Heidegger’s World and Dasein’s Death: The Significance of Being-in-a-world in Relation to Death

Sandor Mark 37 Heidegger’s World and Dasein’s Death: The Significance of Being-in-a-world in Relation to Death Sandor Mark I n Being and Time, Heidegger’s existential analysis of death describes the structure and the ways in which Dasein can comport itself to its own death. In his essay Heidegger on Death, Paul Edwards objects to this existential-structure offering eight critiques. I however, will only take on the first two sections. Though his arguments are complex, Edwards’ objections are often based on two basic conclusions. Either what Heidegger says is false or his arguments are platitudes and fail to say anything new or insightful. Edwards clearly says if he finds an argument or assertion to be a mere platitude it would make the argument pointless and invalid in a loosely logical way. In the first section, Edwards attacks the idea that all people die alone. In the second, Edwards objects to Heidegger’s belief that death is untransferable. I believe Edwards has misinterpreted Heidegger because his criticism fails to address the significance of Dasein’s being-in-a-world and being-with-others. Furthermore, he places his focus on the wrong part of Heidegger’s analysis. In section 1 Edwards takes issue with the idea that Heidegger and Heideggerians claim that all people die alone. Though Heidegger never says this explicitly, Edwards argues that Heidegger’s ‘non-relational’ aspect of death implies this as a fact. Heidegger defines death as: “Dasein’s ownmost possibility—nonSandor Mark is a graduating senior at Boston University. He majored in Philosophy and English and is graduating Cum Laude and with distinction. He has plans to continue his academic career in the future, with the hope of pursuing a doctorate degree in English literature. He is also looking forward to becoming the managing editor of CambridgeEditors next year. 38 Sandor Mark relational, certain and as such indefinite, not to be outstripped.”i Edwards cannot accept the idea that all people die alone, “simply as a consequence of their mortality,” but that means he must clearly define ‘dying alone’. He outlines three possible ways someone could die alone and, based on these definitions, concludes Heidegger is wrong. A person can be said to ‘die alone’: 1) “If no other human being is with him when he dies,” 2) “if there are no other human beings near him with whom he has any strong emotional bonds,” 3) If he is the only one dying as opposed to “dying together.”ii Based on these definitions, it cannot be said that all people die alone. In the first scenario, many people in the world die surrounded by people who are taking care of them. In the second, many people die with their loved ones at their side. In the third definition, sometimes people die, tragically, in a group. Therefore the idea that all people ‘die alone’ is clearly false What has happened, says Edwards, is Heidegger has redefined dying alone “so as to be logically equivalent to ‘dying.’”iii The way in which “dying alone,” is written in Heideggerian philosophy is grammatically equivalent to “dying in poverty,” or “dying in bed.” “In both these cases,” says Edwards, “we clearly have a synthetic relation: ‘dying in poverty’ means more than ‘dying’ and the same is true of ‘dying in bed’” and “dying alone.”vi The problem with Heidegger’s assertions is that if dying alone means just “dying,” then it boils down to saying that all people die someday, making his arguments platitudinous, i.e. failing to be insightful or be a discovery of anything new. If, on the other hand, ‘dying alone’ means more than just dying, in the same way that dying in poverty and dying in bed mean more than ‘dying’, then it is clearly false based on the three ways Edwards defines ‘dying alone’. ‘Dying alone,’ does mean more than ‘dying’, therefore Heidegger’s idea that all people die alone is false. Edwards’ critique misinterprets Heidegger’s notion of death as a non-relational possibility. The non-relational aspect of death doesn’t refer to Edwards’ definitions of ‘dying alone’, but to two significant aspects of Dasein’s being. Being-in-a-world and being- Heidegger’s World and Dasein’s Death 39 with-others are so significant to Dasein’s existence that they must be included in a discussion on death. Thus Heidegger carries these ideas from the first division throughout Being and Time. Being-in-a-world must be carried into the discussion of death in order to juxtapose death as an existential possibility of not beingin-a-world. Death is a possibility-of-Being which Dasein itself has to take over in every case. With death, Dasein stands before itself in its ownmost potentiality-for -being. This is a possibility in which the issue is nothing less than Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. Its death is the possibility of no-longer-being-able-tobe-there. If Dasein stands before itself as this possibility, it has been fully assigned to its ownmost potentiality-for-Being. When it stands before itself in this way, all its relations to any other Dasein have been undone. This ownmost non-relational possibility is at the same time the utter most one.v Edwards, however, fails to include a discussion of how Dasein’s being-in-a-world relates to its death, i.e. it’s no-longer-being-in-aworld. Dasein’s being is grounded in being with other people, e.g. friends, family, co-workers. In being-with-others-in-a-world Dasein is forced to have a relation towards others: a spatial relation, an emotional relation etc. “Being with Others belongs to the Being of Daseins, which is an issue for Dasein in its very Being. Thus as Being-with, Dasein ‘is’ essentially for the sake of Others.”vi This is unavoidable since Dasein is thrown into a world. Throwness requires Dasein to take attitude towards the world and other Daseins. For example, if two friends have a fight and decide never speak to one other again they have not ended their relationship. All they have done is changed the way in which they relate to one another. Their relationship has gone from love to hate, or from a desire to be with one another to the desire to not be around each other at all. Their spatial separation and emotional disdain for one another does not constitute a severing of relations, merely an alteration. So long as one of them is living they 40 Sandor Mark will relate to one another, even if they never think about each other ever again. This is hard to see but consider that their lives would have been fundamentally different if they had remained friends, or if they had ended their friendship at a different time in their lives. Because Dasein is thrown into a world and is fundamentally for-the-sake-of-others we cannot avoid relating to the other in some way. Our relationships with others affect who we are, what we choose to care about and how we choose to act. So long as we are alive we exist alongside-others with some kind of attitude towards them and this comes with being in a world. In death, Dasein can no longer comport (...truncated)