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    7 views3 pages

    MH Death

    Uploaded by

    Shuima Dinobots

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 3
    MARTIN HEIDEGGER’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF DEATH eG SSS EB 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 in being alongside with things, the ready-to-hand and the present-at-hand, what Heidegger calls “concern,” and in being with others, “solicitude.” The being of man is Dasein, “There-being.” “There-being isthe There of Being among beings—it lets beings be (manifest), thereby rendering all encounter with them possible.” By being in the world, by being involved init, Dasein ha the power to be. Once thrown into the world, Dasein realizes its own possibilities, it constant actualizes its potentialities of existence. As such, man is always ahead of himself; in his being he is always ahead of himself, ahead of what he actually is. Being thrown into the world, he discovers himself there absorbed in things and people, and constantly realizing his own possibilities for being ‘This is what Heidegger calls “Care,” the fundamental structure of Dasein. ‘The primary item in care, therefore, is the ahead-of-itsef of Dasein. Dasein as project always comports itself towards its potentiality for being. There is always something still ‘outstanding’ in man. As long és man exists in the world, his potentiality for being is never ‘exhausted. According to Heidegger, there is always something tobe settled yet in man, Mi as long ashe IS, has never reached his “wholeness.” Man always has an unfinished character Man reaches his wholeness in death. In death, man loses his potentiality for being, hhe loses his “there.” There is no more outstanding in man, everything is finished, settled for him, He is no longer being there? What is death for Heidegger? How is death related to the being of man, and what is, ‘man's attitude towards death? Since death is the transition of man from Dasein to no-longer Dasein, there is therefore the impossibility of experiencing this transition, No one has ever ‘come out alive from death to tel us about death, How then are we going to describe death? ‘What is Heidegger's phenomenology of death? Our first experience of death isthe death of others. We see, hear people die. If man isa being with others, will the death of others then give us the objective knowledge about death? But the death of another person, Heidegger argues, makes him no longer a person but thing, a compse, although he may be the object of concern for those who remain behind. However, we have no way of knowing the loss of being thatthe dying man “suffers.” We never experience the death of another ashe himself has experienced it, Even if, granted that itis possible for us to analyze the dying of others, we can substitute and represent the dying of any Dasein for another, wll our representation be valid and justified? True, representation is one of the possibilities of ran as a being with others, but representation is always a representation in something, with something. But in death, the totality of man is involved: it {is Dasein coming to an end. Dasein’s dying is therefore not representable. “No one ean take the other's dying away from hin.” Death is always mine. It is a peculiar possibility of my being in which my own being isan issue. Mineness and existence are constitutive of death. oa Death is therefore the possibility of man, a “not-yet” which will be. And what is peculiar in this possibility is that it has the character of no-longer-Dasein, of no-longer- being-there, and belongs to the particular man, his very own, non-representable. We have said that as fong as man exists, he lacks a totality, wholeness; and this lack comes to its end with death. This lack of totality of man is not the lack of togetherness of a thing which can be completed by piecing together entities or parts. This totality and wholeness of man is a “not-yet” of man which has to be. This “not-yet” of man, moreover, is something thats already accessible to him. Dasein, as long asi is, is already its not-yet. This “not-yet" of Dasein is like the “not-yet" of the unripeness ofthe fruit. The ripeness of the fruit isthe end of its lack-of-ripeness, the end of the “not-yet”of the fruit. As long as the fruit isnot ripe, itis already its ‘not-yet.’ There is, however, a difference between the ripeness of the fruit and the death of man. With the fruit, the ripeness is the fulfilment of its being. ‘In the case of man, on the other hand, in death, man may or may not arrive at his fulfillment. ‘And here Heidegger throws a striking remark: What is unfortunate is that “so little is it the case that Dasein comes to its ripeness only with death, that Dasein may will have passed its ripeness before the end. For the most part, Dasein ends in unfulfilment ...™ Dasein, therefore, as long as it exist, is already, its end, The end of Daseinis not to be understood as being-at-an-end but as being-fowardi-the end. Heidegger’s phenomenology of death therefore is nota description of death and an after life, but of man as a being-towards- his-end, a being-towards-death. If man is being-towards-death, and his being in the world has the fundamental structure of cae, then the end of man must be clarified in terms of care, his basi state. Being-towards-Death and Care Heidegger defines care as “ahead-of itself Being-alieady-in (the world) as Being- alongside entities which we encounter (within-the-world)."® Care, in other words, has the following characteristics of Dasein’s being: existence, in the “ahead-of-itself:”facticity, in the “Being-already-in;” and falling, inthe “Being-alongside.” Being-towards-death must be ‘understood in these terms, Man, in being ahead of himself, as project, comes to the disclosure of his extreme Possibility, the possibility that he will’no longer be “there.” Death is the uttermost “not yet" of man, something towards which he comports himself. Death is not just something that happens to man; it is something impending. The impending is not that of the coming, storm, or the arrival of a friend, or a joumey one is going to undertake. The impending of eath is distinctive, because itis the possibility which is ownmost; death is mine, something that I have to take over myself. In death, I stand before myself in my ownmost potentiality for being, because the issue in death is no other than my being in the world. Death is the possibility of my no-longer-possible, of no-longer-being-able-o-be-there; the possibility of being cutoff from others and from things. And this possibility is the possibilty that must be, Something that I cannot outstrip. My being ahead of myself in my project towards the world With all is possibilities reveals to me my uttermost possibility, distinctively impending, because this possibility is my ownmost which cuts me off from others (non-relational) and Which I eannot outstrip 1 W1. Richardson. Through Phenomenology o Tag (The Hague, 1963, p40 2 Sein and Zeit. English eanslato, Heng and Time (SCM Press Lid, 1962p. 237 (of Weideeers vigil. 3 Pod. 240, 256 Tina, pe Pod, p20, 257 ‘This possibility of my absolute impossibility is not just obtained in my rare moments ‘As soon as I am born into the world, lam already’thrown into this possibility. l may not be aware of it, but the fact that | exist in the world, I exist with the possibility of death. This possibility is eveated only in the basic mood of man, anxiety, inthe experience of dread Wherein man comes face to face with his potentiality for being. Anxiety isnot fea, because fear is concerned with something determinate which threatens my immediate involvement of things. Anxiety is of something indeterminate; what I dread is not an entity, but the world itself, my being-in-the-world Many are indeed ignorant of death as the possibility which is ownmost, non-relationa, and cannot be outstripped. They are engrossed in immediate concern with things, this! covering up their ownmost being-towards-death, fleeing in the face oft. But the fact remains, that they are being-towards-deat, that man is dying even in his “fallenness,” in his being. absorbed in the everyday world of concern, Let us describe further this fallenness of man in being-towards-death, Everyday Being-towards-Death-Inauthenticity 2 Inthe publicness of everyday concer, death is known as @ mishap that frequently occurs. The self ofthe public, the impersonal “they,” talks of death as a “ease of death,” an event that happens constantly. The “they” hides death by saying, “People die . . . one these days one wil die too, inthe end; but right now it has nothing to do with us The th realizes that death s something indefinite that must arive ultimately, bu forthe moment the f “they says, thas nothing to do with us. It is something not yet present-at-hand, and therefore = ‘offers no threat. The “they” “says” “one dies," but the one is nobody, no one wil cla itis Inthis way, the “they” levels off death, makes it ambiguous, and hides the tre aspects ofthis possibility, the minenes, non-rltional, and that which cannat be outstripped. This isthe inauthentic mode of man of being-towards-

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