Being-towards-death in Heidegger

Heidegger encounters an immense problem when he defines Dasein as an entity or being that, “in its very Being…[has] Being [as] an issue for it” (32); as something that “always understands itself in terms of its existence—in terms of a possibility of itself” (33): how can Dasein be the whole of itself? For if Dasein is to make its Being an issue for itself, it must be able to access itself (that is, access its own being, its own ontological existence) in its totality: Dasein must, in Heidegger’s formulation (which conceives this access only as Being in a definite way), be-a-whole. This needs to be the case, or Dasein could only at best have a “partial” (i.e. not-whole) understanding of itself, and it would then be questionable as to whether Dasein’s Being is really an issue for it if its Being can only be partially an issue for it. That is, Heidegger’s entire conception of Dasein as a Being whose Being is an issue for it collapses: Being must be at least possibly accessible to an entity if that entity is a whole of itself for Dasein to really make an issue of itself, in order for it not to only partially be when it attempts to be itself fully (or authentically). If Dasein accessed Being by being partially, what would access Being, and thus what would have Being as an issue for itself, would not be Dasein: it would be that part of Dasein that accesses Being. Thus, the problem of Dasein’s being-a-whole is fundamental for Heidegger to answer: Dasein cannot be as Dasein at all if it is only possible for it to partially be. But this requires something that is not at all obvious: Dasein must be-a-whole before it is what we would normally call a “whole.” That is, what we normally call a “whole” is something that runs its course and ends, forming a closed, complete, and total structure. Since Dasein is obviously in the process of being itself and not ending, how could it be at an end if it does not be an end before it really ends? Dasein would have to be not-itself or at the end of itself in order to access (or be) its Being in its wholeness. How, then, could it really take its Being as an issue, if it must be something not itself in order to be-a-whole? Heidegger, as we shall see, solves this problem via an analysis of the phenomenon of death. In looking at death, he at once undermines our notion of “whole,” and at the same time is more rigorous than us in maintaining the notion of Dasein as something whose Being is an issue for it: Dasein, we shall see, is always already capable of being-a-whole because it is, when it is authentically most itself, always already a whole. We shall see that this capability lies in how Dasein is always existing in a mode that Heidegger calls “Being-towards-death:” a state possible for Dasein both because Dasein has its Being as an issue for it and is not something Heidegger calls “present-at-hand.”
According to how we understand “whole,” Dasein is to access itself as a whole, or be-a-whole, by turning itself into not-Dasein: Dasein would have to be something at the end of Dasein in order for Dasein to be a totality—that is, in order for Dasein to be finished off or closed. And what is this not-Dasein other than death for Dasein? In death, as Heidegger explains, Dasein suddenly becomes “no-longer-being-there;” something other than Dasein (in German, literally “being-there”) which used to be Dasein (280). Indeed, it is then that Dasein becomes a totality in our sense: Dasein is a totality if it is no longer something that was indeed Dasein. That is, if Dasein “was”—if it is no longer existing—it indeed can be said to have existed, and this existence must have formed some type of closed-off structure that we could call a whole. Thus, what we are asking when we ask if Dasein can be-a-whole seems to be something immensely contradictory: whether Dasein can exist as Dasein while not existing as Dasein; whether we can live as Dasein at our death, or “be-at-the-end.” This is obviously impossible, Heidegger concludes, so long as we keep our notion of death (and with it, our notion of wholeness as reached in death). If we conceive of death as something that ends a thing, there is no way this could apply to Dasein—and then of course Dasein would have to be something other than it is in order to have access to it. This is because our idea of wholeness, Heidegger argues, takes a thing (which we mistakenly call Dasein) and shows that death adds a certain state to it (dying) that then nullifies the thing (makes it dead or not-itself). Dasein is not such a thing that can be added on to in this manner: this conception of Being-at-the-end, if applied to Dasein, would make Dasein into something that Heidegger calls “ready-to-hand” or “present-at-hand”—that is, we would make Dasein into a thing; an entity or being that is just like all other entities. If we think that Dasein is not just a thing that exists, but rather something that has its existence as an issue for it—that is, if we think that we are beings that can only be adequately defined with respect to the complex of ways that we exist, and not just the fact that we exist—we have to rethink our idea of being-at-an-end so as to be adequate to treating Dasein as something not present-at-hand. Notice that this does not imply we have to make our notion of death something that Dasein can indeed access: Heidegger here is not being circular, arguing that Dasein is indeed able to access or be death because death is something that it can access or be, but is only finding an adequate conception of Being-at-an-end—it may turn out that Dasein could not have access to its end as itself.
