The idea that the soul or mind is something quite separate from the body has a long pedigree in philosophy, as is the related idea that when people die their souls continue to exist in a separate state. Both notions received a classical expression in Plato’s Phaedo, which did not only raise the possibility of such a disembodied future state but also included a priori arguments for believing in it. The most influential of these is the argument that since souls (...) are indivisible they are indestructible and so must survive the destruction of the bodies to which they are attached. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The emerging discourse concerning the desirability of intervention in senescence to achieve radical life extension for persons has featured some striking blurring in traditional liberal and conservative commitments and positions. This affords an opportunity for re‐evaluation of these same. The canonical conservative view of the intrinsic value of life is re‐examined and found primarily to involve a denial of human prerogative, rather than an active underwriting of the value of life extension. A critique is offered of an attempted argument (...) against aging intervention from a proto‐conservative worry about a purported threat to human nature. Immortality is found to be a red herring, but a revealing one. Further, the classic liberal view is examined and found wanting in terms of the gravity of its own commitment to, and fullness of its account of the value of life, and the value of life extension. An analysis of the liberal conception of personhood is proposed that both defines persons necessarily as processes, and demonstrates the inalienable quality of the value of life extension to persons so defined. (shrink)

Many Enlightenment freethinkers undermined the immortality of the soul by declaring that it could not be demonstrated by philosophy, and that its origins were inseparable from ancient superstition. Historians have argued that the key masterminds behind this particular historical-critical attack were the deists Charles Blount and John Toland. However, overemphasis on deist critiques has fostered the idea that it was rare to write about the history of the soul in the seventeenth century. In reality, historical accounts of the immortal (...) soul were ubiquitous in this period. These histories included all the elements in deist histories that scholars have since deemed dangerous. I argue that writing a history of pagan belief in the soul was therefore not an intrinsically subversive move. Instead, Blount and Toland’s histories reworked narratives already available in mainstream scholarship on ancient paganism. It has now become common to argue that anticlerical arguments were forged in orthodox erudition. But if deists were not saying anything different to their contemporaries, why did their work raise such an outcry? I contend that their radical characters, the broader context of their respective oeuvres, and the circumstances in which their works circulated played a critical role in their reception. (shrink)

Many scientists and philosophers believe that you are no more than a machine. By their account there is no afterlife and you are no better than any other kind of animal. The existence of mankind, according to such thinkers, is purely the outcome of chance events. There never was any tendency, natural or supernatural, to produce life and the human mind. The universe is hostile or indifferent toward you, and you occupy no special place within it. At the heart (...) of this story of mankind lies not science but a rarely expressed philosophical assumption that modern science, at least in principle, tells all there is to know about you and the world. With his unique blend of cogency, clarity, and charm, philosopher Michael Augros hauls that assumption out into the light and demolishes it. The Immortal in You demonstrates how an astute use of common sense and a study of common human experience reveal that there is more to you—much more—than science could possibly say. From the author of Who Designed the Designer?, this modern response to the ancient exhortation “Know thyself” delivers a wealth of fresh, powerful, and uplifting ideas about what it is to be human, which will engage thoughtful readers regardless of their beliefs. (shrink)

Many religious thinkers hold the immortality requirement, the view that immortality of some kind is necessary for life to have meaning. After clarifying the nature of the immortality requirement, this essay examines three central arguments for it. The article establishes that existing versions of these arguments fail to entail the immortality requirement. The essay then reconstructs the arguments, and it shows that once they do plausibly support the immortality requirement, they equally support the God-centred requirement, (...) the view that God's existence is a necessary condition for life to be meaningful. The paper concludes by explaining why we should expect any argument for the immortality requirement also to constitute an argument for the God-centred requirement. (shrink)

Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) and Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013) are fantasy films that use the device of practical immortality in order to raise important philosophical questions about what constitutes a good life and to explore the nature of romantic love. Groundhog Day provides fairly conventional answers about how to live a good life by focusing on issues of spiritual redemption, selflessness, and developing one’s human potential. In contrast, Lovers provides a dark portrayal of a civilization (...) on the brink of extinction but offers a glimmer of hope for the future. The lifestyle and values of married vampires Adam and Eve represent an alternative vision of the core values needed to sustain a better world: greater reliance on human imagination, maintaining a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world, creating and appreciating works of art and living in harmony with the natural world. Both films also offer a perspective on the importance of romantic love in living a good life. Although these perspectives often diverge from one another, they do overlap in some interesting ways. The style of film criticism used in this paper is inspired by the film philosophy of Stanley Cavell. (shrink)

Would personal immortality have any value for one so endowed? An affirmative answer would seem so obvious to some that they might be tempted to go so far as to claim that immortality is a condition of life's having any value at all. The claim that immortality is a necessary condition for the meaningfulness of life seems untenable. What, however, of the claim that immortality is a sufficient condition for the meaningfulness of life? Though some might (...) hold this to be the characteristic religious view, this is certainly disputable. Thus McTaggart reminds us, for instance, that ‘Buddhism... holds immortality to be the natural state of man, from which only the most perfect can escape.’ I want to argue that we can imagine variants of personal immortality which would not be valuable and hence immortality in itself cannot be a sufficient condition for value. What is required for the meaningfulness of life is that life exhibit certain valuable qualities. But then the endless exhibition of these qualities is not only unnecessary for the meaningfulness of life, but the endlessness of a life can even devalue those qualities that would make valuable a single, bounded life. (shrink)

Life, death and immortality.--Oriental religions.--Buddhism and Christianity.--Christianity and Mohammedanism.--The natural history of church organization.--The heresy of non-progressive orthodoxy.--Miracles.--Christian ethics as contrasted with the ethics of other religions.--Eternity; a thread in the weaving of a life.

Africa lacks the particular history of liberal institutions and values that has served as the foundation for democratic institutions in the West. Without such a foundation, prospects for well-functioning democracy in African are not good. I argue that a possible alternative basis for African democracy may be found in “civic immortals,” extraordinary individuals capable of introducing dramatic shifts in political values. Civic immortals occupy the highest rung of a hierarchy of personhood in many indigenous African cultures, each of which is (...) considered to share in a different degree of life after physical death, and each of which corresponds to a different class of citizen. I examine three examples of African civic immortals: Nelson Mandela, Sunjata Keita, and Ngonnso. These extraordinary individuals shared an ambition to achieve lasting political change, and succeeded in transforming their political systems. Understanding the critical role that these civic immortals play in creating political change—both by directly changing political institutions and by inspiring ordinary citizens—offers us another tool for establishing stable and effective democratic institutions. It also highlights the ironically impersonal nature of contemporary liberal theory, and suggests a way that individual personalities and diversity among citizens may have a role in understanding political theory and practice. (shrink)

In this article we aim to distinguish between the transhuman and posthuman condition, according to their anthropological, ontological, and ethical natures. We will show that the current historical moment can be considered the beginning of a transhuman civilisation, given that the characteristics of the transhuman are already present in today’s human being. We will show that a series of decisive limitations for belonging to the human condition are in the process of being transcended due to acquisition of attributes of divinity (...) that human beings do not currently possess: omnipotence, omnipresence , ex nihilo creation – starting from the divine creative ideation – and immortality. Humans are increasingly taking on the attributes of divinity in the process of human enhancements. We will discuss the ways in which technology allows the human to overcome these limitations, elevating humans past their current condition, in a process in which they gain technological transcendence. Excepting immortality, all other limitations, once exceeded, generate a transhuman condition. Immortality generates a posthuman condition, since it can only be obtained by modifying the human ontological status from that of a biological being to that of a resident being in informatics networks. In order to clarify this process, we will discuss the concepts of everlastingness and artificial life prolongation. (shrink)

Firstly, we are immortal metaphysically. Each of us is an individual, an ultimate reality, unavoidably referred to by all the others as that which is other than, rejected by them. I am possessed by all the others as the terminus of a rebuff, as what they are not. The rest of the universe holds itself apart from me and thus refers to me as that which it opposes, negates, puts aside. Because it is part of the essence of this shoe (...) not to be me, I must be a constituent of the shoe, of course not substantially but as a meaning, and then only as qualified by a negation, as that which is rejected, cancelled. Each of us is part of the essence of every other in the guise of a meaning necessarily negated. Our natures are ingredient in all that is; in abstraction from us, as negated parts of them, all the rest would be other than what they now are. (shrink)

In our contemporary and futuristic times, immortality is slowly being extracted from the divine/spiritual arena by means of science and technology. There is the optimism that through the scientific and technological revitalization of human nature, humans would probably attain eternal existence in this world. This optimism, and its underlying philosophy, is based on something known as transhumanism. In this chapter, we examine the implications of transhumanism for the question of life’s meaning, especially from an African perspective. Specifically, we pit (...) transhumanism against three dominant traditional African notions of meaning viz. the God’s purpose theory, the vital force theory and the communal normative function theory in a bid to decipher which theory, amongst the three, best undergirds a meaningful transhuman existence. We conclude that the communal view is the most attractive of the three theories in terms of answering the question of how to live meaningfully as a transhuman/post-human being. According to the communal view, a meaningful life is one that strives to acquire personhood of the highest level by performing those acts that ensure harmonious living, communal flourishing, and the common good. Attaining personhood, thus, presents itself as one plausible overarching purpose for a transhuman existence. (shrink)

A collection of writings on life after death by such philosophers as John Locke, Plato, Thomas Reid, Voltaire, H.H. Price, Tertullian, and Joseph Butler. Touches upon the ideas of an afterlife, transmigration of the soul, reincarnation, disembodied existence of the soul, the nature of the consciousness, and more.

Four Daoist texts illustrate the dynamic image of the Daoist immortal world on which a Daoist environmental ethics can be built. The first text is the Daodejing with two of the oldest commentaries. The second is Tao Hongjing’s Diagram of Rank and Functions of True Spirits. The third is the collection of poems by Immortal Changchun, titled Panxiji. The fourth is the Morning and Evening Liturgical Prayer Book of the Quanzhen Order, which represents Daoist ecological concerns for the natural (...) world. Daoism not only accords with the impetus and spirit of environmental ethics but can also make a concrete contribution to its implementation. (shrink)

