ABSTRACT

There is an ancient tradition that says that philosophy is essentially concerned with death-whether with understanding it, reconciling oneself to it or preparing oneself for its inevitable arrival. But if that is so then it seems much contemporary philosophizing has failed to fulfil one of its essential functions, since death is a topic that is seldom addressed in contemporary philosophical discussion. There are exceptions, of course. One of the reasons that a philosopher such as Martin Heidegger figures so prominently in this collection is that Heidegger is one of the few philosophers who has indeed had a great deal to say about death. For the most part, however, death appears as a subject for contemporary philosophical discussion only at the margins-say in the context of bioethics where technical definitions of death (for example, ‘brain death’) have become important in the negotiation of several legal and ethical issues. This collection is not, however, about death as it might figure in such ‘technical’ contexts. The concern of all the contributors, whether they are expressing their own thoughts directly or discussing the thoughts of others, is emphatically personal. Their concern is with death-one’s own death-as it figures in human life and in contributing to, or perhaps even detracting from, the meaningfulness of such life.