Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger (2016) PDF

Summary

This book explores the philosophies of death in Kierkegaard and Heidegger. It examines the origins and development of existentialist thought related to mortality and meaning, offering a detailed analysis of their respective concepts and influences. The book is heavily academic in nature.

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MEANING AND MORTALITY IN KIERKEGAARD AND HEIDEGGER MEANING AND M O R TA L I T Y I N KIERKEGAARD AND HEIDEGGER Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death Adam Buben Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyri...

MEANING AND MORTALITY IN KIERKEGAARD AND HEIDEGGER MEANING AND M O R TA L I T Y I N KIERKEGAARD AND HEIDEGGER Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death Adam Buben Northwestern University Press Evanston, Illinois Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2016 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2016. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Buben, Adam, 1977– author. Title: Meaning and mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger : origins of the existential philosophy of death / Adam Buben. Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015043155| ISBN 9780810132504 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810132511 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780810132528 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Death. | Existentialism. | Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813–1855. | Heidegger, Martin, 1889–1976. Classification: LCC BD444.B77 2016 | DDC 128.5—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043155 For Norm Contents Acknowledgments ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction 3 1 The Platonic Strain 10 2 The Epicurean Strain 23 3 Kierkegaard’s Death Project 46 4 Kierkegaard’s Appropriation and Criticism of the Tradition 65 5 Death in Being and Time 92 6 Heidegger’s Reception of Kierkegaard: The Existential Philosophy of Death 109 7 The Limits and Legacy of the Existential Philosophy of Death 122 Notes 137 References 169 Index 181 Acknowledgments When I tell people (even philosophers) about my philosophical inter- ests, they often wonder what would lead someone to spend so much time thinking about something “so depressing.” They seem to assume that my endeavors must be the scholarly exorcism of demons born from some past personal trauma. But I have no especially heartrending tale to re- count about the origins of this project; I honestly can’t even recall when the topic of death became so important to me. What I do have is an over- whelming sense of joy and appreciation when I consider the long list of people who have helped shape my ideas, especially over the last decade or so. It would be impossible in a short paragraph to acknowledge all of the family members, friends, and colleagues who have engaged me in fruit- ful conversations and offered other sorts of moral support and personal assistance along the way, so I will mention only those individuals who have had the most direct impact upon the emergence of this book. Chief among them are my mentors Charles Guignon and Andrew Burgess, and my close collaborators Megan Altman and Patrick Stokes. Other signifi- cant debts are owed to (in no particular order): Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Jon Stewart, Gordon Marino, Sinead Knox, Iain Thomson, Roger Ariew, Thomas Williams, James Sellmann, Gerhard Schreiber, Gerhard Thon- hauser, Douglas Farrer, Steve Burgess, Geoff Pfeifer, Shoni Rancher, Walter Wietzke, Carl Hughes, Andrew Henscheid, Jeff Hinzmann, the contributors to Kierkegaard and Death, my proofreading team of Rachel Baas and Sabina Menotti, and the students from my death class in the fall of 2010. Institutionally, I would like to thank the University of South Florida (Presidential Doctoral Fellowship), the Kierkegaard House Foundation (House Foundation Fellowship), the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College (Summer Fellowships), the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Danish-American Fulbright Commission (Ful- bright Grant), and the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the Univer- sity of Copenhagen for financial and scholarly support that contributed to the completion of this project. In addition, I have received various ix x AC K NO W LE DGME NT S forms of assistance from the University of Guam, Northern Arizona Uni- versity, Leiden University, and the Søren Kierkegaard Society (U.S.A.). I am also grateful for the opportunities I have had to revise several chapters, or parts of chapters, from this book in the course of preparing them for publication in journals and edited collections. Small portions of chapters 1, 3, and 4 have appeared in “Introduction” and “Christian Hate: Death, Dying, and Reason in Pascal and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard and Death, edited by Patrick Stokes and Adam Buben (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011). Substantial portions of chapter 3 are reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from “Death” and “Dying to,” in Vol- ume 15: Kierkegaard’s Concepts, Tome II: Classicism to Enthusiasm, edited by Steven Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart (Aldershot, Eng.: Ashgate, 2014), 129– 34, 213– 18. Much of chapter 5 is reprinted, with the kind permission of Springer Science+Business Media, from “An Attempt at Clarifying Being-towards-death,” in Horizons of Authenticity in Phenom- enology, Existentialism, and Moral Psychology, edited by Megan Altman and Hans Pedersen (Dordrecht, Neth.: Springer, 2014), 201– 17. Chapter 6 was first published as “Heidegger’s Reception of Kierkegaard: The Exis- tential Philosophy of Death,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21, no. 5 (2013): 967– 88 (www.tandfonline.com). Finally, the bulk of chap- ter 7 originally appeared as “The Perils of Overcoming ‘Worldliness’ in Kierkegaard and Heidegger,” Gatherings: The Heidegger Circle Annual 2 (2012): 65– 88. Abbreviations Kierkegaard’s Works CA The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. CD Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. CI The Concept of Irony. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989. CUP Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments.” 2 volumes. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. CUPL Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1941. EO Either/Or. 2 volumes. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987. EPW Early Polemical Writings. Translated by Julia Watkin. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. FSE/ JFY For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. FT/ R Fear and Trembling and Repetition. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983. GW Gesammelte Werke. 12 volumes. Edited by Christoph Schrempf. Jena: Diederichs, 1909– 1922. JP Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers. 7 volumes. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967– 1978. xi xii AB B R EV I AT I ONS PC Practice in Christianity. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. PF Philosophical Fragments and Johannes Climacus. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985. PV The Point of View. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. SKS Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter. 28 volumes (plus corresponding commentary volumes). Edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn et al. Copenhagen: Gads, 1997– 2013. (It has become common practice to include reference to the new Danish fourth edition of Kierkegaard’s works because the complete English edition only provides a concordance with older Danish editions.) SLW Stages on Life’s Way. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. SUD The Sickness unto Death. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980. TDIO Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. TM/ NA The Moment and Late Writings (Newspaper Articles). Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. UDVS Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. VT “Vom Tode.” Brenner-Jahrbuch (1915): 15– 55. (Austrian Academy Corpus und Brenner-Archiv: Brenner Online. Online version: Der Brenner. Innsbruck: Ludwig Ficker, 1910– 1954. AAC Digital Edition No. 2. http://www.aac.ac.at /brenner.) WA Without Authority. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. WL Works of Love. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. Heidegger’s Works BT Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. (References will be to the numbers provided in the margins of this English translation, which correspond to the page numbers of standard German editions of Sein und Zeit.) xiii AB B R EV I AT I O NS “BDT” “Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” In Basic Writings. 2nd ed., edited by David Farrell Krell, 343– 63. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. BP The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Translated by Albert Hofstadter. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. FC The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude. Translated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. FS Frühe Schriften. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1972. HCT History of the Concept of Time. Translated by Theodore Kisiel. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. “KJ” “Comments on Karl Jaspers’s Psychology of Worldviews.” In Pathmarks, translated by John van Buren and edited by William McNeill, 1– 38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. “LL” “Letter to Karl Löwith on His Philosophical Identity.” In Becoming Heidegger, edited by Theodore Kisiel and Thomas Sheehan, 97– 102. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2007. MF The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. Translated by Michael Heim. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. OBT Off the Beaten Track. Translated by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. OHF Ontology— The Hermeneutics of Facticity. Translated by John van Buren. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. PI Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle. Translated by Richard Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. PiT The Piety of Thinking. Translated by James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976. “PT” “Phenomenology and Theology.” In Pathmarks, translated by James G. Hart and John C. Maraldo and edited by William McNeill, 39– 62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. “SI” “The Spiegel Interview.” In Martin Heidegger and National Socialism: Questions and Answers, edited by Gunther Neske and Emil Kettering, 41– 78. New York: Paragon House, 1990. “WPF” “What Are Poets For?” In Poetry, Language, Thought, translated by Albert Hofstadter, 87– 139. