| The main idea of the philosophical position | Directions (currents) of philosophy | Representatives |
| After the death of the body, human life ends | Materialism: Epicureanism, Lokayata, Stoicism, Mechanistic and dialectical materialism, positivism, Darwinism, etc. | Epicurus, La Mettrie, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, Comte, Darwin, Lenin, etc. |
| The soul, attached to the spirit, after the death of the biological body can exist forever in the spiritual world | Religious and idealistic philosophy | Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Soloviev, Berdyaev, etc. |
| The spiritual core of a person exists forever and can be reincarnated from one body to another | Esoteric philosophy and religious and philosophical teachings ideologically close to it: yoga, Samkhya, Vedanta, Gnosticism, Theosophy, etc. | Krishna, Kapila, Patanjali, Pythagoras, Plato, Origen, Blavatsky, Roerich and others. |
The right to die, its ethical and legal aspects. Human life is the highest value. The right to life is an inalienable right of every person, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But since the two hypostases of human existence are life and death, the philosophical and ethical question constantly arises: does a person have the right to die? The question is far from idle and the answer is far from obvious. While scientists and representatives of different faiths are breaking spears, challenging or recognizing the human right to own death, it asserts itself as a fact in social phenomena: suicide, euthanasia, palliative medicine (hospice).
The phenomenon of suicide becomes a subject scientific research already since the 19th century. And now, at the end of the 20th century, its severity has not diminished. According to WHO, about 7 million suicide attempts are made annually in the world, of which over 500 thousand end in suicide. The realization of the right to death tends to increase. The abstract right to death in its dramatic process is motivated by completely earthly reasons: family problems, loss of loved ones, industrial conflicts, unemployment, bankruptcy. From a philosophical and ethical point of view, the above reasons have one thing in common: the loss of the meaning of life.
In medical practice, the right of a hopeless patient to his own death gives rise to a bioethical problem - euthanasia(“mercy killing”) The term "euthanasia" was introduced by the English philosopher Fr. Baconom in the 16th century, but only since the 19th century has euthanasia as a specific medical procedure become a subject of debate. In the middle of the 20th century, the level of development of medical theory and practice (artificial respiration, circulatory, nutrition, dialysis, etc.) already makes it possible to support human life for a very long time, even with serious damage to certain organs. Thus, the latest medical technologies not only save the health and lives of patients, but also raise pressing questions, for example, about the medical advisability of long-term life support for special categories of patients.
Foreign medical practice has identified categories of patients for whom the meaning of life becomes problematic: terminally ill people who are constantly experiencing suffering; patients in a long-term coma; patients with irreparably damaged brain; newborns with serious anomalies; chronic patients with irreversible age-related changes; patients who refuse treatment for any reason
The patient’s exercise of his right to die in a hospital setting has its own peculiarities. If under normal conditions a person commits suicide on his own, using improvised means (medicines, chemicals, etc.), then in a hospital environment a hopeless, suffering patient makes a similar request to medical personnel, most often to the attending physician. If a doctor helps a patient in his right to die, can he be considered a murderer, or is this a certain kind of service? In foreign medicine, the attitude towards euthanasia is ambiguous: in some countries it is prohibited (Germany, Spain), in others passive euthanasia is allowed (Holland, USA). For example, in the USA, eleven states have adopted the “Natural Death Law”, the essence of which is to respect the patient’s right to die through passive euthanasia (Walker A.E. Brain Death. M., 1988. P.208,209). The right to death in the form of euthanasia always has a value motivation: religion (the incident with Karen Quinlan), parental feelings (the incident with Baby Doe), feelings of compassion (the incident with Dr. Kraay).
The right to death in the form of euthanasia, even in countries where euthanasia is allowed, remains controversial (for example, the trial of Dr. Kevorkian D. in the USA). In countries that prohibit euthanasia, the patient’s right to die is exercised in a “shadow” or bizarre way (the incident with the Spanish sailor Ramon Sampedro).
When faced with the patient’s right to die, the doctor finds himself in a vicious circle: following the law and ethical standards, he condemns the patient to prolonged suffering and ignores his request; if the doctor responds to the patient’s request, then he turns into a murderer and perjurer.
Meaning of life - This is an independent, conscious choice by a person of those values and ideals that orient him towards self-realization associated with satisfying the needs to create, give, share with others, and sometimes sacrifice oneself for the sake of others.
Freedom of the individual- this is a specific way of human existence associated with a conscious choice of behavior in accordance with necessity and its implementation in practical activities.
Test items for self-test on topic No. 2 “Man and his existence as a central problem of philosophical and legal anthropology”
1. The section of philosophy that studies man, his essence, the determination of his behavior is called:
A. anthropology
B. epistemology
C. ontology
D. aesthetics
2. The development of problems of philosophical anthropology in the 20th century is associated with the name:
A. M. Shelera
S. O. Konta
D. B. Russell
E. L. Wittgenstein
3. The process of assimilation by an individual of a certain system of knowledge, norms and values, allowing him to carry out his life activities in a way adequate for this society:
A. socialization of the individual
B. personality degradation
C. personality education
D. ontologization of personality
E. biologization of personality
4. Philosophical teaching about values is called:
A. axiology
B. sociology
C. anthropology
D. epistemology
E. ontology
5. Which of the problems listed below relates to life-meaning (existential) problems?
A. brain structure problem
B. problem of the unconscious
C. the problem of life and death
D. environmental problem
E. the problem of human space flight
6. The concept of personality expresses:
A. human biological characteristics
B. social quality of a human individual, a measure of his integrity, independence
C. human self-awareness
D. mental state of a person
E. a person’s appearance
7. The science of man as a social being in its legal manifestations, dimensions, characteristics is:
A. philosophical anthropology
B. legal anthropology
C. cultural anthropology
D. ethnology
The death of a person is the most complex subject of philosophical understanding. This problem is known to be eternal for classical philosophy. It was first staged by the legendary Socrates, accepting at his trial what was fateful for himself and partly for the entire future European philosophical thought The solution is to die, but not to disgrace your honor and civic dignity.
