Death and the Other

Abstract

My premise for this project was borne out of my frustration with a certain chapter of Heidegger's work 'Being and Time', in which he addresses the fundamental issue of Dasein's wholeness being unattainable in life along with the possibility of experiencing the death of Others. I will thoroughly explain Heidegger's viewpoints throughout his proposals and highlight the areas in which I believe his logic begins to derail, and involve the critiques of Emmanuel Levinas to help validate my points. My aim is to bring to light what I view as a small contradiction in this chapter of his writing that eventually may become a larger issue moving forward through his text. This small issue is Heidegger's position on the death of Others. I believe that Heidegger leaves a very significant portion of his theory uninvestigated. I will make the point that Heidegger misinterprets death as we can experience it by putting the emphasis on our own deaths, even though the only death we can truly experience is that of Others. And since the death of Others is inherently linked, in his theory, to the possibility of wholeness within Dasein, I believe that this inconsistency will snowball into a larger problem within Heidegger's theory for the ultimate wholeness of Dasein. In the conclusion I will seek to balance Heidegger's theory with my critiques and that of Levinas, to build a solution for the inconsistency in this chapter of Being and Time.