Author(s): Simon Critchley

Philosophy

In his humorous, elegantly-written romp through the history of philosophy, Simon Critchley starts with the premise that philosophers' deaths are as interesting as their lives. Through his catalogue of philosophers' demises (tales of weirdness, madness, suicide, murder, pathos and bad luck) he confronts the big themes: how to die well and live without delusion. Critchley argues that we seek either the consolation of momentary oblivion or a miraculous redemption in the afterlife. His wager: by discovering how philosophers died we might also learn how to live.