Death and Meaning

Every school of philosophy has had to answer the same two questions: how to face death, and what makes a life worth living. These books answer them in very different ways, from Socrates' calm to Tolstoy's crisis.

1. 1
   ApologyPlato · 50 min · ▶ ListenSocrates on trial: the unexamined life is not worth living.
2. 2
   PhaedoPlato · 2 hrs · ▶ ListenSocrates' last day, and the arguments for the soul's immortality.
3. 3
   Letters and Principal DoctrinesEpicurus · 1 hr · ▶ ListenDeath is nothing to us: where death is, we are not.
4. 4
   On the Shortness of LifeSeneca · 40 min · ▶ ListenWe don't lack time; we waste it.
5. 5
   That to Philosophize Is to Learn to DieMichel de Montaigne · from Essays · 25 min · ▶ ListenThat to philosophize is to learn to die.
6. 6
   A ConfessionLeo Tolstoy · 2 hrs · ▶ ListenAt fifty, famous and happy, Tolstoy could not see why he should live.
7. 7
   The Tragic Sense of LifeMiguel de Unamuno · 8 hrs · ▶ ListenThe hunger for immortality against the verdict of reason.