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. MEANING AND MORTALITY IN KIERKEGAARD AND HEIDEGGER Introduction Death is one of those few topics that attract the attention of just about every significant thinker in the history of Western philosophy, and this attention has resulted in diverse and complex views on death and what comes after. On the postmortem fate of the soul, for example, while some argue in favor of different senses of metempsychosis, others assert its utter annihilation or deny that there ever was any such thing. In con- junction with these larger metaphysical issues, the philosophy of death has also come to deal with various related practical, ethical, and linguistic problems associated with death, dying, and the dead. In recent years, nu- merous attempts have been made to identify and catalog the responses to all of these problems. Despite their often implied, and sometimes openly stated, interest in being comprehensive, these attempts always seem to ignore, or address only superficially, some important perspective or an- other.1 This situation might just be unavoidable given the vast array of material that has accumulated up to the present; or it might be due to a lack of facility with (and maybe a conscious dismissal of) certain styles of philosophy. With such concerns in mind, I would like to approach the issue of death in the history of philosophy with an eye more toward general characterization than straightforward chronological or topical organization. My goal here is to provide a compelling and innovative framework for understanding the ways in which philosophy has discussed death. I believe that there are two traditional strains that take part in this discussion, the Platonic and the Epicurean, and a third, more recent and less established voice. Both the Platonic and the Epicurean strains originally seek to di- minish the fear of death by appealing to the idea that death is simply the separation of the soul from the body. According to the former, as first elaborated in Plato’s Phaedo, death should not be feared since the soul will have a prolonged existence free from the bodily prison after death. With several dramatic modifications under the influence of early figures in both strains, this is the option that is taken up by much of the main- stream Christian tradition. Although it can be difficult to pin this tradi- tion down given its various manifestations and sects, it will be necessary to describe the fairly consistent significance of death at a few key junctures 3 4 I N T R O D UCT I O N during the long period of time when the history of Western philosophy was inextricably intertwined with that of Christianity. According to the Epicurean strain, as first developed in Epicurus’s letters, death should not be feared since the tiny particles that make up the soul evacuate the body and are dispersed at the moment of death, leaving behind no subject to experience any evil that might be associ- ated with death. Although informed by millennia of further scientific discovery that has diminished the need to rely upon the explanatory power of souls, this is the strain picked up on by an increasingly non- religious, technologically advanced humankind. It is thus also the strain that is of most interest to philosophy once it begins to reassert its inde- pendence from Christianity during the period from the early moderns to contemporary Anglo-American philosophers.2 Perhaps the essential dif- ference between these two strains is that while the one seeks to deal with the fear of death by transforming it into something new— for example, hope for the future— the other seeks to eliminate this fear by making it seem ridiculous. After providing a thorough account of this ancient dichotomy, it will be possible to describe the development of an alternative means of handling death. This is the alternative championed by the likes of Søren Kierkegaard (1813– 1855), the supposed father of existentialism, and Mar- tin Heidegger (1889– 1976), whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard’s despite the undeniable influence exerted on him by the nineteenth-century Dane. Although both of these thinkers arise from the Christian tradition,3 I will reveal how they take to heart and respond to the insights of the more Epicurean-minded, thereby prescribing a pecu- liar way of living with death that is in some sense a compromise between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains. And as a result of this compro- mise, I will find plenty of opportunity to raise concerns about the death views of both the Christian tradition and the more and more secular philosophy of modernity (including contemporary analytic approaches). In the course of dealing with Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and their peculiar appropriation of the philosophy of death, several other issues that have received insufficient or unsound treatment in the surrounding literature will have to be addressed. For example, within the realm of Kierkegaard studies there has been little attempt to synthesize Kierke- gaard’s discussion of the “earnest thought of death” in a relatively early discourse with his ever-present notions of dying to immediacy, dying to the world, and dying to the self. Even in the case of Julia Watkin’s work, which certainly suggests a connection between Kierkegaard’s many dis- cussions of death, there is no clear attempt at the specific sort of thor- oughgoing integration that I am after. In the case of Heidegger, his fa- 5 I N T R O D UCT I O N mous chapter on death in Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) remains one of the most obscure and frustrating aspects of his thought, despite a great deal of scholarly effort spent trying to grasp its meaning. I believe that a major reason for the difficulty in understanding this chapter is that Heidegger is not always perfectly clear about whose thought he is bor- rowing from. Thus, I intend to bring clarity to some of the most opaque passages with a thorough reading of the chapter through Kierkegaardian lenses. Although there is some discussion of Heidegger’s dependence on Kierkegaardian ideas about death in the work of Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Guignon, Michael Theunissen, and John van Buren, there is surely more to be done— especially when there is such a paucity of literature that ties together Kierkegaard’s “earnest” thinking about death and his notion of dying to the world when considering his impact on Heidegger. Despite my interest in associating Kierkegaard and Heidegger by portraying them both as engaged in a project that one might call the “existential philosophy of death,” I will push my investigation one step further in order to expose a fundamental difference between their re- spective versions of the project.4 In the relevant chapter of Being and Time Heidegger seems to rely specifically on the phenomenology of death that Kierkegaard provides in writings such as “At a Graveside” (“Ved en Grav”) (Theunissen 2006, 327– 29). What is interesting to notice, however, is that these writings, particularly when seen in proper relation to some of Kierkegaard’s more explicitly religious works (e.g., Works of Love and For Self-Examination), might only be completely compelling to the aspiring Christian. If this is so, then one might start to wonder if there is a ten- sion in Heidegger’s appropriation of Kierkegaard’s ideas about death, an appropriation which methodologically excludes matters of theology and attempts to make these ideas compelling to anyone aspiring to some- thing like meaningful selfhood. In the course of describing this possible tension, it is my ultimate goal to determine whether Heidegger takes the existential philosophy of death too far when he attempts to incorporate it into his early ontological project. Inclusion and Organization In order to circumvent certain concerns that might distract from my general account of death in the history of philosophy, I would like to offer a brief preemptive statement that further clarifies my methodol- ogy. While aspects of this methodology will be reiterated throughout the book, there are two issues in particular that should probably be laid 6 I N T R O D UCT I O N out in explicit detail up front. The first concerns the selection of think- ers and texts that will find a prominent place in my account. As I have already pointed out, there is no shortage of figures in the history of phi- losophy who find it worthwhile to discuss the topic of death, and it would surely be impossible to say something about each of them here (it might not even be an easy matter to list each of them if the proverbial net was cast widely enough). I have therefore been forced to employ a series of criteria in order to help narrow my scope. In many cases, the selection requires little deliberation. Plato, for example, is (1) an important figure in the mainstream canon of Western philosophy, (2) well known for his views on death, (3) the author of key works on this topic that are extant and widely read, and (4) hugely in- fluential on the death views of those who come after him. In other cases that might not be so clear-cut, it is probably worth making an excep- tion to these basic criteria. The New Testament writings, for example, might meet the latter three criteria, but one could argue that they are hardly philosophical in nature. Sidestepping this thorny issue, it is clear that these religious writings cannot be left out of the story because they are such an important part of the background views on death of some of my central thinkers, including my primary subjects Kierkegaard and Heidegger. On the other hand, it might be necessary to rule out certain authors or texts whose views, one could argue, meet the aforementioned criteria, but are adequately expressed by other thinkers I deem more important for the sake of my narrative. Consider the views on death of numerous Christian or early modern thinkers that are similar enough to those of figures who play more significant roles in the development of Kierkegaard’s or Heidegger’s ideas. Such thinkers can be excluded for the sake of maintaining a project of manageable size, but the points I make about the figures I do consider can be applied, after acknowledging any relevant differences, to those I exclude. The second issue of methodology deals with my conceptual orga- nization of treatments of death in the history of philosophy. The two traditional strains, and the existential compromise between them, that I describe are largely based on positions with respect to the following: (a) postmortem continuation of particular subjective experience, (b) the importance of death in daily life, and (c) the fear of death. For the most part, the thinkers who accept (a), accept (b) as well; and those who reject (a), reject (b) as well. The former group I call “the Platonic strain” and the latter, “the Epicurean,” and they both seem to reject (c) in one way or another (usually arguing as to why or how it should be overcome). These correlations are far from fixed, however, and I do not mean to suggest that there are no exceptions; but after a thorough encounter with the 7 I N T R O D UCT I O N philosophy of death landscape, my general dichotomous understanding seems to be the rule. This observation finds further confirmation in the fact that some of the exceptional cases— for example, certain contempo- rary analytic thinkers who reject (a) and (b), but accept (c)— are clearly working within one of the two major strains, even as they diverge from it somewhat. While there simply is not enough space to address in great detail some of the more rare and peculiar cases (e.g., Leibniz might ac- cept [a] while rejecting [b] and [c]), my project is mostly concerned with the sort of intentional exception to the rule represented by Kierkegaard and Heidegger. These two “existential” thinkers reject or at least bracket (a) for the sake of argument, and accept (b) and even (c) in some sense. Although I obviously find merit in my view of the landscape, I doubt that mine is the only viable perspective when it comes to questions about who matters in the history of philosophy’s dealings with death, how this history ought to be characterized, or to which side of this history each thinker in it belongs. In very complicated cases, such as that of the Stoics, it may be difficult to determine, for instance, which strain best represents their views on death. Faced with a certain amount of ambiguity, I find it helpful to recall a statement of methodology that I am particularly fond of: “My method in this book is to trace the historical development.... Given