DEATH & NONEXISTENCE C

The dead are gone. They count for nothing. Yet if we count the dead their number is staggering. And they account for most of what is great about civilization. Compared to the greatness of the dead the accomplishments of the living are paltry. Which is it then: are the dead still there to be counted or not? And if they are still there where exactly is there? We are confronted with the ancient paradox of nonexistence bequeathed us by Parmenides. The mystery of death is the mystery of nonexistence.A successful attempt to provide a metaphysics of death then must resolve the paradox of nonexistence. That is the aim of this study. At the same time the metaphysics of death of ceasing to exist must serve as an account of birth of coming to exist; the primary thesis of this book is that this demands going beyond existence and nonexistence to include what underlies both which one can call following tradition being. The dead and the unborn are therefore objects that lack existence but not being. Nonexistent objects - not corpses or skeletons or memories all of which are existent objects - are what are there to be counted when we count the dead.