FREE ESSAY ON WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN MORTALITY, ACCORDING TO HEIDEGGER?

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN MORTALITY, ACCORDING TO HEIDEGGER?

Martin Heidegger (1889 - 1976) was, and still is considered to be, along with the likes of
Soren Kierkegaard, Edmund Husserl and Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the principal exponents of
20th century Existentialism. An extraordinarily original thinker, a critic of
technological society and the leading Ontologist of his time, Heidegger's philosophy
became a primary influence upon the thoughts of the younger generations of continental
European cultural personalities of his time.
The son of a Catholic sexton, Heidegger displayed an early interest in religion and
philosophy; at school he began an intensive study of the late 19th century Catholic
philosopher Franz Brentano and, as we shall see, Brentano's "descriptive" psychology, as
presented in his "On the Manifold Meaning of Being According to Aristotle", played a
major role in Heidegger's philosophy. 
Upon leaving school, he was enrolled at the University of Freiburg and, whilst there, he
studied both Catholic theology and Christian philosophy. Heidegger's early study of
Brentano encouraged him to look more closely at the Greek philosophers such as Plato,
Aristotle and the Gnostics. He was particularly influenced, however by several 19th and
20th century writers and philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard (often referred to as the
"father" of Existentialism), Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey (noted for directing
the attention of his contemporary philosophers to human and historical sciences), and by
the founder of Phenomenology, Edmund Husserl.
Husserl's Phenomenology can be seen as a response to the intrusion of psychology into the
essential studies of man; he felt that the study of man should, instead be conducted on a
purely philosophical level. His way of thinking determined, to a large extent, the
background of Heidegger's later work. Indeed, Heidegger's comments upon existential
themes such as anxiety, distress and care were not meant as psychological or
anthropological comments or propositions. Instead, they were specifically proposed as
philosophical (or, more accurately, ontological) statements and phenomenological
observations. Remembering the influence of Brentano and Aristotle, we will see that
Heidegger's principle philosophical concern was the disclosure of the various ways of
Being and particularly, Human Being.
In 1927, Heidegger astonished the German philosophical domain with the publication of his
magnum opus Sein und Zeit , a work that, although almost unreadable, was immediately felt
to be of primary importance. Perhaps partly due to its intriguingly difficult style, the
book was acclaimed as a very deep and important work not only in German speaking
countries but also in Latin countries, where Phenomenology had already been popularised.
It strongly influenced Jean-Paul Sartre (although, as with Husserl, Sartre's
phenomenological ontology concentrated more upon consciousness than Heidegger believed
was necessary). Despite his protestations, Heidegger was classed, on the strength of
Being and Time as the leading atheistic Existentialist. However, the book received a
colder reception in England and its influence was negligible for several decades.
In order to understand the above titled question, we must first attempt to understand
some of the fundamental points that define Heidegger's difficult philosophy. To begin
with, it may useful for us to consider Heidegger's reasons for writing Being and Time
and, to consider some of the philosophical problems that the book addresses. 
Heidegger believed that traditional philosophy was inherently problematic due to a
particular way of understanding the nature of reality. This "particular way", prevalent
ever-since the dawn of western history due to the likes of Herecleitus and Aristotle, is
an ontology which states that what is ultimately real is that which lies underneath
properties (or entities) and remains continuously present throughout change. As pointed
out by Charles B. Guigon in The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, this naturalistic
philosophy is sometimes referred to as "Substance Ontology". Substance Ontology reaches
its problematic peak with the Cartesian Cogito, as Guigon states,
"Ever since Descartes, this substance ontology has bred a covey of either/ors that
generate the so-called problems of philosophy: either there is a mind or everything is
just matter; either our ideas do represent objects or nothing exists outside the
mind…either something in me remains constant throughout change or there is no
personal identity; either values have objective existence or everything is permitted." 
Heidegger believed that the constant move and countermove arguments resulting from this
naturalistic ontology were counter-productive and hence, could never result in any
satisfactory truths concerning the true nature of reality. He challenged the
time-honoured, problematic methods by suggesting that reality should not be thought of in
terms of substance at all. For example, he implied that the mind matter problem was
irrelevant, as Guigon states, "…it is not that mind and matter do not exist, but
that they are derivative, regional ways of being for things" . Heidegger is essentially
pointing out the abstractedness of Descartes theory and is asking whether such
abstractions or theories can help us to identify reality. Rationalism relies upon the
theoretical reductionism that is inherent in Cartesian Dualism. Furthermore, it is
societies dominant theoretical attitude that has caused the misinterpretation of reality,
abundant in Philosophy. Guigon states
"This misinterpretation is inevitable once one adopts the detached standpoint of
theoretical reflection, for when we step back and try to get an impartial view of things,
the world, so to speak, goes dead for us - things lose the meaningfulness definitive of
their being in the everyday life world." 
