P&F; Prof. Boedeker; running commentary to Being and Time sections 46-52
Section 46
This section is Heidegger’s transition to Division II of Being and Time, whose main topics are
death, authenticity, and temporality. He attempts to motivate this discussion by pointing out that
something was left out of Division I: something indicated by his characterization (in section 41)
of Dasein’s projection (of the beings it encounters upon possibilities) as Dasein’s being “aheadof-itself”. Already in section 41, Heidegger said that the self that Dasein is ahead of is the theyself (p. 180), not the authentic self. This points to the fact that there is an additional possibility
of Dasein’s self that is not included in all the possibilities that constitute the everyday, fallen,
inauthentic they-self. This possibility will turn out to be death. Death is the existential horizon
of the existential perspective of Dasein’s being itself.
Naturally, death is the end (telos) of Dasein, but an end in a very special sense. As long as
Dasein exists, its end – death – is always outstanding as unactualized. Heidegger will
characterize this feature of the unique possibility of death as its “unsurpassability”. The purpose
of Chapter I of Division II will be to describe as precisely as possible the way in which we
experience death as our end. Only once we have the analysis of death on board can the
existential analytic claim to have sketched out the whole of Dasein’s being.
It is crucial to note that Heidegger is not describing what it is like to die. Rather, he is describing
how we relate to death while we are living. This includes our relation to death when we are
perfectly healthy, out of danger, etc.
Section 47
Here Heidegger distinguishes the phenomenon he is interested in – an individual’s relation to his
or her own possibility of dying – from his or her experience of the death of others.
Heidegger begins by distinguishing our experience of dead people from other ways of being of
beings. First, our experience of a dead person is not the same as that of a merely objectively
present being (i.e., a mere physical body), since we experience a corpse as no longer living (p.
221). Second, our experience of a dead person is not the same as something handy that we have
to take care of (say, in arranging the funeral and burial), since in mourning the deceased we are
also with him or her in our world (p. 222).
Third and most important, our experience of a dead person is not the same as an individual’s
experience of his or her own possibility of dying. This is because for those left behind the death
of the deceased is one possibility among others (no matter how important or tragic to them), but
not the end of their own possibilities altogether (p. 222).
One way in which one’s own death is a unique possibility of oneself is that it cannot in principle
be represented by others. In this way, death differs both from the possibilities that make up the
they (das Man), and also from those that make up the inauthentic they-self. (See sections 25-26.)
Even if someone gives up his or her life for mine, they have only postponed my own death, but
not taken it away for good.
Question: In a discussion Heidegger’s claim that no one else can die for me, someone once
objected that this is not a unique feature of the possibility of death. After all, no one else can go
to the bathroom for me, or even cross the street for me. Do you think that there’s still something
unique to the way in which death cannot be represented by others? Explain.
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Section 48
Here Heidegger clarifies the concrete (as opposed to “formal”) manner in which death is a kind
of end, and also a kind of wholeness. In reading this section, it is helpful to keep in mind
Aristotle’s doctrine of change (kinesis, sometimes translated as “motion”, or “movement”).
Kinesis for Aristotle is the transition (metabole) of a substance’s end, or goal (telos), from
potentiality (dynamis) to actuality, or realization (energeia). Some substances, such as artifacts,
have their end in something else (namely, the one producing or using them). Living substances,
on the other hand, have their end within themselves (entelecheia). Note that “end” here does not
simply mean the last thing that happens to a substance, but rather something that guides its
kinesis.
