The Experience of Death: and The Moral Problem of Suicide - Paperback

by Edouard D'Araille (Editor), Margaret Kerr (Translator), Paul Louis Landsberg (Author)

"The human race is the only one that knows it must die, and it knows this only through its experience." - VoltaireA timeless study of the 'Experience of Death' by a thinker who was to die early in a German concentration camp. He writes with a freshness and vitality rarely met with in works of philosophy. Also includes "The Moral Problem of Suicide".

One of the great masterpieces of 20th Century philosophy, its investigation and analysis of the "Experience of Death" is as searching and significant as that of Martin Heidegger in 'Being and Time'. For many years unavailable and therefore underestimated, this publication includes the two works by Landsberg that accompany each other the best: 'The Experience of Death' and 'The Moral Problem of Suicide'. Editor Edouard d'Araille here presents a revised version of Margaret Kerr's accurate translation.

Paul-Louis Landsberg was a philosopher who was closely associated with the group of Parisian thinkers embracing Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Emmanuel Mounier and others. He has been classified as an Existentialist thinker, due both to the subject matter of his work and realistic, humanistic approach he takes.

However, it should be borne in mind that Landsberg is Christian in faith, and he approaches the topics of death and suicide both from a Christian and a secular point-of-view. It is especially interesting to see how he tackles the controversial issue of suicide from the standpoint of Christianity - an act seen by some branches of that religion as a mortal sin, making its agent unworthy of Christian burial.FEATURES - This Living Time(TM) Press edition of Paul-Louis Landsberg's masterpiece includes:

• The Complete Texts of these key works - 'The Experience of Death' and 'On the Moral Problem of Suicide'
• A Biographical Sketch of Paul-Louis Landsberg
• Textual Annotations to both works, included at the end of the volume
• A Select Bibliography of his philosophical works
• B&W illustration as a frontispiece to the work (relating to the 'Intermezzo in the Bull Ring')

The core contents of the two philosophical essays are as follows:

The Experience of Death
I. The State of the Question
II. The Limitations of Scheler's Answer
III. Individualism and the Experience of Death
IV. The Death of a Friend, and the Experience of "Repetition"
V. The Ontological Basis
VI. The Death of a Friend, according to the Fourth Book of the Confessions of St. Augustine
VII. The Forms of Experience of Death
VIII. Intermezzo in the Bull Ring
IX. The Christian Experience of Death

The Moral Problem of Suicide
1. Traditional Arguments
2. A Personal View

Though both of these works are deeply personal and it is true that Landsberg is a Christian by denomination, in no way does he implore the reader to take up his own faith and he presents ideas and perspectives that are of equal interest to the atheist. The reader will find it valuable to read Heidegger's analysis of death in 'Being and Time' alongside this book, as it presents a wholly atheistic existential analysis that contrasts interestingly with this one.

"What is the meaning of death to the human being as a person? The question admits of no conclusion, for we are dealing with the very mystery of man, taken from a certain aspect. Every real problem in philosophy contains all the others in the unity of mystery. It is necessary, therefore, to set a limit and seek a basis in experience for any possible answer: there are always problems of the utmost importance left on one side. Our enquiry would seem inevitable in the present state of philosophy, for we are far from having a metaphysics of death, as we have of life." - Paul-

Number of Pages: 128

Dimensions: 0.27 x 8 x 5.25 IN

Publication Date: August 22, 2002