Martin Heideggers Phenomenology of Death

(Abridged)
By Manuel B. Dy

- According to Heidegger, the being/essence of man is a being-in-the-world. This is an important assertion since it highlights that
mans being is not other-wordly, that man is man precisely because he is a being in the world.
- Consequently, if man is a being in the world, then man will cease to be as man when he is no longer in the world.
- Heidegger specifically denotes mans being as Dasein, a German term which means being there (Da There, Sein Being)
- By being in the world, Dasein is able to realize itself. Like a plant that needs a soil to grow, the world serves as place where self-
realization and actualization is made possible for Dasein.
- 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, mans potentiality for being is never exhausted. For example, I cannot say that I will only actualize
my potentials and realize myself for twenty years, then after that I will no longer do actualization and realization.
- 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.
- Ang buhay ng tao ay parang isang pagsusulat ng nobela na hindi pwedeng tuldukan habang nabubuhay pa siya. Matatapos
lamang nobelang ito kapag wala na siya sa mundo.
- In death, man loses his potentiality for being. He is no longer being there. He is no longer a Dasein.

- What is death for Heidegger? How is death related to the being of man, and what is mans attitude towards death?

- 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 others 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.
- We have said that as long as man exists, he lacks a totality, wholeness; and this lack comes to its end with death.
- 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.
- There is, however, a difference between the ripeness of the fruit and the death of man. With ripeness, the fruit comes to the
fulfilment of its being. With death, however, man may or may not attain his beings fulfilment.
- 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 is his state of existence projects himself in advance. This projection is made manifest is mans being conscious
of his potentialities and possibilities.
- By being conscious that I can do this or that, or that I can be this or that, then I become ahead of myself, ahead of what I actually
am at this point in time.
- 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.
- Death, therefore, is not just something that happens to man; it is something impending.
- As soon as I am born into this world, I am already thrown into this possibility. The fact that I exist in the world construes that I exist
with the possibility of death.
- 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.
- Alam mo ba, malapit nang pumanaw si Mang Tasio. Ah, ganun ba? Kawawa naman ang pamilya niya. This kind of sympathy
enables us somehow to dissuade ourselves that death is something that may happen to us but not at this moment.
- People dieone of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has nothing to do with us.
- This is the inauthentic mode of man of being-towards-death.
- 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.
- In other words, by accepting death, man would realize the essential things in life, and will opt to achieve them instead of other
less-important things.
- 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 awhole potentiality-for-being.
- By recognizing his end, man is able to complete himself.

Karl Rahners Notion of Death
- Heideggers 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.
- Death, being mans extreme possibility, enables mans 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 l ife, the
point where he finally reaches a fulfilment, a totality.
- Every free act of man should carry an awareness of his fulfilment to a commitment. As such, death should be present in every free
act of man.
- Ang pagtanggap ko ng aking nagbabadyang kamatayan ay siyang nagbubukas sa aking sarili upang mabuhay sa mundo ng may
sinumpaan. At ang sinumpaang ito ay tunay at tapat sapagkat itoy nakaugat sa pinakadulut-dulo kong hantungan ang
kamatayan.