PRESCIENCE AND AN EARLY DEATH. Issue 53 (2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Oberg, Andrew
• Is Part Of: Think. Volume 18:Issue 53(2019)
• Page Start: 31
• Page End: 42
• Publication Date: 2019
• Subjects: Philosophy -- Periodicals; 105
• DOI: 10.1017/S1477175619000186
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1477-1756

Abstract

Abstract : Death's inevitability is not in question, but its mystery is one that is equally unavoidable and the questions we are likely to have about what then unanswerable. Traditionally we have tended to be concerned with what – if anything – might happen to us personally after we pass away, but that is not our question here. Rather we wish to contemplate what a knowledge of what will happen to the others in our lives may do to us while we are yet living. If we could know before we die the events that will befall our loved ones and/or our communities how might we react? Would that knowing be a comfort or a curse? Moreover, what might our contemplation on this query teach us about death more generally? Such is our concern in the discussion below.