being-towards-death

clown

existentialism

finite

is an attitude that is with us at all times even when it is concealed by our absorption in distracting curiosities.

Dasein is thrown into death as a constant possibility of its being, as revealed in Angst. It is not death itself that interests Heidegger, but being-towards-death, since this attitude is with us at all times even when it is concealed by our absorption in distracting curiosities. This sort of concealment is not to be blamed on weak or fearful Daseins, but stems from the fallenness of Dasein itself.

is a duty for the thinkers of the other beginning.

Whenever Heidegger speaks about the future, he almost always speaks about death, and the same happens here. The enactment of being-towards-death, he says, is a duty for the thinkers of the other beginning.

is not only possessed of the three-dimensional character of care, but is also realized in authentic and inauthentic modes.

As one might expect, Heidegger argues that Being-towards-death not only has the three-dimensional character of care, but is realized in authentic and inauthentic modes.

is inauthentically structured as a de-individualizing of death; taking it not as mine-self, but rather as the inauthentic they-self.

In everyday Being-towards-death, the self that figures in the for-the-sake-of-itself structure is not the authentic mine-self, but rather the inauthentic they-self. In effect, the ‘they’ obscures our awareness of the meaning of our own deaths by de-individualizing death.

is a reinterpretation of care in a way that illuminates finitude as the essence of Dasein.

In reinterpreting care in terms of Being-towards-death, Heidegger illuminates in a new way the taking-as structure that, as we have seen, he takes to be the essence of human existence. Human beings, as Dasein, are essentially finite.

being towards death, n.All

being towards death