ON THE. Berdyaev wrote: “This problem of the crucifixion of the righteous in Greek culture was posed in the fate of Socrates and served as a spiritual impetus for the emergence of Plato’s philosophy. The death of Socrates forced Plato to turn away from the world of people, in which such a righteous person as Socrates could be subjected to undeserved execution, and to look for another world of goodness and beauty, in which the unjust death of a righteous person is impossible.” Plato saw great meaning in the death of Socrates. He said that his teacher “blissfully ended his days,” which means he gained immortality. Plato, conveying the words of Socrates, wrote: “To be afraid of death is nothing more than to think that you know what you do not know. After all, no one knows what death is, nor whether it is the greatest of blessings for a person, and everyone is afraid of it, as if they know for sure that it is the greatest of evils.”
To philosophically understand the meaning human life, say modern pathological scientists, it is necessary first of all to understand the meaning of death. This is the most current medical and acute philosophical problem. “I will die just like everyone else,” wrote L.N. Tolstoy, “but my life and death will have meaning for me and for everyone.” Indeed, human life as a social phenomenon, in essence, never ends. Its completion would mean that humanity has reached the limits of its existence. “I realized,” the writer admitted, “that if you think and talk about a person’s life, then you need to think and talk about the life of all humanity.” A person dies, but his attitude to the world continues to affect people even many times stronger than during life, noted L.N. Tolstoy. And this action grows with “reasonableness and love”, like all living things, never stopping and without interruptions.
Unfortunately, feeling the forces of natural decay beginning to act within themselves, some for some reason believe that death is nothing more than its last stage. Meanwhile, as long as the body is alive and there is an interest in life, while death has not taken over, the meaning of existence is preserved in each of us. But the fullness of life can be known if a person is ready to meet his death with dignity, calmly look it in the face, confront it with all courage, with confidence in the righteousness of the years lived. “If death is terrible, then the reason for this is not in it, but in us,” argued L.N. Tolstoy. - How better person, the less he fears death." A.P. Chekhov, a doctor, writer and thinker, also believed that when people die, they are afraid not of death as such, but of the fact that after it their life can only be spoken of as gray and mediocre (“lived like everyone else”).
Death, to which a person is actually sentenced by the laws of evolution, is experienced by everyone purely individually. The inevitability of death constantly reminds us of the need to hurry to live. After all, a person is not given the opportunity to write a draft of life: there is only enough time to live to the fullest, actively creating perfection, creating goodness, order, beauty.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, declaring suffering as a typically human quality, was the first to speak about life and death, devoid of any meaning. In Confessions, Leo Tolstoy describes in detail his doubts about the validity of Schopenhauer's assumption about the meaninglessness of life. He outlined his own thoughts on this matter in three theses. The first thesis: “I, my mind, recognized that life is unreasonable. If there is no higher reason (and there is none, and nothing can prove it), then reason is the creator of life for me. If there were no reason, there would be no life for me.” Second thesis: “My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of the sages, revealed to me that everything in the world - organic and inorganic - everything is incredibly cleverly arranged, only my position is stupid.” Third thesis: “No one is stopping Schopenhauer and me from denying life. But then kill yourself, and you won’t reason... And when you live, you can’t understand the meaning of life, so stop it, and don’t turn around in this life.”
The problem of death as a part of life needs deep philosophical understanding. Life in general is a very unusual natural phenomenon. This is the only self-developing state of matter of its kind. Biologists and poets, philosophers and physicists are trying to comprehend and explain it in their own way. There are a lot of definitions of the essence of living matter and, of course, very different. But, perhaps, the only thing that unites all researchers of this phenomenon is the desire to understand the meaning of life, its universal and cosmic value. “Life must have meaning in order to be good and valuable,” reasoned N.A. Berdyaev. “But meaning cannot be drawn from the process of life itself, from its qualitative maximum; it must rise above life.” “Man cognitively penetrates into the meaning of the Universe as in big man, as in macroanthropos. The Universe enters into man, lends itself to his creative efforts as a small Universe, as a microcosm.”
The infinite life span of people, animals, and plants would close the possibility evolutionary development, the emergence and selection of new forms of living matter. Thus, death is a natural and completely reasonable outcome of the existence of any living organism. Therefore, every person needs to meet it calmly and with dignity. The fear of death should not completely fill the soul and take possession of it. There is no need to be afraid of death, the ancient philosopher Epicurus convinced, for while we exist, there is no death, and when death comes we are no longer there; therefore it does not exist either for the living or for the dead.
The science that studies the problems of death and human dying is called thanatology. According to its principles, the main task of a doctor after the death of a patient is to provide support to his family and loved ones, despite the fact that doctors themselves often feel depressed when they cannot defeat death, which they always consider as their personal enemy. One pathologist once expressed the following idea: in order to know how animal and human organisms live, it is necessary to see how they die, because the mechanisms of life can be revealed and discovered only with knowledge of the mechanisms of death. And this is already philosophical view to this problem. Careful consideration of the fine line between living and non-living to a certain extent allows us to understand the meaning of death as a continuation of life.
