Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/75554

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/jaep.10.8

KEYWORDS : approaches to death;being-toward-death;dying;ethics;existentialism;finitude;meaning

The only real guarantee in life is that it will end, that each of us will die. We are of course aware of this, but we tend to be so in a superficial way, a knowledge of the type that is recognized but not felt. If we do think of death it is usually in regards to someone else’s, and how their passing affects us, not how one’s own passing might relate to others. In the below we seek to rectify these shortcomings and reflect on death with a bit more clarity, situating ourselves initially by a consideration of Heidegger’s being-toward-death and examining his 'possibility' with a view directed at authenticity and expectation. Dying and death are differentiated, and what death as annihilation implies is stressed – and this throughout. The framework we have thereby found then becomes an important element in our next effort to discover some approaches to death, to human finitude, that might prove more apposite than the default one. We finally apply our ideas and attempts to ethical concerns about the other, and to how dying – while strictly personal – is never singular.