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Zombies & Philosophy

When A Body Meets A Body

Tim Madigan discovers that Jeremy Bentham has risen from the grave!

“Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust inclosed here;
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.”
Epitaph on William Shakespeare’s headstone

For reasons I can’t entirely fathom, I have a predilection for visiting the graves of philosophers. So far, I’ve stopped by the final resting places of, among others, Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, Marx, Sartre and de Beauvoir (in the last case it was two for the price of one, since they are buried together at Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris). Given that they were all at best skeptical about the afterlife, if not downright deniers of it, one could ask why I make it a point to visit those who are surely not at home. One reason is that, while admitting their superiority to me as thinkers, I do have one advantage over these famous philosophers.

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