MARTIN HEIDEGGERS CONCEPTION OF DEATH IN HIS WORK BEING AND TIME

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES STUDENT RESEARCH REPORT MARTIN HEIDEGGER'S CONCEPTION OF DEATH IN HIS WORK “BEING AND TIME" Instructor: Assoc Prof Nguyễn Vũ Hảo Reporter: Nguyễn Khuông Hồng Ngọc K59 Philosophy (Honors Program) Hanoi, 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION RESULTS Chapter The background and premises of Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being and time" 1.1 The background 1.2 History of conceptions on death before Heidegger 1.3 Overview of Heidegger and his work "Being and time" Chapter Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being and time" 2.1 Dasein – the starting point for Heidegger's conception of death 2.2 Authentic - Inauthentic 2.3 Being-towards-Death CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION It is often said that death is a fact of life We see it, know it, and as we learn about this world, we understand that no matter we want it or not, we all will die someday Death is usually considered as a terrifying situation, in which you will lose everything you are having right now and lost yourself in terrible accidents Very often, death contains some outrageous spices which keep us thinking it is the worst experience can ever exist Therefore, we all avoid it The most common act is to not think about death Most of us keep ourselves busy thinking of what we want, how to get what we want, why we cannot get what we wish to and only give death a tiny amount of time in our life Normally, we only think about it when we are on the sickbed, breathing the last breathes of our life What exactly is death? Is it bad (as we always think about it)? How should we look and think about it? From the ancient time until the modern-day, there have been various explanations, but most of them the same thing: Make death seems more comfortable to face, or propose solutions to avoid it by the guides to the long-live life or build up the afterlife world These explanations influence the way human think and live their lives For example, when you believe that you are going to hell doing the wrong things, you will not anything considered as "bad" But, what is an exact definition of "bad"? Who said that it is terrible, and why you have to obey those rules? And what is the meaning of following those rules to the death of us? Of all the philosophers have ever said about death, Martin Heidegger's ideas somehow really attracted me The way he thought and wrote about death, the meaning of a human being, and how we should face our mortality, all of those seem to be very interesting to me With some inspiration from basic concepts of his through the History of philosophy classes and a spark of curiosity, I decided to choose this topic for my research, to take a step closer to his brilliant ideas of death By further understanding of death, this paper aims to contribute a way of a view to what we see the meaning of life The objective of this study is to advance understanding of the ideas of Heidegger's philosophy of Death through his famous work "Being and Time" RESULTS Chapter The background and premises of Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being and time" 1.1 The background From the beginning, death has mystified and horrified us We instinctively deny the fact that someday we will die, and run away from it by any means, and as technology makes its significant steps forward, it offers many methods to lengthening our lives and keep us away from death We deny death on one hand and court it on another Our angst showed through art There are countless songs, paintings, stories telling us about death and the way it is perceived Death seems to be a constant muse of all ages, and until now, it still is "The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is the mainspring of human activity — activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man," Ernest Becker wrote in his book The Denial of Death He reminded us we are all death avoiders Humans have a unique ability, is to conceive their mortality, and the realization that we will one day go back to the dust causes us existential angst that we create world view and culture to stave it off Conceptions of death will influence the individual orientation toward seeking a meaning to life Ironically, an answer on how to live fully and beautifully is through reflecting on death And in fact, there are many different individual views of death 1.2 History of conceptions on death before Heidegger As said above, death has been the topic of various discussions throughout history Heidegger is not the first case talking about this topic And to be clear, of all the conceptions on death, Heidegger must be sharing the same point of view to death with a few philosophers before him - who had wisely shown the world what death is in their works, which remains valuable Before getting into Heidegger conception of death, this part will first examine how philosophers have historically understood death The beginning of the philosophical discussions of death, we will first start from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato In his best-known dialogues, 'Phaedo' and 'Apology', Plato depicted the death of Socrates On the last day of his life, Socrates discussed the nature of the afterlife before executed by drinking hemlock He stated that death is a change, "a migration of the soul, from this place to another" (Plato, 1961: 25) According to Socrates, death is an end, and a new beginning as well From most people's standpoints, death appeared as an end The dead cannot tell us what happens at the end and what life after death is like, so there is no knowledge about such a thing And how we should take our death is the question left with no exact answer, and to find it in each of our problems Death is something each individual ought to come