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Автор: Herbert Fingarette
Издательство: Ingram
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Жанр произведения: Социология
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780812699418
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      The following publishers have given permission to use extended quotations from copyrighted works. From The Stranger by Albert Camus, trans. Stuart Gilbert. Copyright 1946 by Alfred A. Knopf Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. From What I Believe by Bertrand Russell. Copyright 1925 by E.P. Dutton, renewed 1953 by Bertrand Russell. Used by permission of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. From Eugène Ionesco: Journal en miettes, (Fragments of a Journal) © Mercure de France, 1967.

      Cover illustration: Arnold Boecklin. Isle of the Dead.

      Museum der Bildenden Kuenste, Leipzig, Germany.

      Transparency provided by Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

       To order books from Open Court, call toll-free 1-800-815-2280.

      This book has been reproduced in a print-on-demand format from the 1997 Open Court printing.

      Open Court Publishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company.

      Open Court Publishing Company is a division of Carus Publishing Company.

      Copyright © 1996 by Carus Publishing Company.

      First printing 1996

      Second printing 1997

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Open Court Publishing Company, 315 Fifth Street, P.O. Box 300, Peru, Illinois 61354-0300.

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Fingarette, Herbert

       Death: philosophical soundings / Herbert Fingarette

       p. cm

       Includes index.

       ISBN 978-0-8126-9941-8

       1. Death. I. Title.

       BD444.F53 1996

       128'.5--dc20

      96-42972

      CIP

       for Leslie and Ann

       with whom this silent conversation was held

       and in memory of

       Phil

       with whom it was the last

      CONTENTS

       4. The World as My Life

       5. Life as Story

       6. Life as a Visit to Earth

       7. The Ceremony of Life

       Living in Time

       8. Living a Future without End

       9. Living a Present without Bounds

       Perspective on Life and Death

       10. “Before, I had heard—Now I see” Job 42:5

       PART TWO: OTHER VOICES, OTHER VISIONS

       Introduction

       Section 1

       Leo Tolstoy

       Blaise Pascal

       Miguel de Unamuno

       Section 2

       Bertrand Russell

       Chuang Tzu

       Section 3

       Eugène Ionesco

       Albert Camus

       Section 4

       Bhagavad Gita

       Arthur Schopenhauer

       Sigmund Freud

       Section 5

       Marcus Aurelius

       Michel de Montaigne

       David Hume

       INDEX

       PART ONE

       THE MEANING OF DEATH

       What Is There to Be Explored?

       1

       Death as the Mirror Image of Life

      True, death itself is nothing; but the thought of it is like a mirror. A mirror, too, is empty, without content, yet it reflects us back to ourself in a reverse image. To try to contemplate the meaning of my death is in fact to reveal to myself the meaning of my life. In this connection I think of one of the most powerful attempts to probe the meaning of one’s own death, Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”

      Initially, Ivan Ilyich reacts to the possibility of impending death in a way that I suspect most of us do: with denial. Maybe, he thinks, this isn’t death after all. Maybe this pain is merely the effect of some malfunctioning organ. The doctors can probably put it right. Ivan Ilyich soon realizes these hopes are feeble straws. But he’s impelled to grasp at them, impelled to continue hoping. He clings desperately to any sign that this is not It.

      The final phase of the story begins when at last the evident futility of the doctors and his increasing suffering compel Ivan Ilyich to confront his terror. The confrontation begins abruptly. A voice within him suddenly speaks and asks: “What do I want?”

      “To live,” he answers instantly.

      “How do you want to live?”

      “Pleasantly, as before.”

      This inner dialogue leads Ivan Ilyich to a re-examination of his life, to review the “pleasures” he has lived for. He had seen himself as a cultured, dignified, and useful public servant of high rank, enjoying all the civilized pleasures such a life affords. Self-deception. Now he sees that his life has been an increasing commitment to a polite but mean-spirited and selfish inhumanity. He has evaded humane contact—and the obligations that go with it—by means of continuous, but burdensome, role-playing. He has enjoyed exercising power with “justice”—that is, without compassion. Facing death, Ivan Ilyich comes to understand the truth of his life.

      What strikes me here is not the particulars of Ivan’s way of life. It is the fact that his “confrontation with death” turns out to be a retrospective exploration and revelation to him of the meaning of