Learn · Open Yale Courses

CoursePHIL 17626 lectures

Death

Shelly Kagan · Yale University

Start with lecture 1 At Open Yale Courses

About

There is one thing I can be sure of: I am going to die. But what am I to make of that fact? This course will examine a number of issues that arise once we begin to reflect on our mortality. The possibility that death may not actually be the end is considered. Are we, in some sense, immortal? Would immortality be desirable? Also a clearer notion of what it is to die is examined. What does it mean to say that a person has died? What kind of fact is that? And, finally, different attitudes to death are evaluated. Is death an evil? How? Why? Is suicide morally permissible? Is it rational? How should the knowledge that I am going to die affect the way I live my life?

Lectures

  1. Course Introduction Lecture 1 · Audio
  2. The Nature of Persons: Dualism vs. Physicalism Lecture 2 · Audio
  3. Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part I Lecture 3 · Audio
  4. Introduction to Plato's Phaedo; Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part II Lecture 4 · Audio
  5. Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part III: Free Will and Near-Death Experiences Lecture 5 · Audio
  6. Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part IV; Plato, Part I Lecture 6 · Audio
  7. Plato, Part II: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul Lecture 7 · Audio
  8. Plato, Part III: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (cont.) Lecture 8 · Audio
  9. Plato, Part IV: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (cont.) Lecture 9 · Audio
  10. Personal Identity, Part I: Identity Across Space and Time and the Soul Theory Lecture 10 · Audio
  11. Personal Identity, Part II: The Body Theory and the Personality Theory Lecture 11 · Audio
  12. Personal Identity, Part III: Objections to the Personality Theory Lecture 12 · Audio
  13. Personal Identity, Part IV: What Matters? Lecture 13 · Audio
  14. What Matters (cont.); The Nature of Death, Part I Lecture 14 · Audio
  15. The Nature of Death (cont.); Believing You Will Die Lecture 15 · Audio
  16. Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I Lecture 16 · Audio
  17. The Badness of Death, Part II: The Deprivation Account Lecture 17 · Audio
  18. The Badness of Death, Part III; Immortality, Part I Lecture 18 · Audio
  19. Immortality Part II; The Value of Life, Part I Lecture 19 · Audio
  20. The Value of Life, Part II; Other Bad Aspects of Death, Part I Lecture 20 · Audio
  21. Other Bad Aspects of Death, Part II Lecture 21 · Audio
  22. Fear of Death Lecture 22 · Audio
  23. How to Live Given the Certainty of Death Lecture 23 · Audio
  24. Suicide, Part I: The Rationality of Suicide Lecture 24 · Audio
  25. Suicide, Part II: Deciding under Uncertainty Lecture 25 · Audio
  26. Suicide, Part III: The Morality of Suicide and Course Conclusion Lecture 26 · Audio

Syllabus and materials

At Open Yale Courses, as the course publishes them.

Credits and licence

Institution
Yale University
Department
Philosophy
Teacher
Shelly Kagan
Term
Spring 2007
Level
Undergraduate
Language
English
Subjects
Philosophy
Source
Open Yale Courses
Licence
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 US, as Open Yale Courses states it. Non-commercial use only. Open Yale Courses's terms
Attribution
Open Yale Courses, Yale University. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 licence; third-party material in the lectures is not.
Who can watch
Open Yale Courses gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from what the source says about it. How courses are placed