death, entropy, creativity and perpetual perishing: some thoughts from whitehead and stengers
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ID: 144104
2015
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Abstract
In this paper, I argue that we need to rethink how we conceive of death as “inevitable”. There are two main strands to my analysis. First, I use the work of Stengers to trace the complex and, occasionally, contradictory ways in which the concept of entropy was developed within physics in the 19th and 20th century. I argue that this has led to a general but ill-conceived notion of the universe as wasting away, as dying. This is a form of inevitability which has infected our understanding of what constitutes the death of individual humans. I then turn to the contrast that Whitehead draws between creativity and “perpetual perishing”. I suggest that this contrast might help us to develop a wider, more coherent, approach to thinking about the status of death, and its supposed inevitability. In the final section, I reflect upon my father’s death in 2013 in light of some of the concepts and problems raised throughout the paper.
| Reference Key |
halewood2015socialdeath,
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|---|---|
| Authors | ;Michael Halewood |
| Journal | journal of health care chaplaincy |
| Year | 2015 |
| DOI |
10.3390/socsci4030655
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| URL | |
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