Four Daoist texts illustrate the dynamic image of the Daoist immortal world on which a Daoist environmental ethics can be built. The first text is the Daodejing with two of the oldest commentaries. The second is Tao Hongjing’s Diagram of Rank and Functions of True Spirits. The third is the collection of poems by Immortal Changchun, titled Panxiji. The fourth is the Morning and Evening Liturgical Prayer Book of the Quanzhen Order, which represents Daoist ecological concerns for the natural (...) world. Daoism not only accords with the impetus and spirit of environmental ethics but can also make a concrete contribution to its implementation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Konstantin Kolenda IMMORTALITY REVISITED In his essay, "Poets and Thinkers: Their Kindred Roles in the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger," J. Glenn Gray points out that Heidegger "does not treat imaginative literature and other works of art qua literature and art but as aspects of philosophy or meditative thought." To Heidegger's question, "How long are we going to prevent ourselves from experiencing the actual as actual?", Gray is inclined (...) to answer as follows: "Until we have become aware that the poetic eye is capable of seeing as deeply into nature and man as the scientific eye," and he adds that "there is hope that philosophers may once again take seriously the discoveries of creative writers who are not consciously seeking to 'do' philosophy."2 There is little evidence that Gray's hope has materialized to any great extent; few philosophers are paying much attention to discoveries of creative writers, thus bearing out Heidegger's contention that "at this moment in the world's history we have first to learn that the making of poetry, too, is a matter of thinking."3 But it should not surprise us that when philosophers turn to the thinking of poets they will not necessarily agree in their interpretations. Although it has been remarked that Rilke translated Nietzsche into poetry and then in turn Heidegger translated Rilke into prose, when we look at what Heidegger actually says about Rilke's ideas, we may find that these ideas allow alternative interpretations.4 Nevertheless, the fact that alternative interpretations are possible bears out the soundness of Heidegger's and Gray's claim that at least some poetic thought is worth taking seriously. In this article we shall examine Rilke's view of the relationship between life and death, as expressed in his Duino Elegies. Since this is a theme which figures prominently in Heidegger's philosophy, it is only proper to begin by pointing out certain basic correspondences between the views of the two thinkers on this topic. But as we pursue the matter further it soon becomes apparent that Rilke has set forth an intriguing and original, albeit unorthodox, notion of immortality, a notion that 167 1 68Philosophy and Literature does not need to be tied down to Heidegger's philosophy as a whole but can be defended in its own right. This article constitutes such a defense. In Being and Time, Heidegger suggests that death "belongs" to Dasein. "In Dasein there is undeniably a constant 'lack of totality' which finds an end with death. This 'not-yet' 'belongs' to Dasein as long as it is; this is how things stand phenomenally." Rilke's way of expressing a similar thought is to say, in the First Elegy, that "all of the living make the mistake of drawing too sharp distinctions." The contrast he speaks of is that between life and death. Like Heidegger, Rilke calls attention to phenomena that seem to go against the ingrained tendency to view life and death as belonging to two separate realms. Both manage to break the hold of pictures which for so long have led our thinking on this topic into dead ends. The radical temporality of human existence, its inevitable mortality, leads Heidegger to include the resolute acceptance of "being-toward-death" as a necessary condition of authentic existence. The "not-yet" of eventual death is always with us; since we cannot escape it, we must not keep denying our mortality by self-deception or by resigned waiting but should take it up into a resolute anticipation. The factor of death must be included in the consciousness of our vital decisions. In other words, death is to be taken up into human life and is to be viewed, paradoxically perhaps, as its essential component. Thus, the radical contrast between life and death is undermined. The taming of death is one of the central themes in Rilke's poem. Like Novalis before him, Rilke thought of death as the night-side of life. "Death is the side of life that is turned away from us and is unillumined for us."7 But he made use of still another notion to break down a distinction which, in his opinion, we the... (shrink)

This book offers a multifaceted exploration of death and the possibilities for an afterlife. By incorporating a variety of approaches to these subjects, it provides a unique framework for extending and reshaping enduring philosophical debates around human existence up to and after death. Featuring original essays from a diverse group of international scholars, the book is arranged in four main sections. Firstly, it addresses how death is or should be experienced, engaging with topics such as near-death experiences, continuing bonds with (...) the deceased, and attitudes toward dying. Secondly, it looks at surviving death, addressing the metaphysics of human persons, the nature of time, the nature of the true self, and the nature of the divine. It then evaluates the value of mortality and immortality, drawing upon the resources of the history of philosophy, meta-analysis of contemporary debates, and the analogy between individual death and species extinction. Finally, it explores what an eternal life might be like, examining the place of selflessness, embodiment, and racial identity in such a life. This volume allows for a variety of philosophical and theological perspectives to be brought to bear on the end of life and what might be beyond. As such, it will be a fascinating resource for scholars in the Philosophy of Religion, Theology and Death Studies. (shrink)

Four Daoist texts illustrate the dynamic image of the Daoist immortal world on which a Daoist environmental ethics can be built. The first text is the Daodejing with two of the oldest commentaries. The second is Tao Hongjing’s Diagram of Rank and Functions of True Spirits. The third is the collection of poems by Immortal Changchun, titled Panxiji. The fourth is the Morning and Evening Liturgical Prayer Book of the Quanzhen Order, which represents Daoist ecological concerns for the natural (...) world. Daoism not only accords with the impetus and spirit of environmental ethics but can also make a concrete contribution to its implementation. (shrink)