that this is intended to be a relatively short book, the story must be rather coarse and schematic, making bald assertions about historical out- looks with no appreciation of the complexities of the historical record. I hope that the story is roughly on target even if it is not always accurate in its details” (Guignon 2004, xiii). My historical account must of neces- sity also be somewhat schematic, relying on generalities and connections that are certainly open to question; and I try to acknowledge when this account is not exactly beyond reproach. However, even if there are some minor disputes as to a few of the specifics, I provide an illuminating new framework that both uncovers a problematic lacuna going all of the way back to the origins of Western philosophy’s wrestling with the topic of death, and also shows how Kierkegaard and Heidegger represent a valu- able attempt to fill that void. Two Strains, One Point of Departure Before pressing on with separate considerations of the two traditional strains, I would like to launch my respective journeys into each from a common starting point. The story begins, as many tales from the history of philosophy do, with Socrates (ca. 470– 399 b.c.e.). Although Phaedo is 8 I N T R O D UCT I O N a foundational text in my account of the Platonic strain, it is another of Plato’s dialogues that really serves as the origin for both strains. Written accounts of death in both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions surely predate the work of Plato (ca. 428– 348 b.c.e.), but his Apology is where one can find the West’s first extant and detailed philosophical dis- junction between the basic postmortem possibilities.5 In this depiction of the trial of Socrates, Plato’s famous character explains to the assembled Athenians why he is not afraid to die.6 To begin with, such fear would be inconsistent with Socratic “wisdom,” which asserts that one ought not to behave as though one knows what one does not know. Since no one knows whether or not death is a good thing or a bad thing, there is hardly knowledge enough to determine whether or not one ought to fear death. Socrates states, “No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the great- est of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know” (Plato, Apology 29b). Despite his shameless open admission of ignorance about the matter, this is not Socrates’s final word on the appropriateness of fearing death. Without knowing its actual nature, by the end of the dialogue Soc- rates is perfectly willing to speculate about what death could possibly mean for the existing individual. He narrows these possibilities down to two very general postmortem situations, both good, he thinks: “Either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocating for the soul from here to an- other place” (Apology 40c). The former situation Socrates compares to a pleasant dreamless sleep, and the latter he envisions as a prolonged, and very lifelike, existence in which he will have conversational access to the deceased heroes of old (41a). Either way, given the perceived pleas- antness of both states of affairs, Socrates sees no reason to fear death if his account is accurate. Of course, one might point out the many prob- lems with this account, such as the possibility that a prolonged existence might be utterly different than he expects (especially if one gives up metaphysical beliefs that make room for souls), and maybe even quite unpleasant. If one momentarily ignores these sorts of details, however, and simply considers the distinction Socrates draws in itself, one will no- tice that he is at least right in that these two possible outcomes of death seem to be exhaustive. After all, what other outcomes could there be besides nonexistence and continued existence? Ultimately, it seems that Plato sets aside the possibility of nonexis- tence in order to consider the other alternative in detail. It is of course very difficult to identify decisively Plato’s own final views on this matter, but given the regularity with which the notion of the continued existence 9 I N T R O D UCT I O N of the soul comes up in Plato’s dialogues, it is at least fair to attribute to him a great interest in this particular alternative. On the other hand, it is Epicurus (341– 270 b.c.e.) who, within decades of Plato’s passing, be- comes the champion of the notion of death as the end of subjective or personal existence. The following chapters are dedicated to exploring how various thinkers of significance to the history of philosophy have appropriated these alternatives and what such appropriation means for their views on a life well lived. 1 The Platonic Strain Plato After “unsuccessfully” defending himself against the charges brought by his accusers, Plato’s Socrates elaborates on the notion of death as a tran- sition into another form of existence in the Phaedo.1 Although Socrates continues to discuss the possibility of death as the way to nonexistence in this retelling of the final prison dialogue, he seems far less open to it than he is in the Apology. This difference in attitude toward the possibility of annihilation may have something to do with Plato’s inclusion of Py- thagorean interlocutors, given Pythagorean belief in the transmigration of souls.2 Leaning toward the idea of continued existence, the Phaedo is largely focused around the famous claim that “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death” (64a). This claim is as perplexing to the participants in the con- versation as it might be to modern readers. After all, what could it mean to connect philosophy and death so intimately? This connection, it turns out, is deeply rooted in what has come to be known as “Platonic metaphysics.” According to this view of the nature of things, as described in the Phaedo, a human is made up of both body and soul, and prior to birth the soul exists apart from the body in a pure state, bordering on the divine, in which it has access to a more perfect knowl- edge of reality than is possible while embodied in the world (75b– 77a). Thus, if Socrates can establish that the soul will return to such a state after death, when it is again separated from the body, then it will be reasonable to view death as a great gain, rather than as a great loss (which is the com- mon sentiment Socrates also rebuts in the Apology).3 In a departure, then, from his noncommittal attitude in the Apology and in opposition to future Epicurean doctrines, Socrates offers several arguments in the Phaedo in support of a specific sort of postmortem existence of the soul. For ex- ample, he adopts a cyclical view of life and death in which “living” souls can only come from “dead” souls,4 and he supplements this notion by ex- plaining why only what is bodily can ever be properly destroyed (77c– 80d). Although his arguments do not seem entirely compelling to either the modern reader or, in many cases, his interlocutors (and Socrates himself may come to no firm conclusion), what is important to notice for the sake 10 11 T H E P L AT ONI C S T RAI N of the present account is the desirability of release from the corruptible body in the interest of attaining lasting truth and knowledge (64c– 70d). This desirability not only explains why philosophers, as lovers of knowledge or wisdom, should “fear death least of all men” (Phaedo 67e), but it also explains the troubling notion of philosophy as practice for death. Socrates points out that it is their very love of wisdom that causes philosophers to cultivate the qualities of the soul at the expense of the worldly interests of their bodies. It is a similar sort of casting off of bodily interests in exchange for a higher existence of more perfect knowledge that takes place when one’s life ends, if Socrates’s arguments are to be believed. There is a sense then, albeit a limited and impermanent one, in which the practice of philosophy attempts to separate the soul from the body and imitate the experience of being dead (80d– 81c). For this reason, Socrates claims that philosophizing is a sort of dying and “true philosophers are nearly dead” (64b). To characterize the Platonic strain of the philosophy of death thus far: the highest form of life approxi- mates, as closely as possible, being dead, which is really a prolonged and perfected form of existence. Early Christian Appropriation A few hundred years after the establishment of the numerous schools of philosophy in Greece, the Apostle Paul undertook several journeys in the first century c.e. around the Greco-Roman world of the Mediterranean in order to preach the message of Jesus Christ. Although he founded churches in several cities of significance to the history of philosophy, in- cluding one in relatively close proximity to Athens (at Corinth), the New Testament reports that his encounters with philosophers were occasion- ally somewhat hostile. In fact, the book of Acts (which may or may not be a reliable source of information about Paul’s activities) describes Paul’s time in Athens, where he was not able to found a church, and suggests that his less than stellar results in Plato’s hometown were due in part to disagreements with “some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers” (Acts 17:18 [NRSV]). Nonetheless, it would seem that the lessons of Greek thought (which might include, perhaps somewhat indirectly, Platonic lessons) were not lost on the well-educated Paul.5 On the specific issue of death, Paul seems to have found a great ally— probably unknowingly— in the philosophy of Plato.6 Just as Soc- rates sees a way of approximating death through philosophical pursuits, Paul sees faith in Christ as producing a living death in the believer. The 12 C H AP TE R 1 dying of the pre-Christian self and the subsequent rebirth as a follower of Christ, which this death makes possible, is a recurring theme throughout his New Testament letters. But one need not rely entirely on Paul in order to get the impression that Christianity and life as we ordinarily know it are not destined for peaceful coexistence. According to the gospels, Jesus himself often warns his disciples that a life of worldly concerns is not con- ducive to the proper care of the soul (e.g., Matt. 16:24– 26; Luke 14:26). Because a worldly life is inhospitable to a Christian soul, Paul points out that such a life must end before Christianity can take root (e.g., 2 Cor. 4:10– 12, 5:14– 19; Gal. 2:20). But how exactly is one to understand death as the precondition for Christian life? Fortunately for the aspiring Chris- tian, Christ’s own life provides a model for finding life in death. Just as Christ is said to have died on the cross to overcome the sin of the world, but later rose from the dead, one who would be a follower of Christ must also die to the sin of the world in order to live free from its tyranny (1 Pet. 2:24). There are two senses in which this analogy might hold true for the Christian. First, there is a sense in which one must physi- cally die in order to be reborn in a heavenly afterlife, free from the sinful world. Second, there is a sense in which one must figuratively die to the sinful desires and preoccupations that come from being in the world, in order to become ready for Christ-like living. Romans 6:6– 8 states, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed.... If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” While this passage might support both senses, each of which is quite similar to particular issues presented in the Phaedo (set- ting aside what are some clear differences concerning the nature of the afterlife), it is the latter, figurative, sense of dying to the world that will play an important role in Kierkegaard and Heidegger’s existential refuta- tion of the Epicurean position. But these two are hardly the first