I’M confronted by historical circumstances to write on a topic of death, which philosophers and theologians believe is the necessary end of man’s existence on the planet earth while other scholars see death as a taboo which man hardly remembers to reflect on.
Benedict Spinoza, one of the best-known philosophers in our modern period saw death as a topic which mankind does not cherish to reflect on.
In a celebrated proposition of etica (ethics, Spinoza affirmed thus: “of no other thing does man have less thought of than of death; his wisdom remains not in the meditation of death but of life, (home liber nulla reminu quam de morte cogitate. Et eius sapient non mortis, sed vitae meditation est).
Battisa Mondin said in his book “ philosophical Anthropology” that the above suggestion by Spinoza who is one of the fathers of philosophy and modern western culture has become law of the adult’ ‘mature’, ‘free’ ‘secularized’ man of all times’
The argument or decision of death has become ‘taboo’ not only for convivial conversations, but also for the serious meditation of philosophers and men of letters of all clime and times.
“ the French anthropologist L.V Thomas observe that: ‘between the society of today and intellectuals, there exists a tacit understanding: I count on you “ say the readers, as long as you furnish me with instruments with which to forget, disguise and negate death. If you do not perform the task I have given you, then you will be dismissed; that is, I will no longer read you”’
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Ironically, death has become not only the most immanent characteristics of human existence, it is also an actual event an absolute potentiality, and death is the fate of all human existence. For according to some philosophers the moment we are born, we are ready candidates for death and condemned to die.
Blaise pascal, one of the best-known French philosophers presented the above fact of death in a very beautiful way when he wrote thus; “what we are speaking of is of ourselves and of our all. The immortality of soul is something, which regards us so strongly, which touches us so profoundly that we need to completely lose our good sense to be indifferent to the knowledge of how things stand. All of our actions and thoughts must take very diverse directions according to whether there is (or not) an eternal life to hope for so that it is impossible to make a sensible and prudent choice without working from the solution of this problem which refers to our final end.”
Battisa mondin said, “man cannot escape from the research of the existential truth that ensures a sense for the present and future life.
I am compelled to research on the existential finality of man which is called death because of the overwhelming occurrence of this phenomenon in our nation state by a combination of man made and natural causes. On the last count over 30,000 Nigerians have been slaughtered by two most notorious terrorism gangsters namely the Boko Haram terrorists and the armed Fulani herdsmen. The demise of so many Nigerians have aroused in me the philosophical passion to ask the fundamental question of; death what are you?
Obviously, there are three facts, which are indisputable when it comes to a reflection on the meaning of death: firstly, there is the undeniable fact that man dies; secondly, that it is an event concerning a being (human being) gifted with self-consciousness, self-transcendence, freedom, spirituality and subsistence in the areas of the spirit and personality and lastly that although we lack direct experience of death, nevertheless it is not completely missing when it comes to knowledge.
Philosophers affirmed that humanity possess two fold indirect knowledge of death: the first is the sight of others who die; the second is the cognizance that life is a constant and progressive yielding and subjection to death, so much that we can say, quotide morior, that is expressed in another words every day cedes to death a part of the days which have been assigned to me for my life. Conversely the transition exactly two years ago of my Father Mazi Cyprian Okorieocha Onwubiko brought home the reality of this phenomenon. This morning an information concerning the death of a Lady friend Ms Hope a twin from Imo State provided compelling reason for dusting up this piece which I penned many years back when I emerged fresh from my Philosophical studies.
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Augustine, one of the world’s greatest theologians and a proud African wrote in his book ‘city of God’ that; “from the moment a man begins to exist in a body which is destined to die, he is involved all the time in a process whose end is death:”
Plato one of the most ancient thinkers saw man as imprisoned in the corporeal body and it is only in death that the soul is liberated from the corporeal imprisonment.
Welsel Barnes views death as the terminal point for an existence of alienation, despair and agony, from an existential point of view, death is destroyer and preserver. Soren Kiekegaard sees death as the end of life and resumption of a new life. He said that life that ends at death is physical and the new life which the individual assumes sat death, is the happy life thereafter.
Few weeks back the Nigerian Minister of State for Labour and Employment Mr James Ocholi a Senior Advocate of Nigeria was killed alongside his wife in a road crash near Kaduna. The driver of that vehicle who survived is now known not to be validly qualified to drive. But the damage caused by his recklessness can not be corrected. The best piece of advice I have for Nigerians is that we must preserve life and take all actions to ensure that nobody is allowed to kill and escape unpunished. Let’s restore sacredness to life.
• Emmanuel Onwubiko is Head of Human rights Writers association of Nigeria and blogs @www.huriwa.blogspot.com, www.rightsassociationngr.com, www.huriwa.org.