Thus, we have to conceive of death as something that is not just added on to Dasein as a state it can just exist in. Heidegger’s notion of “being-at-an-end” becomes, then, something that an entity can exist towards, if only because being-at-an-end is indeed being (or being-towards or having a comportment or stance towards existence) in such a way that one is at-an-end or over with: “Death is not something not yet present-at-hand, nor is it that which is ultimately still outstanding [that is, something that needs to be added on to Dasein]… Death is something that stands before us—something impending” (294). If death is something that will happen to Dasein in such a way that Dasein can exist as Dasein in (but of course not, it seems to Dasein, after) its death, Dasein is able then to “be-towards-death,” or be in such a way that Dasein has a stance towards its own death. We thus are able to still be ourselves towards what Heidegger also calls our “uttermost” or last “not-yet:” Dasein has the ability to still be Dasein (not yet being not-Dasein) in its own death. This is what he means when he says that “being-at-an-end implies existentially being-towards-the-end. The uttermost ‘not yet’ has the character of something towards which Dasein comports itself” (293-4). “Being-at-an-end” then becomes “being-towards-death” for Heidegger, due primarily to how we have to treat Dasein as something not present-at-hand—as something that has Being as an issue for itself. If what we are asking when we ask if Dasein can be-a-whole is whether we can live as Dasein at our death, or “be-at-the-end,” this is obviously impossible: there is no way for Dasein to be at the very point where it is something other than it is. And this is not primarily because Dasein cannot be something other than itself (indeed, as we shall see, when Dasein is “inauthentic” this is precisely the case) but rather because Dasein is something that is never at a certain point or state: it is always in a certain way. Dasein can then be-at-the-end because what we are really asking, Heidegger seems to suggest, is whether Dasein can be-in-the-end, or be-towards-the-end (if being-in-something is conceived as a way to be towards something)—that is, be-towards-death.
And if this is the case, then being in this way does not necessarily have to happen at the point of what we would normally call “death,” or “the end” of Dasein. But in order to show this, Heidegger has to show what being-towards-death looks like: how we can actually take up a stance towards our death. Again, in showing this Heidegger relies upon Dasein not being something ready-to- or present-at-hand. Heidegger calls what we normally call death the “demise” of Dasein—it is the end for Dasein only insofar as we conceive Dasein as entity that is present-at-hand. If Dasein is something more and something qualitatively different than an entity that is present-at-hand, Dasein can indeed have its demise without its death, or its death without its demise (in fact, Heidegger holds that either one of these is more often the case than someone dying at their demise). If, as we said, death is something Dasein can exist towards, and death does not necessarily imply a Dasein’s demise, death can happen always, even while we live. We can live (when living is conceived as being), as it were, in death. In fact, Heidegger holds that it is always already the case that we living in death—that is, we are always already dying:
Dasein, as thrown Being-in-the-world, has in every case already been delivered over to its death. In being towards its death, Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly, as long as it has not yet come to its demise. When we say that Dasein is factically dying, we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another (303).
Heidegger’s first two sentences here make sense to us now. But his third, that “we are saying at the same time that in its Being-towards-death Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another” expands our idea of how “Dasein is dying factically and indeed constantly” with the use of two crucial concepts: what he calls Dasein’s “thrownness,” and Dasein’s “deciding of itself,” or its “understanding.” If Dasein is something that has its Being as an issue for it, it has its Being as an issue for it always: when Dasein is being in a particular way at a particular juncture, it finds itself as “thrown” into that way of being. Dasein as “thrown” exists simply in a way of being at a particular juncture, regardless of how it got into that particular way. Furthermore, if Dasein has its being as an issue for it, it has this Being as an issue for it in a particular way: when Dasein exists in a particular way, Dasein can be said to “understand” its being as an issue in some particular way. Understanding then manifests itself in the very way Dasein exists, for if Dasein is something that has its own Being as an issue for it, its understanding of this issue makes it be according to this understanding—or be with respect to its possibilities of being in a particular way that is precisely its understanding. As Heidegger said, Dasein “always understands itself in terms of its existence—in terms of a possibility of itself:” Dasein in its being decides among the possibilities of itself in existing in a certain way, and thus understands itself so long as it is. And since understanding is deciding in being, understanding does not need to be a conscious understanding—and thus Dasein can be said to have always an “understanding” of its Being whether it grasps this consciously or not. If this is the case, “Dasein has always decided itself in one way or another” with respect to the way that it is—or its “thrownness”—in the way that it is, or how it is towards itself as thrown. And if Dasein’s death is something that Dasein can exist towards (and is not merely a state which is added on to Dasein, as we saw Heidegger assert above), then Dasein “is in every case already been delivered over to its death:” that is, it has taken up some sort of stance towards its death—or understood itself as thrown being towards death—and has taken up (and always continues to take up) this stance already. Thus Heidegger can say that Dasein is always already dying. Being-towards-death is something Dasein always does.