For Descartes, our minds are not natural causes because they are not themselves objects; rather, they are the activities that identify objects. In short, they are our challenges to the natural order of things, both in how we adapt to novel situations (as exhibited in what has been called the “rational action test”) and in how we respond in unexpected yet appropriate ways to linguistic cues (in the “language test”). Because these tests reveal ways in which our minds (...) (as “pure,” creative, willful, and immortal substances) introduce novelty into nature, we are not determined (as animals are) by other objects. That is, our rational or linguistic activities are challenges to the order of nature precisely because they are not part of, but rather constitute, nature. Accordingly, “real” (creative) speech is logically prior to finite differentiations and is not limited by laws of nature that constrain animal behavior. (shrink)

Bernard Williams has famously argued that an immortal life would necessarily be boring. Despite the obvious importance that boredom occupies in Williams’ argument, he says very little about the nature of boredom. In this paper, I argue that attention to the empirical literature on boredom reveals a serious flaw in Williams’ argument. Specifically, I show that there is no available explication of boredom that is supported by the empirical research and which at the same time establishes Williams’ conclusions.

I argue that Plato distinguishes between personal immortality and immortality of the soul. I begin by criticizing the consensus view that Plato identifies the person and the soul. I then turn to the issue of immortality. By considering passages from 'Symposium' and 'Timaeus', I make the case that Plato thinks that while the soul is immortal by nature, if a person is going to be immortal, they must become so. Finally, I argue that Plato has a psychological (...) continuity approach to personal identity. Thus, for Plato, a person becomes immortal by avoiding reincarnation and securing for themselves psychological continuity forever. (shrink)

Recent work in developmental psychology indicates that children naturally think that psychological states continue after death. One important candidate explanation for why this belief is natural appeals to the idea that we believe in immortality because we can't imagine our own nonexistence. This paper explores this old idea. To begin, I present a qualified statement of the thesis that we can't imagine our own nonexistence. I argue that the most prominent explanation for this obstacle, Freud's, is problematic. I (...) go on to describe some central features of contemporary cognitive accounts of the imagination, and I argue that these accounts provide an independently motivated explanation for the imaginative obstacle. While the imaginative obstacle does not dictate a belief in immortality, it does, I maintain, facilitate such a belief. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to show that a certain form of immortality, without the need for any intervention from a supernatural being, is almost inevitable for human beings. I take a physicalist starting point: I am a certain configuration of physical particles. Thus, if these particles were reassembled in the same configuration, I would necessarily come back into existence. I address a number of objections raised against this prospect by Eric T. Olson, who argues that the reassembly of (...) such particles following their dispersal after death would be simply impossible, and that if it did occur, it would necessarily be a mere replica rather than the real ‘me’. I suggest that the random redistribution of particles can be thought of as the throw of cosmic ‘dice’. With any specific throw, the likelihood that it yields the particular configuration that constitutes ‘me’ is vanishingly small. But over infinite spans of time, this likelihood increases until it becomes a near certainty. I show that even if this reconfiguration lacks the same causal features as those that gave rise to the original me, this cannot imply that the reassembled me is a mere replica. I acknowledge that my conjectured form of immortality may be unappealing to theists and non-theists alike. I also note that it rests on a linear conception of time, which may not harmonise with current thinking in physics. However, these issues notwithstanding, my conjectured version of immortality is at least as inexorable as many other things we take for granted, which also rest on potentially flawed beliefs about the nature of time and space. (shrink)

In the Vocation of Man, Fichte makes the striking claim that life is eternal, rational, our true being, and the final cause of nature in general and of death in particular. How can we make sense of this claim? I argue that the public lectures that compose the Vocation are a popular expression of Fichte’s pre-existing commitment to what I call immortalism, the view that life is the unconditioned condition of intelligibility. Casting the I as an absolutely self-active or living (...) power enables his philosophical account of both the intelligibility of objects and of what it means to die. This explains his characterization of the Wissenschaftslehre as a system in which ‘all is act, movement, and life’. In Sect. 1, I explain the context of Jacobi’s use of ‘caput mortuum’ as a term for the thing in itself. In Sects. 2 and 3, I reconstruct two immortalist arguments from Fichte’s Jena period. The first is that the I’s self-activity rules out the existence of the thing in itself and thereby vanquishes ‘death’s head’. The second is that, insofar as the I charges us with the moral perfection of nature, it is the final cause of our entire life, including its end. This is to say that the I puts our every moment into question, even our last. In Sect. 4, I use these immortalist arguments to interpret the striking claim from the Vocation. (shrink)

Originally published in 1904, this book examines the connection between two of Plato's most famous theories, the Theory of Ideas and the Theory of the Immortality of the Soul, and assesses the development of Plato's thinking concerning the nature of the soul and its connection to the body. Gaye looks at pre-Platonic views on immortality and the place of immortality in Plato's overall philosophical structure. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Platonic (...) philosophy. (shrink)

Recent work in developmental psychology indicates that children naturally think that psychological states continue after death. One important candidate explanation for why this belief is natural appeals to the idea that we believe in immortality because we can't imagine our own nonexistence. This paper explores this old idea. To begin, I present a qualified statement of the thesis that we can't imagine our own nonexistence. I argue that the most prominent explanation for this obstacle, Freud's, is problematic. I (...) go on to describe some central features of contemporary cognitive accounts of the imagination, and I argue that these accounts provide an independently motivated explanation for the imaginative obstacle. While the imaginative obstacle does not dictate a belief in immortality, it does, I maintain, facilitate such a belief. (shrink)

The author develops the idea that ancient Greek philosophy begins with attempts of the first theorists, especially Plato, to prove the immortality of the soul. For them, this meant, above all things, justifying that a person cannot escape moral responsibility or punishment for his wrongdoings. The author compares this kind of immortality, or this theory of immortality, to the ancient Greek concept of earthly immortality of the name. If a Greek had not achieved his glory in (...) the creative realm of freedom (in politics, war, sports, knowledge, and arts), he did not get beyond the limits of his bodily existence. The first kind of immortality is also discussed in terms of Pla to’s moral pessimism, while the second kind of immortality is discussed in terms of moral optimism. Both kinds are considered in terms of the philosophical response to the question of a good and happy life. The third kind of immortality is defined by the author as Faustian immortality in the Modern Age. The concept of this kind of immortality is explained in terms of the Faus- tian individual, that is, based on J. W. Goethe’s idea of self-realization of personality through the activities of their native community. This kind of immortality is contrasted with the concept of escapist immortality, described by Russian artists, especially A. S. Pushkin and M. A. Bulgakov, as the greatest achievement of a modern creative person in the conditions of social unfreedom. Lastly, the concept of medial immortality is defined as a postmodern idea that the desired uniqueness of a personality is affirmed by its social acknowledgment via contemporary digital communication means, that is, medial means. The author’s main text contains important references to the Additions placed after the main text. To understand the dialogic nature of the research, Additions should be read alongside the main text, rather than after it. (shrink)

The question of personal immortality is a central one for Gabriel Marcel. Early in his life he took part in parapsychological experiments which convincedhim that one could, rarely and with great difficulty, communicate with the dead. In a philosophical vein he argued that each self has an eternal dimension which isof eternal worth. This dimension is particularly manifest in self-sacrifice, where I find it meaningful to give my life for another and when I unconditionally commitment myself in love to (...) another self. Marcel also cites the experience of trust or hope, and the experience that life is not an absurd freak accident of nature destined for eternal extinction but rather possesses absolute meaning and value. Yet, none of the above experiences involves certitude; one remains free to accept or reject them and what they claim to involve. (shrink)

