DEATH

From Manuel B. Dy, Jr., “Martin Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Death”

Martin Heidegger (26 September 1889 - 26 May 1976), German philosopher, influenced literary, social, aesthetic and political theory, anthropology, architecture, psychoanalysis and environmentalism

Man’s being is Dasein (there-being, ≠ ‘biological human,’ or even ‘person’), as being-in-the-world (who, “in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it” [Heidegger, Being and Time 4:32])

“Being-in is not a ‘property’ which Dasein sometimes has and sometimes does not have, and without which it could just be as well as it could be with it. It is not the case that man ‘is’ and then has, by way of an extra, a relationship-of-Being towards the ‘world’ – a world with which he provides himself occasionally. Dasein is never ‘proximally’ an entity which is, so to speak, free from Being-in, but which sometimes has the inclination to take up a ‘relationship’ towards the world. Taking up relationships towards the world is possible only because Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, is as it is.” (BT 12:84)

“Understood as a unitary phenomenon (as opposed to a contingent, additive, tripartite combination of Being, in-ness, and the world), Being-in-the-world is an essential characteristic of Dasein. […] [Dasein’s Being-in-the-world thus results to] a large-scale holistic network of interconnected relational significance.” (SEP)

“According to Heidegger, the being of man is a being-in-the-world. Man is primordially directed towards the world and has the power-to-be in the world. His being in the world consists of being alongside with things … what Heidegger calls ‘concern’; and in being with others, ‘solicitude’. The being of man is Dasein, ‘There-being’. ‘There-being is the There of Being among beings – it lets beings be (manifest), thereby rendering all encounter with them possible.’ (Dy 253)

“Dasein confronts every concrete situation in which it finds itself (into which it has been thrown) as a range of possibilities for acting (onto which it may project itself). Insofar as some of these possibilities are actualized, others will not be, meaning that there is a sense in which not-Being (a set of unactualized possibilities of Being) is a structural component of Dasein's Being. Out of this dynamic interplay, Dasein emerges as a delicate balance of determination (thrownness) and freedom (projection).” (SEP)

- Sorge or care as “being ahead-of-itself-already-being-in-(the world) as being-together-with beings encountered (within the world)” (BT 231). Our understanding of Sorge as the structural constitution of Dasein is therefore in terms of three temporal dimensions:

a. Past (Thrownness and thus Disposedness), Geworfenheit: in Dy (254), “Being-already-in [as facticity]” in that “I ineluctably find myself in a world that matters to me in some way or another” (SEP)

b. Future (Projection and thus Understanding): “has nothing to do with comporting oneself towards a plan that has been thought out […] but the essential fore-structure of Dasein itself,” (BT 31:185, 32:195) in Dy (254) “ahead-of-itself [ as existence or “ek-sistence,” meaning “outstanding” as in “not-yet”]”

c. Present (Fallenness and thus Fascination), in Dy (254) “Being-alongside [or falling]”

.: This is the “formally existential totality of Dasein’s ontological structure as a whole,” (BT 42:237) which is nothing but care.

“Once thrown into the world, Dasein realizes its own possibilities, it constantly actualizes its potentialities of existence. […] As long as man exists in the world, his potentiality for being is never exhausted [, always having] an unfinished character.” (Dy 237). As such, Dasein is also being-ahead-of-itself (i.e., fore-structure) as long as he exists, he is incomplete (≠ unfulfilled, or lacking togetherness) as long as he exists. This incompleteness is not like the unripeness of a fruit. Whereas the fruit fulfills its being by being ripe, Dasein does not necessarily fulfill its being in death.

Given his fore-structure, its ahead-of-itself, “Dasein, therefore, as long as it exists, is already, its end. The end of Dasein is not to be understood as being-at-end but as being-towards-[death]. […] Man, being ahead of himself, as project, comes to the disclosure of his extreme possibility, the possibility that he will no longer be ‘there.’” (Dy 254)

“Death is a possibility in being that Da-sein always has to take upon itself. […] In this possibility, Da-sein is concerned about its being-in-the-world absolutely. […] This structural factor of care has its most primordial concretion in being-towards-death.” (BT 232)

As the end of Dasein, death is the most nonrelational, certain and as such, indefinite and unsurpassable possibility of Dasein. As the end of Dasein, death is the Being of this being towards its end. (BT 239)

