Cover Image by Pierre Andrews

2009 is both the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his On the Origin of Species. What more appropriate topic, then, for the first Dialectic of this notable year than Life and Death?

Everybody reading this is alive, and all of us will die. As such, questions concerning life and death have a truly universal relevance.

And yet, few of us spend any substantial quantity of our time considering these questions. We’re too busy living to think about the very fact of our being alive. Similarly, while we are all aware of death, of its inevitability and its universality, it continually fails to show up in the space of actively considered possibilities within which we make decisions. Again, we’re too busy living to think about the very basic fact of our death.

How should we regard this habitual bracketing of questions of mortality? Is this neglect of the question of mortality useful – even necessary – to our leading a fulfilled life, or it is a hindrance to living such a life? In asking this initial question, the philosophy of life and death has already nailed its colours to the mast. To feel that the question requires an answer is to endorse the importance of questions of mortality.

Philosophy asks questions that cut too deep to leave their subject matter unchanged. If we engage in a philosophy of mortality we aim to change our relationship to that mortality. What we must discern is what this change entails for our lives and our deaths.

I hope you find that the following explorations of life, death, their relation and their meaning offer some answers, or better yet, some new questions.

Dave Allen
Editor

Life & Death

In this issue:

Darwin the Philosopher by Nick Jones

In any respectable university bookshop it’s increasingly common to find books on Darwin nestling on the ‘philosophy’ shelves. But what makes Darwin a philosopher? Of course, in his time there wasn’t quite today’s distinction between ‘natural philosophers’ (scientists) and ‘moral philosophers’ (us lot). But why should we find him of philosophical interest now

If Tomorrow Never Comes… by Christopher T. Jay

Going to bed last night, I thought about if I really minded whether I woke up or not. I quickly concluded that I minded very much. In a way, that was a puzzling conclusion to come to. Thinking about my attitude to whether I would wake up or not, what seemed to make the conclusion that I very much wanted to wake up so obvious was that there are many things I wanted to do, such as write this essay: not waking up would mean that I could do none of the things I expected to enjoy. I felt that consideration very strongly indeed. But in so far as I was trying to be rational, I couldn’t shake a worry which I shall try to bring out in what follows…

Nietzsche’s Concept of Life by Katrina Mitcheson

Nietzsche’s concept of life plays a key role in his philosophy: it is the standpoint from which he conducts his revaluation of all values. In questioning the value of our values Nietzsche asks: “Are they a sign of the distress, poverty and the degeneration of life? Or, on the contrary, do they reveal the fullness, strength and will to life”. Despite his perspectivism, which relates all values to various perspectives of life, Nietzsche does not allow that all values have equal merit. He is against values that he deems to be life denying…

What Does it Mean to Die? by Thomas Moller-Nielsen

“Death is not an event in life. We do not live to experience death.” So said Ludwig Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. And in its most important respect this is true. Death is not like anything else: it is a ceasing-to-be, an end. It happens outside of life. You do not experience it…

No One Has Ever Died by Tom Stoneham

Paradoxes are arguments designed to provoke rather than persuade and philosophers who propose them rarely accept their conclusions. So here is a brand new paradox of my own invention for you to think about…

Reflecting Upon Death by Keith Wilson

Thinking about one’s own death is not an easy thing to do. Quite apart from the emotional attachments that we feel towards our world and the various people and objects that inhabit it, there is a peculiar difficulty in conceiving of death from a first-person perspective. On the one hand, it is easy to imagine the cessation of bodily processes and activities that marks the demise of the living body. On the other, the idea that our own consciousness will at some point come to an end has a curious and disturbing effect upon our world view…

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