#169a - Death: Shelly Kagan on Plato, Immortality, Physicalism versus Dualism, Individual Continuity Across Time and Space, Arguing the Existence of the Soul, Phaedo and Socrates, Memento Mori

Patreon/Tip Jar: ⁠https://patreon.com/c/HemlockPatreon⁠

Table of Contents Below >>>

Original Course Listing on YouTube:

⁠https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEA18FAF1AD9047B0⁠

Buy Prof. Kagan's Book on Death:

https://a.co/d/8FnPcW1

About the Course (Yale)

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?

Link to Syllabus/Readings and Course Description:

https://oyc.yale.edu/death/phil-176

This course has 26 lectures - these (169a) are the first 13, in order. The forthcoming 169b will contain the back half. Shelly says 1-13 are about metaphysics of death, and 14-26 are about value theory of death.

Chapters

(00:00:00) Intro

(00:01:57) Course Introduction

(00:45:47) The Nature of Persons

(01:23:52) Arguments for the Existence of the Soul I

(02:05:09) Arguments for the Existence of the Soul II: Plato's Phaedo

(02:47:38) Arguments for the Existence of the Soul III: Free Will and Near-Death Experiences

(03:30:56) Arguments for the Existence of the Soul IV: Plato Part 1

(04:03:00) Plato Part II

(04:44:30) Plato Part III

(05:26:55) Plato Part IV

(06:09:08) Personal Identity Part I: Identity Across Space and Time and the Soul Theory

(06:49:07) Personal Identity Part II: Body and Personality Theory

(07:33:58) Personal Identity Part III: Objections to the Personality Theory

(08:17:42) Personal Identity Part IV: What Matters?

(08:58:21) Schubert Impromptu No. 3 in G-Flat Major performed by Max John, CC License, YouTube

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