Lectures

• Lecture 1 Course Introduction
• Lecture 2 The Nature of Persons: Dualism vs. Physicalism
• Lecture 3 Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part I
• Lecture 4 Introduction to Plato's Phaedo; Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part II
• Lecture 5 Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part III: Free Will and Near-Death Experiences
• Lecture 6 Arguments for the Existence of the Soul, Part IV; Plato, Part I
• Lecture 7 Plato, Part II: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul
• Lecture 8 Plato, Part III: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (cont.)
• Lecture 9 Plato, Part IV: Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul (cont.)
• Lecture 10 Personal Identity, Part I: Identity Across Space and Time and the Soul Theory
• Lecture 11 Personal Identity, Part II: The Body Theory and the Personality Theory
• Lecture 12 Personal Identity, Part III: Objections to the Personality Theory
• Lecture 13 Personal Identity, Part IV: What Matters?
• Lecture 14 What Matters (cont.); The Nature of Death, Part I
• Lecture 15 The Nature of Death (cont.); Believing You Will Die
• Lecture 16 Dying Alone; The Badness of Death, Part I
• Lecture 17 The Badness of Death, Part II: The Deprivation Account
• Lecture 18 The Badness of Death, Part III; Immortality, Part I
• Lecture 19 Immortality Part II; The Value of Life, Part I
• Lecture 20 The Value of Life, Part II; Other Bad Aspects of Death, Part I
• Lecture 21 Other Bad Aspects of Death, Part II
• Lecture 22 Fear of Death
• Lecture 23 How to Live Given the Certainty of Death
• Lecture 24 Suicide, Part I: The Rationality of Suicide
• Lecture 25 Suicide, Part II: Deciding under Uncertainty
• Lecture 26 Suicide, Part III: The Morality of Suicide and Course Conclusion

Readings

• Barnes, Julian. "The Dream." In History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters.
• Brandt, Richard. "The Morality and Rationality of Suicide." In Moral Problems. Edited by James Rachels. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
• Edwards, Paul. "Existentialism and Death: A Survey of Some Confusions and Absurdities." In Philosophy, Science and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel. Edited by Sidney Morgenbesser, Patrick Suppes and Morton White. New York: St. Matrin's Press, 1969. pp. 473-505
• Feldman, Fred. "The Enigma of Death." In Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of Nature and Value of Death. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. 56-71
• Hume, David. "On Suicide." In Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary.
• Kaufmann, Walter. "Death." In The Faith of a Heretic. New York: New American Library, 1959. pp. 353-376
• Kaufmann, Walter. "Death Without Dread." In Existentialism, Religion, and Death: Thirteen Essays. New York: New American Library, 1976. pp. 224-248
• Martin, Robert. "The Identity of Animal and People." In There are Two Errors in the the Title of This Book: A Sourcebook of Philosophical Puzzles, Problems, and Paradoxes. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2002. pp. 223-226
• Montaigne, Michel de. "That to Philosophize is to Learn to Die." In The Complete Essays.
• Nagel, Thomas. "Death." In Mortal Questions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979. pp. 1-10
• Rosenberg, Jay. "Life After Death: In Search of the Question." In Thinking Clearly About Death. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1983. pp. 18-22
• Schick, Theodore and Lewis Vaughn. "Near-Death Experiences." In How to Think About Weird Things. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005. pp 307-323
• Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels, Part III, chapter 10.
• Williams, Bernard. "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality." In Language, Metaphysics, and Death. Edited by John Donnelly. New York: Fordham University Press, 1978. pp. 229-242
• Plato, Phaedo
• John Perry, A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality
• Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych