The compendium comprises of sixteen different contributions by authors that include the members of the project group as well as various foreign academic authorities on the topics of life, death and dying. The authors thus belong to different countries and philosophical orientations. The idea behind such a collection was an attempt to present how different the understanding and experience of the topics of life, death and dying as universal themes may be. The diversity of collected papers reflects an effort to capture a broad spectrum of different dealings with these topics and includes studies of the attitude of life and death from classical China, ancient India, antique and modern Europe, all the way to contemporary Japan and Slovenia. Furtermore, addressing these topics does not remain purely theoretical but includes practical aspects of the attitude towards life and dying. These include clinical studies and surveys. Practical studies in the compendium address topics, such as demographic changes, a changing attitude towards the elderly, fear of death, suicide, an attitude towards funeral services, brain death, organ donation, paliative care etc.
C.02 Editorial board of a national monograph
COBISS.SI-ID: 257482240Beside buckwheat as national dish in both countries, Slovenia and Japan share also very high suicide rates. They are among the highest in the world. The paper brought into consideration work of Japanese suicidologists and put it into perspective with Durkheim’s theories on voluntary death, especially the form of the narcissistic suicide, and its possible impact on the famous Japanese writers’ suicides and their philosophy behind these acts. In the past thirty years radical economic and demographic changes took place in Japanese traditional lifestyles. The lecture was, however very careful about dictating anything like an inclination to suicidal behaviour into the concept of Japan’s identity. It rather looked into the question of the changing definitions of Japan’s identity and the Confucian influences on it in the realm of respect for elders and elder care. It tried to answer the question whether suicide is still considered a dignified way to die in Japan. Theories of »successful aging« were presented in the paper as well as the changing attitudes towards burial, cremation and organ donation in both countries.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 47102562The lecture introduced the Jain ontological model within a wider context of Indian philosophy. Amongst all the Indian philosophical schools it is only the Jain ontological teaching that regards permanence and change, that is the basic elements of reality, to be in a coordinated relationship. This approach is related to the Jain epistemology of non-onesidedness, which grants a limited degree of reality to each statement about the nature of reality due to the infinite number of changing modes in each substance. Furthermore, the Jain practice of fasting unto death was addressed and the link between the ontological doctrine and an attitude towards death outlined.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 47214690