Death

Seated cross-legged on his desk at Yale, Shelly Kagan maps out the analytic philosophical questions surrounding personhood, survival, and rationality in the face of mortality.

Precise conceptual dissection of Cartesian substance dualism vs. functionalist physicalism—separating what a person is made of from whether consciousness reduces to brain states.

Uses abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) to test whether creativity, intentionality, or qualia outrun physical mechanisms.

Reconstructs Plato's Phaedo premise-by-premise like a modern logic paper—testing Plato's argument from eternal Forms and recollection.

Professor Kagan critically examines arguments for an immaterial soul, focusing on the incompatibility of free will with determinism and the explanatory challenges posed by near-death experiences. The lecture introduces Descartes's dualist argument for the distinction between mind and body.

This lecture critically examines the Cartesian argument for the soul's existence before transitioning to Plato's metaphysical framework in the Phaedo. It elaborates on the theory of Platonic Forms and their role in Plato's argument for the soul's immortality.

This lecture analyzes Plato's arguments for the soul's immortality as presented in the Phaedo, including the argument from the nature of the Forms, the argument from recycling, and the argument from recollection.

This lecture analyzes Plato's argument from simplicity for the immortality of the soul as presented in the Phaedo. It examines the proposition that the soul, being without parts, is thus indestructible and considers objections raised by Cebes and Simmias regarding this premise.

This lecture dissects Plato's "argument from simplicity," asserting the soul's changeless and indestructible nature, and the "argument from essential properties" regarding the soul's inherent characteristics.

The lecture introduces the metaphysical question of personal identity, analyzing the "soul theory" as a key to identity across time and space, while examining its inherent difficulties.

This session explores the body theory, identifying an individual by their physical form, and the personality theory, linking identity to an individual's unique beliefs and memories.

This lecture scrutinizes the personality theory of identity, focusing on the "problem of duplication" and exploring scenarios where a personality is transferred or exported to multiple bodies.

The lecture refines the personality theory by introducing a "no branching" clause, extending this requirement to other identity theories, and shifting the focus from "what it takes to survive" to "what matters in survival."

This session proposes that what matters in survival is the future existence of a similar personality. It then commences an inquiry into the nature of death, focusing on critical bodily and mental functions.

This lecture examines the state of being dead, specifying the capacity for "P-functioning" while accommodating exceptions like sleep and coma. It then explores the psychological phenomenon of denying one's own mortality, referencing Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych.

Kagan analyzes Tolstoy's Ivan Ilych as a typical portrayal of mortality denial. The lecture then debates the claim "we all die alone" and considers if the primary badness of death lies in its effects on survivors.

This lecture details the "deprivation account" of death's badness, asserting that ceasing to exist deprives one of life's good things. It distinguishes intrinsic badness from comparative badness, engaging with Epicurus's views.

The session examines if pre-birth non-existence is bad, referencing Nagle, Feldman, and Parfit. It then initiates an exploration of immortality, considering its desirability under various conditions and Bernard Williams's critique of eternal life.

This lecture continues to assess the desirability of immortality and transitions to theories of well-being. It introduces hedonism and critiques it using Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment.

This lecture compares the neutral and valuable container theories of life's worth. It then pivots to additional negative aspects of death, including its inevitability, variability, and unpredictability.

This lecture explores further negative aspects of death, such as its ubiquity, and contemplates the value of the human condition. It also distinguishes between changes in behavior caused by reflecting on mortality and reasons to change behavior.

The lecture examines how thoughts of death influence living and evaluates the appropriateness of fear as an emotional response. It differentiates between fearing the process of dying and fearing death itself, considering other negative emotions like anger and sadness.