This granted, Dasein would seem to always decide upon its death in its understanding of itself as thrown towards death. But how is this understanding really possible if Dasein is not in its demise while at the same time dying? And does dying have anything to do with being-a-whole anymore if being-towards-death is something that Dasein can always be? Indeed, Heidegger turned towards the phenomenon of death not only because it is what we conceived Dasein to be when it was not-itself (which was only partially true, insofar as Dasein was really not-itself in death and not in its demise), but because he indeed affirms it as the condition in which being-a-whole is possible. He does this in this way in order to refute our conception that someone can only be-a-whole, or be “fulfilled” at their demise: this is to collapse death and the demise of Dasein into the same phenomenon, which, as we have seen, does not do justice to the nature of Dasein. He thus rescues Dasein from our conception of it as present-at-hand by making it clear that Dasein does not have to be something like not-Dasein in order for Dasein to achieve being-a-whole, as we falsely assumed. That is, Dasein does not have to be-a-whole before its demise by being something not-itself, as we originally suggested. Instead, it is always and only a whole before its demise through its dying.
If this means that Dasein is always already being-a-whole, Heidegger would say that this is indeed the case. But what does death offer Dasein that its demise does not in terms of its ability to Be-a-whole? We have seen Heidegger call death “Dasein’s uttermost ‘not yet,’” which we showed was Dasein’s ability to still be Dasein in its own death—that is, Dasein’s ability to not yet be not-Dasein. It is now evident that death allows Dasein something other and something more fundamental than an encounter with what it is like to be in demise: Dasein’s death offers it an encounter with what it is like not to be. If Dasein always understands itself in terms of a possibility of itself—or, in other words, if Dasein (as an understanding Being with possible ways to be) is “potentiality-for-being,”—then what we encounter in Dasein’s death is the possibility of ourselves not having any more possibilities. Furthermore, death is a possibility that is absolutely certain to happen or cannot be outstripped, and a possibility that can happen always: death is both certain as to whether it can occur and indefinite as to when and how it can occur, as Heidegger puts it (294). And if this further point is so, this is what allows Dasein to be-a-whole in death (and in not its demise), because it is an encounter that allows Dasein to understand how it is always already a whole in its dying: if Dasein is always dying, and dying is the confrontation with the possibility of Dasein’s having no more possibilities, then Dasein in dying understands that it is always already being-at-its-end, or is, at that juncture, a whole. The “end” that allows Dasein to be-a-whole is always, and so Dasein is always being-a-whole—it is always being or existing at the point which its possibilities are always as much as they are, in the sense that they cannot be anymore (past possibilities are past) and they could not be again (the next instant could be the end of Dasein’s possibilities in death). Furthermore, this end is the end for no one else but Dasein: death is not related to anything other than Dasein (there is nothing remaining after Dasein’s death that could give it more possibilities), and so there is no way it could not be a totality in its death. What is lost after death, in actually being not-Dasein, is not something shared by (or related to) more than one being or between Dasein and the world, but is lost by only Dasein: this makes the whole that Dasein is in the end of being its very own, or, since this is the absolute possibility of its end, its “ownmost.” In death, Dasein is therefore immensely far from being something that is not-Dasein, as we mistakenly said: it is when Dasein is most Dasein that Dasein inhabits being-towards-death. Heidegger sums this up in the following:
As potentiality-for-Being, Dasein cannot outstrip the possibility of death. Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein. Thus death reveals itself as that possibility which is one’s ownmost, which is non-relational, and which is not to be outstripped (294).
If there will be no more Dasein, and if nothing else but Dasein will be no more when Dasein is no more, then Dasein must necessarily be whole or totality—that is, be its most—at the juncture in which it inhabits being-towards-death—that is, always.
But Heidegger holds that being-a-whole, if it is going to happen always in Being-towards-death, can only be conceived as something that is entered into in two modalities: authentically or inauthentically. Mostly, we are not authentically being-towards-death: we are not taking a stance towards death by understanding the impossibility of being after death in all its depths: this is what Heidegger means when he says the following:
Proximally and for the most part Dasein covers up its ownmost Being-towards-death, fleeing in the face of it. Factically, Dasein is dying as long as it exists, but proximally and for the most part, it does so by way of falling (295).
