DEATH: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT MATTERS [Новость добавлена - 09.12.2007]

The Open University and The University of York UK Conference 17th and 18th July 2008

A conference on the nature and significance of death, organized by the Philosophy Departments of the Open University and the University of York. The conference will be held at the University of York’s Heslington campus.

Description

Questions about death include the ethical (Is killing wrong? Should abortion and euthanasia be permitted?); the axiological (Is it bad to die? Which deaths are worse?); and the metaphysical (What is death? Do the dead exist?) Although the ethical questions have, in recent years, been very much discussed, the underlying issues in value and theory have received considerably less attention. Yet these issues are far from settled. Scientific advances are continuing to raise questions about what constitutes death, while both science and science fiction suggest novel possibilities for postponing it. Evolving theories of personhood and personal identity are prompting new questions about the importance of death, while recent work on emotion offers to throw fresh light on our responses to bereavement and to the prospect of death.

This conference aims to draw together philosophers working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and ethics to address a range of fundamental issues about the nature and significance of death.

Conference themes

• The nature of death.
• Definitions and criteria.
• Human, animal and plant death.
• The irreversibility of death.
• Death, the mind and the brain.
• Posthumous harms.
• Death and non-existence.
• Issues concerning personhood.
• Death’s badness.
• Grief and loss.
• Cryonics, sci-fi, and avoiding death.
• Immortality.
• Reasons to fear death.
• Better and worse times to die.
• Our deaths, and the deaths of others.

http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/death/

The Horseman of Death, 1935

Below is the host webpage http://www.virtualdali.com/35RiderOfDeath.html with the image in its original context.