2017 Volume 35 Issue 1 Pages 21-
Thanatology, after having been introduced in Japan, has been developing as clinical thanatology, that is, a technique for supporting dying ″others″. The problem of one’s own death seems to be left behind. At the beginning of this century, the author started an academic meeting entitled ″Conference for thanatology humanities″, to develop studies about the first-person death, based on the humanities. There are two main methodological principles in this new type of thanatology. The first is the epistemological distinction between the death of others and one′s own death. The second is developing methodologies for investigating ″my own death″ as an unexperiencable realm, or a metaphysical realm. The author expects that contemporary metaphysical trends in analytic philosophy and phenomenology may be useful, as well as Buddhist logic and other legacies of traditional wisdoms. A collection of papers, which the author plans to publish, will be introduced in this presentation.
