Philosophy promises happiness through contemplation. It is the "stillness of the soul's dialogue with itself". Contemplation is like death in that it offers calm in life's present existence without forethought or regret. Living in the present moment, without the blaming past or the foreboding future is immortality.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) adopted Lucretius' argument against immortality: "Imagine honestly how much less bearable and more painful to man would be an everlasting life." After a near death experience while surveying his estate on horseback, Montaigne writes that he felt no fear during or after the incident. The imminence of death was "faced with equanimity".

Frances Bacon (1561-1626) was amassing data in a particularly cold London winter with snow on the ground. His idea was that snow stuffed inside a hen might preserve the flesh as salt does. He stepped out of the carriage to secure the bird and initiate the experiment and became immediately ill with a cold. He died in a few days without knowing if his experiment proved power over nature.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) died of conflicting sources. A cholera epidemic swept Berlin taking 2500 lives with Hegel being a victim. His wife, however, claimed he died from complications due to a stomach ailment acquired on a trip to Paris in 1827. Her insistence may have been due to the stigma surrounding the burial of cholera victims, at night, without ceremony, and in separate graveyards.

Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-89) is known for separating philosophy from life. A famous story tells of Ayer confronting Mike Tyson at a Manhatten party of an underwear designer. Talking to a group of models, his attention was diverted by a woman saying that Tyson was forcing himself on Naomi Campbell. Ayer warned Tyson to take his hands off of Campbell to which Tyson exclaimed, "Do you know who I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world." Ayer replied, "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both eminent in our field. I suggest we talk like rational men." By that time, Campbell had escaped the scene.

Of the 190 philosopher's lives and deaths in Simon Critchley's book, Sigmund Freud's death is particularly memorable. Smoking cigars lead to a recurring cancerous growth in his mouth which produced such a revolting odor that his chow would not come close to him. Ultimately the growth formed a hole in his cheek where flies swarmed. At Freud's memorial service, Ernest Jones said, "If ever man can be said to have conquered death itself, to live on in spite of the King of Terrors, who held no terror for him, that man was Freud".

Critchey's point of writing the book is to show examples of noble and vituous ends as well as the base and comical...but above all, human like all of us. Highly Recommended.