Halewood, M (2015) 'Death, Entropy, Creativity and Perpetual Perishing: Some Thoughts from Whitehead and Stengers.' Social Sciences, 4 (3). pp. 655-667. ISSN 2076-0760
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Abstract
In this paper, I argue that we need to rethink how we conceive of death as ?inevitable?. There are two main strands to my analysis. First, I use the work of Stengers to trace the complex and, occasionally, contradictory ways in which the concept of entropy was developed within physics in the 19th and 20th century. I argue that this has led to a general but ill-conceived notion of the universe as wasting away, as dying. This is a form of inevitability which has infected our understanding of what constitutes the death of individual humans. I then turn to the contrast that Whitehead draws between creativity and ?perpetual perishing?. I suggest that this contrast might help us to develop a wider, more coherent, approach to thinking about the status of death, and its supposed inevitability. In the final section, I reflect upon my father?s death in 2013 in light of some of the concepts and problems raised throughout the paper.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | entropy; creativity; Whitehead; Stengers; inevitability; death |
Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology, Department of |
SWORD Depositor: | Elements |
Depositing User: | Elements |
Date Deposited: | 03 Nov 2015 10:29 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jan 2022 13:28 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/15384 |
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