Phenomenology of Death

Four Fears of Death

1. Fear of the process of dying

 When people say that they fear death, it is not really death itself as an end state
that they fear, but rather the physical and psychological process of death. They
fear that they suffer terribly. They fear pain and agony. They fear the torment of
letting for and leaving behind everyone and everything they love.

2. Fear of punishment

 Some people who say that they fear death actually harbor anxieties about one
particular possible set of events that they fear might happen after their bodily
death. It is the fear of what might happen after passing to the world of the dead.
Is it heaven or hell?

3. Fear of Unknown

 This fear is related to our deep need to feel in control. When we know what is
going on, we have a sense of control over our fortunes. However, the unknown
allows for no sure plans or reasonable expectation.

4. Fear of Annihilation

 This is the fear of death that gives many contemporary men night terrors. Man
find himself suddenly aware that they will inevitably face death, and that what
they will confront may in fact be the total cessation of conscious experience, the
annihilation of the person they have been, forever.

Martin Heidegger’s Phenomenology Of Death

 man is a being-in-the-world. man is man precisely because he is a being in the
world. man will cease to be as man when he is no longer in the world.

Dasein
 Dasein, a German term which means “being there” (Da – There, Sein – Being)

 By being thrown (“thrown” since the human person did not choose to exist in
the world before he was conceived) into the world, Dasein realizes its own
possibilities, and it constantly actualizes its potentialities of existence.
 Hence, by being in the world, man’s potentiality for being is never exhausted.
 Man, as long as he exists, has never reached his wholeness. “Man has always
an unfinished character.”
 If by being in the world I am a “not-yet”, an unfinished project, then by being no
longer in the world , everything is already done, already finished. Man can no
longer “be” when he is no longer in the world.
 Being no longer in the world is only possible in death.
 In death, man loses his potentiality for being. He is no longer being there. He is
no longer a Dasein.
 Our first experience of death is the death of others. However, we never
experienced death of another as he experienced it.
 In death, the totality of man is involved; it is Dasein coming to an end.
 Death is not representable; “No one can take away the other’s dying from him.”
Death is always mine.
 Death is therefore the possibility of man, a ‘not-yet’ which will be. It is an
impending event that must happen to every individual.
 Dasein, as long as it exists, is a not-yet, a not-yet that must come to be.
 This not-yet of Dasein is like the not-yet of the “unripeness” of the fruit. The
ripeness of the fruit is the end of its not-yet, and the death of man is the also
the end of his not-yet.
 Man, as long as he exists, is a being-towards-death.

BEING-TOWARDS-DEATH

 Heidegger explains that the state of man as being-in-the-world is also the state
of being-ahead-of-himself.
 This means that man in his state of existence projects himself in advance. This
projection is made manifest is man’s being conscious of his potentialities and
possibilities.
 There is, however, an extreme and ultimate possibility opened for man. This is
the possibility of no longer being there (in the world). Hence, death is seen as
the apex or the uttermost not-yet of man.
 Death is the possibility of my no-longer-possible, of no longer being-able-to-be-
there; the possibility of being cut off from others and from things. And this
possibility is the possibility that must be.
 This possibility is revealed to me especially in the feeling of anxiety, the
experience of dread wherein I come face to face with this possibility of death.
 Anxiety is different from fear, for in fear (of death) I distance myself from the
possibility of my end. But in anxiety, I dread not only the possibility of death
but also the possibility of leaving the world.
 Many, however, are ignorant of the possibility of death which is own-most. They
are so engrossed in immediate concern with things that they have taken for
granted this ultimate possibility.
 But however busy we are, the fact remains that we are to die soon.

How do we treat this possibility?

Two kinds of attitude are involved here: authentic and inauthentic.

Inauthentic Attitude Towards Death
 In our daily life, death is seen as something like a mishap that often occurs.
 However, we hide our own possibility of death by putting this as an event that
only happens to others.
 “People die…one of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has
nothing to do with us.”
 This attitude presupposes that death is certain, “but not right now”. Hence, it is
at the same time a denial of the certainty of death.
 In other words, this attitude is an evasion of an impending event, an event that
must happen.
Authentic Attitude Towards Death

 The authentic response of man in his awareness of being-towards-death is not

of evasion nor of giving new explanations for it.
 Man must face the possibility of death as his possibility, the possibility in which
his very existence is an issue.
 Facing death is not actualizing death, for that would be suicide.
 In suicide, man does not actualize himself but rather denies himself of his
potentialities.
 The authentic attitude is an anticipation of the possibility of death.
 By anticipating death, man realizes that death is his own-most possibility.
 In accepting death as his extreme possibility, man for the first time can
understand and choose among the possibilities opened for him in the light of
this extreme possibility.
 The anticipation of the possibility of death opens to man all the possibilities of
making himself. Man now comes to grip his wholeness in advance. He is now
open to the possibility of existing as a whole potentiality-for-being.
 By recognizing his end, man is able to complete himself.
Death allows human life to have meaning. If human were immortal and life went on
forever, there could be no unifying pattern for it. Death is a boundary that gives a
perspective within which priorities can be set and the various events and
possibilities of life are seen interrelationships as parts of sense-giving to the whole of
life.

Karl Rahner’s Notion of Death

 Heidegger’s freedom towards death seems to reach a theological development in
Karl Rahner, one of the leading theologians in history.
 For Karl Rahner, death is not just something that happens to man but it is in
itself an act of man, an act of self-affirmation in regards to his acceptance or
refusal to be his authentic self, a self that is open to transcendence.
 Thus, death constitutes the highest act of freedom of man, the freedom to say
yes or no to his openness to God.
 Death constitutes the highest freedom because death involves the whole man.
With the whole of man involved, there comes a total commitment to life.
 Death, being man’s extreme possibility, enables man’s total commitment to take
place.
 Death brings a kind of finality, a definity to the life-long decision of man with
regards to his destiny.
 It should not be taken as an isolated point in the life of man. Rather, death
must be taken as the culminating point of his life, the point where he finally
reaches a fulfillment, a totality.
 Every free act of man should carry an awareness of his fulfillment to a
commitment. As such, death should be present in every free act of man.
 Death is no enemy; it rather restores our sense of the value of living. Illness
restores the sense of proportion that is lost when we take life for granted. To
learn about value and proportion, we need to honor illness, and ultimately to
honor death.

P.S.
Philosophy is never a futile activity. It is not just your subject, it is your way of life.
After this semester you may forget the concepts that were taught during class, but
please do not forget the values on how to live as human beings…That is the beauty
of being human….We live rather than simply being alive…. Always seek on how you
can attain full knowledge and wisdom, and that is the philosophical way.