Death
This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.
The questions that illuminate it
Does something of us survive death?
It may be humanity's oldest question: graves are older than writing. If a soul survives, if something is reborn, death changes meaning and this life becomes a preparation, a trial, or a passage; if nothing survives, everything that matters must fit between birth and the end. To take a position is to say what death really ends, and what we can honestly hope escapes it.
How should we respond to the enigma of life's meaning?
The enigma is a common one: the meaning of life does not show itself, and everyone knows hours of disorientation when nothing seems to point to it. If there is a meaning, it must be sought and deciphered; if there is none, what remains is to create it, to revolt, or to give it up. To take a position is to say what attitude to hold in the face of this obscurity, and what can give our days their worth.
What attitude should we take toward death?
Faced with death, the first reaction is not a philosophy: it is fear. The whole question is what to do with it. Should we cure it, by understanding what makes it vain? Convert it into lucidity, because numbered days weigh more than days without number? Soothe it by preparing for a passage? Or concede that it is right, and refuse death as the evil above all others? Whether some part of us survives is another question, with its own axis: to take a position here is to choose what to do with one's own finitude, and with the fear that comes with it.