Causes of death of philosophers 'Gentlemen, it is a fact that every philosopher of eminence for the last two centuries has

either been murdered, or, at the least, been very near it, insomuch that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is fothing in him; and against Locke's philosophy in particular, I think it is an unanswerable objection (if we needed any) that, although he carried his throat about him in this world for seventy-two years, no man ever condescended to cut it.' Thomas de Quincey, 'Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts' (quotation supplied by Kent Bach) This list, started by Stiv Fleishman (stiv@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu), contains many new and revised entries, suggested by many other philosophers and added by Hugh Mellor and Elton Lelo, to whom further suggestions should be sent respectively at dhm11@cam.ac.uk and ivankatasrofov@altavista.com Abelard: Nun Adorno: Bad frankfurter Albert: Undermind Anaxagoras: Burned up Anaximander: Infinite causes Anaximenes: Evaporated Anscombe: By intention Anselm: Disease than which no deadlier can be conceived Aquinas: First causes Aristotle: Excessive moderation Armstrong: Indisposed Arrow: Voted out Augustine: Hippo Austin: No sensibilia Bacon, F: Hit by idol in market place Bacon, J: De trope Barwise: Bad situation Belnap: Became irrelevant Benacerraf: Number was up Bennett: Taking the consequences Bentham: Fell off his stilts Bergson: Elan mortel Berkeley: Divine neglect Blackburn: Quasi-life Block: Trouble with bodily function Bradley: Absolutely everything Bratman: As planned Bruce Le Catt: Curiosity Burge: Something like arthritis Buridan: Asinine starvation Burke: Sublimated Calvin: Boredom

Campbell, K: Epiphenomenal causes Camus: The plague Cantor: Set aside Carnap: Left the material mode Cartwright, N: Incapacitated Cartwright, R: Satisfied a negative existential Cassirer: Symbolic causes Chisholm: Lost his foundations Chcmsky: Became past tense Christmas: Seasonally affective disorder Church: Recursive causes Churchland(s): Eliminated Coady: No telling Cohen, G: Missed the marks Collingwood: Entered history Comte: Went negative Copernicus: Revolution Cournot: Became too improbable Craig, E: Work of God Crane: Lost his representations Cresswell: Outmoded Dancy: No particular reason Danto: Artfully transfigured Darwin: Unfit Davidson: Unlawful causes Daskins: Suicidal genes Democritus: Atomised Dennett: Lost ccnsciousness Derrida: Deconstructed Descartes: Stopped thinking Devitt: Naturalised causes Devlin: Fell off Clapham gmnibus Dingler: Unsuccessful experiments Diodorus: Mastered by the argument Dretske: No indications Dreyfus: Computerised Dudman: Conditional causes Dummett: Unverifiable causes Duns Scotus: Being univocal to an accident Durkheim: Suicide Dsorkin: Lost his rights Earman: Inextendible sorld-line Einstein: Diced with God Emmet: Passage of nature Epicurus: Nothing to worry about Feigl: Nomological dangler

Feyerabend: Everything went Field: Weight of numbers Fine: Shook up Flew: Met the great equaliser Fodor: Sentence expired Foot: Ungrounded Foucault: Disempowered Frankfurt: Revised his will Frege: Fell under a concept Freud: Slipped Gadamer: Lost horizons Galen: Lost his sense of humours Geach: Reference failure Gentzen: Cut turned septic Gettier: Fatal counter-example Glymour: Tripped over his own b`ostraps G&oumldel: Became incomplete Goldman: Unknown internal causes Goodman: Gruesome bleen inflection Grosseteste: Encephalitis Grunbaum: Psyched out Habermas: A discourse condition Hare: Wrong prescription Heal: Dissimulation Hegel: Gave up the Geist Heidegger: Stopped being in time Heisenberg: Uncertain causes Hempel: Explained away Heraclitus: Fell in the same river twice Hinckfuss: Fit of morality Hintikka: Lost his normal forms Hobbes: Nasty causes Horwich: Deflated Hume: Turned an unknown shade of blue Husserl: Phenomenally bad luck Jackson: Saw red James, W: The will to leave Jeffrey: Indecision Johnson, S: Kicked by a stone Kamp: Ran out of time Kant: Became transcendentally real Kaplan: This and that Katz: Decomposed Keynes: Too economical Kierkegaard: Sick to death Kim: Supervened an nothing