In human existence, as in the constant creation of life, in its self-development, self-improvement, a certain immortality is already inherent. In this regard, I would like to quote the wonderful lines of the great Russian poet:
“Everything, everything that threatens death,
Hides for the mortal heart
Inexplicable pleasures -
Immortality, perhaps, is a guarantee!
And happy is the one who is in the midst of excitement
I could acquire and know them."
Here we are talking about an apology for freedom, about the triumph of life itself. Everything in a person’s meaningful life is from her and for her. It is mediated, through it the daily world is refracted for all of us. From the creative existence and self-exaltation of life follows its virtual-energetic inescapability. Thus, its essence and meaning lie in true self-worth, in completeness, inviolability, the desire to live fully and enjoy life, and, consequently, in the self-affirmation of immortality. Human immortality cannot be considered without understanding life's purpose and actual action.
Today, one of the most pressing problems throughout the world is the attitude towards life as the highest value. Only the formation of bioethical social consciousness will allow it to be resolved. And here medicine should play a major role, offering eternal care for human health. In a sense, it can be called metascience, superknowledge.
Illness always indicates trouble in people’s lives, not only physical, but also spiritual. Individuals and entire nations, countries and civilizations are susceptible to diseases. Therefore, we can say that civic education, public education, and training constitute a certain social sphere of healing from social ills. In any case, everywhere and at all levels of society, certain corrective, organizing, harmonizing influences are periodically required, which relate to the field of social and medical provision of the country. Healthy self-development of Russia (like all other countries of the world) presupposes the functioning of a complex system for creating normal social and moral conditions for work and rest of the population. This is the development of a modern material and technical base for healthcare and the provision of effective sanatorium-resort (preventive) treatment for workers. This is a qualitative improvement in the natural sciences, social and humanities education of physicians and the comprehensive development of their ability to judge the human body and its personality and individuality in a comprehensive, comprehensive manner. This is mastering the art of competent intervention in social, psychophysiological processes in order to protect human personality from premature intellectual and creative death, as well as from physical and mental disability.
I believe in eternal life after death and in the physical. I am also convinced of the immortality of the human soul for philosophical reasons. Whereas Christian faith in bodily resurrection is based on a miraculous event - the resurrection of Christ and eyewitness accounts that brought this event to us - there are also purely philosophical arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul. The most convincing of these arguments are based on two premises. The first is that without the immortality of the soul, all the most important actions and deeds of the human personality will remain incomplete and tragically contradictory. In our quest for truth, we touch something eternal and unchanging. Even knowledge of the historical past reveals the truth about what has already happened - a truth that will remain unchanged. But most importantly, knowledge of eternal truths, the essence of mathematical objects, the nature of moral obligations, the nature of sin, and so on, gives us a clear awareness of something original and eternal. This is most true in relation to our awareness of God as the eternal and absolute basis of all things. Thus, all acts human consciousness are aimed at eternity, at a strong cognitive union with the truth, and first of all - with the truth about enduring things. Therefore, death as complete and final destruction contradicts the deepest principle of human life, the highest calling of the human soul, striving for eternal life.
The same is true in relation to morality, which requires a clear understanding of justice, the principle of reward and punishment. Conscience tells us that we deserve punishment for immoral actions, and reward is a consequence of moral actions. Absolute justice does not exist in a world where innocent victims of Nazi terror die in the same way as the greatest criminals who once tormented them. Therefore, in light of the objective metaphysical need for absolute justice, our world cannot be the only world. The meaning and significance of this world would be terribly devalued if there were no life after death in which justice prevails.
Our desire for happiness also calls for immortality. Let's summarize St.'s argument. Augustine on this matter: if the state of our feelings is such that we are indifferent to its continuation, then it means that we are not happy. If we are truly happy, then we want this happiness to last forever, and we can exclaim along with Goethe’s Faust: “Stop, just a moment, you are beautiful!” Even the atheist Nietzsche said: “Sorrow says: go away, but pleasure wants to last forever.”
But above all, transcendental acts of striving for moral perfection and human love appeal to eternity. If we love, then, in the words of Gabriel Marcel, we say to the other person: “You will not die.” We desire happiness, and it necessarily implies immortality. We desire to achieve a union with another person that is far more perfect than any union possible in this life. We want this union to last forever. Therefore, the meaning of human existence and the world order would be shaken to its core if people died forever, like rats or insects.
The second basis on which this argument is built is that final death is in metaphysical contradiction with the meaning of existence and the highest calling of the human person. It cannot be that the noblest qualities, such as true love or moral perfection, are false and do not indicate the existence of immortality. It cannot be that the most precious elements of human experience are mere lies!
The inner truth of high impulses gives us hope and, in a certain sense, prophetically proves that they are not vain and meaningless.
But the main basis for the second premise is, without a doubt, the existence of God. If we know that an omnipotent and infinitely merciful Creator exists, then we can be quite confident in the immortality of the soul. After all, then it is impossible to imagine that the highest qualities that make up the meaning of human existence and are necessary for the final fulfillment of our mission - namely, the immortality of the soul - do not actually exist.