to adopt and develop the figurative sense of Christian dying to the world, and it is certainly not the case that they derive their respective understandings of this dying solely from biblical sources. In order to see how dying to the world passes down to them, it will be necessary to trace a line through a few of the high points of Christian thought after Paul. From Neoplatonism to Medieval Christianity Even though it is easy enough to point out striking similarities between New Testament writings and those of Plato, there is less need for specula- 13 T H E P L AT ONI C S T RAI N tion when it comes to connecting Platonism with the Christian teachings of Augustine (354– 430).7 In his Confessions, Augustine (7.13– 27) details the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity, including the influence of Neoplatonism on his thought during the period leading up to this con- version.8 Like the original Platonists, this more recent incarnation holds that the philosopher is to be prepared and long for a time when the more perfect soul will be unleashed from its corrupt bodily and worldly shackles. Plotinus (205– 270) (Enneads 1.6.6), perhaps the greatest of the Neopla- tonists in the century prior to Augustine, recounts the ancient virtues of the philosopher and states, “Courage is but being fearless of the death which is but the parting of the Soul from the body, an event which no one can dread whose delight is to be his unmingled self. And Magnanimity is but disregard for the lure of things here.” Echoing both this very Pla- tonic sentiment of disenchantment with the bodily world and Jesus’s own words in Luke 14, Augustine (De libero arbitrio 2.2) tells his interlocutor, in On Free Choice of the Will, that as Christians, “we must wholeheartedly desire and love [Godly] things and place no value on what is earthly and human.”9 Pushing this eschewal of worldliness even further, Augustine’s most significant appropriation of Platonic thought as it relates to Christian dying to the world can be found in his doctrine concerning original sin. Plotinus (Enneads 1.6.5– 6) speaks in great detail of the situation of a soul, which is naturally pure and good, once it becomes “sunk in mani- fold death” as the result of a “fall” into the life of worldly lusts and mate- rial pleasures. Given its corrupt and tainted, or as Plotinus puts it, “ugly,” state, a soul in this condition is no longer capable of understanding the beautiful reality of things. It is only by turning away, in a movement remi- niscent of Plato’s (Republic 514a– 521b) famous image of the cave, from such a degraded life of corporeal passion toward a more divine existence in the realm of the intellect, that such a soul can be purified and restored to its prior perfect state (Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.7– 9). This Neoplatonic account of the fall and rise of the soul runs parallel in several significant ways to Augustine’s understanding of original sin. Due to the fall from the natural state of perfection in the Genesis story, the descendants of Adam and Eve, that is, all of humankind, are doomed to take on a new nature and live the life of the sinful, lustful flesh. Rather than experi- encing everlasting goodness and wisdom, humans must face ignorance, hardship, and death— both physical and spiritual (Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.18– 20).10 Fortunately, just as Plotinus identifies a way out of such a corrupted state, Augustine also claims that redemption comes by way of giving up, or paradoxically dying to, the spiritually dead way of life to which humans have become accustomed. But is Augustine’s understand- ing of this shedding of worldliness exactly what Plotinus has in mind? 14 C H AP TE R 1 Augustine is surely on board with the Neoplatonic concerns about material pleasures and corporeal passions, and he is also in agreement about turning toward something higher and divine in order to avoid such worldly snares. However, it is at the point in Augustine’s account where he discusses what is involved in this turning that one can find the major Christian innovation in the Platonic strain of the philosophy of death. While Plotinus believes that the road to redemption is an intellectual one taken by particular souls, Augustine (De libero arbitrio 3.19) claims that the human capacity for such a self-motivated intellectual transformation has been irreparably damaged by the fall— humans are “born in the blind- ness of ignorance.” In other words, there can be no pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps when one’s legs are shattered (compare Carr 2001, 184– 85). Given this desperate situation, Christianity in general, and Augustine specifically, must posit another capacity if redemption is to be possible.11 They believe that God in his mercy “showed them the path of faith in the blindness of forgetfulness” (Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.20). For the Christian, reliance on reason, or intellect, is just one more aspect of the corrupt, damaged, human condition that one must in some sense die to in order to regain the perfect human nature that God originally created. Paul himself actually points out that, to the allegedly “reason- able” world of corrupt humanity, Christianity can only appear offensive or foolish, and so a new way of seeing is necessary (1 Cor. 1:23). Humbling oneself, admitting the insufficiency of one’s intellectual capacities, and faithfully appealing to God’s grace for help are the only recourses for finding life in death (Augustine, De civitate Dei 13.1– 5, 10– 12). The paradoxical predicament of the Christian described up to this point can be summarized as follows: humans have left a situation of life without death and entered into one in which they must live with the constant reality of death. In order to overcome this present situation, a human must give up, or “die to,” this dead way of life; but this is no easy task and a divine act of redemption becomes necessary. Through this act, humans are able to pass from a corrupt state of living death— biologically alive for the time being and actively engaged in affairs of the world, but spiritually decaying and headed to perdition— to a purified state of liv- ing death. Although biological life persists in this latter state as well, one is able to thrive spiritually, unobstructed by the concerns of ordinary human life, while looking forward to eternal blessedness. The period of Christian thought after Augustine, the medieval period, is a long and complicated one that I cannot begin to do justice to here, given that my ultimate goals must soon lead the discussion quite a bit farther abroad historically. Nonetheless, it will be worthwhile to high- 15 T H E P L AT ONI C S T RAI N light two aspects or trends from this period. One prominent movement that was particularly popular during the early Middle Ages is monasticism (its popularity seems to have waned somewhat during the later Middle Ages with the rise of mendicant orders). This movement seems worth mentioning briefly given that it is a mechanism intended to facilitate dy- ing to worldliness. In the monastery, one is closed off from the everyday world in order to cultivate one’s spiritual relationship with the divine. Al- though this apparently powerful expression of dying to the world has its share of notable advocates, some of the key Christian thinkers included in my present account, including Kierkegaard, reject it. Besides the fact that these thinkers can find no biblical precedent for precisely this sort of behavior, they seem to agree that, in spite of its intentions, monasti- cism does not really lead to proper dying to the world. Martin Luther (1483– 1546) (Luther 2000, 234– 35), for instance, who was no stranger to monastic living, argues that the monastery is a relatively tranquil place that shuts out worldly suffering so that one might indulge in the more pleasant aspects of being alive. A significant trend from the later medieval period that will be worth introducing now is Scholasticism. This trend is perhaps best char- acterized by the writings of natural theologians like Anselm (1033– 1109) and Thomas Aquinas (1225– 1274). The latter’s work— probably Scho- lasticism’s most paradigmatic example— integrates Greek thought in the form of the newly “rediscovered” texts of Aristotle during the Cru- sades, and seems to carve out a more substantial place for reason, or human capabilities in general, than Augustine would have condoned (for the record, it is not as though Augustine rejects every use of rea- son to supplement faith).12 Besides the famous Scholastic arguments for God’s existence, based on pure reason in the case of Anselm’s ontologi- cal argument and reason aided by experience of the world in other cases, Aquinas actually goes so far as to distinguish, explicitly, between separate domains for reason and faith within Christian doctrine. Although Aqui- nas (Summa Theologica I, Q. 2, Art. 2, ad. 1) does speak of the primacy of faith in some sense for the sake of being a Christian, he claims that faith is only necessary for appropriating certain articles of church doctrine (e.g., the Trinity), while reason is sufficient for grasping other articles, such as the existence of God. Given this compartmentalizing of reason, I do not mean to suggest that Aquinas, or Scholasticism in general, breaks entirely with the earlier Augustinian sense of Christian dying to the world or its more anti-rational aspects. The Scholastic position does, however, offer a convenient adversary to those who would restore these traditional aspects to their place of prominence in such dying. 16 C H AP TE R 1 An Augustinian Reformation There are at least two thinkers from the first post-medieval centuries that must be discussed because they stand out as champions of the Augus- tinian tradition against the widespread Scholasticism of the day. These thinkers believe that the church, with its excessive reliance on the sort of Aristotelianism then in vogue, had forgotten some of the basic lessons of Pauline dying to the world, as well as those of Augustine’s turn away from the more rationalistic and self-reliant aspects of Greek thought. The first of these traditionalists is none other than the famous reformer Martin Luther, himself a monk of the Augustinian order. The so-called Lu- theran Reformation is arguably in many ways not a reformation, but a “pre-formation,” or a return to Christianity as it had previously been. Re- acting as much to the rationalism of prominent church doctrine-crafters like Aquinas, with the famous proclamation that reason is a whore,13 as to the “lazy” Christianity then practiced in what is now Germany (exem- plified by the church’s custom of selling indulgences), Luther (1957a; 1957c) sees value in a return to the New Testament focus on death, par- ticularly the death of Jesus. The issue of Luther’s views on death is a complicated one given the gradual yet extreme changes in his views in general throughout his life- time. For the sake of relating his more thoroughly “Lutheran” thought to the work of Kierkegaard, it is probably best to focus on those works that come after what is traditionally taken to be the beginning of the Reformation in 1517. Mirroring to some extent my earlier discussion of the two senses of dying to the world in the New Testament, it will also be helpful to distinguish between two types of Luther’s writings on death: those that have to do with Christians passing out of the world physically, and those that have to do with sacrificing worldliness for Christ (in Lu- ther’s own context, the latter may actually include the physical passing away of martyrdom). Although there is surely too much material to ad- dress here, particularly on the issue of the more figurative sense of dying to