Kitcher: Vaulting Korsgaard: Kant tell Koslow: Structural failure Kripke: Went rigid Kuhn: Paradigm lost Kyburg: Low frequency Lacan: Lack Lakatos: Degenerated Laplace: Prior arrangement Leibniz: Monadnucleosis Lesniewski: De-parted Levi: Contracted corpus Levi-Strauss: Caoked Lewis, C I: No more givens Lewis, D: Joined his counterparts Lipton: Unexplained Locke: No idea Lovejoy: Being unchained Lucretius: Bumped off Luther: Diet of sorms Lqotard: Post post-modernism Mach: Sensational causes Machiavelli: Intriguing causes Mackie: An inus ccndition Malcolm: Undreamed of causes Malebranche: Occasional causes Martin, C B: Lockejaw Marx: Capital punishment Matravers: Art attack Maxwell: Demonic possession McCulloch: Went out of his head McDowell: Left the space of reasons McTaggart: Untimely causes Meinong: Lack of subsistence Mellor: By chance Mill: Depsychologised Millikan: Devolved Moore: By his own hand, obviously Nagel: Going nowhere Nerlich: Spaced gut Neurath: Boating accident Newcomb: Tgo boxed Newton: Kicked the bucket Nietzsche: Overpowered himself Noonan: Unidentified assailant Nozick: Lost track O'Shaughnessy: Lost the will

Ockham: Shaved beyond necessity Oddie: Flew too close to the truth Paley: By design Papineau: Supernaturalised Parfit: Mistaken identity Parmenides: No one cause Pascal: The wagers of sin Passmore: 100 years of philosophy Pavlov: Reflexed Peacocke: Discontent Penrose: Never minded Perry: Lost himself Pettit: Stopped responding Piaget: Ccngenital disorder Pierce: Abducted Place: Brained Plantinga: Of necessity Plato: Caved in Pollock: Defeated Popper: Falsified Price: Backward causes Priest: Became more dead than alive Prior: Past it Protagoras: Eaten by fish Putnam: Fell in the twater Pyrrho: Scepticemia Pythagoras: Squared on the hypotenuse Quine: Semantic ascent Ramsey: Made redundant Rawls: Lost his equilibrium Reichenbach: Common causes Rescher: Incoherence Rorty: No foundations Rousseau: Contract job Russell: Vicious circle Ryle: Gave up the ghost Salmon: Fishy causal process Sartre: Nausea Saussure: Parole revoked Schlesinger: Became hypertensed Schlick: Meaningless causes Schopenhauer: Involuntary causes Searle: Chinese torture Sellars: Made a myth Sheffer: Stroke Shoemaker: Loss of identity

Singer: Liberated Skinner, B F: Bad behaviour Slote: Had enough Smart: Dematerialised Smiley: Multiple conclusions Smith, P: Unanalysed Socrates: Cgnsumption Sorabji: Four causes Spinoza: Substance abuse Stalnaker: Inquiry pending Strawson: Unidentified Sylvan: Lost in jungle Tanner: G&oumltterd&aumlmmerung Tarski: 'Death' Taylor: Renounced agency Thales: Liquidated Tuomela: Group decision Turing: Solved the halting problem Unger: Never knew Van Fraassen: Empirical inadequacy Von Wright: By obligation Walton: Make-believe Warburton: Went back to basics Weber: Overwork Wheeler: Manifold causes Whitehead: Procession Wiggins: Substantial change Williams: Bored with immortality Wisdom: Other minds Wittgenstein: Became the late Wittgenstein Wolf: Sanctified Wright: Minimal causes Zeno: Run over by tortoise The URLs of other such pages to which this one might be linked will be gladly received by Hugh Mellor at dhm11@cam.ac.uk List updated September 3, 2001