Building a profile model for the concept of death

Abstract

In this chapter we present a study of a concept that is not included in the school curricula: the concept of death. Nevertheless, the study of death is justified because it is a concept that is at the heart of people’s existence through its opposition to the concept of life. In this article we address the historical and epistemological construction of the concept of death, considering different knowledge fields, such as biology, medicine, philosophy, sociology, psychoanalysis, and psychology. We then proceed to the identification of the zones of a profile model of death through a dialogue between theoretical sources and empirical data collected from students attending higher education biological sciences, medicine, and pedagogy courses. Finally we analyze the evolution of the zones, examining different semesters of one of those courses. It was possible to identify for the concept of death in three zones: naturalistic, religious, and relational. The naturalistic zone expresses a conception of death as something natural, a result of a condition intrinsic to living organisms. The religious zone contains a comprehension of death as something that results from the “divine will” and represents a passage for the eternal life. The relational zone shows conceptions that deny or hide death, attributing to death a condition of fatality, something that could not exist.