Death and Mortality in Contemporary Philosophy

Bernard N. Schumacher

09/2010 · Cambridge University Press

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This book contributes to current bioethical debates by providing a critical analysis of the philosophy of human death. Bernard N. Schumacher discusses contemporary philosophical perspectives on death, creating a dialogue between phenomenology, existentialism and analytic philosophy. He also examines the ancient philosophies that have shaped our current ideas about death. His analysis focuses on three fundamental problems: (1) the definition of human death, (2) the knowledge of mortality and of human death as such, and (3) the question of whether death is 'nothing' to us or, on the contrary, whether it can be regarded as an absolute or relative evil. Drawing on scholarship published in four languages and from three distinct currents of thought, this volume represents a comprehensive and systematic study of the philosophy of death, one that provides a provocative basis for discussions of the bioethics of human mortality.

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Bernard N. Schumacher received his Ph.D. in philosophy and his Habilitation from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, where he currently teaches. He has also served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Providence College, Rhode Island, and Lugano. He is the author of A Philosophy of Hope (2003) and has edited and co-edited numerous scholarly works, including L'humain et la personne (2008), Der Mensch und die Person (2008) and A Cosmopolitan Hermit: Modernity and Tradition in the Philosophy of Josef Pieper (2009).