The issue of human relatedness to death manifests itself in various forms. There is neither a single, unchangeable attitude nor a correct one. In recognition of their importance, traditional attitudes towards death can be presented under three headings:

• Death is not the absolute end of the human being.

• Death is the absolute end of the human being.

• Sceptical, evasive and indifferent attitudes to death.

Death-awareness enables the individual to look into some fundamental questions and develop an attitude and relationship to death. What is death? How do people relate to it? In order to illustrate diverse interpretations of attitudes, reference will be made in this section to various cultures, including some ancient civilisations. This provides the relevant background knowledge that will be linked with later discussions on Jaspers' existential analysis of death.

Definiton and Criteria of Death

There is a traditional view which maintains that death is the muse of philosophy. Indeed, the concept of death has inspired numerous philosophical reflections on human existence. For Plato, for example, preparing oneself for death is the most important part of philosophising. Although it has preoccupied every society for thousands of years, death remains one of the most mystifying phenomena.

Death is an enigmatic universal event, a mysterious prospective state, in that some aspects of it do not seem to be accessible to the human mind. What, then, is the nature of death? Providing a precise definition and an adequate philosophical analysis of death is a difficult if not an impossible task.