the world, I have selected a few short texts to focus on, which should allow for an adequate characterization of Luther’s views as they will im- pact Kierkegaard, and later, Heidegger.14 The first of these texts is a relatively early document (1519) entitled “A Sermon on Preparing to Die.” Written just two years after Luther’s publication of the “Ninety-Five Theses,” which changed the course of Western history, this short sermon includes twenty articles of practical advice and spiritual comfort. Although the writing of this document was originally requested by a particular individual struggling with the thought of death, within a few years it was widely published and read 17 T H E P L AT ONI C S T RAI N (Bertram 1969, 97– 98). Despite its popularity, it should be noted that there are particular aspects of this sermon that Luther would later reject. For example, he repeatedly appeals to the value of particular sacraments such as “extreme unction” (part of the last rites), which he will eventually jettison due to a lack of biblical precedent (Luther 1969, 100, 108).15 It is not clear, however, that the presence of these particular remnants of his Catholicism pose any problems for his overall account of the proper way for a Christian to approach death. At the beginning of his sermon Luther (1969, 101), treating death as the human condition, advises that “we should familiarize ourselves with death during our lifetime, inviting death into our presence when it is still at a distance and not on the move.” In fact, he includes death, along with sin and hell, as issues that must be kept in mind constantly during life, but which must remain unthought as life nears its conclusion (Luther 1969, 102). As the sermon progresses, however, it becomes clear that what Luther is advocating is no mere meditation on human finitude, personal or otherwise. Rather, he advocates focusing on Christ’s death to the exclusion of the consideration of any other perspective on death. He states, “You must not view or ponder death as such, not in yourself or in your nature.... You must concern yourself solely with the death of Christ.... If you look at death in any other way, it will kill you with great anxiety and anguish” (Luther 1969, 104). Just as Christ is said to have sub- stituted his death for that of humankind, Luther substitutes a detailed consideration of Christ’s death for a consideration of both one’s own death and the fact of human mortality in general. His purpose in mak- ing this substitution is clearly to offer comfort to the dying, and mitigate the anxiety that one feels when thinking about death. Among numerous statements he makes to this effect, Luther (1969, 114) wonders, “What more should God do to persuade you to accept death willingly and not to dread but to overcome it? In Christ he offers you the image of life, of grace, and of salvation so that you may not be horrified by the images of sin, death, and hell.” By the end of this sermon, Luther’s overall message seems to be that one should really not spend one’s time thinking about death at all, but rather about one’s eternal life in Christ. But there is another aspect of focusing on the death of Christ and the eternal life this death brings with it that Luther’s early sermon does not really address— the suffering, persecution, and martyrdom that come along with the imitation of Christ. In texts like “A Letter of Consolation to All Who Suffer Persecution” (1522), which was originally intended for a sympathetic nobleman, and the outlined sermon later titled “That a Christian Should Bear His Cross with Patience” (1530), Luther picks up on these issues with constant scriptural reference (Bertram 1968, 59– 60; 18 C H AP TE R 1 Flesner 1968, 181– 82). While one might find comfort in the face of death by thinking about a heavenly eternal life, it seems that a life in Christ is likely to be less than comfortable in the temporal world (Luther 1968b, 183). In fact, Luther seems to believe that the sign of true Christianity is the very presence of persecution and suffering. He asserts, “Wherever Christ is, Judas, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas, and Annas will inevitably be also, so also his cross. If not, he is not the true Christ” (Luther 1968a, 63).16 In other words, one will only know if one is doing it right when one is betrayed, arrested, mocked, tortured, condemned, or even killed. Ap- plying these criteria to his own situation, in which even martyrdom seems to be a real possibility, Luther (1968a, 63) begins almost to revel in death as he states: “They threaten us with death. If they were as smart as they are stupid, they would threaten us with life. It is a shame and disgrace to try to threaten and terrify Christ and his Christians with death for, after all, they are lords and victors over death. It is just like trying to frighten a man by bridling and saddling his horse and bidding him to ride on it.” For Luther then, it seems that Christians (as good proponents of the Platonic strain) are really at home in death. Not only are they ready to sacrifice worldly goods, including their own lives, they also believe that this sacrifice prepares them for the everlasting existence to come. It is as though they are already in some sense dead and yet in another sense incapable of dying. Like Luther a century before (and Kierkegaard two centuries later), the Jansenist-leaning Blaise Pascal (1623– 1662) takes issue with a reli- gious status quo that seems to have forgotten Augustine’s lessons about the importance and worldly repercussions of a faithful relationship with God. Given the Augustinianism that Jansenists and Lutherans have in common, it is certainly not surprising that the Jansenists were accused of having Protestant sympathies. In fact, the sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Jansenist movement was condemned by the Jesuits— the great propagators of Scholastic doctrines at this time— and Pascal’s views con- necting death and reason place him squarely in the middle of this con- flict. Immersed in the skeptical atmosphere of thinkers like Michel de Montaigne, Pierre Charron, and René Descartes, Pascal comes to wonder about the legitimacy and limits of reason in the service of Christian be- lief.17 Specifically, he feels that the Jesuit use of reason to “combine God and the world” leads to a situation in which the true nature of Christi- anity is lost (Pascal 2005, 311). It is at least partially with these issues in mind that Pascal’s Pensées turns to the thought of death in order to focus attention clearly on the state of humanity in the world and the essence of Christianity. For Pascal, physical death is significant as the deadline by which an 19 T H E P L AT ONI C S T RAI N individual must make a decision concerning belief in the immortality of the soul, or else risk certain consequences. In a slightly updated version of Socrates’s disjunction in the Apology, he states: “Eternity exists, and death, which must begin it and which threatens them every hour, must in a short time inevitably put them under the horrible necessity of being annihilated or unhappy eternally” (Pascal 2005, 221). Given the obvious importance of making what Pascal (2005, 217) would see as the “right” decision about the eternal, there are a few things about the deadline that ought to be kept in mind. The first of these can be seen in the passage quoted above— death can come at any moment without warning. But this indeterminate aspect of death is bound up with a much less ambigu- ous feature. Regarding life in the world, Pascal (51) claims, “It is certain we will not exist in it for long and uncertain if we will exist in it for one hour.” Furthermore, death is something that an individual faces alone (50); a person must not think that anyone else can help them once the deadline has been reached. This is one part of existence that is necessar- ily private and solitary, and one would do well to treat it as such. While Pascal, who is perhaps less interested in comforting the dying than Lu- ther (and more interested in using death to open people’s eyes to what is at stake in life), has other things to say about death, these few points should be sufficient for helping to explain his take on dying to the world. When one focuses on death, and what comes after it, in the way Pascal describes, one experiences a sense of urgency and individual re- sponsibility in life that one might not experience otherwise. There is a limited and possibly small amount of time to get one’s affairs in order, but the most pressing affairs are not the temporary and transient prob- lems of everyday life in the world. Pascal’s sense of urgency and respon- sibility demands that one alter one’s life in various ways in order to keep from becoming bogged down in matters that do not pertain to one’s decision about the eternal. Consider his claim: “Let us... judge those who live without thinking of the ultimate end of life, who let themselves be guided by their inclinations and their pleasures without reflection and without concern, as if they could annihilate eternity by turning their thought away from it, and think only of making themselves happy for the moment” (221). This passage suggests that a genuine appreciation for one’s precarious situation might lead to the avoidance of worldly ideas and passions. Indeed, our daily worries about office productivity, familial strife, and making time for the gym do seem to pale in comparison to end of life issues. Aided by thoughts of death, Pascal (47) seeks release from the ways of the world, which is precisely what several New Testa- ment authors are after when they speak of dying to the sinful world of pride and bodily desires (e.g., Matt. 4:18– 22, 19:24; 1 Cor. 6:12– 7:9). 20 C H AP TE R 1 But beyond Pascal’s view of death and the uneasiness and change it induces when taken seriously, the full implications of his understanding of dying to the world remain to be seen. Dying to the world is ultimately a disregarding, or hatred, of the worldly self, which includes one’s self- ishness, self-confidence, self-reliance, and so on; and this dying is neces- sary in order for an individual to be open to receiving a new sense of self through Christ’s gracious and merciful redemptive act, as Augustine sug- gests (Pascal 2005, 81). Pascal (107) asserts that “true conversion consists in self-annihilation before that universal Being whom we have so often irritated.... There is an insurmountable opposition between God and us, and... without a mediator there can be no communion with him.” There are many different ways in which one can understand how “hav- ing” a self might prevent having a relationship with God, but perhaps the most important impediment, according to Pascal, is the self-confidence and self-reliance that are manifested in the use of reason. For the sake of existing in the world, it seems that there is noth- ing more valuable to a human being than reason. More often than not, it serves people well in dealing with the world, and it has therefore re- ceived an apparently well-deserved vote of confidence. But as Pascal ex- plains (once again, in a way reminiscent of Augustine), God is opposed to worldliness, worldly reason included. The opposition between God and reason is quite apparent when one considers the numerous myster- ies of Christian doctrine, whether it is the virgin birth, the divinity and resurrection of a man named Jesus, or Pascal’s personal favorite: original sin. The purpose of recognizing such opposition is, according to Pascal, to acknowledge that reason can only go so far (not quite as far as the Jesuits and Scholastics claim, however), and that dying to the world in- cludes, in some sense, dying to reason. The idea that reason might some- how become an obstacle to Christianity, and must