Death: A Philosophical Inquiry

This book explores the phenomenology of death and offers a unique way into the phenomenological tradition. Paul Fairfield examines the following key topics:

• the modern denial of death
• Heidegger's important concept of 'being-toward-death' and its centrality in phenomenological ideas, such as authenticity and existence
• the philosophical significance of death rituals: what explains the imperative toward ritual around death, and what is its purpose and meaning?
• death in an age of secularism
• the philosophy and ethics of suicide
• death as a mystery rather than a philosophical problem to be solved
• the relationship between hope and death

Death: A Philosophical Inquiry is essential reading for students of phenomenology and existentialism, and will also be of interest to students in related fields such as religion, anthropology and the medical humanities.