Death: Philosophical Soundings

No one who reads this book will ever again think of their own death in the same way.

Fingarette faces up to the reality of death and demolishes some popular errors in our thinking about death. He examines the metaphors which mislead us: death as parting, death as sleep, immortality as the denial of death, and selflessness as a kind of consolation.

He thinks through some of the more illuminating metaphors: death as the end of the world for me, death as the conclusion of a story, life as ceremony, and life as a tourist visit to earth. Fingarette goes on to discuss living a future without end and living a present without bounds. The author offers no facile consolation, but he identifies the true root of fear of death, and explains how the meaning of death can be reconceived.

All of Herbert Fingarette’s books are enormously personal voyages that explore with philosophical honesty real life dilemmas: self-deception, cultural alterity, the role of ritual, the achievement of personhood, justifications for alcoholism, and now death. One of Fingarette’s most important career accomplishments . – Roger T. Ames Philosophy East & West