The book “Death and Life After Death. erstwhile I die, humanity will continue” is something different than it seems. Neither is it suitable for reading grandfathers, Halloween, or asphyxiation, nor is it written only by Samuel Scheffler.
Its subject is the minute Urszula Kozioł wrote about:
‘Wait a minute
in the form of a keyhole
He looks at me outside.”
In addition to Scheffler, the book (translated by David Misztal, published by the Łódź University Publishing House) co-creates 4 comments for his lectures, followed by Susan Wolf, Harry G. Frankfurt, Seany Valentine’s Shiffrin and Nik Kolodny. And the introduction of David Misztal, who did the work well.
Contrary to what the title might suggest, Scheffler's interest is not life in the afterlife. The author is not curious in the individual immortality of the soul and its destiny after the death of the body. The only thing that can — freely — tie this book to eschatology is Scheffler’s perspective: He is problematic our lives by trying to look at it in the position of the end of the world. This is the alien, and the minute staring at us, which, as part of a thought experiment, erstwhile takes the form of a global disaster, erstwhile the infertility of our species... Scheffler's thought experiments let him to ask questions about the meaning of what we do and what happens to us: is technological research, both those that can be utilized straight (e.g. the search for a cure for cancer) and purely theoretical (so-called basic) traditions that are crucial to us, the pleasures we experience, something that would be crucial to us if we knew that humanity is about to be destroyed? Would we like to be involved? grow them? Search?
Scheffler's answer is negative. In his opinion, the mention to the imagination of the end of mankind allows us to see how crucial it is for us to believe that another people will inactive live after we die. First, it makes us realize that there is more to us than just our own experience. If the end of the planet were to follow our death, we could not experience it. Scheffler, however, is inclined to believe that the prediction of specified a script will not leave us indifferent, which suggests that sometimes what happens after our death matters to us, and that, in turn, things another than our experience besides substance to us. The fact that the end of the planet does not leave us indifferent leads us — secondly — to realize that what we consider to be “valueful or crucial to us” is not based solely on our experience. Nor does it affect — or at least not for all — making cool, objectivized balance sheets of profit and loss, by which we could, for example, effort to find whether the demolition of Earth and the demolition of our species are desirable or not. This indicates, thirdly, that "what has value or meaning for us is not simply a substance of having the most affirmative consequences of whatever they might be." Finally, the awareness of the immediate end of people, including our loved ones, and of the things that are crucial to us, shows that our attitude towards values is preserved: “In general, we want the people and things that we care about to make wonderfully; we are not indifferent to the demolition of what is most crucial to us.” Scheffler clearly states that he believes there is simply a connection between considering something as valuable and taking action to preserve it. As an example of specified actions, the wills indicate that they are an expression of concern for the safety of people and things after our death, and that would lose meaning without our religion that life would proceed after our lives.
To show how crucial it is for our life here and now to mention to the future in which future generations of people will live, as well as to mediate this mention by values, seems to me peculiarly crucial in Scheffler's thoughts. I agree with him that values are what allows us to work together, and besides to give this cooperation a multigenerational dimension, which he calls tradition. Values let us to relate “to those who come after us” to make us like curators: we are liable for the collection of values we want to convey. The actions related to this in turn mark what is to happen, paradoxically making our mention to the future personal. At the same time, however, specified a case requires the question whether the position adopted by Scheffler truly works? And this is not a trivial question, due to the fact that we are surviving in the position of disaster, which is not a thought experiment, but our very probable possibility. The book I am writing about was written on Tanner's Lectures which Scheffler gave at the University of California in Berkeley in 2012. So erstwhile the concept of anthropocene began to be enjoyed in technological discourse and popular avalanche interest. It says that we live in an age in which human activity can be described in terms of geological activity, and that it is an activity threatening the endurance of the species. Since then, we have known even more about climate change, acidification, extinction of species, failure of biodiversity or desertification. All these phenomena are alarming and relate to the future, for a part of us so distant that it concerns life after our expected death. Do the reactions that they origin truly show that we are surviving in the future, and do we care that mankind continues erstwhile we die? Or possibly the imagination of the impending catastrophe drives us into a marazmus to mention to the book Ewa Binczyk The Age of Man. Rhetorology and anthropocene marazm? How many of us are not curious in this kind of moving into the future and focus on surviving comfortably, pleasantly, at least with as small inconvenience and anxiety as possible? any of these questions appear in the commentary on Scheffler's doctrine in the book, which allows him to clarify his position in the answer.
For justice's sake, Scheffler is not building a universal concept. He makes it clear that erstwhile he writes about our attitudes, he writes about himself and those who share them with him. This justifies the partiality of his position (is any of us looking from a holistic perspective?). However, this does not make it pointless to point to the difficulties of this concept. Doesn't mean that Scheffler's considerations don't make sense. On the contrary. I think it's an crucial book. Written in a clear language, perfectly exploiting the possible of catastrophic thinking, sometimes witty (to indicate the title itself and the non-standard knowing of the "hypothesis of life after death") is simply a way of calling for us to see how crucial it is for our people here and now is the possible of succeeding generations, that "when I die, humanity will continue." possibly erstwhile we realize this better, it'll be easier for us to deal with the disasters that are truly waiting for us.
Samuel Scheffler, Death and Life After Death. erstwhile I die, humanity will continue, Łódź University Publishing House, Łódź 2019.
Image source: University of Lodz Publishing House
