Plato's Phaedo, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Heidegger's Being and Time are three of the most profound meditations on variations of the idea that to practise philosophy is to practise how to die. Francoise Dastur's study traces how these variations are connected with each other and with the reflections of this idea to be found in the works of other ancient and modern philosophers - including Nietzsche, Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas.

Professor Dastur also shows how this philosophical thanatology motivates or is motivated by experiences documented in psychoanalysis and in the anthropology of Western and Oriental religions and myths.