Love You to Death: Medieval Compassion Meets the Philosophy of Dying

How empathetic were the Middle Ages? This question guides my research into medieval English and German literature. I tackle big issues (can we ever even know what people felt over 1000 years ago?) via medieval poetry, with the aim of unlocking the secrets of the medieval heart. Passing over the religious literature of the high and later Middle Ages, I investigate how narratives of sacrifice, courtly love, super-knights and crusaders perform and navigate the emotion of compassion. Join me on this centuries-spanning journey to find out how that most powerful of emotions, compassion, continues to be our bridge to the European medieval past.

While doctors and lawyers can all agree on when someone has died, they often disagree on whether someone is dying. In my talk, I’ll argue that this is because there are in fact a multitude of concepts of dying which lack clear definitions and conceptual distinctions. Mapping these out is one area in which philosophy can be particularly helpful. While the road to conceptualise dying is seemingly endless and full of twists, I will break down the variety of meanings that it might have, and how these can lead to real-life conflicts in medical decision-making.