Phenomenology of Death

1. Martin
Heidegger’s
Phenomenology
of Death

2. • According to Heidegger, the being/essence
of man is a being-in-the-world. This is an
important assertion since it highlights that
man’s 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 man’s being
as Dasein, a German term which means
“being there” (Da – There, Sein – Being)

3. • 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, man’s 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”.

4. • 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.

5. • What is death for Heidegger? How is death
related to the being of man, and what is man’s
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 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.

6. • 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 fulfillment of its being. With death,
however, man may or may not attain his being’s
fulfillment.
• Man, as long as he exists, is a being-towards-death.

7. 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 man’s 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.”

8. • 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.

9. • 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.

10. 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.

11. • “People die…one 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.

12. 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.

13. • 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 a whole
potentiality-for-being.
• By recognizing his end, man is able to complete
himself.

14. 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.

15. • Death constitutes the highest freedom because death
involves the whole man. With the whole of man
involved, there comes a total commitment.
• 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.

16. “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 ito’y
nakaugat sa pinakadulu’t-dulo kong
hantungan – ang kamatayan.”