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27-07-2020 | Symposium: Reflections Before, During, and Beyond COVID-19

Reflections on Death in Philosophical/Existential Context

Author: Nikos Kokosalakis

Published in: Society | Issue 4/2020

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Abstract

Is death larger than life and does it annihilate life altogether? This is the basic question discussed in this essay, within a philosophical/existential context. The central argument is that the concept of death is problematic and, following Levinas, the author holds that death cannot lead to nothingness. This accords with the teaching of all religious traditions, which hold that there is life beyond death, and Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories about the immortality of the soul. In modernity, since the Enlightenment, God and religion have been placed in the margin or rejected in rational discourse. Consequently, the anthropocentric promethean view of man has been stressed and the reality of the limits placed on humans by death deemphasised or ignored. Yet, death remains at the centre of nature and human life, and its reality and threat become evident in the spread of a single virus. So, death always remains a mystery, relating to life and morality.

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David Martin (1980:16) puts the matter about human and divine autonomy as follows: “Indeed, it is all too easy to phrase the problem so that the autonomy of God and the autonomy of man are rival claimants for what science leaves over”. This concurs with his, (1978:12), understanding of religion, (which I share), as “acceptance of a level of reality beyond the observable world known to science, to which we ascribe meanings and purposes completing and transcending those of the purely human realm”.

We do not know how and when human beings acquired this capacity during the evolutionary process of the species. It characterises however a radical shift from nature to culture as the latter is defined by Clifford Geertz (1973:68): “an ordered system of meanings and symbols …in terms of which individuals define their world, express their feelings and make their judgements”.

For a comprehensive extensive and impressive account and discussion of Levinas’ philosophy and work, and relevant bibliography, see Bergo (2019).

Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that the meaning of the concept of time, as it was in Cartesian Philosophy and Newtonian physics, has changed radically with Einstein’s theories of relativity and contemporary quantum physics (Heisenberg 1959). Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (Hilgervood and Uffink, 2016) is very relevant to non- deterministic conceptions of time/space and scientific and philosophical discourse generally.

Various religions articulate the structure of these meanings in different cultural contexts symbolically and all of them involve the divine and an eschatological metaphysical dimension beyond history, beyond our experience of time and space.

Ancient Egyptian culture is well known for its preoccupation with life after death, the immortality of the soul and the elaborate ritual involved in the mummification of the Pharaohs. See: anen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_ Egyptian_ funerary_ practices). Also the findings of archaeological excavations of tombs of kings in all ancient cultures constitute invaluable sources of knowledge not only about the meaning of death and the beliefs and rituals associated with it in these cultures but also of life and religion and politics and society at large.

For an extensive account of general theories of the soul in Greek antiquity see: Lorenz (2009).

For a good account on Pythagoras’ views on the transmigration of the souls see: Huffman (2018).

For a recent good account on the diachronic importance of Plato’s philosophy see: Kraut (2017).

For a very extensive analytical account and discussion of Aristotle’s philosophy and work with recent bibliography see: Shields (2016).

For an overview of Phaedo in English with commentary and the original Greek text see: Steadman (2015).

By modernity here is meant the general changes which occurred in western society and culture with the growth of science and technology and the economy, especially after the Enlightenment, and the French and the Industrial Revolutions, which have their cultural roots in the Renaissance, the Reformation and Protestantism.

See, for instance, Wilson (1969) and Martin (1978) for radically different analyses and interpretations of secularization.

Marxism is a good example. God, the sacred and tradition generally are rejected but the proletariat and the Party acquire a sacred significance. The notion of salvation is enclosed as potentiality within history in a closed system of the class struggle. This, however, has direct political consequences because, along with the sacred, democracy is exiled and turned into a totalitarian system. The same is true, of course, at the other end of the spectrum with fascism.

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Title: Reflections on Death in Philosophical/Existential Context
Author: Nikos Kokosalakis
Publication date: 27-07-2020
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Society / Issue 4/2020
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-020-00503-5

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