Book Description
Is there life after death or do we simply cease to exist?
Few questions wreak havoc with our deepest held beliefs and strongest emotions more than this one. The answers given over the centuries reach to the very core of who we are and what it means to be human.
Cutting through the emotionalism to reach the central issue, renowned scholar Paul Edwards has compiled Immortality, a superb group of philosophical selections featuring the work of both classical and contemporary authors who address not only the topic of immortality, but also two of the most fascinating and difficult philosophical problems–the mind/body problem, and the nature of personal identity. Highlighted are discussion of soul and body, transmigration, materialism, epiphenomenalism, physical research and parapsychology, reincarnation, disembodied existence, and much more.
In addition to a 70-page editorial introduction offering an in-depth discussion of the forms which belief in immortality has taken, this unique anthology includes selections from all of the major philosophers who have written on belief in life after death: Thomas Aquinas, A.J. Ayer, Paul and Linda Badham, John Beloff, C.D. Broad, Joseph Butler, René Descartes, C.J. Ducasse, Paul Edwards, Hugh Elliot, Antony Flew, John Foster, Peter Geach, John Hick, John Hospers, David Hume, William James, Raynor Johnson, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, Lucretius, Donald MacKay, John Stuart Mill, Derek Parfit, Plato, H.H. Price, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Reid, Tertullian, Peter van Inwagen, and Voltaire.
Also included is a detailed annotated bibliography.
Comments
“A great source book for any study in psychology and philosophy–from Plato to Locke, Voltaire to Hume and Edwards.”
– Maine Regional Library System
“This is not a debunking work, but one to broaden our outlook into what other possibilities may exist. Who knows for sure? This book will make your brains do overtime, expand the mind, soothe the soul and caress the spirit. Paul Edwards has done an excellent job with this anthology of great thinkers.”
– The New Humanity
Table of Contents
| Introduction | 1 | ||
| Plato: The Release of the Soul from the Chains of the Body | 73 | ||
| Lucretius: The Mind and the Spirit Will Die | 83 | ||
| Tertullian: The Refutation of the Pythagorean Doctrine of Transmigration | 88 | ||
| St. Thomas Aquinas: The Resurrection of Man | 91 | ||
| René Descartes: The Incorporeal Soul and Its Body | 100 | ||
| John Locke: Personal Identity, Consciousness and the Immaterial Substance | 109 | ||
| Joseph Butler: Of a Future Life | 121 | ||
| David Hume: Of Personal Identity | 130 | ||
| David Hume: Of the Immortality of the Soul | 134 | ||
| Voltaire: The Soul, Identity and Immortality | 141 | ||
| Thomas Reid: Of the Nature and Origin of Our Notion of Personal Identity | 148 | ||
| Immanuel Kant: Refutation of Mendelssohn’s Proof of the Permanence of the Soul | 155 | ||
| Joseph Priestley: Materialism, Personal Identity and Life | 157 | ||
| John Stuart Mill: Immortality | 172 | ||
| William James: The Theory of the Soul | 177 | ||
| Hugh Elliot: Tantalus | 184 | ||
| John Foster: The Objections to Epiphenomenalism | 186 | ||
| Raynor Johnson: Preexistence, Reincarnation and Karma | 188 | ||
| C. J. Ducasse: Survival as Transmigration | 194 | ||
| Paul Edwards: Karmic Tribulations | 200 | ||
| H. H. Price: What Kind of Next World? | 213 | ||
| Antony Flew: The Cartesian Assumption | 220 | ||
| Peter Geach: Immortality | 225 | ||
| John Hick: The Recreation of the Psycho-Physical Person | 235 | ||
| Peter van Inwagen: The Possibility of Resurrection | 242 | ||
| Donald MacKay: Computer Software and Life After Death | 247 | ||
| Paul and Linda Badham: The Evidence from Psychical Research | 250 | ||
| John Beloff: Is There Anything Beyond Death? A Parapsychologist’s Summation | 259 | ||
| A. J. Ayer: What I Saw When I was Dead | 269 | ||
| C. D. Broad: On Survival without a Body | 276 | ||
| John Hospers: Is the Notion of Disembodied Existence Intelligible? | 279 | ||
| William James: Consciousness, the Brain and Immortality | 282 | ||
| Paul Edwards: The Dependence of Consciousness on the Brain | 292 | ||
| Derek Parfit: Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons | 303 | ||
| Bibliographical Essay | 316 | ||