Last night I heard the Vertavo Quartet perform Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 131 in de Kleine Zaal of de Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. On his deathbed, Schubert had this piece performed. [Schubert was, in fact, no stranger to composing a haunting C-minor quartet (unfinished).]
Whatever Schubert intended with this request, I cannot imagine a greater compliment from one composer to another.
Let's leave aside, those professional philosophers for whom philosophy is primarily a job or an interesting diversion from which one can 'retire.' Let's imagine, rather, those ('the infected philosophers') for whom philosophy is a necessity. Such an infected philosopher would keep at philosophy to the very end. Yet, on her deathbed, would she turn to a work by somebody else (e.g., as Hume did with Lucian), would she keep teaching (Socrates), would she, in fact, try to complete her last work(s), would she seek consolation, or would she ask to re-read or hear one of her own results/works?
New APPS 
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