Mental Essentialism: Death Is Not The End Of Life

Considering the life cycle of animals and plants in a biological way, it is obvious that the death of living bodies would help the other living organisms grow with nutrients, and the living bodies would pass away after several years, a cycle would be looped. This points out that the present world life and death are related with each other closely. In other words, death is not the end of one’s life but regenerates in this cycle, death would contribute to the present world in another way, which is the standpoint of the passage. It, from this passages, raised out one of the most traditional philosophical problems: is dead the end of life? If not, what should death be?

To narrow down the definition of death, the most common philosophical assumption

My viewpoint is that death is the end or not, depending on what discipline of death is considered. For only considering physical essentialism, the death is definitely the end; for considering mental essentialism, the death is not the end but transforms some stuff to present world, which is similar to what the passage’s viewpoint.

For only concerning physical essentialism of death, I would approve that death is the end of life, as people would be only considered what would happen in their lives in personal case. The things before and after would not be bothered much as those would be out of ability, the other, who knows him, would not be affected by their death due to the concept of animalism. The relationship between death and life would not be impacted those people in such condition. Moreover, there are several philosophers sharing the similar thought on death: death is definitely the end of living bodies’ lives. Such ancient Epicurus and recent Partridge has similarly argued that death is a personally matter, which means that death would not affect the other living organisms included your relatives and love. It is just a suffrage for the one who died. Even Partridge has stated in a journal, ‘the death has no interests and is beyond harm and benefits.’ For example, if a stranger walked on a street, suddenly passed away due to heart disease, the stranger would not be emotionally or rationally

Although grief would not be something positive to people, there is no doubt that influence between death and lives is presented. It is similar to what the passage says when we consider death from mental essentialism aspect. The death and live would still have some interaction directly or obliquely, which would also be my standpoint for considering in such way.

To conclude, the general would consider death is the end of life as this consideration is based on their personal standpoint. Nonetheless, if it came up to a mental essentialism, death would not be only a personal case but also a social one. Although those ways of thinking are different from each other, one thing would be certain: death would able to consider in a life cycle way, which means death and live would have interactions, similarly to what the passage