Debate regarding the validity of the use of neurological criteria to determine death – so-called “brain death” – has been central to the field of bioethics since its inception. At the root of this debate are several philosophical claims regarding the definition of human personhood and criterion of personal identity, concepts such as “organism as a whole” and “irreversibility,” and whether death should be understood as a strictly biological or a partially socially constructed fact. Springer’s “Philosophy and Medicine” series took up this topic with two volumes published in 1988 and 2000, comprising essays that examined the questions at hand from historical, conceptual, legal, and cultural vantage points authored by physicians, philosophers, and theologians representing international perspectives from the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Japan. A quarter-century later, the brain death debate has been re-energized by recent cases involving apparent post-brain death survival, calls to revise the Uniform Determination of Death Act, and the development of a novel means of organ procurement known as normothermic regional perfusion following circulatory determination of death. This chapter revisits the arguments for and against brain death, defending not only the conceptual validity of brain death, but also its marking the true death of a human being.