The recognition of nothingness

Philosophical Studies 177 (9):2585-2603 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

I describe a distinctive kind of fear that is generated by a vivid recognition of one’s mortal nature. I name it ‘existential shock’. This special fear does not take our future annihilation as any kind of harm, whether intrinsic or extrinsic. One puzzling feature of existential shock is that it is experienced as disclosing an important truth, yet attempts to specify this revelatory content bring us back to familiar facts about one’s inevitable death. But how can I discover something that I already knew? I argue that in our everyday lives, we are in the grip of deeply entrenched patterns of thought and feeling that prevent the knowledge of our mortality from being fully assimilated. Rather, we merely ‘pay lip service’ to the facts of our mortality. I propose that existential shock involves a distinctive mode of presentation of oneself as a mortal being, in a way that cuts through subtle layers of denial that govern our lives. I develop this thesis by utilizing and synthesizing ideas from several traditions, including the work of Samuel Scheffler, Mark Johnston, Martin Heidegger, and Jay L. Garfield.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,343

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The expectation of nothingness.James Baillie - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (S1):185-203.
Existential Terror.Ben Bradley - 2015 - The Journal of Ethics 19 (3-4):409-418.
Unmoored: Mortal Harm and Mortal Fear.Kathy Behrendt - 2019 - Philosophical Papers 48 (2):179-209.
Death and the Meaning of Life.Michael J. Sigrist - 2015 - Philosophical Papers 44 (1):83-102.
On being (not quite) dead with Derrida.Bob Plant - 2015 - Philosophy and Social Criticism 42 (3):320-338.
Having Some Regard for Human Frailty.Katherine Withy - 2022 - In Ingo Farin & Jeff Malpas, Heidegger and the human. Albany: State University of New York Press. pp. 307-324.
Fear of Death and the Will to Live.Tom Cochrane - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102:1–17.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-08-03

Downloads
131 (#172,305)

6 months
15 (#168,777)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

James Baillie
University of Portland

Citations of this work

Fear of Death and the Will to Live.Tom Cochrane - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102:1–17.
Naturalistic Entheogenics.Chris Letheby - 2022 - Philosophy and the Mind Sciences 3.
Replies to Timmerman and Gorman.John Martin Fischer - 2022 - The Journal of Ethics 26 (3):395-414.
Why Immortality Could Be Good.John Martin Fischer - 2024 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 32 (1):78-100.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1984 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Behaviorism 15 (1):73-82.
The View from Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 92 (2):280-281.
The view from nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (2):221-222.

View all 23 references / Add more references