CSP 12 Philosophical Perspectives on Death

In this course, we will draw on philosophy, literature, psychology, and film in order to consider the significance of death for the way we live our lives. We will address four main sets of questions: (1) Is death bad for the person who dies? And does the fact that we will die undermine the meaning of our lives or make our lives absurd? (2) Can we survive bodily death? And does it matter what happens to our remains after we die? (3) Does the nature of our grief over the deaths of people who are close to us, for example, our parents or our spouses, help determine the significance of our relationships with those people? (4) How, if at all, are our values shaped by the assumption that others will live on after we die? The course may include work by Albert Camus, Alfonso Cuarón, Joan Didion, Leo Tolstoy, and Claudia Rankine.