Immortality

Book Overview

Is there life after death or do we simply cease to exist? Renowned scholar Paul Edwards has compiled Immortality, a superb group of philosophical selections featuring the work of both classical and contemporary authors who address the topics of immortality, soul and body, transmigration, materialism, epiphenomenalism, physical research and parapsychology, reincarnation, disembodied existence, and much more.In addition to a 70-page editorial introduction...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1573921300
• ISBN13: 9781573921305
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A great book!

This is not a debunking work, but one to broaden our outlook into what other possibilities may exist. Who knows for sure? This book will make your brains do overtime, expand the mind, soothe the soul and caress the spirit. Paul Edwards has done an excellent job with this anthology of great thinkers.

A good overview of philosophical approaches to the topic

This text works well in college classes and for general readers interested in the range of views (pro and con) on the issue of life after death.

http://www.infidels.org/infidels/products/books/

"_Immortality_ is a compilation of numerous authors, ancient and modern, who address the question of whether or not there is a life after death. Edwards provides an excellent seventy page introduction which guides the reader through other relevant philosophical issues, such as the nature of the vehicles' for survival of bodily death, the mind-body problem, the traditional Christian concept of bodily resurrection, the evidence and arguments for and against reincarnation, and the relationship between belief in God and belief in survival of bodily death--where Edwards stresses an often overlooked fact that one can believe in either without believing in both (Voltaire, for example, was a deist who believed that the universe had a Creator because he accepted the argument from design, but rejected belief in life after death; and many modern-day parapsychologists who believe they have evidence for survival are also atheists). Edwards also emphasizes that mind-brain dependence does not entail the truth of a strict materialism that contends that mental states are identical to brain states; thus arguments against reductionist materialism are irrelevant to the factuality of the dependence of consciousness on the brain. _Immortality_ includes essays on life after death from such prominent historical thinkers as Plato, Lucretius, Tertullian, Descartes, Hume, Voltaire, and Kant to contemporary philosophers, parapsychologists, and theologians. _Immortality_ is clearly written and well-structured, allowing both a historical survey of differing opinions on the issue and an evaluation of the state of the evidence and arguments today from authors with opposing viewpoints."