Meanings of death seen through the lens of grieving

Through the lens of grief we can discern many meanings of death, human existence, suffering, the life of the deceased, the life of the mourner, and love. This essay summarizes what the author, in part inspired by Herman Feifel, has learned about such meanings in nearly three decades of thinking, teaching, and writing about grieving as an active response to what happens in bereavement and the suffering that loss entails. It recasts his rethinking of grief within the broad categories of philosophical reflection, including meta-theory and philosophy of science, conceptual analysis, existential-phenomenological analysis, philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.