Note: Being and Time is abbreviated BT. All page
references are to the original unpublished published typescript
translation by Joan Stambaugh. This version was published in
1996. It is important to note shifts of meanings among
Heidegger's technical terms, especially "existential"
and "existentiell." Minor revisions to this paper:
4/10/01. Spellcheck revisions: 2/19/05.
HEIDEGGER ON DEATH
What are Heidegger's essential views about death in Being and Time and how can his views be defended against his critics? In this paper, my purpose will be to answer these questions by giving an expository analysis of what Heidegger says about death, particularly in Part II, Chapter 1 of BT (Sections 45-53). After becoming clear about what Heidegger says about death, I will take up the criticisms developed by Paul Edwards in his monograph on Heidegger. The scope of this paper is modest: I hope primarily to understand and clarify Heidegger's views. Because the existential analysis of death plays such a crucial role in Heidegger's project in BT, I will not pretend to give an exhaustive treatment of the analysis of death. Likewise, I will not claim to show how Heidegger forestalls all possible criticism.
I. Heidegger's Existential Analysis of Death
A. Preliminary Remarks
There is a very brief way of framing how Heidegger approaches
an understanding of death: since death is not something we can
experience (live through), there is really nothing at all to say
about "death itself." In this sense, death is
not -- it does not exist for an individual to
experience. But since "death," in the sense of the
termination of all possible experience (at least a we presently
know it) is inevitable, a given fact of human existence, we can
say a great deal about the attitudes we do have, as well
as the attitudes we ought to have, about this
quintessential aspect of human existence. We can say that what is
important is not "death itself," but dying,
the manner in which the human being lives as it aims toward
death. "Death," as our being toward it, is the focus of
Heidegger's analysis. The old saying that as soon as we are born
we are old enough to die, Heidegger notes, is not something we
can ignore -- for how we live in light of this fact makes all the
difference (BT, p. 158).
Given this above frame, however, we must be careful not to
confuse Heidegger's analysis with ordinary "sayings" or
formulations of everyday speech. Heidegger develops a special
language in the analysis of Dasein. In what follows, it will be
necessary to assume some familiarity with Heidegger's special
terms. Otherwise, we will be faced with the problem of building
Heidegger's system from the ground up. As an example, let us
apply Heidegger's language to the problem frame we just
described. The "attitudes" we have toward death need to
be understood in Heidegger's language as "understanding
attunements." These are types of future-oriented awareness
that also contain a heedfulness or emotional investment. The type
of understanding attunements we can have, that derive
directly from the primordial structure of Dasein are
"existential possibilities." But these possibilities
can take on an abstract or "theoretical" aspect because
the given facts of our existence limit our possibilities. The
understanding attunements that we can actually live through are
"existentiell possibilities." Those
existentiell modes of life which adequately express and reveal
the true structure and possibilities of human existence are
"authentic," while those modes which cover these over
are "inauthentic." Hence, Heidegger's problem is to
investigate Dasein primordially, yielding an existential analysis
that will in turn establish existentiell possibilities of our
being toward death. In the next section, we will follow
Heidegger's thought in pursuing this project as he develops it in
the central chapter on death in BT.
B. Development of Existential Concept (Sections 45-53).
Heidegger begins Part II of BT with two problems: (1) The
analysis so far has taken as its starting point the
"everyday." We have found and described Dasein as it
exists inauthentically. To complete the analysis, we need to
bring forth the authentic possibilities of Dasein. But how is it
possible to derive authenticity by starting in the inauthentic?
(2) Dasein has been shown thus far to be essentially
"being-ahead-of-itself" (BT, p. 129). But how can we
ever "capture," in its totality, a being which is
always ahead of itself? This would seem possible only if we could
understand such a being right up to its end. But the end of
Dasein, what permits us to understand it in its totality, is
death. Therefore, we are faced with the seemingly impossible task
of gaining a total analysis of Dasein through a barrier
impenetrable to experience: death.
The first problem, the extraction of authenticity from the
inauthentic, harkens back to the very beginning of BT. In Section
9, Heidegger says: "What is ontically in the way of
being average can very well be understood in terms of pregnant
structures which are not structurally different from the
ontological determinations of an authentic being of
Dasein" (BT, p. 4). Therefore, since the structures of
authentic and inauthentic Dasein are basically the same, all we
must do is "uncover" or bring forth what is already
present in the everyday. Superficially, at least, problem 1 is
"solved" by Heidegger simply reminding us that
authenticity lies latent in the everyday.