“Falling,” or the phenomenon of existing inauthentically, is a way of being-towards-death that makes Dasein, who is always authentically being most itself in its always being-a-whole, not understand and be itself in its plenitude or wholeness. Falling prevents Dasein from confronting its death and hinders Dasein from grasping its being-a-whole by covering up death’s certainty and its indefiniteness. Or, to collapse the two into one phenomenon that we have found characteristic of Dasein, inauthentic falling covers up the fact that Dasein is always dying (not just some of the time or only at its demise):
Death is deferred to ‘sometime later’ … [This] covers up what is peculiar in death’s certainty—that it is possible at any moment. Along with the certainty of death goes the indefiniteness of its ‘when.’ Everyday Being-towards-death evades this indefiniteness by conferring definiteness upon it (302).
When death is not conceived of as something “impending,” as something that could always happen, this lends definiteness to Dasein’s understanding of its death, and makes it not be-towards-death authentically—that is, as if death could always happen. This allows us to characterize why Dasein does not always comport itself towards death, or understand itself as being-towards-death: when Dasein is inauthentic in its “everyday” manner, it evades its essence’s own actuality as always being-towards-death.
But why is its death )and the fact that this death is always) so absolutely horrendous or uncanny to Dasein? Heidegger shows us: in the face of death what is revealed is something inescapably inauthentic that Dasein is also certain to have (if only in the fact of its being born): namely the uncertainty as to whether it really is and definiteness as to when and how it is—Dasein’s thrownness. Dasein is, as we elaborated above, thrown being towards death: Dasein is brought into a world, and finds itself there—it is definite of this. But it does not have a stance towards itself a something that is existing as long as it is thrown and as long as it is not understood as thrown towards death—it is therefore uncertain as to how to be. Inauthentic Dasein “guiltily” remains in this state (as Heidegger will later say in his section on the call of conscience, that manifests itself in guilt), because there it does not have to understand itself and can simply be. Authentic Dasein confronts this inauthenticity and connects Dasein’s thrownness to its death. Characterizing authenticity in these terms makes sense, insofar as Dasein is being-towards-death as long as it is being, and Dasein is always already at the end of itself: death, insofar as it is the possibility of having no more possibilities and a possibility that can happen any time and in any way, is what Dasein is already in its authenticity—a potentiality-for-being that possibly could have no more possibilities. Being-towards-death is thus what Dasein is thrown as, and engaging in being-towards-death then maintains Dasein within in the full or authentic understanding of its being: that is, as something which has possibility only insofar as it is indeed dying, or will certainly have its possibilities outstripped by its death: it engages in a stance that “amounts to the disclosedness [or understanding] of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown Being towards its end” (295). Heidegger indeed shows this type of being or existence to be “anticipatory resoluteness,” by elaborating how Dasein can, as it were, throw itself (or “take over itself”) through understanding itself as is thrown towards death.
But rather than delve into anticipatory resoluteness as the precise mode in which Dasein’s Being as being-a-whole is accessed, we will focus on how we can see already that Dasein is a whole insofar as it engages in authentic being-towards-death. Because Dasein is usually inauthentic, and in a sense always authentically being-towards-death by not being-towards-death authentically, it is not usually the case that Dasein is being-a-whole—Dasein is usually deficiently being-towards-death in being inauthentic and therefore is deficiently being-a-whole. But a possibility for being-a-whole is always present insofar as Dasein is confronting its death—that is, insofar as Dasein has at least the possibility of being authentic, which is always. Heidegger solves his problem then as we suggested: that is, by conceiving of Dasein as being-a-whole always. In the end this is more true to the definition of Dasein as something that has Being as an issue for itself, because it conceives of Dasein’s being-a-whole in terms of Dasein’s ability to make itself (and its essence) an issue, and not in terms of Dasein being placed in a certain state that suddenly gives it its wholeness from the outside: we thus remain something more than things that are present-at-hand, and become most ourselves as well as wholes of ourselves (which are one and the same thing) when we understand ourselves as being or existing thrown wholly towards death—that is, as beings. It is because death is just like any other time for Dasein that all of Dasein’s authentic existence is a being-towards-death, and Dasein is, therefore, always being-a-whole: but Dasein’s time is only what it is insofar as it is something not present-at-hand, as it is something with possibilities as to how it will take its Being as an issue for itself.