Shalom Freedman |
10/02/2009
This provides brief accounts of the way the great philosophers of the Western tradition died. It in the course of this provides very incidental and also brief accounts of aspects of their respective philosophies. It does not claim to be a comprehensive scholarly work. In fact Critchley makes the point that the purely academic philosophers especially of the positivist tradition tend to lead less interesting lives than those for whom Philosophy is not a mere academic study but rather a crucial element in living. So Critchley's concluding pages contain a large number of Continental primarily French philosophers.
They also include a section on Chinese philosophers with a commentary on the Zen way of thinking about Death.
Critchley too is guided to - come. He prefers a kind of straightforward courageous looking of Death straight in the eyes, and accepting it. The 'learning how to die wisely' that he commends involves a preparation in acceptance and understanding. The idea seems to to be, to be here when we are here, without worrying where we will one day not be.
What surprised me in one sense is that while most of the accounts are interesting few are moving. It is perhaps possible to be moved accident. There are dozens of accounts which have some kind of fascinating twist or detail. And often what is best in them is what they reveal about the character of the philosopher involved. Often as for instance with the no- nonsense courageous Hume and the endlessly fussing and deceptive narcissistic Rousseau their deaths are the continuation of their characters in life.
The book fascinates but in focusing on the deaths of the philosophers and not on their overall conception and experience of Death it misses much.
Thus for me the most profound and insightful words of the book come quite close to the beginning . They paradoxically have little to do what the book is about. Critchley writes about "the aspect of death is hardest to endure: not our own death, but the deaths of those we love.It is the deaths of those we are bound to in love that undo us, that unstitch our carefully tailored suit of the self, that unmake whatever meaning we have made.In my view...it is only in grief that we become most truly ourselves.That is , what it means to be a self does not consist in some delusory self- knowledge, but in the acknowledgment of that part of ourselves that we have irretievably lost".
I would suggest another book could be written about what the deaths of those close have meant to the great Philosophers. And in fact in the pioneering work of Ben- Ami Scharfstein on how the lives of philosophers have effected them we learn that many of the greatest philosophers lost a parent at an early age. Still another book of great interest could be written on what the Deaths of the Philosophers themselves have meant to those closest to them.
This is but rather one for all those who somehow wish to know and think more about the inevitable- and prepare themselves for it. And this though I doubt it will deprive each and every one of us of his own experience his own most likely very unpleasant surprise.
I will only add one personal note. The traditional Jewish way, for philosophers and not philosophers, of leaving this world- if that is one has a chance to do it peacefully - is through uttering the great affirmation of the Jewish faith - 'Shema Yisrael'. Surrounded I can imagine myself saying the 'Shema' as word of prayer and faith not only for myself but for all those I love and care about who continue here. A word of prayer and blessing as a way of ending this life may be the best a person can do.