It is instructive, however, to take a closer look at this problem
in the context of Heidegger's overall project and method. Partly,
Heidegger will make an effort to give a conceptual, discursive
account of the nature of Dasein. But more significantly, in my
view, Heidegger will be showing us or pointing the way toward
what an authentic mode of life would be like. He is laying out a
path that we can follow that transcends the conceptual. While
what Heidegger says about death and dying has its own integrity,
we can not understand (in Heidegger's existential sense) by
simply "staring at a meaning" (BT, p. 171). The
situation of authenticity lying "within" the
inauthentic world and Heidegger's task of extracting an
understanding and indicating a way of being in the world is
summarized graphically below.
|---------------------------|
| |
| Everyday | Conceptual
| |---------------->
| | | Understanding
| | |
| | | +
| |-------------|-----| |
| | Authentic | | A way of being
| | | | |
| | Understanding | | |
| | | | |
| | Attunement | | |
| |-------------------| | <--------------|
| |
|---------------------------|
Let us turn to the first step in this process of developing an
authentic understanding attunement: the discursive, conceptual
account. This involves a negative approach, showing what types of
conceptions can be eliminated, followed by a positive account.
Heidegger's negative account begins by showing how four types of
conceptions can be eliminated. First, it might be suggested that
since our own death can not be experienced, the death of others
is the only phenomenon open to us and it therefore must serve as
the basis of our understanding. But Heidegger objects that this
gives us no basis at all for what is wanted, namely an
understanding of our own death. No representation couched in
terms of experience by analogy is suitable for the existential
analysis, which requires that "every Dasein must actually
take dying upon itself" (BT, p. 154). A second way we might
seek to understand death and give some meaning to the totality of
Dasein is to imagine Dasein as composed of parts. In this view
the coming together of various parts could be thought of as the
gradual paying off of a debt. Each of the payments we actually
receive belongs to us, as does what is still not yet given to us.
The sum or total also belongs to us and we receive the total at
the end. But this analogy rests on a mistake about Dasein. Dasein
is not gradually pieced together; it is already whole. The
"not-yet" of Dasein, the projected possibilities open
to us and invested with heedfulness, already belong to
Dasein as part of its being (BT, p. 156). A third possibility
suggests itself: perhaps the coming-to-be of Dasein is like the
phases of the moon. The moon itself already exists in its
totality, but what is illuminated is only gradually revealed and
the whole is visible only when the moon is full -- its
"end." Again, Heidegger calls attention to the
inadequacy of this analogy to Dasein. The not-yet of Dasein is
not real at all; Dasein has to become what it
is not yet (BT, p. 156). Finally, one might suggest an analogy
based on something like the ripening of fruit. This would seem to
be adequate because the fruit ripens of itself and does so
continuously. It "runs its course," always not-yet ripe
until it finishes and completes itself in becoming ripe. In a
similar way, we could say, Dasein "is always already its not
yet, as long as it is" (BT, p. 157). But again the seeming
analogy breaks down. For though Heidegger admits the fruit is
"formally analogous" to Dasein in becoming its not-yet,
the fruit reaches its end in fulfillment, exhausting its
possibilities; Dasein, in contrast, can reach its end without
exhausting its possibilities. For Dasein, there are always
possibilities left unfulfilled. And, Heidegger adds somewhat
disparagingly, we usually go beyond "ripeness," ending
up unfulfilled "or else disintegrated and used up" (BT,
p.157).