to terms Socrates shared how he has come to terms with his death He seemed at least complacent and at most, excited at his impending death Most people face death in a more emotional state, which usually known as stressful, depressed, fearful, cannot be able to dispel these concerns like Socrates Most of the arguments presented are in consideration of the immortal soul, and each of them somehow shows the limitation to the content of death Those who apply themselves in the right way of the philosopher are likely to prepare themselves for death They have been looking forward to death all their lives, waiting for it to touch them, and they would never feel depressed facing it because it has been well prepared for a long time before For Socrates, Death brings us to the terms with the limits of the body and recognize the means to get beyond it to the soul The final goal of life is to free the soul from the limitation of the body, which can only be done through death Philosophy pursuits wisdom that helps people casting out the fear of death, thus, prepare themselves for dispelling the limit Or as to say, preparing carefully to face death is like practising for the final show, and because that last show is what we aim for, we should not be fear of it Not only in this first discussion, "looking at death lightly, without fear" is accepted widely in many schools of the Greek and Hellenistic Philosophy as being a preparation for death was crucial to the thought of philosophers that follow Socrates and Plato However, the fact that death is taken as a mystery to every individual's life still makes it hard for everyone to accept the ideas of death as the soul freed from the body As this confusion raised, Epicurus, a materialist, raised his voice: "Death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us since when we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, then we not exist" (Epicurus, 1994:29) For Epicurus, death is seen as one of the two faces of the same coins You cannot exist and be death at the same time, which mean death, as something seems to be fearful and hurt, does not matter to us at all Epicurus believes that both the body and the soul are composed of atoms The combination of these atoms makes us the way we are At death, as particles disperse, there is no longer "a person", and since we are no longer a human, there is no need to worry about death This makes death look easier for us, and make us focus on the thing that more important: Life Epicurus wanted us to ship the attention from worrying about death to living our life, because this life is the only life that we are living, and we should enjoy it without worrying too much about the soul which will die along with the body later on In the Middle Age, Early Christ, the central message of Christian took an essential part in the understanding of death: The belief that there will be immortality for all who worship Jesus A stand out representer for this understanding is Augustine A special event in his life somehow contributes itself to his concept on death - Augustine has once nearly at an end, and by that, he has recognized his mortality As a living, he must carry his coming death, and as to him, being close with the death of yourself make you realize the double meaning of death The first death is the death of the body The second death comes after the first and is the one that is in question Through God, one can attain immortality and be free from death, or get the punishment of the hell A soul can be saved, or be abandoned Through belief in the resurrection, Augustine arose the possibility of escaping the finality of death and comes along with it, the eternal punishment in hell Christianity had presented itself as an answer to the problem of death The promises of immortality are now becoming a burden rather than salvation Death in this period had become an obsession There is a need to understand about Death in real life, rather than to hope for a fulfilled afterlife In his work 'The Essays', Montaigne picked up the discussion of death where ancient philosopher left off His entries into the essays To Philosophize Is To Learn How To Die, clearly harken back to Socrates' statement in Phaedo For Montaigne, death is not an abstract topic but must be understood in the lives of the living people It is through death that we start to take the action We should not fear death but should instead put in an act to live against death Thus, as we live against death, we maximize life in the face of death Another understanding of death stands in sharp contrast to what argued by Montaigne, but it does contain some of his insight - Spinoza Rather than keep death in the front of the mind and use it to press boldly into life, Spinoza seemed to suggest one should think about death as little as possible He offered the ideas that we should concern about how to make life at its best And to live well, one must live knowing that death is coming and accept it without fear And instead of wasting time worrying about the upcoming death, we should spend our time wisely on making life better, meaningful before death occurs Above is a preliminary analyzation of conceptions on death in the history before Heidegger Throughout the history of the notions on death, it can be seen there are various ways in perceiving death, and the movement of the conceptions in the Western philosophy history, which might somehow inspire and influences Heidegger's conception on death 1.3 Overview of Heidegger and his work "Being and time" Martin Heidegger is no doubt an influential philosopher; some may say the most important one in the 20th century His philosophical development began when he read Brentano and Aristotle The truth is, Aristotle's demand in the Metaphysic, to know what the thing that unites all possible modes of Being is, in many ways, drives Heidegger's philosophy From this flatform, he engages