Martin

Heidegger’s
Phenomenology
of DeathBy Manuel B. Dy, Jr.
“The being or essence of man
is a being-in-the-world.”
- Heidegger
He specifically denotes man’s I
being as Dasein, a German
term which means
“being there”
(“Da”- there, “Sein”- being)
 BY BEING THROWN IN THE WORLD

Dasein is able to Dasein realizes its Man’s

realize itself. own possibilities, potentiality for
and it constantly being is never
actualizes its exhausted.
potentialities of
existence.
Man, as long as he exists,
has never reached his
wholeness.
“Man has always an
unfinished character”
In death, man loses his
potentiality for being. He is
no longer being there. He is
no longer a Dasein.
 What is death according to
Heidegger?
Our first experience of death is the Death is not representable: “No one
death of others. However, we never can take away the other’s dying from
experienced death of another as he him. Death is always mine.”
experienced it.

In death, the totality of man is being Death is therefore the possibility of man, a
involved; it is Dasein coming to an “not-yet” which will be. It is an impending
end. event that must happen to every
individual.
 “A man as long as he exists,
he lacks a totality, wholeness;
and this lack comes to its end
with death.”
Being-Towards
-Death and Care
Heidegger defines care as,

“ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in
as Being-alongside entities
which we encounter.”
 CARE DEATH ANXIETY
Has the following The uttermost ‘not-yet’ of Something
characteristics of man, something towards indeterminate; what I
which he comports himself.
Dasein’s being: Death is not just something dread is not an entity,
existence, in the ahead- that happens to man; it is but the world itself,
of-itself; facticity, in the something impending. my being-in-the-
‘Being-already-in; and Death is the possibility of my world.
no-longer-possible, of no-
falling, in the ‘Being- longer-being-able-to-be-
towards-death must be there; the possibility of
understood in these being cut off from others
terms. and from things.
Everyday Being-Towards
-Death-Inauthenticity
“DEATH” a mishap that
frequently occurs.

The impersonal “they” talks about death

as “a case of death"
 THE “THEY”

Hides death Has a very nice way of hiding the true

nature of man’s being-towards-the-end.

Realizes that death is Does not permit us the courage for

something indefinite. anxiety to face death.

Says “one dies”, but It is considered as a sign of

the one is nobody, no cowardice, of fear, orf
one will claim it is I. insecurity.
everyday being towards death
It is considered as “falling”. Where a man
is constantly evading death, hiding and
giving new explanations to it.
Authentic Being
-Towards-Death
authentic being-towards-death
Is not of envasion, not of covering I
up death’s true implications nor
giving new explanations to it.
“Facing this possibility is not
actualizing it, that is bringing
it to happen.”
 Death individualizes man , it
does not belong to everybody,
but to one’s ownself. It reveals
the “there” of man.
 INAUTHENTIC MAN
• Stops worrying about
death and busies himself
in urgency of concern.
• Covers up the fact that
death is possible at any
moment.
• But as he flees from death
he can actually derive his
certainty of death from
the fact that being thrown
into the world is bing
towards death.
AUTHENTIC MAN
• Does not outstrip death
• Anticipation does not
evade death; he accepts
this possibility.
• Man makes certain first
his ownmost being
totality
Anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the
they-self, and brings it face to face with the
possibility of being itself primarily unsupported
by concernful solicitude, but of being itself,
rather, in an impassioned FREEDOM TOWARDS
DEATH - a freedom which has been released
from the illusions of the “they”, and which is
factical, certain of itself, and anxious.
- Heidegger
Karl Rahner’s
Notion of Death
 Death is 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. Death, thus,
constitutes the highest act of
freedom of man, the freedom to say
yes or no to his openness to God.
- Rahner
 FREE ACT

Every free act of man should carry I

an awareness of his fulfillment to a
commitment, realization that this
one free act helps to build a total
decision of his whole being to the
good or to the bad.
Death, The Test of
Love and the
Condition of Liberty
 E T E R N I TY
It is just a simple prolongation of
becoming, meaning, a period of
experiences, and this will mark as our
participation in this life.
 The highest degree of heaven is
when the man is showing love for
himself and for others too, and the
lowest degree of hell is when the
man is centered with just himself
and nothing more.
“All men are equal when faced
with death”, no one is set at a
disadvantage by the
circumstances.
Experience, in its many
positive and negative
forms, educates our
liberty.
FIDELITY
Experience recognizes the
other person, not at all as
the figment of an over-
heated imagination, but as
real, as active.
Some people believes in
immortality and claim to relate
communications of
interventions from beyond the
grave.
 The church carries through the
centuries the fidelity of His origin, and
lives in the Presence of her living dead,
risen from the dead.
Birth breaks primitive Death according to the
symbiosis, and projects it into beautiful expression of the
an existence which is old martyrologies, is the dies
biologically autonomous but natalis, the day of authentic
still utterly dependent. birth when, this time, I shall
myself choose what I wish
to be for eternity.
 “Nevertheless, however
profoundly he may correct
himself, he works only on
given foundations”
“My earthly choices seem to be, above
all, preparatory exercises, ‘repititions’ of
the definitive choice, they fosterthe birth
of my liberty.”
The act of liberty essentially
answers an invitation.
Thank You for
Listening!