SHAMBHALA SUN SepteMBer 2009 25

Maybe your Philosophy 101 textbook was dry as a bone and

your philosophy class (MWF 11 a.m.–12 p.m.) was a good

opportunity to doze. But don’t hold that against Simon

Critchley. Though he’s professor and chair of philosophy

at the New School for Social Research in New York, he’s not

like the prof you had. His latest book, The Book of Dead

Philosophers, unpacks three thousand years of philosophical

history by explaining how “190 or so” philosophers have kicked

off. And this, surprisingly, is a lively read—life affirming and

morbidly funny. — A N d R e A M i l l e R

Why a book on dead philosophers?

Philosophy began with a death. Socrates walked around Athens

asking questions no one had ever asked before. Difficult, univer-

sal questions about the nature of things: What is justice? Beauty?

Truth? People answered Socrates’ questions and he picked apart

their answers, but he didn’t provide answers himself, just a series

of perplexities. For that he was executed by the authorities. The

philosopher always has their eyes on death. Focused on questions

of finitude, he’s already in a sense half dead himself. To philoso-

phize is to learn how to die in the right way, at the right time. This

is what the philosophical tradition keeps coming back to.

is there such a thing as a good death?

I think so. Dignity is key. Most people now die in a drug-in-

duced state, and in some cases this interferes with dignity. In

the past, a lot of people died in pain, but that wasn’t necessarily

bad. A great example is Epicurus. He died in enormous pain, yet

he endured and died with tranquillity. This was essential to his

teaching: do not fear death.

These days, the overwhelming issue is not dying in pain,

not being a burden to anybody else. So there’s a sense that you

should drug people, pacify them. Yet there are people in the

modern age who have done other things—Freud, for instance.

He had twenty-seven operations for cancer of the mouth and

refused to take painkillers because, he said, he’d rather think in

pain than not think at all.

How else has the culture of death changed over time?

In the past, deaths were often group acts—

the dying were surrounded by friends. And

death was something that was meditated

on throughout life. It wasn’t something

one tried to run away from. Our cul-

ture denies death in a dramatic way,

particularly in the U.S., where most

people have never even seen a corpse. Looking at

the history of the philosophical death can get people to

look at the skull beneath the skin—to focus on the one certainty

in life, apart from taxes, which is that life ends.

Has any other society denied death to the extent we do?

Societies have denied death in different ways, but we’re so ex-

treme it’s difficult to think of a precedent. We shuffle dying off

as something that happens to other people, not to us. We see

death as obscene. The Victorians had difficulties with sex but

they had a powerful death culture and were very good at com-

memorating it. We’re the opposite. We can talk about sex until

we’re blue in the face but we cannot face death. We’re terrified

of it. This is strange in an overwhelmingly Christian culture,

because Christianity is a meditation on death. It’s about learn-

ing to die in a certain way. Longevity wasn’t something of much

value in early Christianity—a brief life was often a more worthy

life. The denial of death is the overwhelming desire for longevity

at all costs, and the gods people believe in are the gods of medi-

cal technology. I’m not against that but we should be thinking

about the issue more carefully.

What about the classical Chinese philosophy of death?

Confucianism was all about the right manners and the

right behavior, so the Confucians were obsessed with rituals

around death. Daoists rejected that, thinking death was a

passage from one state to another: We’re human beings, we

Q & AAny Last Thoughts?

simon critchley

PH

OT

O B

Y j

OH

n S

IMM

On

S

SHAMBHALA SUN SepteMBer 2009 26

become worm food, and then we might

become something else. Who knows?

The Daoist Chuang Tzu laughed and

banged on a tub after his wife died, say-

ing, “My wife has left me.” Then a friend

said, “How can you possibly laugh when

your wife is dead?” “We lived together,”

Chuang Tzu said. “We had children.

We had a wonderful time. now she has

transformed. Why should I be sad?”

The Confucians were appalled by this

because it seemed to show no respect

for the dead.

Tell me about Japanese death poems.

On the verge of death, Zen monks write

a haiku or short elegiac poem. They pro-

nounce it, and then set aside their ink

brush, cross their arms, straighten their

back, and die—often in the meditative

position. It’s pretty impressive [laughs].

An example of one of these poems is “the

joy of dew drops in the grass as they turn

back to vapor.” There’s a wonderful story

of a Zen Buddhist monk from the twelfth

century who preached to his disciples and

then sat in the Zen position and died.

When his followers complained he died

too quickly, he revived and harangued

them for a bit longer. Then he died five

days later. This was about controlling the

moment of his death.

Which philosopher’s death appeals to you

most?

I like Wittgenstein’s. He was diagnosed

with cancer a month or two before he

died and he treated the news with great

relief. He then moved in with his doctor

and struck up a firm friendship with his

doctor’s wife, Mrs. Bevan—going to the

pub with her every night. He died the

day after his birthday, but on his birth-

day Mrs. Bevan gave him an electric

blanket and she said, “Many happy re-

turns.” Then Wittgenstein said, “There

will be no return.” There’s something so-

ber and funny about that, which I think

is important. It’s important to maintain

a certain lightness toward death. To face

up to it and replace the terror with so-

ber humor.

You wrote another book called On Humor.

What’s the connection for you between

philosophy and comedy?

Philosophy asks you to look at the world

as if you were from another planet and

to question everything—the nature of

reality, the external world, other people.

That’s like comedy—great comedy, not the

dreary stand-up routines you usually see.

At their best, both comedians and philoso-

phers shake out your prejudices. jokes can

liberate and elevate us and even change the

situation we find ourselves in.

We fear our own deaths, but there’s also the

problem of dealing with the deaths of loved

ones. How do philosophers help us work

with that?

Badly. The question of death was re-

ally posed for me through the death of

my father and friends. But the philoso-

pher’s death is about my death and me

dying calmly, with dignity. This doesn’t

get at the difficulty of our response to

the death of those we love. That’s why in

The Book of dead Philosophers I spend

the time on early Christian philoso-

phers—they had the best sense of grief.

now I’m working on a book about the

nature of love, particularly the nature

of mystical love. Philosophy has a lot of

wisdom about what the world means,

and that’s fantastic, but it doesn’t have

a rich enough vocabulary for the ques-

tion of love. ♦

The Victorians had difficulties with sex, but they had a powerful death culture and were very good at commemorating it. We’re the opposite. We can talk about sex until we’re blue in the face, but we cannot face death.