This article examines immortality ideologies in Western philosophy as exemplified in the writings of Descartes, Heidegger, and Derrida, showing in each instance the distinctiveness of the ideology. The distinctiveness is doubly significant: it broadens understandings of the nature of immortality ideologies generally and deepens comparative understandings of the ideologies of the philosophers discussed. Pertinent writings of Otto Rank, the psychiatrist who first wrote of immortality ideologies, contribute in fundamental ways to the discussion as do pertinent writings of (...) cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, who elaborated and publicized Rank's thesis concerning immortality ideologies. The notion of an ideology, clarified in the beginning as an empirically unfounded belief structure, hence an illusion, is taken up briefly but pointedly at the end in the context of Rank's distinction between rational and irrational elements of the self as they are played out in the creations of the hero-artist. The article ends by examining his distinction in the context of the philosophic perspectives discussed, most notably the perspective of Heidegger. (shrink)

Kant's noncognitive argument based on practical reason claims that moral considerations alone suffice to justify the idea of personal immortality as a postulate. Some recent objections are considered here that have charged him with overstepping his own distinction between phenomenon and noumenon. After examining the arguments, Kant is exonerated of having violated his own principles. More troubling, however, is the peculiarity involved in postulating an infinite progression toward a goal whose attainment, by hypothesis, would undermine the very foundations of (...) morality (which for Kant always requires the agonistic condition of struggling to improve one's lower nature). It is argued that this paradox necessitates a reexamination of some tacit cultural presuppositions underlying Kant's conception of the soul. Finally, an examination is made of the thought of Kitarō Nishida, whose Zen Buddhist–inspired dialectic of the basho (logical "place") provides an alternative perspective from which to reconsider the postulate of immortality. Nishida, like Kant, rigorously maintains the phenomenonnoumenon distinction, yet his examination of ethics leads him to postulate an eventual sublation of the "soul" principle. It is concluded that Kant's postulate of immortality, while plausible enough on its own terms, is limited by a Western cultural bias and therefore fails in the end to be compelling. (shrink)

In this paper, death and immortality ideas of Russian cosmists are in syncretic way put together with key ideas in postmodern philosophy. The problem considered in world philosophy on creating co-evolutionary conditions for the emergence of «immortal» man is illustrated by a wide variety of ideas and concepts. This paper contains innovative ideas of the Russian cosmists as the starting point of the research. Special attention is paid to the extraordinary teachings of N. F. Fedorov, who is the founder (...) of Russian Cosmic philosophy. Using the system-diachronic method and technologies of ascending from the abstract to the concrete, the author compares the ideas of Russian cosmism with manifest concepts of modern philosophy (synergetics, phenomenology, transhumanism). The author also gives the most striking facts of discoveries of modern natural science and draws conclusions about ideas of Russian cosmists that have been put forward ahead of their time and retained their relevance and ontological potential until now. The paper presents the prospects for further studying the heritage of Russian cosmism to search for philosophical tools that could, without going beyond the limits of ethical universals, successfully combine the controversial theoretical directions of modern philosophy for the future positive practical development of society. (shrink)

In 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council determined that the immortality of the rational soul is not true only in theology, but also in philosophy. The determination can be related also to the actual teaching of philosophy. In the university of Erfurt, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter wrote expositions on natural philosophy at that time. Usingen's and Trutfetter's expositions of De anima represent a position, which faithfully follows in methodology and aspirations the tradition of the via moderna. (...) Furthermore, they give an interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology, which Trutfetter considered consonant with the intentions and the formulations of the Fifth Lateran Council; and finally, Trutfetter even presents a practical application of the Council's recommendations. (shrink)

This book argues that Rasselas can be understoodd most fully if regarded in the context of eighteenth-century philosophical discussions of the nature of the human soul.