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RICHARD SWINBURNE |
Yes. If we consist of soul and body, then with the death of the body the soul must leave it. This in itself does not mean that the soul necessarily continues to exist. All the arguments I have given before show that at present I am composed of both soul and body. It is theoretically possible that when my body dies, my soul will in some way cease to exist. Maybe this is true, maybe not. Therefore, a new argument is needed to prove that the soul continues to exist after physical death. I think it will be indirect - that is, it will be an argument in favor of the existence of God, demonstrating that God revealed certain things to people, which include life after death, which means we have reason to believe in the immortality of the soul. As a Christian, I am convinced that God has revealed many truths to us through the Bible and the Church. Life after death is one of the central doctrines of the Church, so I believe in it. I don't think life after death can be proven by purely philosophical arguments. It is my deep conviction that any such argument will be closely connected with the recognition of the existence of God. But this is already contained in the truth Christian revelation, and therefore I have good reason to believe in life after death.
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GERARD J. HUGES |
Of course, no traditional theist can openly deny the possibility of a mind existing independently of the body. After all, God is considered to be an Entity with will and intelligence, even if we are far from understanding God's will and His thoughts. Moreover, it is generally accepted that God does not have a body.
However, with that said, it still makes sense to ask the question: can the disembodied mind of God be considered completely immaterial? IN last years physicists have accustomed us to the idea that such seemingly completely different things as energy, matter, space, time and gravity are in fact closely related to each other. In some extreme circumstances, these concepts become almost interchangeable. I am far from commenting on cosmological hypotheses, but you must agree that we should be more careful when we say that we understand the nature of matter, or the essence of its interaction with the mind, even with the “incorporeal” mind.
And yet it seems to me that the more we learn about the structure of the human brain, the less likely it is that either the soul can exist independently of matter. More generally, I think that the existence of the body is so integral to our ideas about human personality and self-identity that a Platonic or Cartesian identification of personality with mind or soul seems much less likely than the Aristotelian understanding that the human body has a wide range of properties. range of abilities, including the ability to think and make decisions. In doing so, I take an open approach to interpreting the conditions necessary to preserve our personal identity.
I believe that in order to preserve my personality after death, I must be able to recognize my mental habits, my desires and interests, my reactions to people and circumstances as my own, that is, those that are well known to me. I also believe that, for the above reasons, I need to have a body in some sense to do this. But since our idea of “matter” is imperfect, then, from my point of view, the same applies to the concepts of “space”, “time” and “body”. Therefore, it is still very early to make a final conclusion about what kind of “body” will be needed to preserve my mind after the death of my physical body.
I believe in life after death on Christian grounds. I consider life after death to be an integral part of the Christian revelation, and I think that there are rational grounds for considering this revelation to be true. For the reasons stated earlier, I have no idea what form life after death might take or by what means this state can be achieved. I believe that this should be a life in which my deepest aspirations will be fulfilled, all limitations in understanding between people and awareness of the existence of God will disappear. For now, we can only express our hopes and aspirations in any language we can invent, in order to catch at least a faint glimpse of that mystery. A mystery that is beyond our present experience.
Since ancient times, man has asked himself the question of what is the essence of human existence. Many philosophers and thinkers have tried to answer why a person lives, why he came into this world, why he dies and what happens to him after death.
Death is a powerful factor that forces any of us to think about whether we are living correctly. Therefore, despite its external unattractiveness, the topic of death occupies one of the central places in philosophy.
From the point of view of science, death is the inevitable end of the functioning of any living system, and is a natural result of the exhaustion of its vital resources, aging and death of cells. Death is the cessation of life.
However, death cannot be seen as the opposite of life. Death is not the absence of life, but its ending, completion. Therefore, death is opposed not by life, but by birth. This is a completely natural process of transition from a living state to a non-living state. Living and non-living, survival and non-survival are two sides of the single nature that surrounds us. The causes of death in biology and medicine are quite well studied. Death can be postponed for some time, it can be fought by prolonging life, but it is impossible to completely defeat it.
Death can serve as a deliverance from all kinds of passions and suffering.
The theology of most religions is based on the dogma of the immortality of the soul and the frailty, insignificance of the body: the body dies, but the soul, which constitutes the essence of man, is eternal and immortal. The death of a person is regarded in Christianity as deliverance from earthly suffering.
Philosophy is not interested in death as a physical phenomenon, but in the meaning of death, that is, its significance in the system of human existence. If a person differs from other living beings not in external signs, but fundamentally, in essence, then the death of a person differs from the death of, say, a monkey or a dog. The death of a person does not mean a simple cessation of life, just as human life does not come down to eating food, reproducing and protecting from various dangers. Death has meaning, and finding out exactly what it is is the task of philosophical investigation of the problem of death.
The most important meaning of death is that the awareness of the fact of its inevitability makes a person relate to life more meaningfully. The consciousness of death is a person’s awareness of his finitude in this world. If life is limited in time, then you should not waste it on secondary, vain actions. The inevitability of death encourages a person to treat the world more meaningfully, to make a “revision” of values, to separate the essential from the unimportant.
