Heidegger's View Of Death Essay

What is Heidegger’s view of death? Sartre raises an objection to Heidegger’s account of death. What is this objection? Is Sartre correct?

Camus once said: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.”(1991, pp.15) His words reflect the fact that the meaning of life and the relationship between life and death have always been fundamental and significant to philosophical thinkers. This essay is to discuss Heidegger, the famous German philosopher’s view of death, and present one objection from Sartre, and finally analyse the correctness of Sartre’s objection.

Heidegger, in his famous work Being and Time, argues that death is not an event but an existential possibility (1962, pp.294). In this sense, death is a way

It is a matter of which comes first, which second. Heidegger’s point is that recognizing I die rather than merely everybody else implies that I see myself as an individual rather than a member of crowds, thus death individualizes us (Reynolds, 2014, pp.45). However, reading the claim closely one may find that if one can view one’s death separately from others, he/she already possesses the capability to comprehend him/herself as an individual. With this ability, one can not only see death as uniquely one’s own but also many other things in life, such as love, success, and career. As a matter of fact, the idea that everything (including the meaning) in one’s life uniquely belongs to him/herself all originate from subjectivity. Therefore, Heidegger’s authentic apprehension of death is merely the result of subjectivity rather than the cause of it. Death does not individualize us but subjectivity that arises from the inner mind of oneself

Then it presents one of Sartre’s objections to his view that death is the key to individualization because subjectivity is already presupposed when saying “Death individualized us.” I personally agree with Sartre on the relationship between death and individualization because it makes sense logically. As Hoy puts, “the philosophers’ reflections on death are to help people to live fuller lives.” Though different on the philosophical ideas, both Sartre and Heidegger encourage an independent and open-minded attitude toward