In The Dawn of Day: Thoughts on The Prejudices of Morality, Nietzsche writes: With regard to knowledge the most useful accomplishment is perhaps: that the belief in the immortality of the soul has been abandoned. Now humanity is allowed to wait; now it no longer needs to rush headlong into things and choke down half-examinedContinue reading “Nietzsche On The Relief Of Mortality”
Tag Archives: death
Anxiety, Uncertainty, And Death
Kierkegaard offers us a brief, pithy, definition of anxiety: What is anxiety? It is the next day. This pair of sentences is truly remarkable in capturing a central dimension of anxiety: it is our reaction to the ineluctable uncertainty present in our lives. As human beings, with our lack of divine omniscience, we do notContinue reading “Anxiety, Uncertainty, And Death”
Vale Jay Jankelewicz (1989-2020)
On Thursday, I learned that Jay Jankelewicz, our young, dynamic, and effervescent office manager of the Philosophy Department at Brooklyn College, had passed away from complications following from COVID-19. Our department is united in grief; we are shocked and appalled beyond measure at the cruel hand fate has dealt to Jay, his parents, and allContinue reading “Vale Jay Jankelewicz (1989-2020)”
The ‘Irrelevance’ Of The Human World
I remember, quite clearly, the day my mother showed me her cancer. There it was, a curious, nondescript region within the scan, a zone of irregularity to be sure, visibly distinct from the cells surrounding it, its shape and shading setting it apart. And yet, it looked of a piece too with its ‘environment’; inContinue reading “The ‘Irrelevance’ Of The Human World”
The Hidden Pain Of Others
A few years ago, as I walked down the street that I live on in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park, toward my home and my waiting family, past a row of restaurants and coffee shops with their happy and contented consumers, I spied a pair of friends and neighbors of ours. They were sitting outside a localContinue reading “The Hidden Pain Of Others”
Vale Rohin Kushwaha (1999-2019)
The diseases which afflict the young are particularly fearsome; they take the soaring bird in flight, bringing home the indifference of this world to our fates and fortunes vividly. Rohin Kushwaha, who passed away last week on Friday, January 11th, was not yet twenty years old; he had but completed a year of studies beyondContinue reading “Vale Rohin Kushwaha (1999-2019)”
Fear Of Death Is Fear Of Immortality
We philosophize because we anticipate death, fearfully. We seek out religious consolation because we anticipate death, fearfully. We seek in philosophical rumination and religious observance and faith some deliverance from our mortality, some way to ‘stay alive,’ to not be annihilated. One kind of introspection these forms of thought encourage is to look a littleContinue reading “Fear Of Death Is Fear Of Immortality”
Late Work And Shying Away From Decay And Death
In ‘Late Francis Bacon: Spirit and Substance‘ Colm Tóibín writes: It would be easy to imagine…that Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice was written toward the end of his life. In fact, it was written in 1911, when Mann was thirty-six. It is a young man’s book; its images of desire, decay, and death could not be soContinue reading “Late Work And Shying Away From Decay And Death”
The Mixed Pleasures Of Attending Our Own Memorial Service
Wanting to attend our own funerals, our own memorial services, is a fantasy with a long and distinguished pedigree. (As is the associated fantasy of wanting to read our own obituaries.) With good reason. If things have worked out well, many of our friends and family members will be there, hopefully all well-dressed. Importantly, weContinue reading “The Mixed Pleasures Of Attending Our Own Memorial Service”
Broadchurch’s Grieving Mother And Our Reactions To ‘Victims’
Viewers of the BBC’s Broadchurch are subjected to a trial of sorts: we have to watch, in some excruciating detail, the reactions of parents, and in particular, a mother, to the violent death of a beloved child–at the hands of a malevolent, unknown actor. Paying close attention to our reactions to what we see andContinue reading “Broadchurch’s Grieving Mother And Our Reactions To ‘Victims’”
Samir Chopra 