Death is one of the questions around which the whole thinking-philosophizing of Heidegger revolves. It does not only appear in early lectures or works such as Being and Time, but also in later writings such as Mindfulness and Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) and lectures such as Insight Into That Which Is.
For Heidegger, death brings closer to the question of the meaning of Being: “Death opens up the question of Being”. Heidegger says that only to the human being belongs the possibility of being brought face to face with death: “Only humanity ‘has’ the distinction of standing and facing death, because the human being is earnest about Being: death is the supreme testimony to Being”.
Death is thus important for Heidegger because the question of human mortality brings closer to and opens up the question of the meaning of Being. Being and Time links Dasein’s “preparedness for death” together with any possibility of authentic existence. In other words, Dasein’s authentic existence as a possibility is grounded in Dasein’s resolute acceptance of its own finitude.
Heidegger brings Dasein face to face with the inevitable toward which it is constantly moving and makes this inevitability of death the ground from out of which thinking, philosophizing, meaning, and existing in the world emerge. In other words, the inevitability of death forms and limits Dasein’s situation.
Being and Time on Finitude and Fleeing
In Being and Time, Heidegger says that what distinguishes Dasein from any other entity in the world is that Dasein’s being is an issue for it: “Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it.” (This article explains what Heidegger means by Dasein)
Dasein is neither a Cartesian cogito establishing firm grounds so that transparent thinking toward and into the world could occur nor an existentialist tragic hero withstanding the pressure to conform to what is holding sway in the society.
Dasein is neither isolated nor separated from the world. Dasein is, according to Heidegger, immersed in everydayness. Yet in everydayness, Heidegger says, “fleeing” dwells. The term “fleeing” implies avoidance, bypassing, and hence self-deceiving.
“Fleeing” happens, and is first made possible, because Dasein finds itself in a situation that it neither brought about nor can completely control. That is, when Dasein finds itself in a situation that it cannot totally accept, completely control, or deal with, it flees.
Human mortality belongs to and forms the situation from which Dasein flees, the situation that Dasein cannot change or control, since dying is something that can be neither controlled nor denied. The fleeing of Dasein is an escaping from the situation and its force. Dasein flees, Heidegger says, by escaping into “the they”.
Fleeing covers over the situation by escaping its weight and force. Dasein covers over death so that it becomes concealed and hence relatively forgotten. This covering over of death makes Dasein inauthentic, according to Heidegger. Yet resisting this fleeing— which takes place as covering over and concealing— remains and will always remain a possibility, for it is only when death and its inevitability are recognized and acknowledged that the meaning of life shows itself.
How Does Dasein Cover Over Death?
In Being and Time, Heidegger says that Dasein, in its everydayness, covers over its own death and hence flees from it by seeing it as if it were the death of the other. Death is always evaded, covered over, and distanced from Dasein as long as it is the other who dies, as long as one lives on. That is, it is always the other that dies, not oneself. This way of thinking “levels off” dying so that it becomes distanced from oneself. (This article introduces Heidegger’s analysis of death in Being and Time)
The expression ‘one dies’ spreads abroad the opinion that what gets reached, as it were, by death, is the “they”. In Dasein’s public way of interpreting, it is said that ‘one dies’, because everyone else and oneself can talk himself into saying that “in no case is it I myself”, for this “one” is the “nobody”.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
“Idle talk” and its ambiguity, Heidegger says, cover over death and conceal that death is non-relational and cannot be outstripped. What is meant by the non-relationality of death is that it is me that must die my own death, and not the other. What is meant by that death cannot be outstripped is that death is inevitable and inescapable.
Heidegger says that because death is inevitable and non-relational, concealing it or distancing it from ourselves becomes even more necessary. Heidegger speaks of “a constant tranquilization about death”, directed not only toward the person who is dying, but also toward those who are consoling the person who is dying:
The “they” provides a constant tranquilization about death. At bottom, however, this is a tranquillization not only for him who is ‘dying’ but just as much for those who ‘console’ him. And even in the case of a demise, the public is still not to have its own tranquility upset by such an event, or be disturbed in the carefreeness with which it concerns itself.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Death is treated as “a social inconvenience”; it is something “against which the public is to be guarded”. This means that death should be constantly concealed, covered over, rendered distanced from ourselves, and hence relatively forgotten.
