Abstract

In order to understand the place of death in our contemporary western societies, we need to understand what we mean by death. A number of proposals from philosophy, ordinary life and religion will be examined, focussing especially on the link between death and anxiety . Concrete examples are developped with a positive bias toward the customs and mores of ordinary people . Without taking the position of the religious believer, the religious approach to death is analysed and the question is raised as to how one can understand its crisis