The "detached standpoint" then, is inherently inconsistent with our day to day realities.
Rarely, are our typical "pre-reflective" day to day activities, steeped in theoretical
abstract functions. Heidegger proposed that we discard the view of reality achieved by
theorising and instead, concentrate on how things actually appear or show themselves,
phenomenologically, from day to day, things such as hammering in a workshop or turning a
doorknob...etc. 
The typical objective of Ontology was to answer the question, "What is the being
[reality] of entities?" Heidegger realised that this seemingly fundamental question was
in fact, "naive and opaque" because we can only understand reality in such a manner that
it becomes intelligible to us in some determinate way. In other words, our ability to
rationalise and to theorise in an abstract manner draws our attention away from the
mode(s)in which reality, or Being, actually presents itself to us. To combat the
conventional outlook, Heidegger proposed a fundamental ontology that would not simply
enquire into the being of entities (for this kind of ontology could only ever be
theoretical and reflective); instead, he would enquire as to the conditions of human
intelligibility by way of answering the question, "What is the meaning of Being?" We are
after all, the only creatures with that type of being that will allow us to comprehend
meanings or, as Heidegger says, "Dasein is the horizon in which something like being in
general becomes intelligible." This introduces the notion of hermeneutics into
Heidegger's phenomenology; his ontological inquiry explores the kind of existence that is
experienced by beings who are able to understand meanings. But the answer to the
question, "What is the meaning of Being?" lies somewhere behind the obviousness of
everyday life; it escapes us or, is usually overlooked because it is too near to us to be
grasped in our everyday lives. It could be said of Heidegger that his entire prophetic
mission amounts to making each man and woman ask the question with maximum involvement. 
At the heart of Being and Time lies Heidegger's analysis of the one (the man) who asks
the question - who is capable of asking the question - concerning Being, who precisely
because of this capability occupies a privileged position in regard to all other entities
or, Beings. The privileged position is, what Heidegger calls Dasein (literally, "being
there"). Dasein is the word that Heidegger uses to define our ontological structure or,
our way of Being. With the introduction of Dasein, Heidegger's philosophy moves away from
the existential phenomenology of Husserl and Sartre. This is because Dasein is not
specifically a conscious subject; instead, it is to be thought of as a self-interpreting
entity,
"Dasein is an entity which… is ontically distinguished by the fact that Being is an
issue for it." 
"Its [Dasein's] ownmost being is such that it has an understanding of that being, and
already maintains itself in each case in a certain interpretedness of that being." (36)
Dasein's way of being is self interpretation; it is, as Heidegger says,
"…interpretation all the way down." 
In effect, Heidegger has managed to move philosophy into an extremely personal sphere.
His ontology is such that it doesn't just enquire into the Being of entities; instead, he
is looking for the very meaning of Being and, in particular, the meaning of Human Being.
Taking the individual "Dasein" as a starting point, he sets forth to reveal this way of
being, a being that is peculiar to Humans .
So far, we have looked at some of Heidegger's motives for writing Being and Time and we
have observed one of the fundamental problems that he addresses i.e. that philosophy,
since the days of Aristotle, has missed the crucial starting point for a genuine
ontology; instead of looking at the being of things outside of ourselves, we should look
primarily, at our own, unique way of being and move on from there. 
As an aid in the effort to get back to "Thinking of Being" and its redemptive effects,
Heidegger elected to use a quite bizarre, but nevertheless necessary, array of
linguistics. He developed his own German and Greek words and, to some extent, his own
kind of etymology. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of his new terms and expressions began or
ended with "-being-", for example, being-a-whole, being-amidst, being-towards…etc;
as we shall see, these terms help to define the holism and continuity that is prevalent
within Existentialism. All of these expressions relate to the being of a Dasein or
Dasein's. For example, being-in-the world refers to the fact that Dasein always comports
its ways of being in relation to its environment. Of course, this is an extremely
simplistic definition and indeed, Heidegger's comments upon Being-in-the-World are
intricate and complex and furthermore, reveal many aspects of our seemingly unique way of
being. As Stephen Mulhall points out in Heidegger and Being and Time , Heidegger uses
various accounts of average everydayness, "to demonstrate that the Being of Dasein is
Being-in-the-world". Mulhall goes on to say,
"We tend to understand Dasein in terms of what-being, as if it were possessed of an
essence from which its characteristics flow in the way that a rock's properties flow from
its underlying nature; we interpret ourselves as just one more entity amongst all the
entities we encounter." 