In all cases, if a substance completely realizes its end, its kinesis ceases. Nevertheless, the
relation of ends to activities differs depending on the ends involved. (1) Some kinds of kinesis
are such that when they reach their end, the activity also ceases. Any straightforwardly goaldirected activities are like this. Examples include the production of artifacts (= Heidegger’s
“practical dealings with the handy”), or the motion of bodies in a straight line toward their
natural place. (2) Other kinds of kinesis are such that the activity continues even once the end is
reached, only without any kinesis. The process of learning eternal truths is like this. Once you
have come to know truths of geometry, for example, you can continue the activity of simply
contemplating these truths. For Aristotle, God and the so-called “active intellect” in human
beings simply remains in such unchanging activity of pure contemplation. (3) Finally, some
kinds of kinesis are such that their end cannot be realized. For Aristotle, the perfectly circular
motion of the heavenly bodies is like this. Since every point on the circle is both a beginning and
an end of the motion, a body moving in a circular path never completely reaches its end. For this
reason, Aristotle thought that the motion of the heavenly bodies was eternal.
One’s own death is the “end” of one’s life in a broadly Aristotelian sense, since the way in which
one relates to one’s own death guides the kinetic movement of one’s life. Nevertheless, death is
not the end of a human life in any of the three senses above. Death as such is not like (1), since
in general death is not a goal that people strive to realize. In fact, in committing suicide,
someone is relating to his or her death in an unusual way: as just such a practical goal.
Furthermore, death as such is not like (2), since the realization of death is the complete cessation
of a human life – not its continuation. Even if human beings were immortal (on which see p.
230), we would not continue our deaths as our souls left our bodies.
Death as such is closest to (3). For as a body moving in a circle always has some end
outstanding (namely, to reach the other points on the circle), so too does a living human being
always have death as its outstanding end. In Heidegger’s terms, death is a debt (p. 225) –
something one owes – that cannot be cancelled as long as one is alive. Nevertheless, human life
is unlike the perfect circular motion of the heavenly bodies because it is not eternal, but rather
finite. Human life is finite (“endlich”) in a complex sense: we are always in one way or another
relating to our end, or finale; and the fact that we have such an end implies that there are only a
finite number of possibilities that we can ever actualize. Heidegger does think of human life as
having a circular movement (kinesis) – but the circle only goes around a finite number of times.
Exercise: Heidegger compares the death of an individual human being to several kinds of “end”:
the canceling of a financial debt (pp. 225f), the unrealized fullness of a quarter moon (p. 226),
the unrealized ripeness of an unripe fruit (pp. 226f), and the rain stopping (p. 227). How are
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these various kinds of “ending” similar to the death of a living human being, and how are they
different? One thing to address is the way of being of these beings (objective presence, or
handiness – here translated as being “at hand”).
Section 49
Heidegger’s analysis of death is an attempt to analyze the characteristically human way in which
an individual can relate to his or her own death as such. This is the way in which an individual
relates to death in a manner appropriate to the nature of death. He calls this dying, which is the
authentic encounter of one’s own death. In this section, he distinguishes dying from two
related phenomena. The first is perishing, which is the biological death of anything alive. The
second is demise, which is the biological death of a human being who dies without authentically
encountering his or her own death. Thus demise is inauthentic encounter of one’s own death.
Since Heidegger has not yet analyzed dying, the term “demise” here is a place-holder.
Section 50
In this section, Heidegger lists three characteristic features that are unique to the possibility of
death as such. Each such feature distinguishes death from the other possibilities of oneself that
one appropriates from the they (das Man), and which constitute the they-self.
1. Death is Dasein’s ownmost ability-to-be, or possibility of itself. That is, one’s own death is
the only possibility of oneself that cannot be taken away, or represented, by anyone else.
2. Death is the nonrelational possibility. Recall that both the practical possibilities of the world
(discussed in section 18) and the possible social roles that constitute das Man (discussed in
sections 25-26) get their meaning in part from the ways in which they “refer” to other such
possibilities. A hammer gets its meaning from its possible relations to other items of the
workshop (such as nails and boards), for example, and the social role of a parent is essentially
linked to that of a child. Death is completely different from these possibilities in this respect.
