Death
A close philosophical look at mortality, taught by Shelly Kagan, Yale's Clark Professor of Philosophy, across 26 lectures recorded in Spring 2007. Kagan works through arguments for the existence of the soul, competing theories of personal identity, whether death is genuinely bad for the person who dies, whether immortality would actually be desirable, and finishes on the rationality and morality of suicide. Reading includes Plato's Phaedo, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych, and a course packet of essays by Thomas Nagel, Bernard Williams, and others, with grading based on three short papers and section participation rather than a final exam. Video lectures, transcripts, and the full syllabus are free through Open Yale Courses. Kagan's own book Death, published by Yale University Press, grew out of this course.