Death & Identity: A Philosophical Comparison Between East & West.

This thesis offers a thought experiment on death and identity: can one solve interpretational problems in one cultural text through a Comparative Methodology with another cultural text? I make two claims: that cultures distinct in time or geography can have Shared Concerns regarding death and identity; and that using cultural texts with Shared Concerns helps solve interpretational problems within the framework of one of the cultural texts. The methodology is designed to tease out existing, yet implicit, notions within cultural texts. I offer two test-cases for the Comparative Methodology. Firstly, I put Plato’s Phaedo in dialogue with the Buddhist Milindapañha. I analyse specific Shared Concerns between the texts before attempting to solve the problem of moral accountability in Phaedo. I do so by using John Locke’s ideas on identity as a philosophical and terminological framework. Secondly, I analyse Empedocles’ poem with the Indian Kaṭha Upaniṣad as an added test-case to the Comparative Methodology. Specifically, the philosophical concern for Empedocles regards identity and moral accountability in a possible form of liberation. To what extent is the purification and possible liberation of the daimon morally conditioned, and does (self) understanding lead to a possible form of liberation?