I. Criteria for determining brain death : Introduction ; Legal developments ; Medical developments ; Terminology ; Safety and certainty of determination -- II. A miscellany of arguments : The practical versus the philosophical arguments ; Slippery slope arguments ; Bodies, dead and alive ; A cerebral slope? ; Concepts and criteria -- III. Concepts of death and brain death : The cardiorespiratory conception ; Spontaneity ; Philosophical analysis of death ; Which areas of the brain? ; Concluding remarks.