Vladimir Jankélévitch, La Mort (Death), and Brain Dead Person (by M)

As I wrote in the previous entry, I distinguished among three concepts in the book, Brain Dead Person, Chapter 5: namely, "my death", "the death of a person familiar to me", and "the death of a person unfamiliar to me." And I stressed that these three concepts have completely different meanings to us. Concerning the precise differences I would like you to read the translated text, here I want to add one thing. I am not the first philosopher who distinguished these concepts. Vladimir Jankélévitch, a French philosopher, talked about them in his book, La Mort (Death), 1966. His description of death is philosophical and poetic. I read his book in Japanese translation when I was a colloge student, and I was very impressed with his analysis. If you are interested in Chapter 5 of Brain Dead Preson, I would strongly advise you to read Jankélévitch.

By the way, a couple of book reviews of The Insensitive Man appeared in newspapers this week. I will add them to the above page soon.

Photo: The entrance of a hotel.

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