Free online coursePhilosophy of Death

Course Description

Death is certain, but our ideas about what it is and why it matters are anything but simple. This free online course invites you to examine mortality with the tools of philosophy, replacing vague assumptions with careful arguments and clearer concepts. You will learn how philosophers ask questions about persons, minds, and meaning, and why these questions shape what we think death takes from us, what might remain, and how we should live while we can.

The course begins by grounding the discussion in metaphysics: what kinds of things exist, what a person is, and whether we are best understood as physical organisms or as beings with an immaterial soul. You will consider major positions such as dualism and physicalism, and work through classic lines of reasoning about consciousness, free will, and reports of near-death experiences. Plato’s Phaedo appears as a central case study, not as a historical artifact, but as a living debate: what arguments are offered for immortality, what assumptions do they rely on, and where do critics think they fail?

From there, the focus turns to personal identity over time. What makes you the same individual from one moment to the next: your soul, your body, or the continuity of your psychology and character? These questions are tested against challenging thought experiments involving change, duplication, and memory loss, pushing you to separate mere survival from what you actually care about when you imagine your own future.

With that foundation, the course explores the nature and badness of death. Is death bad because it is painful, because it ends experience, or because it deprives us of goods we would otherwise have had? You will evaluate the deprivation account and related views, and then examine whether immortality would truly be desirable or whether an endless life could undermine the very sources of meaning and value that make living worthwhile.

Finally, the course addresses fear of death, how to live in light of mortality, and difficult topics such as dying alone and suicide, approached with philosophical rigor rather than sensationalism. Throughout, short exercises help you test your understanding and strengthen your ability to reason carefully about life’s most unavoidable limit. By the end, you will not only know the major arguments in contemporary philosophy of death—you will be better equipped to think, speak, and decide with clarity when these questions become personal.