The possibility of his impossibility:“Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Da-sein.” (BT 232); “Death is in the being of this being-towards-its end.” (BT 239)

Ownmost, nonsubstitutional, total: “all relations to other Da-sein are dissolved in it.” (BT 232)

Inevitable, necessary:“[Dasein’s] existential possibility is grounded in the fact that Da-sein is essentially disclosed to itself, in the way of being-ahead-of-itself. […] When Da-sein exists, it is already thrown into this possibility.” (BT 232)

Possible at any moment:“[Death] is an eminent imminence. […] A thunderstorm can be imminent, remodeling of a house, the arrival of a friend. […] Imminent death does not have this kind of being.” (BT 232)

.: Dasein has the following modes as a being-towards-death:

Inauthentic being-towards-death – concealed in the everydayness and publicness of concern, in impersonal, tranquilized indifference (re: fallenness or Verfallen, in Sorge). “Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self, and has fallen into the world.” (BT 38:220) “Such fallen-ness into the world is manifested in idle talk, curiosity and ambiguity:” (SEP) “The publicness of everyday-being-with-one-another ‘knows’ death as a constantly occurring event, as a ‘case of death.” Someone or another ‘dies,’ be it a neighbor or a stranger. People unknown to us ‘die’ daily and hourly. ‘Death’ is encountered as a familiar event occurring within the world. […] In such talk, death is understood as an indeterminate something which first has to show up from somewhere, but which right now is not yet objectively present for oneself, and is thus no threat. […] With such ambiguity, Da-sein puts itself in the position of losing itself in the they .” (BT 234)

“By ‘Others’ we do not mean everyone else but me – those over and against whom the ‘I’ stands out. They are rather those from whom, for the most part, one does not distinguish oneself – those among whom one is too […] By reason of this with-like Being-in-the-world, the world is always the one I share with Others [das Man].” (BT 26:154-155)

Authentic being-towards-death – If death is my ownmost, nonrelational, certain, indefinite possibility, then “it must be understood as possibility, cultivated as possibility, and endured as possibility in our relation to it.” (BT 241) As such, “Being-toward-death is the anticipation of a potentiality-of-being of that being whose kind of being is anticipation itself. […] Anticipation reveals to Da-sein its lostness in the they-self, and brings it face to face with the possibility to be itself, primarily unsupported by concern taking care of things, but to be itself in passionate anxious freedom toward death which is free of the illusions of the they, factical, and certain of itself.” (BT 253, 245)

“In anticipating the indefinite certainty of death, Da-sein opens itself to a constant threat arising from its own there. […] In Angst, Da-sein finds itself faced with the nothingness of the possible impossibility of its existence. Angst is anxious about the potentiality-of-being of the being thus determined, and thus discloses the most extreme possibility. Because the anticipation of Da-sein absolutely individualizes it and lets it, in this individualizing of itself, become certain of the wholeness of its potentiality-of-being. […] Being-towards-death is essentially Angst.” (BT 245)

“Becoming free for one’s own death in anticipation frees one from one’s lostness in chance possibilities urging themselves upon us, so that the factical possibilities lying before the possibility not-to-be-bypassed can first authentically understood and chosen. Anticipation discloses to existence that its extreme inmost possibility lies in giving itself up and thus shatters all one’s clinging to whatever existence one has reached. In anticipation, Da-sein guards itself against falling back behind itself, or behind the potentiality-for-being that it has understood. […] Free for its ownmost possibilities, that are determined by the end and so understood as finite, Da-sein prevents the danger that it may, by its own finite understanding of existence, fail to recognize that it is getting overtaken by the existence-possibilities of others, or that it may misinterpret these possibilities, thus divesting itself of its ownmost factical existence.” (BT 244)

.: “Death ends the continuous incompleteness of Dasein” (Wang Tangjia, “Concepts of Death in Heidegger and Levinas” 144) for he is still ahead-of-itself, a not-yet (Noch-Nicht) as long as he is

.: Death individualizes man and “reveals the ‘there’ of man, his being-alongside” as “nothing when his ownmost potentiality for being is itself an issue in death.” As such, authentic being-towards-death “means projecting oneself upon his ownmost potentiality foe being rather than upon the possibility of the ‘they’ self.” (Dy 256)

.: Authentic being-towards-death thus understands the indefinite certainty of death: its indefiniteness springs from Dasein itself, and its certainty corresponds to the certainty of being-in-the-world.