The Solace
Finding Value in Death through Gratitude for Life
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- US$11.99
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- US$11.99
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How can we find solace when we face the death of loved ones? How can we find solace in our own death? When philosopher Joshua Glasgow's mother was diagnosed with cancer, he struggled to answer these questions for her and for himself. Though death and immortality introduce some of the most basic and existentially compelling questions in philosophy, Glasgow found that the dominant theories came up short.
Recalling the last months of his mother's life, Glasgow reveals the breakthrough he finally arrived at for himself, from which readers can learn and find solace. When we are grateful for life, we value all of it, and this includes death, its natural culmination. Just as we are grateful for the value in our lives, we can affirm this value in death. This is how to face death in a way that is both rational and comforting--in a way that provides solace.
Too often we think about death as nothing but a loss. But if we shift our thinking, we can focus on how the goodness of life radiates to all its parts, even to death itself. In this way, we can find solace in death without having to resort to sentimentalism, and we can do so in a way that is equally relevant for the religious and non-religious. This path to solace provides a reassuring and significant tool for those grappling with the fact that we pass away.
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In this sharp work, philosopher Glasgow (Four Views on Race) combines the analytic thought of philosophy with his personal reflections to examine whether there is comfort to be found and offered when responding to the inevitability of human death. Glasgow, whose mother's cancer diagnosis formed the impetus for this exploration, begins with the assumption of there being no afterlife and death as the "awful deprivations" of the goodness of life: a path that leads "out of the frying pan and into the abyss." Glasgow then questions if the idea of immortality might be the path to understanding solace in the human condition, but determines an immortal life would change the values by which humans live: considering "the value of immortality drives us into a tangle of ignorance and incommensurability." What's left, the philosopher argues, is a third route that begins with gratitude for the good that life is and the good things that can only be appreciated by embracing mortality. A stimulating sideline of this argument is the way it allows for "imperfections." For instance, an ugly sweater knit by a loving grandmother is meaningful and good despite its unattractiveness: "you store that ugly sweater for safekeeping." While readers looking for simple comfort to share when confronted with death won't find it here, those seeking a fresh view on death's meaning will have much to ponder.