From these analogies, Heidegger draws his most important
conclusion about the existential concept of death and the only
mode of understanding open to us. All of the analogies derive
their sense either from considering death as an event that comes
upon us at some future moment or by considering the being in
question to be objectively present. These beings may be said to
have parts or to "become," but unlike Dasein, when they
come to an end they simply "stop," or "become
complete," or "become fulfilled." Dasein not only
already is its end or totality, but it never becomes finished or
completely available. Living, working and doing in the world
necessarily involves the active, future-oriented concerns and
possibilities. These possibilities can never be fully specified,
nor can they all be actualized. As such future-oriented beings,
our relation to our end and the proper perspective for
understanding our totality must be of a kind different from that
of ordinary (ontic) things. This relation to the end of Dasein is
given by the phrase "being toward the end"
(Sein zum Ende) or "being toward death" (Sein zum
Tode). It is evident that death is "not an event, but a
phenomenon to be understood existentially" in a special,
distinctive sense (BT, p. 154). Heidegger summarizes this as
follows:
...Dasein constantly is its not-yet as long as it is, it
also already is its end. The ending we have in view when
we speak of death does not signify a being-at-an-end of Dasein,
but rather a being toward the end of this being. Death is a way
to be that Dasein takes over as soon as it is. (BT, p. 158)
As Gelven notes, this turn from actually being at an end to being
toward an end is crucial for Heidegger. It not only allows the
analysis to proceed but also structures it. It shows that I do
not need to actually die in order to grasp the totality
of Dasein. My awareness that I am going to die can give
me the required perspective. For a philosophic account of death,
an experience of just one person (even if it were available)
would not be sufficient. We need a universal account, showing an
awareness shared by all in order to give the right existential
analysis (cf. Gelven, p. 143). These points are valid, but we
should also notice that Heidegger is indicating more than just an
intellectual comprehension in the above passage. We must take
over a way of being in our relation to death, and this can not be
completely subsumed under our conceptual thinking about it.
Let us now turn to Heidegger's positive account of death and its
relation to Dasein. This will involve not only the existential
structures of Dasein that shape the account, but also the
existentiell possibilities that derive from it. This will also
bring us closer to the above-mentioned need for developing a way
of being toward death. It can be seen immediately, Heidegger
says, that the existential concept based on the ontology of
Dasein can have nothing to do with speculative theological
considerations such as the continued existence of the soul after
death. An ontological interpretation is prior to all such
speculations; it concerns only this world (BT, p. 160).
Additionally, since we know that authentic possibilities of
Dasein already lie in the everyday, the this-worldly
understanding attunements already present will give us clues to
an authentic being toward death. Heidegger proposes that the
interpretation of Care (already developed on the basis of the
everyday in Part 1 of BT) and an analysis of everyday speech will
give us what we need.
Dasein as Care is characterized by existence (being-
ahead-of-itself), facticity (being-in-the-world or being
"thrown") and ensnarement (being-together with others).
Modes of being toward death reveal themselves in each of these
factors. In simply "being ahead of itself," Dasein
faces possibilities. But in facing death, Dasein stands before an
ultimate possibility that it can not bypass. But death is not a
"possibility" in the sense of something detached from
Dasein, something that comes to it from "outside."
Rather, death is the inmost possibility of Dasein, a
possibility which individuates and isolates Dasein in its very
being. Death is the ultimate non-relational possibility of Dasein
that removes it from every conceivable mode of comportment.
Death, therefore, far from being an "external"
possibility like an event, belongs to the very being of
Dasein. Awareness of death in this sense, we may say, intensifies
the inward direction of care because Dasein is thrust
back upon itself and takes up the concern of its being
absolutely. Similarly, what Heidegger has previously shown as
facticity takes on a new dimension as Dasein seeks an
understanding of death. Facticity becomes not only given in the
sense that we are "thrown" (born) into existence but
that we are also "thrown being toward its end" (BT, p.
162). Hence, our awareness is bounded on both sides in its
temporality; Dasein becomes disclosed to itself as finite. The
last factor in Care, ensnarement, also manifests an intense
concern about death, but in ensnarement it is the very things we
flee from and the mode of our covering them over that show our
concern. Various modes of everyday coping are telling examples of
this. "One dies," we say, as if it were merely a bit of
reportage, unrelated to our own being. Alternately, if one admits
it to apply to one's own case we say "also for me sometime,
but for the time being, not yet" (BT, p. 165). In this mode
we turn death into an event and attempt to obtain power over it
by mitigating its certainty. We can even develop an attunement
that accepts the certainty of death, but nevertheless attempts to
maintain power over death. In such an attunement, one feels
superior because one is "anxiously concerned while seeming
free from Angst" (BT, p. 167). In this attunement, "one
knows [my emphasis] about the certainty of death but
'is' not really certain about it" (BT, p. 167). Here,
particularly, Heidegger makes it clear that inauthentic modes
(and by implication authentic modes) involve a way of being-in-the-world.
One can be "certain" in the sense of having
"knowledge" about death (inauthentically
separating one's self from the world and positing an
"object" over against it), while not truly being
certain about death, i.e., having undertaken authentically one's
own being toward death. Everyday Dasein then, generally tries not
to take care of death, but in so doing it acknowledges both the
certainty and the indefiniteness of death.
In analyzing each of these factors of Care, Heidegger seeks to
find an understanding of death that is adequate to the nature of
Dasein, that expresses its structure, its inward depth, its
possibility and connects it to the wholeness of our being.
