A wide-ranging exploration of traditional Chinese views of mortality.

I begin by offering an account of two key strains in the history of philosophical dealings with death. Both strains initially seek to diminish fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the Platonic strain, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications, this is the strain that is taken up (...) by much of the mainstream Christian tradition. According to the Epicurean strain, death should not be feared since the tiny pthesiss that make up the soul leave the body and are dispersed at the moment of death, leaving behind no subject to experience any evil that might be associated with death. Although informed by millennia of further scientific discovery, this is the strain picked up on by contemporary atheistic, technologically advanced mankind. My primary goal is to demonstrate that philosophy has an often-overlooked alternative to viewing death in terms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed by Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. Although both thinkers arise from the Christian tradition, they clearly react to Epicurean insights about death in their work, thereby prescribing a peculiar way of living with death that the Christian tradition seems to have forgotten about. Despite the association of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, there is a fundamental difference between them on the subject of death. In Being and Time Heidegger seems to rely on the phenomenology of death that Kierkegaard provides in texts such as "At a Graveside." It is interesting to notice, however, that this discourse, especially when seen in the light of Kierkegaard's more obviously religious works, might only be compelling to the aspiring Christian. If so, then perhaps there is a tension in both Heidegger's "methodologically atheistic" appropriation of Kierkegaard's ideas about death, and Heidegger's attempt to make these ideas compelling to the aspiring human. My secondary goal is to determine whether Heidegger takes the "existential philosophy of death" too far when he incorporates it into his early ontological project. (shrink)

The dissertation explores William James's conception of the self and his belief in the possibility of immortality. In The Divided Self of William James, James scholar Richard M. Gale argues that James unwittingly advanced two incompatible types of selves: a self-assertive "Promethean" self who maximizes desire-satisfaction and a passive mystic self who favors conceptless, mystical intuition. I argue that Gale's dichotomy of James is incorrect and that James's conception of the self is better understood through his growing belief in the (...) possibility of immortality. I develop this idea by considering relevant aspects of both James's personal and philosophical development. I discuss the personal crises of James's youth as well as the dilemmas he encountered as his philosophy evolved. I argue that one of the keys to understanding James's conception of the self was his long-term involvement with psychic research and his association with the psychic medium Leonora Piper. These interactions compelled James to envision possibilities for the self beyond this life. In the final analysis, I believe my alternative account to Gale results in a more accurate and unified understanding of James, i.e., one in which the possibility of immortality played a central role in James's evolving vision of the self. (shrink)