The problem of death is present in most historical types philosophy. Within the framework of Brahmanism, the doctrine of karma took shape, adopted by other philosophical and religious teachings of India. The idea of karma played the role of a moral imperative in the life of Indian society, making death and rebirth dependent on the content and quality of life. The idea of hell and heaven in Christianity and Islam has a similar meaning. The theme of death was especially popular in existentialism.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had his own view of death, who created the theory of palingenesis, which is a philosophical alternative to religious reincarnation. The essence of his theory is that the human will never dies, but manifests itself again in new individuals. At the same time, Schopenhauer rejects the basic provisions of reincarnation about the transmigration of a specific soul. The theory of palingenesis was outlined in A. Schopenhauer’s essay “The World as Will and Idea” - in particular, in the chapter “Death and its relation to the indestructibility of our being.” In contrast to open individualism, palingenesis considers spatial boundaries between people to be metaphysically significant, i.e. one person cannot exist simultaneously in two or more places in space. In his essay, Schopenhauer states: Infinite time passed before I was born - what was I all this time? The metaphysical answer to this would perhaps be: “I have always been I: namely, all those who during this time called themselves I were I.” Schopenhauer denied the possibility of preserving, after the destruction of the body, the individual “I” with all its memories. The destruction of the brain means the complete destruction of the personality. On the other hand, the unique will of each person is not subject to destruction. The will of a person is preserved after the disintegration of the body, and over time this will finds itself in a new intellectual shell. The new personality appears completely different from the old one. Schopenhauer refuses to talk about metempsychosis, that is, “the transition of the whole so-called soul into another body,” preferring to call his theory “palingenesis,” by which he understood “the decomposition and new formation of the individual, and only his will remains, which, taking the form of a new being , gains new intelligence." In fact, in Schopenhauer's idea of the "indestructibility of our being" one can find continuity with the ideas ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides on the absence of nothingness.
One of the thinkers who has stated the connection of his views with the thoughts of Schopenhauer is the Austrian theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner in physics (1933) Erwin Schrödinger. At the same time, Schrödinger adheres to more radical views, which the philosopher Daniel Colak called open individualism.
The philosopher Merab Mamardashvili expounds Schrödinger’s views as follows: “And Schrödinger asked the following question: you were 16 years old, and you were torn apart by passions. And what remains of the “I” that was the bearer of these passions? Like some kind of embodiment of “I”, because it was you - along with your body, with your experiences, etc., but you don’t remember it. And you are. So you are another “me”! At every given moment, your past selves seemed to you that they were the most important, the very last, but they were replaced without even giving rise to the concept of death. They all died, and the term “death” did not even arise, And maybe your “I” - now - is also an imaginary character, embodied for a few hours, for a few days or months, who will also be replaced by another, like all the previous ones characters. Why, says Schrödinger, be afraid of death?
Death is the deepest and most significant fact of life, elevating the very last of mortals above the commonness and vulgarity of life.
Only the fact of death raises in depth the question of the meaning of life. Life in this world has meaning precisely because there is death. The meaning is connected with the end. And if there was no end, if there was an infinity of life, then there would be no meaning in life. Death - the ultimate horror and the ultimate evil - turns out to be the only way out of time into eternity, and immortal and eternal life turns out to be achievable only through death.
Life is noble only because there is death in it, there is an end, indicating that a person is destined for another, higher life. In endless time, meaning is never revealed; meaning lies in eternity. But between life in time and life in eternity lies an abyss through which passage is only possible through death, through the horror of rupture. Death is not only the meaninglessness of life in this world, its corruption, but also a sign coming from the depths, indicating the existence of a higher meaning of life.
It is the living, not the dead, who suffer when death has done its work. The dead can suffer no more; and we may even praise death when it puts an end to extreme physical pain or sad mental decline. However, it is incorrect to speak of death as a “reward,” since true reward, like true punishment, requires a conscious experience of the fact. There may come a time in every person's life when death will be more effective for his main goals than life.
The social meaning of death also has its positive sides. The universality of death reminds us of the equality of all people.
The paradox of death is that death is the most terrible evil, which frightens a person most of all, and through this evil the way to eternal life, or one of the exits, is revealed. Our lives are filled with such paradoxes. The infinity of life would precisely make man a finite being.
The paradox of death has not only an ethical, but also an aesthetic expression in the world. Death is ugly, and it is the ultimate ugliness, decay, loss of all form and face, the triumph of the lower elements of the material world. And death is beautiful, it ennobles the last of mortals and puts him on the same level as the very first, it defeats the ugliness of vulgarity and everyday life. Death is the ultimate evil, nobler than life in this world. The beauty and charm of the past is associated with the ennobling fact of death.
It is death that clears the past and puts the stamp of eternity on it. In death there is not only decomposition, but also purification. Nothing that is spoiled, decomposed, or corruptible can withstand the test of death. Only the eternal can withstand this test. We can express the moral paradox of life and death in the ethical imperative: treat the living as if you were dying, treat the dead as if you were alive, i.e. always remember death as the mystery of life, and in both life and death always affirm eternal life.
The death of personality in a person is tragic, because personality is an eternal idea.
Personality is not born from father and mother; personality is created by a Higher Power.
Materialism, positivism, etc. teachings come to terms with death, legitimize death and at the same time try to forget about it, arranging life on the graves of the dead. The Stoic or Buddhist attitude towards death is powerless in front of it and means the victory of death, but it is nobler than generic theories that completely forget about death. Soulful, not spiritual attitude death is always sad and melancholic, it always contains the sadness of a memory that has no power to resurrect. Only a spiritual attitude towards death is victorious. Only Christianity knows victory over death. Christianity teaches not so much about natural immortality, which does not involve any struggle, as about resurrection, which involves the struggle of spiritual, grace-filled forces with deadly forces. The doctrine of resurrection comes from the tragic fact of death and means victory over it, which is not found in any doctrines of immortality, not in Orphism, not in Plato, not in Theosophy. Only Christianity looks death directly in the eyes, recognizes both the tragedy of death and the meaning of death, and at the same time does not reconcile itself with death and defeats it. Man is both mortal and immortal, he belongs to both deadly time and eternity, he spiritual being, and a natural being. Death is a terrible tragedy, and death through death is overcome by resurrection. But death is defeated not by natural, but by supernatural forces.