Heidegger is now ready to give the full existential and
ontological concept of death:
...death is the inmost, not-relational, certain, and as such,
indefinite possibility not to be bypassed of Dasein. ...As the
end of Dasein death is in the being of this being toward
its end. (BT, p. 167)
Heidegger now asks a question. Can we maintain an authentic being
toward death? If so, what would it be like? The answer to this
indicates a way of being that transcends the conceptual and
completes the project of extracting the authentic from the
inauthentic world of the everyday (see the diagram above).
Certainly we should not brood over death in order to be
authentic. Nor should we actively "await" it, as if it
were an event. Rather, an authentic being toward death must make
it "understood as possibility, cultivated as
possibility, and endured as possibility in our
relation to it" (BT, p. 170). The proper relation to death
is essentially a self relation that discloses Dasein to itself and
deepens and intensifies the structure of care. It is essential to
this relation that we understand death as possibility. Heidegger
calls this authentic mode "anticipation" (Vorlaufen),
which literally connotes "running ahead." Anticipation
means confronting by actively revealing, disclosing, death as
possibility. This is an authentic mode because it is appropriate
to the very being of Dasein: "Being toward death is the
anticipation of a potentiality of being of that being whose kind
is anticipation itself" (BT, p. 170). In Dasein's disclosing
of itself to itself in anticipation, certain phenomenological
"results" come to the fore that Heidegger simply
describes rather than "proves." Compressed for brevity,
these include the following. (1) Death individualizes Dasein,
revealing that being-with others ultimately fails when one's
inmost potentiality of being is at stake. Dasein, in facing death
is thereby freed from "the they." (2) In becoming free
from the inauthentic modes of the they, Dasein becomes freed for
ones own death. Further, Dasein comes to understand its own
death, as imminent and not to be bypassed, opens up all the
possibilities lying before it as possibilities to be taken up
freely, apart from the influences of the they. (3) In taking up
the certainty of death, Dasein confronts a form of certainty that
belongs to something not of the order of objectively present
things. This certainty is in regard to Dasein itself, it
understands itself to be of this "other" order of
things. (4) Dasein does not ignore either the certainty or the
indefiniteness of death. In anticipation, Dasein holds itself
"in passionate, anxious, freedom toward death" (BT, p.
173). (5) In being freed from the they, and individualized in
death, Dasein is able to understand "the potentialities of
being of the others" and existing existentielly "as a
whole potentiality of being" (BT, p. 172). In other words,
the recognition of individual death does not separate us from
each other, but forms the basis for authentic human interaction
through mutual regard.
II. Criticism and Response
In this section, we will continue to elaborate on Heidegger's
views by means of entertaining two criticisms advanced by Paul
Edwards and by framing responses based on Heidegger's views and a
deeper analysis of the text. As we shall see, Edwards's radically
different approach to philosophy is not so much a vehicle for
providing substantive criticisms of Heidegger as differentiating
Heidegger's account from accounts based on ordinary language.
A. Objection 1: No interiorization of death is possible.
It is quite true, Edwards says, that we are "being toward
death" not only in the sense that biologically our cells are
dying, but also in some ontological sense that defines how human
beings are. We are conscious and concerned about death in a way
that animals are not; it is evident that human beings act in ways
influenced by their knowledge about their mortality. But all this
only makes it clear that "human beings die and that they are
aware of this." Edwards claims that all Heidegger's excess
verbiage amounts to nothing more than this simple statement. In
Edwards's view, Heidegger does nothing to correct the
"mistaken" views of the Epicureans or the materialistic
philosophers who regard death as an external fact. What Heidegger
offers is "pretentious and fantastically misleading
language," merely a "platitude, accompanied by a
slurring of certain elementary distinctions" (HD, p. 22).
Edwards uses this general complaint against Heidegger to attempt
to show how Heidegger becomes confused about death and knowledge
of death. It is obvious, Edwards says, that death itself is not
knowledge about death. "Death" can not be "a way
to be" or a "mode of life." In effect, Heidegger
(and his followers) propose to use the word "death" to
mean knowledge and concern about death, and not the absence of
life. This way of speaking and thinking of "death" is
possible, but it accomplishes nothing. My thinking that
"death" is interiorized does not change the facts nor
does it refute Epicurus. (Note: Epicurus argued, "If death
is there, you are not; if you are there death is not." This
has been taken to mean that we need not fear death nor think
about it. Edwards's polemic is aimed not specifically at
Heidegger, who, as far as I have been able to ascertain never
mentions Epicurus, but at Gelven's account of Heidegger's
arguments about death. See Gelven, pp.143-155.) To refute
Epicurus, death as the cessation of life would have to be shown
to be an interior and present reality (HD, p. 22). The only sense
in which death is private or something that happens within one's
existence is that we have thoughts about it.
