Life After Death - A Philosophical Discussion

In today's geeky web video, Professor Shelly Kagan of Yale asks some huge questions: is there life after death? Well...to answer this, Kagan backs up and asks: what is a person? What is a person made of, and thus what part of that person would have to survive the death event? From there, Kagan dives into a fascinating discussion of issues of identity, what is means to be a person, what within us might survive after death, and so on. It's provocative, and he's a hell of a speaker.

The lecture is only the second in a twenty-six lecture series in Kagan's course Death, all of which are available online via Academic Earth, a resource hosting tons of college lectures online...all for free. Check it out.

The lecture's official description:

Professor Kagan discusses the two main positions with regard to the question, "What is a person?" On the one hand, there is the dualist view, according to which a person is a body and a soul. On the other hand, the physicalist view argues that a person is just a body. The body, however, has a certain set of abilities and is capable of a large range of activities.

If you can't see the video player, visit the lecture page.