deeply with Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and probably the most important of all influenced his thinking are Dilthey and Husserl Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) is his most famous book, a long and complex one, even though it is left unfinished (Just one-third of it have ever been written) Still, it is considerable length contains numerous concepts of Heidegger, and you can never be able to understand Heidegger's philosophy and his fundamental conceptions without reading this book Indeed, for some readers who had to drown into his ideas, Heidegger's language becomes the language of philosophy, as he has said himself: "Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy" It is difficult to read since Heidegger had set himself to the task which he calls "the destruction" toward philosophy's traditional definitions by recreating many conceptions through his new philosophical vocabulary In his philosophy, Heidegger tends to dig down to the roots of our lives experience of the world rather than accepting the authority of tradition So many things have been discussed through centuries, still now having their new meaning, has been shown by Heidegger, for example, the conceptions of human being, subject, consciousness Chapter Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being and time" 2.1 Dasein – the starting point for Heidegger's conception of death Why we exist the way we are right now? What makes human being different from everything else in this world? Those are the questions that keep confusing we all - everyone ever is alive From the ancient time until now, even though there are various answers for those question, they keep bothering us They all not be thought through radically, which mean, they need to be reconsidered Thus, a practical approach to bringing out the meaning of his wisdom on death is a study of terms and distinctions Traditional philosophy does talk about human, as a unique entity, but still, they considered human being only as a part of this world, just like any other kinds of existence They have not paid enough attention to the questions about how come human being so different from everything else in this world? And what makes us so unique? Turn out a human being, and human being only, is the only kind of entity pose question about the meanings of things What it is like to be the kind of entity that asks about the meaningfulness of things? (Or to put it in another way "What it means to be human?", "What is the meaning of a human- being' s existence?") Heidegger then used the word "Dasein"- a term which can be variously translated, but means "Being-there” ("Sein" means Being, and "Da" goes for There) It is an ordinary German word means "existence" We can see what Heidegger has done there: Making a regular word into a technical concept To understand further, this first part of the study will explain what Heidegger means by "Dasein" as "Being-in-the-world" 2.1.1 Dasein as Being-in-the-world So, what is Dasein? By using the expression of Dasein, Heidegger wanted us all to pay more attention to the fact that a human being is different from all the other forms of existence As mentioned above, Dasein means "To be there", and "there" is in the world So, Dasein is mean "Being-in-the-world." For Heidegger, "Dasein is an entity which, in its very Being, comports itself understandingly towards that Being", or furthermore "Dasein is an entity which in each case I am." Being-in is what makes human Dasein Why? According to Heidegger, Dasein's facticity is that Being-in-the-world always dispersed into ways of Being-in Being-in means you have things to take care, to worry about how to keep things together or consider which one is better, discussing, letting things go, etc These are ways of Being-in On the other hand, Being-in means your concern Heidegger used the term "concern" as an ontological term for an existence Being-in-the-world fundamentally belongs to Dasein, and in which it reveals itself as a concern of the world It is the way a human being expresses his relation to the world he is living in And because he concerns, he shows it concretely through his activities, to give meaning to the things around him Or as we can say, a human being is not an existence filled with solidity like things, but more active than all of them 2.1.2 Being in time- A finite existence Even though "Being and Time" is very complicated with a high level of difficulty, but still, in an easy way to put on, the basic idea of Being and Time is simple: Being is time To this point, the most precise idea about the connection between Being and Time is showed through a statement of Heidegger: " Time is not a thing, thus nothing which is, and yet it remains constant in its passing away without being something temporal like the beings in time." Time as we usually know in our lives is different from what Heidegger meant by "Being-in- time" The time that keeps on running on your hand watch or keeps us getting along to each other timetable and work, that time is infinite And it keeps moving forward from the past to the future constantly, while Being-in-time is finite Dasein only exists temporal, a short-term existence We start our existence from the moment that we were born until we come back to nothing We are just very short something very short in an infinite something And that is the gist to explain most of the things Heidegger mentioned when he talks about the meaning of life To Heidegger, human being, as Dasein, we are all "thrown in this world", swaying alone in this world at the start of our lives This "Throwness" is something that everyone experiences, being thrown into a particular and narrow social milieu, surrounded by rigid attitudes and practical necessities, not of our own making Our life is so short, and while 10 there are so many choices to make, not everything is possible for every