LIFE%20AFTER%20DEATH

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LIFE AFTER DEATH
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Reading around this topic

• You should aim to study at least two of the
  following introductory texts. This is not an
  exhaustive list, but these are easily available
  works and cover the general discussion well.
• Peter Cole, Philosophy of Religion, ch. 10
• Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy
  of Religion, ch.11
• John Hick, Philosophy of Religion, chs. 9 10
• Ann Jordan et al, Philosophy of Religion for
  A-level, ch. 13
• Michael Peterson et al, Reason Religious
  Belief, ch. 10
• Mel Thompson, Teach Yourself Philosophy of
  Religion, ch.5
• Peter Vardy, The Puzzle of God, ch. 18

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BASIC QUESTIONS

• Jordan, Lockyer and Tate in their Philosophy of
  Religion for A-level structure their discussion
  by posing the following questions
• Do we have souls?
• How can we survive death?
• Do we have more than one life?
• Is there evidence to support life after death?
• Is it life after death?

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Do we have souls?

• To answer this you must first decide which view
  to hold on the mind-body issue
• MATERIALISM Minds are not possible independent
  of living bodies.
• IDEALISM Only minds really exist. Bodies are an
  illusion.
• DUALISM We exist as two separable distinct parts
  a physical body and a non-material soul.

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How can we survive death?

• Materialists who accept life after death would
  require the resurrection of the body, which is
  probably a replica body (Hick).
• Idealists say that the illusion of the physical
  body ends at death and we continue in spirit form
  beyond it (Hegel).
• Dualists accept the immortality of the soul. Thus
  the soul continues after the body dies
  (Descartes).

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Do we have more than one life?

• This is the view of reincarnation.
• At death the soul is said to leave the body and
  start off life in another physical body. This is
  called the transmigration of the soul.
• Karma is the term to describe the consequences of
  individual actions which cumulatively determine
  your fate.
• Ideally, the goal is to escape the cycle of
  rebirth and achieve a state of bliss where
  personal identity is lost and you become one with
  the Ultimate Reality. (Moksha / Nirvana /
  Nibbana)

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Is there any evidence to support life after death?

• This is an a posteriori concern. The relevance of
  the evidence depends on the kind of life after
  death being thought of. In each case the
  so-called evidence needs careful evaluation.
• Near-death experiences NDEs
• Regression to past lives
• Sightings of dead people
• Spiritualism

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Is it life after death?On defining your terms

• Is recollecting incidents from my previous life
  or lives really what I think it is? If not, then
  this is not life after a previous death at all.
• Is the notion that I live on in the genes of my
  descendents in any sense life after death?
• If I die, am kept cryogenically, and subsequently
  revived, is this life after death?

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A priori arguments are also relevant in these
debates

• Thomas Aquinas argument that we are made for an
  ultimate end, happiness, which God will vouchsafe
  for us in a future life.
• Kants moral argument, in which life after death
  is a necessary postulate of practical reason.
• Platos argument that the soul is immortal
  because it is imperishable. Because the soul is
  simple, it is therefore indestructible.

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How to write a good essay on this topic

• Analyse the question in front of you.
• Use your material to answer the question in a
  planned and clearly structured way.
• Show you understand the range of issues relevant
  to the question.
• Outline the various options and their
  proponents.
• Give the best arguments for and against each
  option.

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A clear outline of the topic 1
In his introduction to life after death, the
philosopher Stephen T. Davis wrote this
introduction

• Do people live after death? This is surely one
  of the most important questions that is asked in
  the philosophy of religion. Naturally there are
  only two possible answers to it. Either human
  persons will live after death or they will not.

• Let us call all theories that deny life after
  death, Death Ends All views. There are three
  main sorts of theory that affirm life after
  death reincarnation, immortality of the soul,
  and the resurrection of the body.

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A clear outline of the topic 2
Here, we will first consider the claim that life
after death is not just false but incoherent.
Next, we will consider two philosophical problems
that bear on the issue, viz. the relationship
between mind and body, and the problem of
personal identity.
Then we will discuss one important death ends
all theory. Finally, we will discuss
reincarnation, immortality and resurrection
respectively.

CLEAR ENOUGH ?!
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Some significant contributors to the debate on
life after death
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Flew

• In article in 1956, Can a Man Witness His Own
  Funeral?, Flew argued that the notion of life
  after death is incoherent.
• 1 Statement of surviving death is
  self-contradictory.
• 2 LAD is empirically false.
• 3 People are what you meet bodies plus
  behaviour.

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Descartes

• Dualistic theory that a human being material
  body (temporary machine) non-physical mind or
  soul (permanent essence).
• Interactionism mind and body intimately
  conjoined, but metaphysically cannot be causally
  interrelated. Pineal gland is site of interaction
  via animal spirits.

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Locke

• Story of the soul of a prince entering the body
  of a cobbler. Test case for personal identity.
  (cf. Bart the fly Simpson).
• Three criteria for PI?
• 1 Memory criterion.
• 2 Bodily criterion.
• 3 Closest continuer or Psychological
  continuity criterion.