In describing our inauthentic attitude toward death, Heidegger says that “the dying of Others is seen often enough as a social inconvenience, if not even a downright tactlessness, against which the public is to be guarded.”
Authentic Existence and Death
Authenticity, for Heidegger, begins when we accept and endure our own mortality. Rather than covering over or concealing death, we must acknowledge and accept the certainty of our own death.
Accepting and enduring one’s mortality means accepting that death is entirely one’s own. One’s death is something that no one else can do for me. No one else can die for me and I also cannot die for someone else: “No one can take the Other’s dying away from him”.
Authenticity means recognizing death, that is, accepting and enduring the certainty of death. Recognizing death—which happens as accepting and enduring— means, for Heidegger, comporting “ourselves towards death that in this Being, and for it, death reveals itself as a possibility”.
In our comporting of ourselves toward death, death becomes a possibility for us. Heidegger describes “Being towards this possibility” as an “anticipation of this possibility”. Anticipation releases Dasein from its inauthentic everydayness and uproots it from “the they”; it individualizes Dasein. Through anticipation Dasein ceases to be lost “in the everydayness of the they-self”.
Anticipation turns out to be the possibility of understanding one’s ownmost and uttermost potentiality-for-Being—that is to say, the possibility of authentic existence…Anticipation allows Dasein to understand that that potentiality-for-being in which its ownmost Being is an issue, must be taken over by Dasein alone. Death does not just ‘belong’ to one’s own Dasein in an undifferentiated way; death lays claim to it as an individual Dasein.
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Death and Anxiety
Death is both indefinite and certain. The indefiniteness of death means that it could happen at any moment, since it has not happened yet to the Dasein that is still living. The certainty of death means that it is inevitable and inescapable. The indefiniteness and inevitability of death lead to anxiety.
Heidegger links the inevitability of death together with the indefiniteness of death and speaks of what he calls “anticipatory resoluteness”. This means that since death is both indefinite in the sense that it is not known and can never be known when it will happen and inevitable in the sense that it will certainly happen, we must anticipate it than rather conceal it.
Anticipation brings Dasein face to face with itself, its world, and its possibilities. Through anticipation Dasein “frees itself for its world”. “Resoluteness, as authentic Being-one’s-Self, does not detach Dasein from its world, nor does it isolate it so that it becomes a free-floating ‘I’”.
Resoluteness does not mean that Dasein becomes detached from its world; Dasein will always remain in its world. Even when Dasein decides its own projects and commitments for itself, it will never become detached from the world or the other.
Dasein will always start from out of its own situation and will always belong to its situation. Authenticity is not the bringing about or the inventing of a totally different situation.
This means that resoluteness neither creates nor changes the situation. Resoluteness puts Dasein into the situation in such a way that allows Dasein to acknowledge the situation and its limitedness.
Anticipatory resoluteness allows Dasein to acknowledge the situation authentically for the first time as its own. To the situation belongs Dasein’s being as “being-toward-death”. This means that acknowledging the situation authentically means acknowledging one’s finitude and recognizing that one’s being is defined as “being-toward-death”.
Acknowledging the situation authentically allows Dasein to see how its choices, decisions, and projects could bring about genuine social and historical changes. Any possibility of rendering possible any historical and social changes is rooted in Dasein’s acknowledgement of the situation and its limitedness. The situation limits and renders constrained because it is grounded in Dasein’s being as “being-toward-death”.
Authenticity, in Being and Time, arises from Dasein’s acknowledgment of the limitedness imposed on it by its “being-toward-death”. This acknowledgement is a recognition of, an enduring of, our finitude. Only from out this acknowledgement of finitude could Dasein’s genuine efforts to change the world historically and socially emerge.
For more articles introducing and explaining Heidegger’s philosophy, visit this webpage.