The Book of Dead Philosophers - Blackwell's Bookshop Online

Starting from the premise that philosophers' deaths have been as interesting as their lives, Simon Critchley pulls readers in with quirky stories of how philosophers died and then confronts the big themes - in this case, what 'a good death' means and how to live with the knowledge of death and free from what he calls 'delusions and sophistries'. The book consists of short, sometimes very short, entries on various philosophers, cataloguing the manner of their demises and linking this to their central ideas. These entries would run from a couple of sentences in the case of the Pre-Socratics or minor Medievals and Moderns, up to a paragraph or indeed short essays of about 800 words in the case, say, of Socrates, Seneca, Rousseau, Kant and Nietzsche. Some of the entries would be rather pithy and, hopefully, witty.The book would be framed with an Introduction, and a long concluding chapter on philosophy and death where I would seek to defend what I have already said about the ideal of the philosophical death as a way of denouncing contemporary delusions and sophistries, what Francis Bacon saw as the Idols of the Tribe, the Den, the Market-Place and the Theatre (incidentally, Bacon died in a particularly cold winter in London in 1626 from a cold contracted after trying to stuff a chicken with snow as an experiment in refrigeration). '

ISBN	1847080103	DEWEY	109.2
ISBN13	9781847080103 (What's this?)	DEWEY edition	DC22
Publisher	Granta Books	Published in	London
Imprint	Granta Books	Height (mm)	216
Format	Hardback	Width (mm)	135
Publication date	02 Jun 2008	Academic level	General

		Learning How to Die - Socrates
		To Die Laughing
		Writing about Dead Philosophers
		190 or So Dead Philosophers		1
		Pre-Socratics, Physiologists, Sages and Sophists
		Thales		5
		Solon		6
		Chilon		6
		Periander		7
		Epimenides		7
		Anaximander		8
		Pythagoras		8
		Timycha		11
		Heracleitus		11
		Aeschlyus		12
		Anaxagoras		13
		Parmenides		14
		Zeno of Elea		14
		Empedocles		15
		Archelaus		17
		Protagoras		17
		Democritus		19
		Prodicus		20
		Platonists, Cyrenaics, Aristotelians and Cynics
		Plato		23
		Speusippus		24
		Xenocrates		25
		Arcesilaus		25
		Carneades		25
		Hegesias		26
		Aristotle		26
		Theophrastus		28
		Strato		28
		Lyco		29
		More...

"A provocative and engrossing invitation to think about the human condition and what philosophy can and can't do to illuminate it." --"The Financial Times" "Rigorous, profound and frequently hilarious. . . . Critchley is an engaging, deadpan guide to the metaphysical necropolis. . . . At a time when much popular philosophy is either frivolous, dull or complacent, his is a bracingly serious and properly comic presence." --"The Daily Telegraph" (UK)

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