Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity
Thomas W.
Clark
http://www.naturalism.org/death.htm
Abstract.
This paper critiques the widespread secular misunderstanding of
death as a plunge into oblivion.
It uses a thought experiment about
personal...
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Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity
Thomas W.
Clark
http://www.naturalism.org/death.htm
Abstract.
This paper critiques the widespread secular misunderstanding of
death as a plunge into oblivion.
It uses a thought experiment about
personal identity similar to those concocted by British philosopher Derek
Parfit in his tour de force Reasons and Persons.
By degrees, the reader is
supposed to see that the notion of a blank or emptiness following death is
incoherent, and that therefore we should not anticipate the end of
experience when we die.
This conclusion has a bit of a mystical feel to it,
even though the premises are naturalistic.
This paper was originally
published as a cover article for the Humanist, and is reprinted in The
Experience of Philosophy, Wadsworth Publishing, Daniel Kolak and Ray
Martin, editors.
For only death annihilates all sense, all becoming, to replace them with non-sense
and absolute cessation.
-- F.
Gonzalez-Cruzzi, "Days of
Less