therefore be cut off or excluded, surely resonates with Christ’s own words in the gospels about cutting off limbs and gouging out organs that cause one to sin (Matt. 5:29– 30, 18:8– 9; Mark 9:43– 47). Pascal (2005, 37) says that we cannot know ourselves in God “through the proud exertions of our reason, but through its simple sub- mission.” By suspending or dying to reason at significant moments, one liberates another faculty, which humans can use to gain knowledge, or something like it. The heart— in this context, an instrument of faith— is a non-rational capacity by which principles, in this case Christian prin- ciples, can be felt. Just after introducing his famous wager, Pascal (215– 16) claims, “It is the heart that experiences God, and not reason. Here, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by reason. The heart has its rea- sons, which reason does not know.” I take this peculiar statement about 21 T H E P L AT ONI C S T RAI N unreasonable reasons to mean a couple of things: first, that something might seem ridiculous to an outsider, but make perfect sense to those “in the know,” and second, that some course of action or belief might seem like a very bad idea (perhaps because a desirable outcome is unlikely— see the wager) and yet it is still possible to explain why someone might proceed along this course. With this statement Pascal does suggest a kind of dying to reason; but he could also be interpreted as sneaking some degree of reason back into Christianity in order to aid faith after having excluded it temporarily in order to form faith. Despite the fact that the heart is capable of things that reason is not, Pascal does not believe that the heart ought to be left to its own devices. There is clearly a suspicion of reason in Pascal that separates him from his Scholastic predecessors (and Jesuit contemporaries), but it might be said that Pascal is closer to the Scholastics than Luther. Reason has a place in the service of Christianity according to Pascal and thus reason and faith must work together within the aspiring Christian. He states, “If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have noth- ing mysterious and supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous” (53). Pascal (90, 212) does acknowledge that Christianity is, in a sense, foolish, but this foolishness is obviously not entirely incompatible with reason. It is because Christian- ity must, in some sense, be compatible with reason (or at least be able to offer “reasons” in its defense from the perspective of faith) that Pascal emphasizes the importance of at least some minimal amount of verifi- able evidence in the form of miracles. He rather straightforwardly con- tends, “We would not have sinned in not believing in Jesus Christ, lacking miracles” (54).18 Of course, one could debate the rationality of belief in miracles, but given all that Pascal has to say, it is clear that his notion of dying to reason does not lead him into unabashed irrationalism. The more anti-rationalist line of Christian thought, and the general focus on death and dying— both physical and metaphorical— that seems to lead thinkers like Augustine, Luther, and Pascal to it, will have an obvious impact on both Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Although there have surely been developments and variations on death-related issues within different Christian sects up to the present day (and I certainly do not mean to belittle or ignore what are no doubt some very fascinating views), I take it that the Platonic strain, insofar as it survives in certain forms of contemporary Christian thought, remains, for my broad pur- poses, more or less as I have described it. Furthermore, given that the philosophical tradition since the seventeenth century has for the most 22 C H AP TE R 1 part either radically reinterpreted Christianity (as in Hegel and Scho- penhauer) or moved away from religious doctrines entirely, I feel that it is appropriate to end my brief account of the Platonic strain here. In fact, it is at the very point historically where my discussion of this strain slows down that the Epicurean strain, with its intensifying focus on scien- tific, this-worldly matters, and its corresponding doubts about an after- life, really takes off. 2 The Epicurean Strain The Epicureans If what distinguishes the Platonic strain of the philosophy of death is an appeal to an afterlife and an attempt to demonstrate that preparation for death is the best way to spend the less than perfect present worldly life, then what signifies membership in the Epicurean strain is a denial of any meaningful postmortem extension of particular subjective experience and an attempt to render death irrelevant in life. In his Letter to Menoeceus Epicurus (125) combats one of humankind’s greatest fears by pointing out that death, “the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.” This paradoxically enticing claim about death has been the subject of a great deal of philosophical discourse, both in the ancient world and in the present day. Before pressing on to consider its influence, however, it will be necessary to point out its sources. As already suggested, Epicurus takes up the alternative view, which Plato briefly considers in the Apology but elsewhere seems to find less attractive: death begins nonexistence. In fact, Epicurus (Letter to Menoe- ceus 124– 26) goes about his consideration of death in much the same way that the character Socrates does in his famous defense— that is, by pointing out the mistakes made in common discourse on the subject (compare Apology 29b). In addition to any Platonic connections Epicu- rus might have, he also seems to address (knowingly or not) the views of another prominent thinker from his era. In driving home the famous claim quoted above, Epicurus tries to rule out, definitively, the possibility of posthumous harm that Aristotle (384– 322 b.c.e.) (Nicomachean Ethics 1100a10– 1101b9) downplays but will not ultimately deny.1 In order to see how Epicurus does what Aristotle is unwilling or unable to do, one must explain two important aspects of Epicurean thought that underlie his beliefs about death. Because only a few short writings from Epicurus have survived, it will perhaps be helpful to supplement what Diogenes Laertius has preserved with The Way Things Are (De rerum natura), a poem written by the first-century b.c.e. Roman Epicurean, Titus Lucretius Carus. The first aspect of Epicurean doctrine that must be taken up is its religious understanding. Like many of his fellow Greeks, Epicurus does 23 24 C H AP TE R 2 not deny the existence of the gods; however, he does encourage focusing on the proper idea of the gods. Such a conception precludes the attribu- tion to the gods of various human qualities and shortcomings, as one sees in the works of Homer (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123– 24). According to Epicureanism, not only are the gods very much unlike human beings, they also seem to be quite uninterested in human beings. Rather, the gods seem to be absolutely content in just being themselves. Lucretius (De rerum natura 3.18– 24) states, The gods majestic, and their calm abodes Winds do not shake, nor clouds befoul, nor snow Violate with the knives of sleet and cold; But there the sky is purest blue, the air Is almost laughter in that radiance, And nature satisfies their every need, And nothing, nothing, mars their calm of mind. Since the gods are blissfully wrapped up in their own carefree perfection, Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus 124) belittles the idea that they are some- how involved in the judgment of human behavior and the handing out of penalties for wrongdoing. If the gods are not interested in punishing humans, it is but a short step to the denial of the sort of hell that Homer describes (compare Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 81). In fact, Lucretius (De rerum natura 3.976– 1023) makes a point of revisiting Greek literature and discrediting several famous tales of suffering in Hades, concluding his list by claiming that if it were possible to have the experience of hell, it would be in life. All the more reason, according to the Epicurean, not to fear death. The second relevant aspect of Epicurean doctrine is its atomistic metaphysics.2 The idea at the heart of Epicurus’s famous statement about why it is irrational to fear death is that in death there is no longer a sub- ject able to suffer harm. This idea relies on the Epicurean belief that everything is made up of tiny particles of various shapes and sizes that come together occasionally, hold together temporarily, and eventually disperse again (Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 40– 44; Lucretius, De rerum natura 3.31– 35). At the moment of death, the particularly tiny particles that make up the human mind or spirit and animate the body imper- ceptibly evacuate the corpse left behind. In his Letter to Herodotus, Epi- curus (63– 65) explains that “the soul is a body (made up of) fine parts distributed throughout the entire aggregate... [that is responsible for] its feelings, its ease of motion, its thought processes... [and its] sense- perception.... Furthermore, when the entire aggregate is destroyed, 25 T H E E PI C URE AN S T RAI N the soul is scattered and no longer has the same powers” (compare Lu- cretius, De rerum natura 3.184– 230). Since death is simply the dispersal of one’s atoms, both those of the mind and eventually those of the body, there is no question of an enduring subject that can be harmed by death or anything that happens afterwards; and clearly there is nothing to fear in death. Not only does the Epicurean do away with fear of suffering in hell after death, the Epicurean even does away with the idea that there is anyone left at all to experience fear or other unpleasantness after death. Thus, Epicurus seems to have answered Aristotle’s bizarre question about the possibility of posthumous harms. What remains to be considered is Epicurus’s further claim that death, as the dispersal of one’s atoms, should not bother the living since it has not happened yet. He even believes that his understanding of death should comfort the living “by removing the longing for immortal- ity” (Letter to Menoeceus 124). While his explanation as to why there is no personal existence and therefore nothing to fear after death might seem rather compelling, it is much less obvious why one’s own impending death should not trouble one still capable of being troubled. Of course, one can understand the interest in this latter idea given Epicurus’s over- all goal of promoting the good life (eudaimonia) of tranquility (ataraxia) and pleasure (hedonia), but even if one shares his hope for this sort of life, it still is not altogether clear why one’s death to come should not be considered deeply problematic. Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus 125) argues that since one’s own death is not a problem once it happens, it should not be viewed as a problem before it happens. Furthermore, Lucretius (De rerum natura 3.830– 72, 968– 74) calls attention to most humans’ asymmetrical lack of concern about their prenatal nonexistence and argues that if this nonexistence does not bother anyone, then neither should postmortem nonexistence.3 But do these arguments not betray an impoverished understanding of death’s interaction with life? Fortu- nately, the Epicurean treatment of death is an issue that will come up repeatedly in the history of philosophy, for example, in the work of early modern proponents of this pagan doctrine, in the writings of detractors like Kierkegaard and Heidegger, and even in the more recent musings of contemporary Anglo-American philosophers.4 The Stoics Of the various schools of thought that deal heavily with death, the Sto- ics are one of the most troublesome to categorize. The earliest Stoics 26 C H AP TE R 2 are practically contemporary with Epicurus, but many of the key Stoic writers— for example, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (ca. 4 b.c.e.