The horror of death is not only the horror of the death of the individual, but also the horror of the death of the world. There is a personal Apocalypse and a world Apocalypse. Apocalypse is a revelation about the death of the world, although death is not the last word in it. Not only man, not only peoples and cultures, but all of humanity as a whole, and the whole world are mortal.
Death and potential immortality are the most powerful lure for the philosophizing mind, for all our life's affairs must in one way or another be measured against the eternal. A person is doomed to think about death and this is his difference from an animal, which is mortal, but does not know about it.
In fact, we are talking about a triad: life - death - immortality, since all the spiritual systems of humanity proceeded from the idea of the contradictory unity of these phenomena. Most attention here, death and the acquisition of immortality in another life were emphasized, and human life itself was interpreted as a moment allotted to a person so that he could adequately prepare for death and immortality.
With a few exceptions, in all times and peoples, statements about life were negative character. Life is suffering (Buddha, Schopenhauer, etc.); life is a dream (Vedas, Plato, La Bruyère, Pascal); life is an abyss of evil (ancient Egyptian text “A man’s conversation with his spirit”). “And I hated life, for the works that are done under the sun became disgusting to me, for everything is vanity and vexation of the spirit” (Ecclesiastes); “Human life is pitiful” (Seneca); “Life is a struggle and a journey through a foreign land” (Marcus Aurelius); “all is ashes, a ghost, a shadow and smoke” (John of Damascus); “Life is monotonous, the spectacle is dull” (Petrarch); “Life is a fool's story told by an idiot, full of noise and rage, but devoid of meaning" (Shakespeare); “Human life is nothing more than a constant illusion” (Pascal); “All life is just the price of deceptive hopes” (Diderot); “My life is eternal night... what is life if not madness?” (Kierkegaard); “All human life is deeply immersed in untruth” (Nietzsche). Proverbs and sayings about this different nations- “Life is a penny.” Ortega y Gasset defined man not as a body and as a spirit, but as a specific human drama. Indeed, in this sense, the life of every person is dramatic and tragic: no matter how successfully life turns out, no matter how long it is, its end is inevitable. “Whoever is among the living still has hope, since it is better for a living dog than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes). A century later, after Ecclesiastes, the Greek sage Epicurus tried to resolve this question of questions this way: “Accustom yourself to the idea that death has nothing to do with us. When we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist.”
It has been noticed that a person’s wisdom is often expressed in a calm attitude towards life and death. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “We do not know whether it is better to live or to die. Therefore, we should neither overly admire life nor tremble at the thought of death. We should treat them both equally. This is ideal." And long before this, the Bhagavad Gita said: “Verily, death is intended for the born, and birth is inevitable for the deceased. Don’t grieve about the inevitable!”
At the same time, many great people realized this problem in tragic tones. The outstanding Russian biologist I.I. Mechnikov, reflecting on the possibility of “cultivating the instinct of natural death,” wrote about L.N. Tolstoy: “When Tolstoy, tormented by the impossibility of solving this problem and haunted by the fear of death, asked himself whether family love to calm his soul, he immediately saw that this was a vain hope. Why, he asked himself, raise children who would soon find themselves in the same critical condition as their father? Why live? Why should I love them, raise them and take care of them? For the same despair that is in me, or for stupidity. Loving them, I cannot hide the truth from them - every step they take leads to the knowledge of this truth. And truth is death."
For more than thirty centuries, sages, prophets and philosophers different countries and peoples are trying to find the divide between life, death and immortality. Most often it is believed that the whole point is in the awareness of the fact of impending death: we know that we will die and are feverishly looking for the path to immortality. All other living things quietly and peacefully complete their journey, having managed to reproduce new life or serve as fertilizer for another life. A person is doomed to a lifetime of painful thoughts about the meaning of life or its meaninglessness, tormenting himself, and often others, with this, and is forced to drown these damned questions in wine and drugs. This is partly true, but the question arises: what to do with the fact of the death of a newborn child who has not yet had time to understand anything, or a mentally retarded person who is not able to understand anything? Should we consider the beginning of life to be the moment of conception (which cannot be accurately determined in most cases) or the moment of birth? The unknown and unaffected death of a small creature, except his mother, from hunger somewhere in Africa and the magnificent funeral of world-famous leaders - in the face of eternity have no difference. In this sense, the English poet D. Donne is deeply right when he said that “the death of each person diminishes all humanity, and therefore never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for you.”
Death has a positive meaning. But death is at the same time the most terrible and only evil. Every evil can be reduced to death. There is no other evil except death and murder.
At all times, people have sought salvation from the inevitable mistress of death. And this lies not only in the search for immortality of the body or soul, but also in a certain “indifference” to death. This is the basis of Epicurus’s principle of the “beautiful life.”
Epicurus formulates this principle as follows: “accustom yourself to the idea that death has nothing to do with us. Everything good and bad lies in sensation, and death is the deprivation of sensation. Therefore, the correct knowledge that death has nothing to do with us makes the mortality of life delightful, not because it adds an unlimited amount of time to it, but because it takes away the thirst for immortality.”
