identical to its corpse. 2) A dead animal is not identical to its corpse. Therefore 3) It is not the case that a dead animal can be buried. Argument for (2): 4) If a dead animal…

  • Personal Immortality

    If you wait until you have proven that there is personal immortality before you live as if there is, then you will never live as if there is. But if you live as if there is, then it will not matter whether you ever prove that there is.

  • Troubles

    There are the troubles that come to us and there are those we bring upon ourselves. But death doesn't care to distinguish them. It will end both equally. "Are you quite sure? Mightn't there be post-mortem troubles consequent upon bad behavior here below?  Can you confidently rule out that possibility?"

  • Praeparatio Mortis

    Living long is a kind of low-grade preparation for death: the longer one lives, the more obvious the vanity of life becomes. An old soul can discern it at a young age, but even he will see it more clearly as his body ages. Paradoxically, vanity will be better appreciated if one in younger days…

  • Death, Consolation, and ‘Life Goes On’

    Transhumanist fantasies aside, we will all die.  Faced with the inevitable, one naturally looks for consolation.  Some console themselves with the thought that 'life goes on.'  In the words of the great Laura Nyro song, And When I Die: And when I dieAnd when I'm goneThere'll be one child born in this worldTo carry on,…

  • Time and the Existing Dead

    Another round with David Brightly.  My responses are in blue. Bill says, We don't want to say that a dead man becomes nothing after death since he remains a particular, completely determinate, dead man distinct from others. If the dead become nothing after death then all the dead would be the same. If your dead…

  • The Idolatry of the Transient

    It is because we want more than the transient that we cling to it, as if it could substitute for the More that eludes us. And so in some we find an inordinate love of life, a mad clinging to what cannot last and which, from the point of view of eternity, ought not last.…

  • A 97-Year-Old Philosopher Faces Death

    Herbert Fingarette finds that that the Epicurean reasoning that he once endorsed, fails him at the end, offering him no consolation. HT: Vito Caiati.

  • After Enough Time Passes . . .

    . . . de mortuis nil nisi bonum lapses. (In justification of  some negative remarks about  Senator John McCain (R-AZ) posted on my Facebook page. I pointed out that while McCain served with great distinction in the Vietnam war, he failed to translate military valor into civil courage, while Donald J. Trump, who did not…

  • Death as the Muse of Morality Limits Our Immorality

    How much more immoral we would be if we didn't have to die! Two thoughts. 1. Death sobers us and conduces to reflection on how we are living and how we ought to live.  We fear the judgment that may come, and not primarily judgment of history or that of our circle of acquaintances. We sense that…

  • Do You Disappear When You Die? Comments on Yourgrau

    Here, by Palle Yourgrau. Comments by BV in blue.  HT: Vlastimil Vohanka. Many philosophers seem to think you simply 'disappear' when you die, 'erased' from the framework of reality as one would rub out a drawing on the blackboard. I think it would be a serious mistake to think this way. Time maga­zine had it…