The Book of Dead Philosophers

"Death and philosophers" goes together like love and marriage, soup and sandwich, flotsam and jetsam (great, but largely forgotten Brit. singers as well as the gooey junk thrown up on the beach!), hearses and morgues, hay foot and straw foot, etc. and so on. We all know that Sir Francis Bacon died from stuffing a chicken full of snow, but how many of us knew that this anecdote originated with Thomas Hobbes, who himself was fond of singing from books of bawdy songs late at night, thinking that such an endeavor would help him attain a long life. (Apparently it worked--he lived past 90.) This is that kind of book, folks. Good to have when laying a bar-room bet, or honing your one-upmanship for when the humanities bully of the university watering hole wants to steal your girl and kick sand in your face. A head-scratcher it's not; a page-turner it is. Simon Crtichley could write for the Letterman show--yes, he's THAT GOOD (ta-tum-tum!)! On the other hand, he can be genuinely moving, as when he describes something of the life, character, and death of his own teacher Dominique Janicaud. The absolute best bit of information that I walked away with was the great anecdote about the problematic meeting of A. J. ("Freddie" to his friends) Ayer and Mike Tyson at a party thrown by a fashionable underwear designer in Manhattan. Ayer was talking to some models and heard that Tyson.... Well, I'm not going to give away the spectaular punch-line here (pun!), but will tell you that it's worth every penny I paid for this book, and set me searching out the works, and biography, of Professor Ayer. Highly recommended for this and about a dozen other anecdotes retold with wit and vast charm by the author. P.S. Should be found on every thinker's bathroom book shelf.

This book should be a standard on everyone's bookshelf. Each chapter is about a different philosopher make this book easy to pick up for a quick read whenever you have a spare minute or two. Quick and witty, and though about death, still very endearing.

After an interesting (although hardly revolutionary) introduction to the book and its central concept -- that philosophers have something to teach us about death, the single largest defining fact of our lives, through the way they themselves died -- Simon Critchley tackles the deaths (and sometimes the lives) of some 190 philosophers spanning seven millennia at a very rapid clip. After the well-written and thought-provoking introduction revolving around the role of death -- and thoughts of death -- in philosophy and life, the remainder of the book can feel jarring. In some cases, the philosopher's life and work -- and even their death -- is disposed of in only one or two witty sentence. In others, there is a lot about their deaths, but Critchley doesn't always deliver on his promise to explain how the way in which his subjects met those deaths ties into either their personal philosophies or into a philosophy of death. Sometimes, that just isn't relevant, it seems. The best moments in the book -- such as the discussion of the atheist, David Hume, meeting his end contentedly -- stand out simply because they are relatively rare. In a few cases, Critchley has to admit he doesn't even know how his subject died -- in which case, why is that philosopher included? In a handful of cases, he exaggerates the story behind the philosopher's death, only for the reader to discover that they have been misled. For instance, Simone Weil, he claims in the introduction, starved herself to death in sympathy with her beleagured countrymen in France. In fact, the exiled philosopher limited her caloric intake during the early years of World War II in exile from her homeland to what was available to French citizens under the Nazi regime. She didn't deliberately starve herself to death; she weakened her health so that she was unable to fight off the illness that killed her. So why, then, do I give this 3.5 stars? Simply because it's a witty romp through a topic that is relatively rarely discussed except in hushed tones and with trite references to Kubler-Ross (who, yes, makes a very brief appearance here, as well). It's also the kind of book that may provoke interest in the philosophers being discussed by readers who would otherwise never pick up a more weighty tome on, say, Hume or Spinoza. The premise is also solid and the author's grasp of his subject is more solid than his delivery sometimes implies. It's also refreshing to see a philosopher write something so accessible. That said, this is not a book likely to appeal to anyone who heads straight for the philosophy section whenever they enter a bookstore. There's little or no new thinking on the topic of mortality, and serious-minded philosophy students, already be familiar with much of the contents, are less likely to find Critchley's whimsical approach to his subject either amusing or intriguing. For readers with a passing interest in philosophy, it's worth a look, but you probably will want to pick up a paperb

A wonderful concept for a book. It spends a page and half or so on the deaths of 170 different philosophers. For some, it nicely juxtaposes their beliefs with their practical applications. For others, it illustrates a hypocrisy. Mostly though, I think it does a good job bringing the lot of them back down to earth. The introductions (there are three) are themselves a decent discussion on death and dying. It's one of those books you wish was a Wikipedia page so you could follow all the strands it begins to tug at.

This provides brief accounts of the way the great philosophers of the Western tradition died. It in the course of this provides very incidental and also brief accounts of aspects of their respective philosophies. It does not claim to be a comprehensive scholarly work. In fact Critchley makes the point that the purely academic philosophers especially of the positivist tradition tend to lead less interesting lives than those for whom Philosophy is not a mere academic study but rather a crucial element in living. So Critchley's concluding pages contain a large number of Continental primarily French philosophers. They also include a section on Chinese philosophers with a commentary on the Zen way of thinking about Death. Critchley too is guided by his own 'philosophy of life and death'. This is one in which there is a strong objection to ideas of an afterlife or world- to - come. He prefers a kind of straightforward courageous looking of Death straight in the eyes, and accepting it. The 'learning how to die wisely' that he commends involves a preparation in acceptance and understanding. The idea seems to to be, to be here when we are here, without worrying where we will one day not be. What surprised me in one sense is that while most of the accounts are interesting few are moving. It is perhaps possible to be moved by Sartre's final words to his Beaver, de Beauvoir assuring her of his Love ( provided that is that they are not her invention). It is possible to be amused by Thoreau's reply to the question, "Have you made your peace with God?" in which he says , "I did not know we had quarrelled " It is possible to be struck by the philosopher of the Absurd Camus' dying in an absurd car- accident. There are dozens of accounts which have some kind of fascinating twist or detail. And often what is best in them is what they reveal about the character of the philosopher involved. Often as for instance with the no- nonsense courageous Hume and the endlessly fussing and deceptive narcissistic Rousseau their deaths are the continuation of their characters in life. The book fascinates but in focusing on the deaths of the philosophers and not on their overall conception and experience of Death it misses much. Thus for me the most profound and insightful words of the book come quite close to the beginning . They paradoxically have little to do what the book is about. Critchley writes about "the aspect of death is hardest to endure: not our own death, but the deaths of those we love.It is the deaths of those we are bound to in love that undo us, that unstitch our carefully tailored suit of the self, that unmake whatever meaning we have made.In my view...it is only in grief that we become most truly ourselves.That is , what it means to be a self does not consist in some delusory self- knowledge, but in the acknowledgment of that part of ourselves that we have irretievably lost". I would suggest another book could be written about what the deaths of those clo