Here, the use of the word, "essence", always a keyword in terms of Existentialism may
remind us of a celebrated maxim, which can be found within Sartre's philosophy. When
Sartre declares that, for humans, "Existence precedes Essence", he means that for us, as
opposed to every other entity, our essence (or, defining characteristics) is not
determined by our existence. If it were, then we too would simply possess a way of being
that Heidegger calls what-being , or Sartre calls "being-in-itself" (as opposed to
"being-for-itself"). 
Heidegger's lengthy and complex investigation into Dasein's Being as Being-in-the-world
reveals many common misconceptions like the one quoted above. However, Heidegger does not
just reveal the misconceptions, he also reveals the reasons for and the consequences of
them. 
If we juxtapose one or more of these "consequences", such as Falling or Anxiety, with the
aforementioned holism and continuity of Existentialism, we can perhaps gain some insight
into one of the more striking components to be found within Heidegger's philosophy,
namely his comments upon human mortality. 
For Heidegger the existential and ontological ideas concerning mortality arise out of the
problem of trying to grasp the character of Dasein's being-a-whole. For us as humans, the
concept of death contains many varied signification's and connotations. For some it marks
the beginning of a new type of "spiritual" existence, for others (and particularly for
atheists) death is nothing more than the end of life. Death-as-an-end however, seems to
be the unifying opinion for both the religious and the atheistic ways of being. This is
how most of us perceive death in our day to day lives and because of this, simply
mentioning the word can make one uneasy or even alarmed. Paradoxically however, death
also presents us with a certain degree of morbid solace. This consolation manifests
itself when we take comfort in the mistaken, subjective view that death comes as a
completion or, fulfilment of life; it is psychologically comforting to think that, as we
approach old age we gradually become closer to fulfilling our lives thereby adding a
degree of meaningful continuity to our existence. But perhaps this is not the authentic
way in which death presents itself to us. In order for us to understand Heidegger's
phenomenological assessment of mortality, we must first investigate another ontological
characteristic of Dasein, namely that of Care. 
"The formerly existential totality of Dasein's ontological structural whole must…be
grasped in the following structure: the Being of Dasein means
ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in-(the-world) as Being alongside
(entities-encountered-within-the-world.) This being fills in the signification of the
term 'care'"(237).
According to Heidegger, man's existence is characterised as Care. This Care presents
itself initially, in possibility: man makes things instrumental to his concerns and, in
doing so, projects himself forward, into the world. Secondly there are the limitations
(or, to use the existential terminology, the facticity) of mans existence. Heidegger
exemplifies these limitations with the concept of throwness, a concept that encompasses
the resulting facticity of our finite lives. Thirdly man seeks to avoid the anxiety of
his limitations and so flees toward that which Heidegger calls an inauthentic mode of
existence. One final constituent of care is the aforementioned falling. Simplistically,
this refers to the typical, everyday mode of existence that we encounter when we choose
to flee the accompanying anxiety of authenticity. Our anxiousness comes about because of
our very Being-in-the-world, furthermore, "Anxiety confronts Dasein with the knowledge
that it is thrown into the world - always already delivered over to situations of choice
and action which matter to it but which it did not itself fully choose or determine."
Here, once again we may be reminded of Sartre's existentialism, particularly when he
speaks of our "monstrous freedom". In anxiety, Dasein is anxious about itself;
furthermore, in falling Dasein is anxious about its "monstrous freedom", a freedom of
such monstrous proportions that Dasein's very existence necessarily involves the act of
projecting itself upon one or more possibilities. As Mulhall states, "anxiety plunges
Dasein into an anxiety about itself in the face of itself." 
Paradoxically it is anxiety that rescues Dasein from an inauthentic, fallen mode of
existence, an irresponsible existence in the world of the-they. When Dasein confronts
itself with itself i.e. when Dasein confronts itself with the intimidating connotations
of its possibilities (bearing in mind that Dasein is possibilities), it is forced by
anxiety to recognise its own existence as "essentially thrown projection, but its
everyday mode of existence as fallen." 
Leading from this experience of self-recognition, which goes far beyond our typical
expectations, anxiety reveals Dasein's existence as "thrown projection fallen into the
world". This then, is meaning of Care. When the existentially autonomous ontological
elements of fallenness, thrownness, anxiety, facticity, and authenticity are combined, we
are, according to Heidegger, left with the essential characteristic of human existence. 
