A Theory of Death

Abstract

A Theory of Death aims to understand what death is, as a natural biological phenomenon. While its conclusions are relevant to policy and practice regarding organ transplantation and related issues, it is not aimed at justifying or challenging any policy or practice. The book seeks only after the truth about death. The idea that there is such a thing as “the truth about death” is itself a deep and broad philosophical claim, requiring substantial justification and clarification of its own. Thus, a large portion of the book addresses more general philosophical questions about truth, meaning and reference, a justification of taxonomy, and the relationship between theory and reality. It defends the metatheoretical view known as scientific realism, which holds that the natural world exists independently of theory and social practice. The book includes detailed and comprehensive critiques of a variety of antirealist views, in particular, social constructivism and empiricism. On this realist philosophical foundation, theories of life on Earth and of death are developed. Life on Earth is explained from multiple complementary perspectives, as a dynamic, thermodynamic, chemical, and physiological system embedded in an ancient evolutionary context and tied to the contingent history of this planet. Death is explained from similar perspectives. Drawing on detailed case studies of mechanisms of bacterial antibiotics, necrosis, and apoptosis, along with consideration of homeostenosis and mechanisms of aging, death is explained as the event where entropy overwhelms homeostasis.