Running towards Death

Many of Heidegger’s early readers interpreted his philosophy, especially as articulated in Being and Time, as a philosophy of death. As such it could be read (and perhaps dismissed) as a philosophical reaction to the trauma of mass death in the First World War. ¹ Culminating, it seemed, in the claim that authentic existence was to be found exclusively in a resolute anticipation of death and that human being – Dasein – was most profoundly a being towards death, Being and Time was certainly open to such readings. But whether they really or adequately reflect all that is going on in that work or even the most essential tendency of its thought is another matter. Indeed, as we have seen, it is open to question whether, when Heidegger writes of ‘death’ in that work, he actually or primarily means death in the everyday sense of the biological cessation of life. If it is a general rule in philosophy that one should always be prepared to take a second look at what seems most obvious, this is nowhere more true than with regard to Heidegger’s treatment of death.