Sherwin Nuland's world view
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Sherwin Nuland's world view, as he presents it to us in How We Die is in many ways radically different from the view of Socrates on life and death as that philosopher's perspective is presented to us by his student Plato in his Euthypro, Crito and Apology. This should in no way surprise us, for a vast difference lies between the classical, polytheistic world of Athens in the fifth century before the Christian era and the contemporary, secular world of a scientist like Nuland. The differences in their worlds and in the amount of knowledge that the two have about those worlds and in the lives of their audiences make the similarity in what they have to say about life and death even more striking. This paper explores the philosophies of the two men, looking especially at the ways in which they describe death and how the understanding that each individual brings to bear on the subject of death helps to define that person's life.Nuland, who is a surgeon, examines the six most common causes of death in the United States (and one presumes that these are similar to the causes of death in other First World nations), including cancer, heart disease, AIDS and Alzheimer's, trauma and simple old age. One of his goals in writing this book is clearly to demystify the process of disease and of death itself. Nearly every one of us knows someone - a grandparent, a former teacher, a rabbi or priest or iman - who has died of one of these diseases. And because we know that these diseases are res
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doctors the temptation (and perhaps even the desire) to use extraordinary measures to prolong for brief periods the lives of those whose bodies can no longer practically sustain life. But more important even than a climate in which doctors are more likely to console their patients than to rig them up to expensive and fruitless machines is a philosophy that argues that we understand and accept death, and knowing that our days are numbered choose to live each one of them in as meaningful a way as is possible.
Socrates would not disagree with this idea, that life is important and that far too many people fail to pay attention to what is important in life. It is this idea, that the fact that we are mortal should make each one of us more attentive to the value of each moment, that bridges the differences in the philosophy of the two. Socrates - and again we must remember that we do not have his direct teachings on the subject but rather Plato's rendition of them - is more sanguine about death. We must take this lack of fear or horror with some reservations (it would be far easier for Plato to be calm about Socrates's death, notwithstanding the strong bond between them than it would be for Socrates himself). But we must also give Socr
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Approximate Word count = 1664
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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