With the cumulative conception of Care we see, not for the first time in Heidegger's
philosophy, an element of continuity or holism. This is perhaps not altogether unusual
due to the practical nature of existentialism. Heidegger's philosophy does after all,
concentrate upon Dasein's "ways of being", an expression which indeed implies a
transitory nature. As we have seen, continuity can often be important to us, as humans,
when we consider mortality. It offers us meaningful consolation when we think of death as
the fulfilment of a life. But if death belongs in a distinctive sense to the Being of
Dasein then it must, says Heidegger, be defined in terms of the characteristics of Dasein
which incorporate a kind of being which is "ahead-of-itself Being-already-in-the-world as
being alongside- entities which we encounter in the world" i.e. it must be defined in
terms of Care. 
From the outset there is a fundamental problem, a problem that stems from the attempt to
understand the being of Dasein as being-a-whole. If Dasein is ontologically
ahead-of-itself, i.e. surging up in-the-world, then it is always and at any given moment
oriented towards the next given moment of its existence. Therefore as long as a Dasein
exists, its existence, in terms of being-a-whole, is incomplete. But once Dasein's
existence is brought to an end by death the Dasein itself is gone and is therefore, no
longer capable of looking upon its existence as a whole, 
"Thus, the idea of Dasein grasping its existence as a totality seems to be a
contradiction in terms: for Dasein to be a whole is for Dasein to be no longer, and so to
be no longer capable of relating to itself as a whole" 
Death then, is an end, it is the end of the continuity of our existence; but it is not
the sort of end that will allow us to see ourselves as having completed a whole (life).
It is not an event that we can experience. It seems then that Dasein cannot ever grasp
its existence as a whole. Equally important is the fact that death cannot be thought of
as a fulfilment because Dasein can cease to exist (Heidegger calls this demise), and
indeed is likely to, without fulfilling all of its potential choices. One may be struck
down at any moment; this possibility diminishes the prospect of a life being fulfilled.
More importantly however, Heidegger says, "With its death, Dasein has indeed 'fulfilled
its course'. But in doing so, has it necessarily exhausted its specific possibilities?
Rather, are not these precisely what gets taken away from Dasein?…Fulfilling is a
mode of finishedness and is founded upon it. Finishedness is itself possible only as a
determinate form of something present-at-hand or ready-to-hand"(288-289). What Heidegger
is essentially saying here is that the idea of finishedness is not applicable to an
entity that has the defining characteristic of being ahead-of-itself
Being-already-in-the-world. Instead, the term may only authentically apply to a kind of
being that is in-the-world as a potentially practical entity i.e.
something-present-at-hand or, ready-to-hand. For example, a road may be thought of as
'finished' when it has reached its end. The end of Dasein however cannot be thought of in
this way because it can never appear in this way to itself. Neither can others think of
the death of a person/Dasein as fulfilment or finishedness. This is because the person
who has died becomes an object of concern "…in the ways of funeral rites,
internment, and the cult of graves."(282). This means that the one who has died is still,
even in her death, more than just equipment or, something ready-to-hand. In taking part
in the "cult of graves", the "others" still possess a being-with alongside the deceased,
a kind of being that exists in a mode of "respectful solicitude". So, not only can we
never grasp our own lives as a totality thereby allowing ourselves to gain a proper
understanding of the Being of Dasein as a being-a-whole, we also cannot grasp the
totality of another 's life.
Death can only be analysed in the terms of one's own death or, as Heidegger states, "Our
investigation is thus forced into a purely existential orientation to the Dasein which is
in every case one's own."(284). By keeping in mind this purely existential requirement
for an understanding of death and thus, dismissing the notion of death's being a kind of
event, we can see that death is inherent in our being. If we are to understand it, we
must analyse it in terms of an existence that is continually pushing forward
in-the-world. Death can never signify a being-at-an-end therefore it must signify a
being-towards-an-end. It is a "…way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it
is."(289).
Furthermore, it is a way to be that may possibly be realised at any given moment. This
perpetual possibility suggests that for Dasein, death is its "ownmost possibility" To a
large extent, this exemplifies the previously mentioned "extremely personal sphere" to
which Heidegger has moved philosophy into. This is because, more than anything else in
Heidegger's ontology, Dasein's "ownmost possibility" reveals the mineness of existence. 
Death then is not to be thought of as a future event that draws closer and closer as a
person approaches old age, this view is erroneous because we can never dismiss the
possibility of our demise at any given moment of our lives. In our throwness
into-the-world, we are thrown into the possibility that each moment will be our last,
that we will realise the possibility that will spell the end of all possibilities. 
