One of the most moving, if not impossible, phenomenologies of death ever written. If you haven't read Heidegger's Being and Time, and if you have an interest in time, death, and phenomenological ontologies, then this is a must read. In the 70s and 80s, this book sent graduate students running for the nearest continental scholarships and programs. And, even though that which dies -- the body -- even as a concept, is nothing but a shadow in this work, the playfulness with which Heidegger contorts his favorite lores and languages gives the student an intellectual roller coaster ride plunging the reader ever closer to a death to be captured in a poetry never written, which is to say that living is the real issue in death.
Philosophy here plays with the borders between the 'ontic' and the 'ontological,' between the flesh and the concept. Peculiar, too, is the new emphasis upon the Kantian critiques. Something important was finally recognized. Not with so much a new knowledge, but rather an understanding of the limits of knowledge, where we're forced to abide by the strict line between what can and cannot legitimately be said about death (and gods and angels, etc. etc.). By the end of the 20th century, philosophers were required to defend any leaps or crossovers and some would lament the death of Metaphysics. Although, it wouldn't just give up and die. By the end of the 20th century, whole schools emerged from the souls of aging Heideggerian teachers, whole religious programs were established where Heideggerian turned French teachers would turn phenomenology toward the very questions rendered out-of-bounds. In one or two generations, we're back to our watching graduate philosophy students attempting the impossibile. Their heroic endeavors go mostly unnoticed, but they try each term to create a hermeneutic phenomenology of the metaphysical. Many readers of this incredible work believed that the filthy Christian grip upon truth and reality had gone limp. I thought there was now an absolute barrior set up by the existential phenomenologists that would send Metaphysics to some forbidden chamber within the cloistered libraries of Catholic thought.
This work is an essential read for the history of philosophy. Being and Time is a perfect early 20th century example of the nobel attempt -- and failure -- to do phenomenology. The nostalgia of existential quests seeps from every page. Surely, you or someone you know and love went in search of Heidegerrian authenticity.. It's a wild read.
Stanford Series in Philosophy
Can death be philosophically analyzed? Is death a concept? Is death an activity? Why is death so important? Or is it?
After an outrageously successful performance by the first series of Family guy figures from Mezco Toyz, the family is back (as will the TV show in 2005) and storming on to the stage in an even wackier assortment. In series 2 Peter shows up naked, Meg appears as an action figure for the first time, Quagmire makes his first appearance along with Rufus Griffin. Stewie shows up as Mutant Stewie and sits on his egg base while Death brings along his dog. Don't miss series 2 -- a real eye catcher!
Mix two parts Apocalypse Now with equal parts Raiders of the Lost Ark and any feminist studies text and you'll come up with Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. Shannon Tweed (of Playboy Playmate of the Year fame) and Bill Maher (Politically Incorrect) travel deep into the Uncharted Avocado Jungle of southern California on a mission for the U.S. government to find the ancient Piranha Women. See, the government wants to avert an avocado shortage precipitated by the Piranha Women's occupation of the jungle; that and the Piranha Women have this little peccadillo of eating their men, thus posing a threat to our phallocentric way of life. Tweed is supposed to convince them to move to Malibu condos, where they can continue eating men if they like, so long as we can get in there and get those avocados. Accompanying the duo on their mission, for contrast, is a Home Ec major named Bunny whose secret fantasy is to be tied up with red licorice whip, and who wants to join the Piranha Women so she can get one of those cute outfits. The previous envoy for the Military, one Dr. Kurtz (Adrienne Barbeau), an anthropologist and feminist, never came back, instead becoming the leader of the threatening Piranha Women. Yet she's really interested in writing an exposé about her time in the jungle ("a kiss-sacrifice-and-tell book") so she can get back on the talk show circuit. "You don't know what it's like trying to face David Letterman with a book on male insensitivity.... The horror, the horror!" Thoroughly smart and entertaining, with hilarious dialogue that never flags. --Jim Gay
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