– 65 c.e.) and Epictetus (ca. 50– ca. 130)— come well after Epicurus and Lucretius; and some even seem influenced by Epicurean doctrine.5 Stoicism also has a complicated relationship with Christianity. The close proximity between them is perhaps the main reason why it is noticeably more difficult to classify the Stoics in terms of the dichotomy of death views that I am de- scribing. Stoicism, of course, had a tremendous influence on Christianity during the latter’s formative years in the very Stoic Roman empire, prior to Christianity’s rise to prominence around the time of Augustine.6 In fact, Josiah B. Gould (1970, 13) claims that it is in “the third century a.d., when Stoicism itself begins to lose ground and to be absorbed piecemeal into Neoplatonic and Christian thought.” Consider, for example, the rather Stoic idea of memento mori (and the related perseverance in the face of physical suffering and martyrdom) that has been an important aspect of Christian thought (and artwork) throughout Christian history.7 Nonetheless, the Stoics also have a great deal in common with the Epicu- reans on the two issues that matter for the sake of my account. They are, for the most part, without a clear notion of an individualistic afterlife and they often seek to diminish the significance of the deaths of individuals. Like the Epicureans, the Stoics seem opposed to what traditional fear-mongering religions have to say about death and what comes after. For example, Epictetus (Enchiridion 5) states, “Death is nothing terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is terrible.”8 Death is a perfectly natural, non- harmful part of existing that must not be fought against if tranquility is to be attained. But in order to understand death in this way and become tranquil, one must have a proper understanding of the divine’s place in a largely determined natural world. The Stoics, in contrast to the Epicu- reans, believe that God— the very universe itself— is actively involved in human affairs. Perhaps the primary way that God is involved in human affairs is through the divine spark that animates and allows perception in each human being. Just as God is the divine fire that takes in, permeates, and animates the entire universe, human souls do the same on a much smaller, bodily, scale (Gould 1970, 127, 155– 56). Despite this relationship to the divine, however, the Stoics do agree with the Epicureans that the “gift” of soul is more like a rental that must be “given back” (compare Epictetus, Enchiridion 11). Death is simply the reintegration of an indi- vidual spark into the divine fire that makes up the universe. Thus, while there may be some kind of continued existence in this reintegration, such existence does not seem to be the personal, individualistic afterlife that Plato and the Christians seem interested in; and if one’s death is the 27 T H E E PI C URE AN S T RAI N end of a particular subjective experience, there is surely nothing to be feared in death.9 Even though there is some parallel with the Epicureans on the ir- rationality of fearing death given certain metaphysical realities, it might at first glance appear that the Stoics are more in line with the Christians when it comes to the relevance of death in life. Surely, some of the Stoic views on this issue had an impact on the Christians, as I have already suggested. After all, they both often recommend a focus on thoughts of death with the goal of an improved life. For example, Epictetus (Enchirid- ion 21) states, “Let death and exile, and all other things which appear ter- rible, be daily before your eyes, but death chiefly; and you will never en- tertain an abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.” This passage and others like it in Stoic writings could just as easily have been written by Pascal, or as will become clear, Kierkegaard.10 Such similarity in the use of thoughts of death is certainly enough to give one pause before deny- ing the Stoics a place in the Platonic strain of the philosophy of death. However, if this strategic employment of thoughts of death is enough to put the Stoics in line with the Christians, then maybe the Epi- cureans are not as far removed from the Christian approach as they most certainly appear to be. After all, both Epicurus and Lucretius dedicate large portions of their work to ponderings about death in the hope that such meditations will lead to an improved quality of life. An obvious dif- ference is that while Christians turning to thoughts of death for the sake of life-improvement generally have an eye toward how their postmor- tem situation will be affected, Epicureans and Stoics (for the most part) are hardly concerned with such things in their peculiar use of thoughts of death. Furthermore, despite the occasional similarity in expression, exemplified by Epictetus’s claim above, Epicureans and Stoics, unlike Christians, often “counsel that we should desensitize ourselves to death by thinking of it constantly” ( J. Murphy 1993, 44n3). That is, while the goal of pondering death for the Christian is usually to prepare to be meaningfully changed by it, in many instances the goal of doing so for Epicureans and Stoics is to attain an attitude in which death means little (and in some cases, “nothing”) to them. In fact, the Stoics pursue this indifference to the point at which suicide becomes a perfectly viable option in a life that has outlived its usefulness (Strem 1981, 153). While their views on suicide may not be perfectly in line with those of the Epicureans either, Stoic views on this topic are surely helpful in distinguishing the Stoics from the Christians. Positions relative to the issue of suicide might even be a third, perhaps less essential, difference between the two key strains in the philosophy of death. Although Epicurus (Letter to Menoeceus 126– 27) rejects the no- 28 C H AP TE R 2 tion that there might be an appropriate stage of life for suicide, he is not opposed to it on principle. On the other hand, Christians are known for their prohibition of suicide, and this prohibition seems like another pos- sible connection to Platonic thought given Socrates’s views on suicide in the Phaedo (61e– 62d). A further feature of Stoic thought that distinguishes them from the Christians on the topic of death is the notion that there is nothing particularly evil about the world (Epictetus, Enchiridion 26– 27). While the Stoics surely treat worldly life with a detached “take it or leave it” attitude, there is not so much Christian-style opposition to the world in Stoicism. Without such world-animosity, it hardly makes sense to include the Stoic treatment of death in my account of Platonic and Christian dying to the world, even if there is some overlap between them. With this final distinction, it seems clear enough that, so far as death is con- cerned, Epicureans and Stoics are joined in their opposition to the Pla- tonic strain of the philosophy of death. This connection of Epicureans and Stoics will find further support in the appropriation of their ancient teachings by various modern thinkers. Early Modern Appropriation After a long period of intellectual domination by the medieval Chris- tian tradition, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw a renewed interest in the pagan thought of the post-Aristotelian Hellenistic schools of philosophy. While such ancient thought was extremely influential in the general metaphysical and epistemological works of an increasingly deistic, and even atheistic, philosophical community, its influence is es- pecially obvious in the case of the philosophy of death (compare Wil- son 2008, esp. 1– 4, 37– 38, 108– 41). Like the Epicureans and the Stoics before them, thinkers such as Montaigne (1533– 1592), Benedict de (Ba- ruch) Spinoza (1632– 1677), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646– 1716) seek to diminish the significance that people attach to their own deaths. For example, Montaigne (1958a, 458) disapprovingly claims that “we set too much importance on ourselves. It seems that the universe somehow suffers by our annihilation.” In the course of questioning the meaning of individuals facing death, some of these modern thinkers also display vaguely Hellenistic metaphysical views that lead to the denial of, or at least indifference toward, the possibility of postmortem continuance of particular subjectivities. Although Montaigne (1958b, 64, 66– 67), again 29 T H E E PI C URE AN S T RAI N a helpful exemplary figure, does not go out of his way to say much about the possibility of an afterlife, his frequent discussion of death as annihi- lation or the “end of the road” suggests either that he does not believe in an afterlife, or that such beliefs have no serious impact on his consid- eration of death. Finally, it is worth pointing out that some of our repre- sentatives of early modernity even exhibit an appreciation for the views on suicide of these ancient Greek schools. While his essays are easily identifiable influences on Pascal’s dis- cussions of the certainty of death, the uncertainty of its when, the im- portance of constant thinking about it, and the sense of urgency and suspicion of worldliness that such thoughts produce, Montaigne (1958b, 57– 61) clearly belongs to the Epicurean strain of the philosophy of death. In essays such as “That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die” and “Of Judging of the Death of Others,” he makes frequent reference to Epicurean and Stoic thought, particularly that of Lucretius and Seneca. He even paraphrases Epicurus’s famous mantra and Lucretius’s symme- try argument (1958b, 64– 66). As Jeffrie G. Murphy says above about these ancient thinkers, it seems that Montaigne’s (57, 60) purpose in recom- mending a constant meditation on death is to produce a “disdain for death,” “to strip it of its greatest advantage against us,... rid it of its strangeness,” and free us from fear. He claims, “It is impossible that we should fail to feel the sting of such notions at first. But by handling them and going over them, in the long run we tame them beyond question” (61). In true Epicurean fashion, Montaigne (68) also criticizes the cul- tural and religious practices surrounding death for producing such great fear in people. Montaigne’s discussion of death is aimed at mastering life, not by making death a significant deadline, moment of transition, or way of life as the Platonic strain asserts, but by reducing death’s impact on life.11 The difference here is between “living as though you are dead” and “living as though death doesn’t matter.” Besides preaching this sort of Epicurean/Stoic desensitization on the issue of death, Montaigne (1958b, 61) also cultivates an attitude of detachment from worldly existence that resembles very closely what I have attributed to the Stoics, but not the Christians. Montaigne (64– 65), like the members of both of these groups, is ready to give up his life, but while he acknowledges Christian “contempt for life,” he adheres to the Stoic idea that “life is neither good nor evil in itself.” And just as this indifference toward life in general leads the Stoics to recommend tak- ing one’s own, but only when the situation truly calls for it, Montaigne (57, 67) does not rule out suicide as a viable option in extreme cases. In fact, his “Of Judging of the Death of Others” is dedicated to consider- 30 C H AP TE R 2 ing the difficulty of committing suicide, and he even provides several accounts of those who have done it well and those who have not (Mon- taigne 1958a, 460– 