Merely Mortal?: Can You Survive Your Own Death? - Hardcover

Antony Flew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573928410 ISBN 13: 9781573928410

Publisher: Prometheus, 2001

Synopsis

"Whether we are to live in a future state . . . is the most important question which can possibly be asked. . . . Yet strange perplexities have been raised about the meaning of that identity or sameness of person, which is implied in the notion of our being now and hereafter. . . ."

These words, written by the Anglican Bishop Joseph Butler, concisely summarize the crux of the problem which renowned philosopher Antony Flew tackles in this profoundly thoughtful book. Despite the perennial hope of life beyond the grave, Flew shows that there are insuperable difficulties in elucidating postmortem survival on a rational basis. He analyzes the three ways that philosophers of the past have attempted to get around these difficulties: the "reconstitutionist way" (miraculous reassembly of our deceased bodies at some future time, such as the Last Judgment); the "way of the astral body" (a sort of duplicate, undetectable "body," which detaches itself from the material body after death); and the "Platonic-Cartesian way"(an incorporeal mind or soul containing a person's identity which lives on after death). The main problem, says Flew, is the impossibility of logically demonstrating how a person surviving death in any imagined altered state could identify him- or herself as the same person who had previously lived a flesh-and-blood life on the Earth. Flew reviews both the classic arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Descartes, as well as the modern findings of parapsychology, elucidating this complex issue with logical rigor and engaging wit.

About this title

Synopsis:

Despite the perennial hope of life beyond the grave, Flew shows that there are insuperable difficulties in elucidating post-mortem survival on a rational basis. He analyses the three ways that philosophers of the past have attempted to get around these difficulties: the 'reconstitutionist way' (miraculous reassembly of our deceased bodies at some future time, such as the Last Judgement); the 'way of the astral body' (a sort of duplicate, undetectable 'body', which detaches itself from the material body after death); and, the 'Platonic-Cartesian way' (an incorporeal mind or soul containing a person's identity which lives on after death). The main problem, says Flew, is the impossibility of logically demonstrating how a person surviving death in any imagined altered state could identify him- or herself as the same person who had previously lived a flesh-and-blood life on the Earth. Flew reviews both the classic arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Descartes, as well as the modern findings of parapsychology, elucidating this complex issue with logical rigor and engaging wit.

About the Author:

Antony Flew (Reading, UK) is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Reading, England, and the author or editor of over thirty-five books, including How to Think Straight and God, Freedom, and Immortality.

About this edition

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1573928410
• ISBN 13: 9781573928410
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 200