Now of course in a sense death plays a role in various aspects of social life, such as burial,
medical treatment, life insurance, estate management, and even taxation. When dealt with in
these ways, however, death is encountered either as a possibility of someone else (such as a
spouse, friend, or client), or as a relatively ordinary possibility of oneself (as when the
anticipation of one’s death structures some everyday activity, such as writing a will). To treat
death like this, however, is not to encounter it in its full significance. When encountered in this
way, death does not get its meaning from being opposed to particular possibilities of oneself (as
one does when one writes one kind of will rather than another, or chooses one life insurance
policy over another). Instead, death stands opposed to all other possibilities of oneself – as their
absolute negation. Death encountered in this way thus falls entirely outside of the web of
meanings that make up the world and das Man. Death is an entirely unique possibility of
oneself, for it “refers” to none beyond itself. This is what Heidegger means by calling death
Dasein’s outermost (äußerste; translated as “most extreme”) possibility.
3. Death is the possibility that is unsurpassable (unüberholbar; translated as “not to be
bypassed”). In other words, death is unique among one’s possibilities in that it always and
necessarily “stands out” as an unactualized possibility as long as one exists. By this, Heidegger
does not mean to say that we are always thinking – either consciously or unconsciously – about
death. Rather, he means only that as long as an individual Dasein has possible ways to be, death
is among them. Death is a possibility of oneself whose actualization one cannot experience.
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Naturally, Heidegger does not mean to say that Dasein is immortal. Far from it. Rather, he
means to say that death is the only possible way to be such that its actualization would be the end
of Dasein (e.g., SZ 234). And since only an existing Dasein can experience anything, one’s own
death is not a possibility whose actualization one can experience.
At the bottom of p. 232, Heidegger makes the important connection between anxiety (Angst) and
death. Anxiety is not fear about one’s demise (see section 49). Rather, anxiety arises out of
one’s experience of the finitude that one has because one is mortal. Because we are going to die,
there is a limited number of possibilities that we could ever actualize. He elaborates on this point
in section 53, on p. 245.
Question: Just how does anxiety about death differ from fear about one’s demise?
Section 51
In this important section, Heidegger discusses the inauthentic, everyday, or fallen relation to
one’s own death. In fact, inauthenticity just is the existentiell mode of Dasein’s being-itself in
which death is not explicitly grasped as the unique possibility that it is. (See section 27.)
Instead, inauthentic Dasein covers over (p. 234), is estranged from, flees from, evades, veils, is
untroubled by, or is indifferent to (p. 235) its own death. Naturally, such temptations do not
make death go away. We are “essentially” (p. 234) “being toward the end” (p. 235), i.e., “being
toward death” (p. 235). That is, death is always the existential horizon of Dasein’s being-itself.
Nevertheless, in inauthenticity Dasein devises many ways of avoiding the anxiety that
accompanies facing one’s death. Rather than confronting death as a possibility of myself, I think
of it either as just some state that is not yet objectively present (similar to baldness), or as
something that I only have to deal with practically (e.g., in writing a will). Such possibilities are
given to the individual from the horizon of the they (das Man). Inauthentic Dasein admits that
“they die”, or “one dies” (“man stirbt”), and thereby attempts to conceal death as such. The
they, after all, is no one in particular (p. 234). (As Heidegger notes in footnote 12 [pp. 235,
409], much of the phenomenon of the everyday, public attitude toward death is perfectly
described by Leo Tolstoy in The Death of Ivan Ilyich.)
Section 52
Here Heidegger supplements the list of unique features of one’s own death that he began in
Section 50. In particular, he adds two more:
4. Death is certain (pp. 236-238). By this, Heidegger means two things. First, death will
necessarily occur to us. Second, unlike animals, we can experience the imminence of death (by
which he does not mean that we can experience the actualization of our death). The experience
of the imminence of death that Heidegger is talking about is not a merely intellectual awareness
that, as a matter of empirical fact, every human being will die. Such an intellectual awareness
need not be accompanied by any particular mood. Instead, Heidegger is talking about the
experience of death that is felt as anxiety (p. 238).
5. Death is possible at any moment, although indefinite as to just when it will occur (pp. 238f).
In no moment of our life are we free from the potential imminence of death.
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