Death—mine or the other's? On the possibility of philosophical thanatology

Abstract

This essay investigates the phenomenon of death from a philosophical (more specifically, transcendental) point of view. It is suggested that mortality can be viewed as a necessary condition for the possibility of asking certain philosophical questions about human life, e.g. questions concerning the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life. The transcendental approach leads to difficulties, however, because of the essentially solipsistic character of death, as seen from the first-person point of view. It is argued that certain apparently non-solipsistic strategies fail to overcome the solipsistic challenge, which therefore remains to be explored in philosophical thanatology.