Conclusion: “he is stupid who says that he is afraid of death, not because it causes suffering when it comes, but because it causes suffering when it comes: after all, if something does not disturb the presence, then it is in vain to grieve when it is only still expected.
Thus, the most terrible of evils, death, has nothing to do with us, since when we exist, death is not yet present; and when death is present, then we do not exist. Thus, death has no relation to either the living or the dead, since for some it does not exist.”
He contrasts his attitude towards death with the attitude towards it of “crowd people”, who either strive to avoid death as the greatest evil, or, on the contrary, crave it, seeing in it a means of “rest from the evils of life.” Epicurus says: “The sage does not deviate from life, but is not afraid of non-life, because life does not bother him, and non-life does not seem like some kind of evil.”
Philosophy considers death from the point of view of understanding the meaning of death as the final stage of human life. In the face of death, a person is able to understand and evaluate the life he has lived, to outline a program for a new life based on the adoption of different value systems and the readiness to implement them.
The ancient Egyptians viewed earthly existence as preparation for the afterlife. The ancient Japanese believed that after death a person continues to live in his descendants. A tragic attitude towards death is characteristic of such religions as Buddhism, Zoroastrianism (Iran), Judaism, Doasism (China). Religious and philosophical movements in Ancient Greece(VII - VI centuries BC) also had a dramatic attitude towards death. During the classical period of ancient Greek philosophy, attempts were made to overcome the fear of death. Plato created the doctrine of a person consisting of two parts - immortal soul and mortal body. Death, according to this teaching, is the process of separation of the soul from the body, its liberation from the “prison” where it resides in earthly life. The body, according to Plato, as a result of death turns into dust and decay. This teaching, in a transformed form, was subsequently adopted by Christianity.
A different understanding of death is characteristic of the philosophy of Epicurus and Stoicism. The Stoics, trying to alleviate the fear of death, spoke of its universality and naturalness, for all things have an end. Epicurus believed that there is no need to be afraid of death, because while we are alive, it is not yet there, and when it comes, we are no longer there.
In Christianity, death is presented as a punishment for Adam and Eve for the sins they committed. Therefore, death is characterized as a mystery inaccessible to reason, as something meaningless, contrary to the spiritual essence of man. That is why the main motive of Christianity is faith in salvation and overcoming death.
The problem of death was solved in its own way in the philosophy of the famous Dutch philosopher - Spinoza Spinoza (Spinoza, d "Espinosa) Benedict (Baruch) (11/24/1632, Amsterdam - 2/21/1677, The Hague), Dutch materialist philosopher, pantheist and atheist. ( XVII century). He believed that a free person thinks about nothing so little as death. The wisdom of a person, according to Spinoza, “consists in thinking not about death, but about life.”
When considering the problem of death, the role of existentialist philosophers of the 20th century should be especially noted: the French Sartre Sartre Jean Paul (b. 21.6.1905, Paris), French writer, philosopher and publicist, Camus; Germans - Heidegger Heidegger Martin (September 26, 1889, Meskirch, Baden, - May 26, 1976, ibid.), German existentialist philosopher, Jaspers Karl Jaspers (February 23, 1883, Oldenburg, - February 26, 1969, Basel), German existentialist philosopher and psychiatrist. etc. They consider “life as being towards death.” In their opinion, the problem of death becomes relevant for people in critical situations, “borderline” between life and death. In such situations, a person can either surrender to the movement towards death (suicide) or show the will to live. The threat of death, according to existentialist philosophers, makes people think about the meaning and content of their lives. In the face of death, a person is able to gain an understanding of the meaning of life, freeing himself from false goals and unnecessary trifles. He begins to look at himself differently and the world. At this moment, in their opinion, he is able to find himself, his essence and freedom. The values that previously guided him lose meaning for him. The freedom he has gained allows him to determine his future and outline a program for a new life. The acquired freedom imposes high responsibility on the “enlightened” person for everything that happens. Thus, in existential philosophy, the analysis of the problem of death acquires important to comprehend the secrets of human life, determine its meaning, gain inner freedom and the associated responsibility for one’s actions and everything that happens in society. This creates the conditions and opportunities for a person to transform from the individual he was before the “borderline situation” to a true personality.
If religious and idealistic teachings relatively easily cope with the problem of human immortality, then materialist philosophers, arguing that the human soul is mortal and dies with the body, face significant difficulties in resolving this issue.
Famous French philosopher M. Montaigne Montaigne Michel de (28/2/1533, Montaigne castle, near Bordeaux, - 13/9/1592, ibid.), French philosopher and writer. noted that “only God and religion promise us immortality; neither nature nor our reason tells us about this.”
Outstanding English scientist and philosopher B. Russell Russell Bertrand (18.5.1872, Trelleck, Wales, - 2.2.1970, Penryndydright, Wales), English philosopher, logician, mathematician, sociologist, public figure. wrote: “God and immortality are the central dogmas Christian religion do not find support in science. People will continue to believe in immortality because it’s nice.” In an effort to show that the soul, like the body, is mortal, Russell writes: “Everything indicates that our mental life is connected with the brain structure and organized bodily energy. It would be reasonable to assume, therefore, that when the life of the body ceases, the mental life ceases along with it.” To prove the inconsistency of the religious postulate about the immortality of the soul, Russell cites the following arguments: “Any person observing the birth, feeding and childhood of a child cannot seriously assert that the soul is something separably beautiful and perfect throughout the entire process. It is obvious that the soul develops like the body and takes something from the sperm and from the egg. So it cannot be indivisible."
