“什么是死亡”这一追问“死亡”本质的问题历来为哲学家们所关注。在当代死亡哲学中，对这一问题的回答表现为以概念分析的方式来定义“死亡”；其中最为流行的一种观点，是把“死亡”定义为“生命体停止存活的必然事件”。以费尔德曼为代表的当代死亡哲学家们不满足于以往哲学家将遭遇死亡的主体限定于“人”的做法，认为一切有生命实体的死亡都同样地是“死亡”，并且拒绝在获得一个形而上的“死亡”定义之前对其作出任何预设。尽管如此，这一“死亡”定义在遇到“暂停活力”、分裂和融合等情形时，却无法对“死亡”是否发生作出符合经验认识的判断。 在对上述“停止论题”的“死亡”定义所遭遇的困难进行说明的基础上，本文旨在通过将“死后幸存”问题中的“终止论题”引入到“死亡”定义问题中，从“死亡”与“存在”的关系入手来探索能够避免上述困难的“死亡”新定义。首先，本文试图说明对“终止论题”中所说的“存在”可以有多种理解，从而区分“终止-现存论”与“终止-永存论”，并证明基于后者来定义“死亡”是一条可行的途径；其次，通过解释永存论的“终止论题”所承认的生命体在过去-现在-将来、存在-不存在等方面的变化，将生命体在时间中保持与自身的同一性作为解释其“存在/现存”的一个入口，并由帕菲特在个人同一性问题上的立场将生命体“存在/现存”进一步解释为其在时间中保持一种连续性的关系R；最后，再回到“终止论题”对“死亡”与“存在”关系的认识上，得出一个新的“死亡”定义——“生命体停止保持关系R的必然事件”。在这一定义的条件得到进一步的完善之后，本文认为该定义能够避免“停止论题”的“死亡”定义和其他“死亡”定义在解释经验世界中的“死亡”现象时所遇到的困难，进而在定义的普遍性和“死亡”现象的个别性之间取得平衡，在保证逻辑自恰的前提下为解释经验现象提供一个稳固的根基。以这样的方式来定义“死亡”，就是要以追求一种经验世界中“死亡”现象的普遍确定的基础为目标，期待获得一个能对经验世界中的“死亡”现象作出正确判断和解释的定义；这种定义不需要把“死亡”作为探讨“生命”的预设，从而能够避免人为地制造认识“死亡”的障碍。

The question of “what is death” has always been concerned by philosophers. In the contemporary philosophy of death, the answer to this question is to define “death” in the way of conceptual analysis. One of the most popular viewpoints is to define “death” as “the inevitable event that biological entities cease to live”. The contemporary philosophers on death, represented by Feldman, are not satisfied with their predecessors’ practice of limiting the subject of death to “person”, and hold that the death of all biological entities is equal “death”. They also refuse to make any presupposition on “death” before obtaining a metaphysical definition of it. Nevertheless, this definition of “death” cannot make a coherent judgment with experience on judging whether “death” is happen when confronted with the phenomenon of “suspended animation”, “fission” and “fusion”. On the basis of explaining the difficulties encountered in the definition of “death” in the “Cessation Thesis”, this paper aims to explore a new definition of “death” which can avoid the above difficulties by introducing the “Termination Thesis” in the question of “surviving after death” into the definition of “death”, starting with the relationship between “death” and “existence”. Firstly, this paper attempts to illustrate that there are many understandings of the “exist” in the “Termination Thesis”, so as to distinguish the “terminational-presentism” from the “terminational-eternalism”, and prove that to make a definition of “death” based on the latter is a feasible way. Secondly, by explaining the changes in the past-present-future and existing-not existing of life recognized by the “terminational-eternalism”, the identity of biological entities persisting during time with itself is regarded as an entry to explain its “existence/presenting”, and “the biological entities exist/present” can be further interpreted as its present on the issue of personal identity by Parfit’s standpoint: a continuous relation R is maintained between them. Finally, this paper returns to the understanding of “Termination Thesis” on the relationship between “death” and “existence”, and proposes a new definition of “death”, namely “the inevitable event that biological entities cease to maintain the relation R”. After the conditions of this definition have been further improved, this paper argues that the definition can avoid the difficulties met by the definition of “death” according to “Cessation Thesis” and other forms of defining “death” in explaining the phenomenon of “death” in the empirical world, and then keep a balance between the metaphysical nature of the definition and the experience of individual phenomena of “death”. This definition also provides a solid foundation for explaining empirical phenomena on the premise of ensuring logical self-righteousness. Defining death in this way is to aim at pursuing a universal confirmable basis of the phenomenon of “death” in the empirical world and expects to obtain a definition that can correctly judge and explain the phenomenon of “death” in the empirical world; such a definition has no need to make “death” to be a preset of “life”, so it can avoid the obstacle which is manufactured artificially while we try to comprehend “death”.