15. The nature of death (cont.); Believing you will die

Death (PHIL 176)

The lecture explores the question of the state of being dead. Even though the most logical claim seems to be that when a person stops P-functioning he or she is dead, a more careful consideration must allow for exceptions, such as when one is asleep or in a coma. Professor Kagan then suggests that on some level nobody believes that he or she is going to die. As a case in point, he takes Tolstoy's famous character Ivan Ilych.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction -- Accommodating Sleep in the Definition of Death
03:36 - Chapter 2. Specification: The Ability to Engage in P-Functioning
13:32 - Chapter 3. Nobody Believes that they will Die: An Analysis
27:49 - Chapter 4. Can Imagining Death Work? Flaws in Freud's Argument
36:11 - Chapter 5. Nobody Believes in Bodily Death: The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Complete course materials are available at the Yale Online website: online.yale.edu


This course was recorded in Spring 2007.