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Russell

• Famous 20th cc Death Ends All atheist and
  materialist thinker. Wrote, When I die, I rot.
  Others include A.J.Ayer Kai Nielsen. Atheistic
  Existentialists and ancient Stoics hold this view
  too. The most notable Stoic was Epicurus (341
  270 BC), who founded Epicureanism.

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Epicurus
Death, the most dreaded of evils, is of no
concern to us, for while we exist death is not
present, and when death is present, we no longer
exist.

• The empiricist epistemology of Epicureanism,
  allied to a hedonistic ethics advocating pleasure
  as the one good, led Epicurus to say that being
  dead will be no worse than not having being born.
• Central to his view is that because we do not
  experience being dead, we should not be afraid of
  it and death should therefore be of no concern to
  us.

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Buddha

• Representative of those who believe in
  reincarnation. The other sophisticated version is
  that of Vedantic Hinduism.
• Reincarnation is the view that the immaterial
  essense (or soul or jiva) of a person can
  successfully animate two or more bodies
  (sequentially not contemporaneously).
• Best modern supportive evidence in the work of
  Dr. Ian Stevenson, eg. Twenty Cases Suggestive
  of Reincarnation.

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Standard objections to reincarnation theory

• Equivocal nature of the evidence. Alternative
  explanations of the evidence such as yoga
  memory, other than reincarnation, can be found
  such as telepathy, fraud, lack of verifiability.
• Philosophical difficulties in the relationship
  between me and my karmic heir. What links them
  together, if anything? Is same jiva enough for
  numerical identity / continuity?
• If karma is true, there is no such thing as
  undeserved suffering. How does the impersonal
  karma mechanism work justly?

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Plato

• Classical advocate of the immortality of the
  soul. Post death, the soul has one eternal and
  uninterrupted life in a spiritual world.
• Not widely supported today, the heyday of this
  view was the Victorian era with its interest in
  spiritualistic phenomena seances, trance
  mediumship, automatic writing etc.
• Nowadays the area is dominated by discussions of
  OOBEs and NDEs. But are these post-death?

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Kant

• Kants moral argument for the God had the
  immortality of the soul as one of its necessary
  postulates.
• H.H. Prices 1953 article, Survival and the Idea
  of Another World showed that the idea of souls
  inhabiting an immaterial world beyond death was
  at least philosophically intelligible and
  coherent. He was agnostic about its reality.
• The most serious objection is the mind-body
  unity argument. ie. mind requires a functioning
  brain.

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Resurrection of Jesus

• The paradigm case of an historical claim that
  there is embodied life beyond death.
• Bodily resurrection is believed by Judaism,
  Christianity and Islam. Within the Christian
  tradition there are numerous readings of the
  view temporary disembodiment same reassembled
  and reconfigured matter resurrection new
  material resurrection replication theory.

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Hick

• Famous discussion in his Death and Eternal
  Life.
• Posited the Replica theory. To solve the
  personal continuity problem, God recreates a
  person who has died (just one). This is the
  same person, but in a different space-time.
  Others would recognise him or her, and he or she
  would say, I am the same person.
• Persons are indissoluble psycho-physical unities,
  and the analogy of software running in new
  hardware may be illuminating here.
• Ask, what differences would we notice?

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A short test

• In each case you simple answer the question that
  is, or is not, associated with the figure on the
  slide in the context of the issue of life after
  death

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Buddha

• The Buddha was an advocate of which of the
  following views?
• a Resurrection
• b Reincarnation
• c Rot Recycle
• d Spookification

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Epicurus

• Epicurus believed that we should fear death
  because it was the end of the existence of the
  self.
• True or False?

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Hick

• Hick advocated which of the following
• 1 Reincarnation
• 2 Immortality of the soul.
• 3 Replication of the person after death
• 4 Euthanasia.

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Flew

• Flews religious outlook was that of
• a Hinduism
• b Judaism
• c Jainism
• d Christianity
• e Atheism

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Descartes

• Descartes advocated which of the following
  metaphysical positions
• 1 Dualism
• 2 Monism
• 3 Illusionism

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Locke

• Locke offered a fantastical tale in order to
  explore the issue of personal identity involving
• a A man and his dog
• b A prince and a cobbler
• c An angel and a demon
• d A leper and a pharisee
• e Bart Simpson and a fly.

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Russell

• This philosopher was convinced that the ultimate
  constituent of man was
• a Spirit
• b Matter
• c Number
• d Aether

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Plato

• Plato believed that the soul or psyche of human
  beings was
• a eternal
• b indestructible
• c spiritual
• d pre-existent

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Kant

• Kants favourite argument for the existence of
  God which referred to the immortality of the soul
  was
• a Ontological
• b Teleological
• c Moral
• d Cosmological

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Resurrection of Jesus

• Christians believe that they will be resurrected
  like Jesus and thus have a heavenly body which
  will be the form of their post mortem existence.
• True or False?

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LIFE AFTER DEATHThe EndOr Only Just The
Beginning?