Death - Yale University
About the Course These is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to make of that fact? This course will examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. The possibility that death may not actually be the end is considered. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would immortality be desirable? Also a clearer notion of what it is to die is examined. What does it mean to say that a person has died? What kind of fact is that? And, finally, different attitudes to death are evaluated. Is death an evil? How? Why? Is suicide morally permissible? Is it rational? How should the knowledge that I am going to die affect the way I live my life? Sessoins Course introduction The nature of persons: dualism vs. physicalism Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part I Introduction to Plato's Phaedo; Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part II Arguments for the existence of the soul, Part III: Free will and near-death experiences Arg