Abstract
This essay is an exercise in what might be called metaphysical sociology. Metaphysical sociology focusses on the meaning questions that confront all humans, questions about origins, about what to do with one's life, and about death. In particular, the essay examines the place of death in the modern secular psyche, given that interpretations of mortality have become clouded in uncertainty.
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Notes
Norman Mailer, Marilyn, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1974, p. 204.
G. Wilson Knight, ‘The Embassy of Death’, The Wheel of Fire, Methuen, London, 1949, ch. 2; John Carroll, The Wreck of Western Culture, Humanism Revisited, Scribe, Melbourne, 2004, ch. 3.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Heritage Press, New York, 1969, p. 100.
John Carroll, The Existential Jesus, Scribe, Melbourne, 2007.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (1907), Modern Library, New York, 1944.
Max Weber, ‘Science as a Vocation’, in From Max Weber, ed. and trans. H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1948.
Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, trans. T. E. Hulme and J. Roth, Collier, New York, 1950.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Preface, included in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann, Viking, New York, 1954.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, section 7, included in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann, Modern Library, New York, 1966.
Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, trans. Joan Riviere, Hogarth, London, 1963, pp.74-8.
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, op. cit., section 3.