Our thinking about death and our knowledge of it, then are the
only meaning that "interiorized death" can have.
Furthermore, for Edwards, there can be no such thing as anxiety
about knowledge. This in turn demonstrates that Heidegger's
vaunted "anxiety toward death" could not make sense
unless it is toward death (biological death) rather than
knowledge or concern about death. Hence, Edwards concludes, no
interiorization of "death" occurs.
Response to Objection 1.
Both Gelven and Edwards are confused on the issue of Heidegger's
supposed "refutation" of Epicurus. Basically, Heidegger
has no specific historical argument with Epicurus. But even if we
construe there to be one, the terms of the argument are somewhat
different than either Gelven or Edwards assumes them to be. The
question is not about the reality of the experience of death --
both Heidegger and the Epicureans agree that it can not
be experienced. The question is how we should comport ourselves
with regard to the fact of death. The Epicureans say: you don't
need to worry about it; live and enjoy life. Heidegger also says
don't worry about it, but in order to be fully free to enjoy life
we have to fully understand our relation to death. We can not
forget about our finitude -- this would cut s off from our own
being. Hence, the Epicurean has told only half the story; he has
brought death forward in awareness, but then covered it over
again by adopting a mode of the everyday. If there is an argument
to be made here (by Heidegger or his supporters) it is one that
does not hinge on "refutation" by supplying a new
"meaning" to the term "death," but one which
seeks to supply a response in terms of the nature of Dasein and
its being toward death. To say that "death" is
interiorized, therefore, is not to assert the ridiculous idea
that "actual" death becomes interiorized, but that we
come to understand (existentially) our own being in terms of
finitude. Figuratively, we can "run forward" to our own
death, thereby accepting it -- freeing our being in its
wholeness.
Edwards and Heidegger's descriptive efforts and approach to
phenomena differ in kind. Edwards insists on a description of
exterior facts for which no interiorization is possible. His
approach to phenomena is limited to the meanings given to terms
in everyday speech. Heidegger shows not that what is exterior
literally becomes interior, but that the end of Dasein can be
understood as a self-relation which acquires inward depth when
properly disclosed through understanding.
B. Objection 2: "death" is not "possibility".
Edwards argues that many Heideggerians (and Heidegger himself)
take the central lesson of the chapter on death to be that the
true meaning of "death" is that death is a possibility
and not an actuality. Death as possibility gives us the true
meaning which we must understand in order to authentically
confront it. This understanding of death as a possibility,
however, rests on a new sense of possibility that Heidegger
arbitrarily introduces in the final section of the chapter.
Previously, Heidegger emphasizes that death is not a possibility
that we are trying to actualize (for then we would commit
suicide), nor is it something actual we wait for. But in the
final analysis of the meaning of death, we are to understand death
as "the possibility of the impossibility of any existence at
all" (see BT, p. 170). It is clear that this use of
"possibility" does not match the previous uses.
Heidegger's awkward expression has no clear meaning. Neither in
the sense of an event being merely likely (not certain, therefore
possible), nor in the sense of it being something I choose to
actualize can death be said to be a "possibility." It
is, in fact, as Heidegger correctly states, quite certain and
inevitable. Apparently, Edwards concludes, Heidegger thinks that
death is a possibility because it is nothing actual, and since
Heidegger has only two categories to place things in (either the
actual or the possible), he calls death a possibility.
Response to Objection 2.
In responding to Edwards's argument about the meaning of
"possibility" it will be useful to paraphrase what
Heidegger says in Section 53 in greater detail. What does is mean
to "be toward a possibility"? Normally, if we are
"out for something" or "take care" of it we
have in mind actualization of possibilities. In this sense, there
is an attempt to annihilate the possible in the process of making
it actual. In the case of useful things, however, making them
actual does not destroy them. They remain in a situation with
further possibilities for use; useful things remain characterized
by "an in-order-to" (BT, p. 189). Our relation to such
possibilities does not involve "a thematic reflection on the
possible as possible"; we look away from possibility as such
toward "what it is possible for" (BT, p. 189). Now, our
being toward death can not have this character of taking care
with a view towards actualization. Death is not objectively
present (to be actualized for...), not to be made actual by
Dasein (for then Dasein would not be), and not to be
made "actual" in thought (by brooding about it). While
it is true that "thought" still maintains death as a
possibility, there is a tendency in thought to objectify death
and to think of it as a coming event. This tendency weakens death
and is an attempt to put it at our disposal, trying to make death
"show as little as possible of its possibility" (BT, p.