A similar position was taken by materialist philosophers - Democritus, Epicurus, Spinoza Spinoza (Spinoza, d "Espinosa) Benedict (Baruch) (11/24/1632, Amsterdam, - 2/21/1677, The Hague), a Dutch materialist philosopher, pantheist and atheist. Helvetius Helvetius Claude Adrian (January 31, 1715, Paris, December 26, 1771, ibid.), French materialist philosopher, ideologist of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie of the 18th century, Holbach Paul Henri, French
materialist philosopher and atheist, ideologist of the revolutionary French. bourgeoisie of the 18th century, Feuerbach Feuerbach Ludwig Andreas (28.7.1804, Landshut, Bavaria, -13.9. 1872, Rechenberg, near Nuremberg), German materialist philosopher and atheist., Marx, Chernyshevsky. This same point of view is shared by materialist philosophers of the 20th century and many scientists who adhere to an atheistic worldview.
Denying the possibility of personal immortality, leaving hopes for " afterlife“, philosophers and scientists who adhere to an atheistic worldview, thereby refuse the possibility of consolation, even if it is illusory. In addition, the possibility of committing any crimes opens up before them, because, as F.M. rightly noted. Dostoevsky Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich, Russian writer, “if there is no God, then everything is permitted.” Judgment and retribution that await every believer after death do not threaten these people.
Therefore, the adoption of an atheistic worldview should be organically connected with the formation of a high moral, legal, political and philosophical culture that contributes to the preparation of a responsible and highly moral citizen.
However, the problem of immortality is materialist philosophy has its own solution. Based on the fact that the process of human development is organically connected with the formation of the world of culture, consisting of material and spiritual values, the system of their production, preservation, distribution, as well as man himself as its creator and creation, the immortality of everyone can be ensured on the basis of their contribution to development culture.
The problem of death acquires central importance in Freud. And the central problem is precisely the problem of death, which is inextricably linked with the problem of time. The problem of immortality is secondary, and it has usually been posed incorrectly. Death is the deepest and most significant fact of life, elevating the very last of mortals above the commonness and vulgarity of life.
Only the fact of death raises in depth the question of the meaning of life. Life in this world has meaning precisely because there is death. The meaning is connected with the end. And if there were no end, i.e. if there were a bad infinity of life, then there would be no meaning in life. Death - the ultimate horror and ultimate evil - turns out to be the only way out of bad times into eternity, and immortal and eternal life turns out to be achievable only through death.
Plato taught that philosophy is nothing more than preparation for death. But the only trouble is that philosophy itself does not know how to die and how to defeat death.
Life is noble only because there is death in it, there is an end, indicating that a person is destined for another, higher life. In endless time, meaning is never revealed; meaning lies in eternity. But between life in time and life in eternity lies an abyss through which passage is only possible through death, through the horror of rupture. Heidegger said that everyday life paralyzes the melancholy associated with death. Everyday life evokes only a base fear of death, trembling before it as a source of nonsense. Death is not only the meaninglessness of life in this world, its corruption, but also a sign coming from the depths, indicating the existence of a higher meaning of life.
Not base fear, but deep melancholy and horror that death evokes in us is an indicator that we belong not only to the surface, but also to the depth, not only to the everyday life in time, but also to eternity. Eternity in time not only attracts, but also causes horror and melancholy. The meaning of death is that eternity is impossible in time, that the absence of an end in time is nonsense.
But death is a phenomenon of life, it is still on this side of life, it is life’s reaction to the demand for an end in time from life. Death is a phenomenon that extends throughout life. Life is continuous dying, the end of everything, the constant judgment of eternity over time. Life is a constant struggle with death and the partial dying of the human body and human soul.
Time and space are deadly, they create gaps that are a partial experience of death. When human feelings die and disappear in time, this is the experience of death. When parting with a person, with a house, with a city, with a garden, with an animal occurs in space, accompanied by the feeling that perhaps you will never see them again, then this is the experience of death. Death occurs for us not only when we ourselves die, but also when our loved ones die. We have the experience of death in life, although it is not final. The desire for the eternity of all existence is the essence of life. And at the same time, eternity is achieved only by passing through death, and death is the fate of everything living in this world, and the more complex life is, the higher the level of life, the more death awaits it.
Death has a positive meaning. But death is at the same time the most terrible and only evil. Every evil can be reduced to death. Murder, hatred, malice, depravity, envy, revenge are death and the sowing of death. Death is at the bottom of every evil passion. There is no other evil except death and murder. Death is the evil result of sin. A sinless life would be immortal, eternal. Death is the negation of eternity, and this is the ontological evil of death, its hostility to being, its attempts to return creation to non-existence. Death resists God's creation world, it is a return to primordial non-existence.
Death is a completely natural phenomenon; it has played a useful and necessary role in the course of long biological evolution. Indeed, without death, which gave the fullest and most serious meaning to the fact of survival of the fittest, and thus made possible the progress of organic species, man would never have appeared at all.
The social meaning of death also has its positive sides. After all, death makes us close to the common concerns and common fate of all people everywhere. It unites us with deeply felt emotions and dramatically emphasizes the equality of our final destinies. The universality of death reminds us of the essential brotherhood of man that exists despite all the violent divisions and conflicts recorded by history, as well as in contemporary affairs.
