Loss of life: A Free On-line Philosophy Course from Yale Helps You Grapple with the Inescapable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playlist

It pays to assume intel­li­gent­ly concerning the inevitable. And this course taught by Yale professional­fes­sor Shelly Kagan does simply that, tak­ing a wealthy, philo­soph­i­cal take a look at demise. Right here’s how the course descrip­tion reads:

There may be one factor I may be certain of: I’m going to die. However what am I to make of that truth? This course will examination­ine a num­ber of points that come up as soon as we start to mirror on our mor­tal­i­ty. The pos­si­bil­i­ty that demise could not actu­al­ly be the tip is con­sid­ered. Are we, in some sense, immor­tal? Would immor­tal­i­ty be desir­ready? Additionally a transparent­er notion of what it’s to die is examination­ined. What does it imply to say {that a} per­son has died? What sort of truth is that? And, closing­ly, dif­fer­ent atti­tudes to demise are eval­u­at­ed. Is demise an evil? How? Why? Is sui­cide ethical­ly per­mis­si­ble? Is it ratio­nal? How ought to the knowl­edge that I’m going to die have an effect on the way in which I reside my life?

Main texts used on this course embrace Pla­to’s Phae­do, Tol­stoy’s The Loss of life of Ivan Ilych, and John Per­ry’sA Dia­logue on Per­son­al Iden­ti­ty and Immor­tal­i­ty. Kagan additionally lat­er pub­lished a com­pan­ion guide–merely referred to as Loss of life–which may be pur­chased on-line.

You possibly can watch the 26 lec­tures above. Or discover them on YouTube and iTunes in video and audio for­mats. For extra infor­ma­tion on this course, includ­ing the syl­labus, please vis­it this Yale web site.

This course has been added to our listing of Free On-line Phi­los­o­phy cours­es, a sub­set of our meta col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free On-line Cours­es from Prime Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you want to join Open Tradition’s free e mail newslet­ter, please discover it right here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­guide, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you want to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our web site. It’s arduous to rely 100% on advertisements, and your con­tri­bu­tions will assist us con­tin­ue professional­vid­ing one of the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to be taught­ers each­the place. You possibly can con­tribute by way of Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!