At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback.
This course will become read-only in the near future. Tell us at community.p2pu.org if that is a problem.
This study group provides an opportunity to explore fundamental philosophical problems surrounding death.
The Philosophy of Death study group provides an opportunity to ask questions such as: “What does it mean to die and who or what is the ‘person’ that dies? Is it merely a physical body, or is it also something like a soul, and, if so, does the existence of a soul indicate that there is some hope of immortality? What should our attitude toward death be and what effect should that have on the way we live our lives?” The study group uses a number of prominent philosophical and literary works—including those by Plato, Tolstoy, Montaigne, Jonathan Swift, Walter Kauffmann and Lucretius—to think about death philosophically.
posted message: Welcome to the study group. My name is Chad Redwing and I am a professor of Humanities in California. I look forward to reading through and watching this material, available through the Saylor Foundation, with you over the next 5 weeks and then sharing ideas. I look at this as a professional development opportunity to vet some ideas and materials before they are used in my classes and also as a very personal journey to engage one of the most important quandries of human existence, that of the issues related to our mortality. I look forward to everyone (myself included) posting some initial comments on Unit 1 by 10/10. Have a wonderful first week of exploration and though, and welcome again to this very unique community of learners.
posted message: Here are the reminders for the Unit Activity Wall posts:
10/3--The study group formally begins, please take a minute to post a few things about your self and your interest in this group on the Activity Wall. This way, we get to learn more about one another and we have practice posting on the Activity Wall.
10/10--Unit I initial post
10/13--Unit I reply to other posts
10/21--Unit II initial post
10/24--Unit II reply to other posts
11/1--Unit III initial post
11/4--Unit III reply to other posts
11/4--End of study group evaluation
posted message: Greetings to you all and welcome to the "Philosophy of Death" study group. This group is really a guided auto-didactic experience in which we each read some important primary works and watch some online lectures that relate to "how to think about death philosophically." The "tasks" that lead you to the content are posted at the left side of the study group home page. After every unit's materials, you are each asked to post your comments, ideas and questions about the materials in the unit. As this is a study group, the real idea is to help one another come to deeper understandings about the readings and lectures. In the next activity wall post, I will give an overview of the deadlines for Unit Activity Wall postings.