The Nature of Death (cont.); Believing You Will Die
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.
The lecture explores the question of the state of being dead. Even though the most logical claim seems to be that when a person stops P-functioning he or she is dead, a more careful consideration must allow for exceptions, such as when one is asleep or in a coma. Professor Kagan then suggests that on some level nobody believes that he or she is going to die. As a case in point, he takes Tolstoy's famous character Ivan Ilych.
What Matters (cont.); The Nature of Death, Part I
Next · Lecture 16Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I