170). In order to keep our understanding of death true and for us
to be toward it authentically, we must attempt to "disclose
understandingly" our being toward death while maintaining
death as possibility. It might be thought that we can maintain
the proper relation to death by awaiting it or expecting it as
something possible that may or may not happen. But this again
involves us in objectification of death.
The existential structure of an authentic being toward death must
establish a relation in which death is revealed in our being
toward it as possibility. In this mode, coming close to the
possible is not with a view toward actualization, but rather an
approach in which the possibility itself becomes clear. That is,
we approach or draw near to the conditions upon which "the
possible" depends. Or, as Heidegger says, we begin to see
the "possibility of the possible" (BT, p. 170). What is
revealed in this approach is that "something" can
"be" possible and "be" in no way real. But
this "something" is not external to Dasein. The
possibility revealed is the possibility of Dasein not existing at
all. Therefore, Heidegger says, our understanding comes to
recognize "the possibility of the impossibility of an
existence at all" (BT, p. 170). In this way, Dasein
maintains the possible as possible and confronts its own inmost
being.
It is easy to see that Edwards's argument is misdirected. It does
not engage Heidegger on his own ground. At bottom, Edwards's
views seem to simply be an insistence that death can be known,
coldly and scientifically, as a simple, given, almost
uninteresting fact. Edwards's criticisms reflect the very mode of
thought that Heidegger is so opposed to, namely, the substitution
of abstract knowledge for the project of inward understanding.
III. Summary and Conclusion
If Heidegger's project had been to clarify the meanings of
ordinary words, perhaps Edwards's criticisms would have some
substance. As we have indicated, Heidegger's conceptual framework
is only a tool, and phrases lifted out of context and
reinterpreted in the language of the everyday fail to convey
Heidegger's intent. Heidegger wants to take us out of the
everyday understanding and the ordinary meanings of words by
disclosing an authentic way of being. For Heidegger, to give the
"meaning" of something is to be engaged in an
ontological-existential project (BT, p. 87). The meaning of death
is rooted in our relation to it as possibility, in the ontology
of our own manner of being toward our own end. Edwards attempts
to redefine Heidegger's project exclusively in terms of
"knowledge" and "meanings" in the senses of
the everyday.
It might be thought that since Heidegger eschews the use of the
word "knowledge," his approach or understanding is
essentially mystical. As Caputo has shown, however, Heidegger is
not a mystic in any conventional sense; no mystical union with
God or a sublime power is contemplated (ME, p. 252). On the
contrary, running ahead to death reveals the nullity of our own
being, individuating us to the core. Far from being a kind of
refined solipsism, however, this individuation becomes the basis
for living in the world with others. Were individuated Dasein cut
off from the world, Heidegger's method would be senseless. The
hermeneutic circle must bring us back into the world (see diagram
and related text, Section I, above); otherwise the exercise
remains abstract. Although Heidegger alludes to this point almost
parenthetically in the chapter on death, it is crucial to our
understanding. While death individualizes, it is only "in
order to make Dasein as being-with understand the potentialities
of being of the others" (BT, p.172). As a modification of
the they-self, authentic being does not remove itself from the
circle of the others (BT, p.198) but disentangles itself from
being "lost" within a non-individuated "they."
The manner of our being toward death is of the utmost importance
for Heidegger. Once the finitude and temporality of Dasein are
approached, it becomes possible for Dasein to be in a
different manner. In a manner of speaking, Heidegger wants us to
dwell in possibility -- not unlimited possibility, for Dasein is
finite and is constrained by factical limits, but possibility
that has been made one's own, freely chosen in full
self-awareness. By showing the ontological priority of
possibility within our own being, our own future and own
possibilities are "opened up." In this sense, drawing
near to death as possibility, approaching it understandingly, is
drawing nearer to life. As Heidegger eventually states in
describing an authentic being toward death, a sober understanding
and even a sober Angst is possible, and with these come
"an unshakable joy" (BT, p. 208).