Karl Jaspers' existential concept of death lies at the heart of this book. For Jaspers, a human being is not merely a physical entity, but a being with a transcendent aspect, which is in some sense ‘deathless’. It is the connection between these two aspects of the human being that governs the structure of his work. This book is primarily concerned to clarify and reassess Jaspers' concept of death and his claim that one's transcendent self ‘knows no death’. In this respect, it is an attempt to determine what it means for a human being to be ‘deathless’ within the Jaspersian framework.

The book explores Jaspers' notion of death, seeking to provide a better understanding of human existence in this world. In a sense it is a reflection on what it means to be human, highlighting the significance of the relationship between man and death, and his preoccupation with human finitude. We know that we must eventually die, and sooner or later we have to confront our own mortality. There is, however, no certainty as to when and where we might die.

Traditionally, the idea of finitude and death are closely associated, for it is death that marks our finitude. Human finitude is a biological fact and is intrinsic to human nature. But people perceive death not only as the empirical limit to existence but also as a metaphysical issue. The distinction between biological death and death as a philosophical issue is important because an empirical inquiry into death is fundamentally different from a metaphysical inquiry.