This perpetual threat of annihilation is so personal, ("In dying, it is shown that
mineness and existence are ontologically constitutive for death" 284), that no one else
can substitute it for me. Dying is, as Heidegger says, something that every Dasein must
take upon itself at the time that it happens; furthermore, "No one can take the Other's
dying away from him"(284). It outstrips my relation to others, my being-with-others, and
thereby isolates me completely. 
It is in the authentic acceptance of this definition of death, as the "…possibility
which is one's ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be
outstripped."(294), that we come face to face with the existential notion of the
contingency of existence (an issue that is perhaps more readily associated with Sartre
than Heidegger). If we can never escape this thing that inhibits us from the possibility
of seeing our lives as having been completed or fulfilled, then what chance do we have of
attaching any real meaning to our existence? It would seem that at the end of our lives,
we needn't have existed at all. This existential notion of contingency is explored in
great detail in Sartre's 1943 "essay" on phenomenological ontology, Being and Nothingness
. Sartre places human consciousness, or no-thingness, in direct opposition to thingness.
Consciousness is not a material entity (is not-matter) and by this token escapes all
determinism. The message, along with all of the implications, is a hopeful one; yet the
incessant reminder that human endeavour is and remains useless lends an air of tragedy to
the book as well. Concerning Heidegger's existentialism, the necessity of an
entity/possibility that will end all of our possibilities (i.e. our choices) and will not
allow our lives to possess any form of completeness shows us that all of our
choices/possibilities will have been contingent. Thus, if Dasein is, as Heidegger claims,
"possibilities" then it is also contingency.
If we are to have an authentic outlook upon death, then we must consider it
existentially. In doing so, we must accept that death plays an integral role in our being
in such a way that we have a being-towards-death. Our being-towards-death is a matter of
Dasein making "…it's every projection upon an existentiell possibility, in the
light of an awareness of itself as mortal." If we are to confront death, then we must
confront it as the possibility which is not to be outstripped thereby accepting, as
Mulhall states, "…that one's existence is ultimately to be given up or annihilated,
and so is utterly contingent, and in no way necessary…" .
It could be said that this being-towards-death is, in its essence anxiety because of the
contingency of our existence combined with the facticity of our thrownness and the
ever-present possibility of the end of all possibilities.
One cannot imagine that it would be easy for the average person to dwell upon the
contingency of existence presuming that she is leading the typically inauthentic
lifestyle. Authenticity on the other hand requires a kind of optimistic stoicism in which
death is embraced as a possibility and man faces the "nothing". This is in accordance
with Heidegger's analysis of the structure of our being; an analysis that reveals an
affective existence i.e., through such existential attitudes and feelings as care,
anxiety and so on.
Having investigated the convoluted methodology behind Heidegger's ontological analysis of
death we may now consider the actual significance of the role of Human mortality in his
philosophy. 
Anxiety functions to disclose (dis-close) authentic being, freedom, as a potentiality. It
manifests the freedom of man to choose himself and to take hold of himself. The relevance
of time, or more specifically, the finiteness of human existence is then experienced as
a, perhaps unnerving, freedom to meet his own death, a preparedness for and continuous
relatedness or, being-toward, his own death. In anxiety, all other entities disappear
into a "nothing and nowhere", man hovers in himself as ex-isting, being nowhere at home.
In facing this no-thing-ness all obvious everydayness disintegrates and so he faces the
potentiality for authenticity. Thus, anxiety, care and the implied confrontation with
death are for Heidegger primarily of methodological importance: through these fundamental
parts, elements are revealed such as potentialities for being joyfully active,
"…knowing joy [die wissende Heiterkeit] is a door to the eternal". Anxiety is the
existential instrument which opens man up to Being and, according to Heidegger,
"…to think Being is to arrive at one's (true) home". Unsurprisingly, the overall
theme of Being and Time is not too dissimilar to Sartre's later masterpiece. The
implications of contingency leave one with a similar "air of tragedy". However, if we can
gather the strength to adopt an authentic way of being, if we can see that we have a self
to find and overcome the repression for selfhood, we can at the very least be freed from
the mistaken view of death and thus, be freed from the irrational fear that normally
accompanies it. The role of mortality in Heidegger's philosophy may be methodological and
catalytic, but the import of mortality to Human Being, whether authentic or inauthentic
is and always has been significant in conjunction with our cultural overlays and
traditions. Heidegger's phenomenological view of death as a way-of-being is significant
to us because it provides a workable alternative to the common dogmatic views of death
and it can help to guide us through a profound existence, that is laden with the traps
and pitfalls of inauthenticity.