62). Although Spinoza has far less to say about suicide in particular and death in general than Montaigne, his lack of interest in the topic is mo- tivated by the very same Epicurean and Stoic attitudes. That is, given that there is life to be lived in the here and now, concerns about a time when this will not be the case are unproductive at best, and so, an indif- ference to death must be cultivated. In explaining the divergence from Montaigne’s more conspicuous appropriation of Epicurean and Stoic thought, Murphy (1993, 44n3) states, “Spinoza, on the other hand, sug- gests that we should try to avoid thinking of death entirely, to forget about death in the pursuit of the values of life.” At the heart of Spi- noza’s disregarding of death is his very Stoic understanding of God, which is really just the strictly determined universe itself. He believes that if there is any freedom (or tranquility, in the case of the Stoics) to be found in such a universe it consists of aligning one’s understanding with the way things will happen anyway (Spinoza 1955, 54– 70, 244– 54).12 Because death is part of God’s will— that is, the natural processes of the universe— excessive struggle with or fear of death simply demonstrates a misrelation to, or misunderstanding of, life. In order to ensure a proper relation to God/nature/life Spinoza (1955, 232) thus ignores death: “A free man is one who lives under the guidance of reason, who is not led by fear... but who directly desires that which is good,... in other words... who strives to act, to live, and to preserve his being on the basis of seek- ing his own true advantage; wherefore such an one thinks of nothing less than of death, but his wisdom is a meditation of life.” But apart from the life-disrupting nature of thinking about it, there is another, more basic, reason why Spinoza believes that one should not bother with concerns about death. Like the Stoics with their divine spark (and the Epicureans with their indestructible atoms), Spinoza believes that death does not destroy what a person really is. It is not inaccurate to say that the mind is eternal— in the sense that particular minds (like all apparent particularity) are really just modes of the one eternal univer- sal substance— and he seems to find some consolation in knowing that one’s existence cannot end. However, as is also the case with many of the key Stoic thinkers, Spinoza (1955, 259– 67) does not believe that such continued existence resembles the particular subjectivity we become so attached to;13 and for him, of course, such attachment already betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of things. Perhaps borrowing certain ideas from Spinoza, while vehemently rejecting others, Leibniz seems to take aspects of Hellenistic thought 31 T H E E PI C URE AN S T RAI N in some peculiar directions in his portrayal of death and postmortem existence. Even though Leibniz (1965, 148) denies Spinozist monism14 in favor of an almost Epicurean infinite plurality of “atoms of nature” called “monads,” they both describe the durability of the ultimate reality from which humans come and to which they will return. I must be care- ful not to suggest that monads are to be understood as precisely the same sorts of elementary material particles that Epicurus describes (see Leib- niz 1989b, 142); but one need not become too enmeshed in Leibnizian metaphysics in order to grasp that, so far as death is concerned, monads are just like Epicurean atoms— indivisible and indestructible. Everything that we take to exist consists of monads and all apparent change and de- struction is really nothing more than an alteration in the “perceptions” and relations of monads (Leibniz 1965, 148– 59). That is, while nothing is ever really destroyed, everything is in a constant state of shifting view- points and relationships, including human beings.15 The “soul,” like all of reality, is just another monad, albeit one that has temporarily taken a place of prominence (Leibniz 1965, 150– 51, 159). At death, this monad, no different than the others, continues to exist, but not necessarily as we understood it beforehand. Leibniz (1965, 160– 61; compare 1989b, 140– 41) states, “never... is there metempsychosis nor transmigration of souls,” but neither is there “perfect death” or “entire destruction.” Even though Leibniz’s conclusions in the Monadology are primarily meta- physical in nature, the implications of this understanding of death for practical life are clear enough: do not let death disturb you since it does not really happen anyway. However, despite an apparent harmony with some of the Epicurean and Stoic sympathies that Spinoza displays, Leibniz seemingly refuses to relinquish belief in postmortem continuation of subjective experience. This makes him an interesting case that does not fit neatly into either the Platonic strain or the Epicurean. He may never offer a completely satisfying account of what such continued existence would be like, but Leibniz (e.g., 1989a, 243; 1989b, 141) does suggest the possibility of the reduction, at death, of a human to an imperceptible state of hibernation from which it can be resuscitated in order to be held accountable for its previous behavior. While Spinoza seems uninterested in propping up any traditional theology, Leibniz still sounds like he might consider himself to be in the Christian tradition regardless of his rather unorthodox views on the soul and the afterlife. Speaking of those who seem to affirm Christianity (or at least some deistic version of it) while espousing potentially heretical views on death- related issues, consider David Hume and his posthumously published essays. Writing entirely in the eighteenth century, and thus a bit more 32 C H AP TE R 2 recently than the preceding philosophers, he ought to be mentioned here briefly before moving on for several reasons. Hume is both a valu- able bridge between the early modern views on death of thinkers such as Spinoza and the nineteenth-century explosion of attitudes on the topic, and also an indication that English-speaking philosophy was heading in the same direction as philosophy on the Continent. But perhaps the pri- mary reasons he is worth calling attention to are his explicitly Stoic argu- ments on behalf of suicide and against the immortality of the personal soul, and his reliance on something like the Lucretian symmetry argu- ment (Hume 1987, 580, 583, 591– 92, 598). However, given the extreme similarity of Hume’s views on these matters to those of the thinkers I have already discussed, perhaps this brief statement will be sufficient for now. The Nineteenth-Century Germans Some of the German-speaking authors considered here exert at least as much influence on Kierkegaard and Heidegger as any philosophers of death described thus far, which makes sense given their historical, re- gional, and linguistic proximity to my primary subjects. Beginning with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770– 1831), one can see some of the ideas that will underlie the existential philosophy of death. Arthur Scho- penhauer (1788– 1860), who does not hide his contempt for Hegel, but seems to appreciate Spinozist and Leibnizian views, is perhaps a better in- dicator of the future of the Epicurean strain of the philosophy of death. And by the end of the century, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844– 1900), who was in his youth an adherent of Schopenhauer’s pessimism,16 actually takes a direct shot at the Platonic strain, especially as seen in the form of Chris- tian dying to the world.17 There are several issues that one could focus on in providing an account of Hegel on death, but perhaps the most pertinent for what is to come is his discussion of “lordship and bondage” or the “master/ slave dialectic.” Although this particular section of Phenomenology of Spirit is complicated by its political implications, including its significance for later adherents as well as critics like Karl Marx (1818– 1883), I will em- phasize what it seems to suggest about humanity facing death. 18 Even this specific issue, however, is a contentious one as there is disagreement about how much weight one ought to put on Hegel’s claims about fac- ing death, especially in the relevant section.19 But debate about the cen- trality of death to Hegel’s overall project is of little consequence for my present account of his place in the history of the philosophy of death, 33 T H E E PI C URE AN S T RAI N given his apparent influence on both Kierkegaard and Heidegger on this topic. What is of some concern at this point is determining how well Hegel fits into the Platonic/Epicurean dichotomy that I am trying to ex- pound. While some thinkers— such as Alexandre Kojève, who mentions Spinoza and Leibniz as key precursors to Hegel20— believe that Hegel’s views on death lead him to deny both God’s existence and the possibility of postmortem continuation of subjective experience,21 others suggest that Hegel is right in line with the Christian tradition.22 Robert C. Solomon (1983, 614) points to three key issues in Phenom- enology that must be considered if one is to grasp Hegel’s views on Chris- tianity: the “unhappy consciousness,” the “beautiful soul,” and “revealed religion.”23 Solomon (1983, 620) associates the unhappy consciousness with the self-denial and asceticism of early Christianity. In order to under- stand this association it is necessary to see that in Phenomenology’s expla- nation of the development of consciousness up to this point, it has come to hold that there are two separate aspects of itself— the temporal/con- tingent/bodily and the eternal/necessary/soulful (Solomon 1983, 616– 17). It is the paradoxical unity of these opposites found in Christianity, which will eventually lead this form of consciousness to despair. After all, it just does not make much sense to claim that the temporal/con- tingent/bodily aspect, with which one tends to identify, is related to the eternal/necessary/soulful. How could there be anything divine and per- manent in a corporeal and mortal human? Consciousness is left with the unhappy realization that there is no satisfactory way to answer this ques- tion. To relieve the pain of this apparent incompatibility and connect with the eternal/necessary/soulful, consciousness, with the help of a mediator, is forced to make a series of temporal/contingent/bodily sac- rifices. Hegel (1977, 137) states, “Through these moments of surrender, first of its right to decide for itself, then of its property and enjoyment, and finally through the positive moment of practising what it does not understand... it has... truly divested itself of its ‘I.’” In this self-denial, Christianity as unhappy consciousness seems to find a kind of slavish peace, but for Hegel (1977, 137– 38) such peace is hardly the highest form of human existence. In fact, Christianity as unhappy consciousness is not even the highest form of Christianity. The beautiful soul, apparently standing in for Jesus of Nazareth (perhaps one of Solomon’s [1983, 622– 24] more controversial readings), seems to be another manifestation of the unhappy consciousness (com- pare Hegel 1977, 399– 400), but this time less focused on metaphysical difficulties than on moral ones. The beautiful soul abstains from moral judgment and instead substitutes forgiveness. The claim at the heart of this substitution is that human morality is an uncertain and tenuous en- 34 C H AP TE R 2 terprise. Humans are constantly faced with difficult “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” kinds of choices; and there is also the issue of cul- tural relativism to cloud matters. Given difficulties like these, the beauti- ful soul affirms human fallibility and weakness, refusing to mak

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