Heidegger and Being-Towards-Death

Paper Summary:

This paper summarizes Martin Heidegger's existential analysis of death, as set forth in his work "Being and Time," and then focuses on his claim that death is non-relational and realizes Dasein's utmost potential for being. The writer analyzes these aspects of death as possible sources of individuality for Dasein, and questions why Heidegger believes death is a completely individual experience. The writer extends Heidegger's arguments in order to answer some of the questions that his work evokes, and concludes that since these qualities of death can only be realized in life, they belong to the possibility rather than the actuality of death.

From the Paper:

"Heidegger begins his analysis by setting forth the problem of death as constitutive of Dasein's Being-a-whole. If death is the totality of Dasein's existence, the one point at which Dasein has extinguished its possibilities and we can "get a whole Dasein into our grasp" (281), then shouldn't this moment be realizable? Instead, the point of actual death is when Dasein ceases to be, and thus wholeness or completion cannot be realized, for Dasein no longer exists as Dasein. As Heidegger states it, "As long as Dasein is as an entity, it has never reached its 'wholeness'. But if it gains such 'wholeness', this gain becomes the utter loss of Being-in-the-world" (280)."

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