human being Every person's options are limited in one way, or another and 'concern' is a way that human can decide what decision could be the correct one to move from one condition to another Choices are made in the world in which human exist surrounded by other humans Because of this throws, we live lives that not ours All the value we are living and believing right now are what people told us, or we have to accept them to be a part of our kind, to make sure not to be kicked out and feel unsafe for not acting like everyone else For a long time, as we keep following what the chatters around us saying all day, we forget our true self That is the inauthenticity state of Dasein that all of us may be living in We have to break free, and change ourselves into the authenticity mode: Being fully aware of our existence as a free and authentic self Sadly, most of the time, we fail dismally at this task We merely surrender to the socialise, super focal mode of being Heidegger called "Theyself", which is opposed to "Ourselves" We follow The Chatter which we hear about in the newspapers or on TV every day 2.2 Authenticity - Inauthenticity According to Heidegger, and as partly mentioned above, a human being may exist in two possibilities, which he called: Authenticity and Inauthenticity In the inauthentic mode, we are constantly absorbed in the values that the present keep on demands to be satisfied It is non-reflective, moderated by what the media tells us is good, valuable, or successful In this mode, we lose our self, melted into the shadow of the crowd In that case, life is just a series of isolated days where you will never ask a single question about the meaning of your very own existence Inauthenticity is a standard mode that mostly all of us been through, being acknowledged about it or not Just ask yourself a few simple questions, and you will realize if you're living in inauthentic mode or not Are you doing things for your sake? Are the things you are doing right now the things that you want? Is it done in your way? Or you were told to think so, to so, and to be so? Heidegger's idea of authenticity is that we can live in the mode which moves away or even reflectively challenge the inauthentic way It is not about pursuing some kind of 11 inner, authentic self that is separated from one's historicity and embedded connections It is a different kind of world relatedness, a different type of involvement in living It goes beyond our non-reflective absorption into the world of things It goes beyond all those habits we have been living in our daily routines We are living without avoidance our context of finitude, ignoring that we are going to die An authenticity thinks beyond the roles and habits, thus, bring us face to face without their finitude, with the nothingness that belongs to us from the start We have to face the fear of the possibility of nonexistence For Heidegger, if we can make a stand about our Being-towards-Death, we will undergo a profound transformation 2.3 Death and Being-towards-Death 2.3.1 Death, they-self and ownmost Heidegger referred to the inauthentic self as the "they-self" This is the self that is influenced by the crowd or the "they", rather than by its unique potentialities The theyself sees the death as a subject producing "cowardly fear, a sign of insecurity" (Heidegger 1962:209) and therefore a fit topic to be avoided Avoidance of death can be achieved by an evasion technique Heidegger refers to as the "constant tranquilization about death" (Heidegger 1962:245) In so doing, the they-self does not permit us to courage anxiety in the face of death" and promotes an "untroubled indifference" about death (Heidegger 1962:299) They-self argues death as something all human beings will experience one day in the undetermined future, which can be easily ignored People may see death every day and everywhere, but they are all the death of the others and draw conclusions about their death As Heidegger stated: "One of these days one will die too, in the end; but right now it has nothing to with us" (Heidegger 1962:279) This statement explains the fact that we are all using the same excuse for our own life, that someday I will die, but right now it's not the problem worth concerning No one thinks about when that " someday" will come But for Heidegger, Death is not the experience that can be shared at all Death is one's "ownmost" with some qualities: nonrelation, not to be outstripped Heidegger wanted to help us to overcome this Throwness, to switch the button, to change Dasein from its inauthenticity state to authenticity state In which he said, the way 12 is to pull us away from the They-self with an appropriately intense focus on our upcoming Death Death is the unthinkable and inevitable truth of human being Everything we do, say and think is a reaction to our represent anxieties in the face of singularity and isolation of death It is death and death alone that individuates "Death pulls me out of the collective delirium, giving the lie to my various strategies for mitigating the solitude of existence Death is the moment when the communicable singularity of Being-in-the-world comes crashing down on Dasein If I have lived under the illusion that others carry my being for me, death comes as the shock of that which most intimately concerns me" (McGrath 2008: 47) In death, I am entirely alone, and my death cannot be outstripped When I anticipate my death, I become resolute about my life All of my decisions and actions become enlivened as "my own" Then, what is the proper attitude towards one's death? Heidegger rejected the cowardly fear proposed by the they-self The only proper mood, he argued, when one comes " face-to-face" with the nothing that death reveals, is courageous " anxiety" (Heidegger 1962:310) This anxiety of dread, as the scholar Micheal Gelvern points out, is different from fear in that fear attaches to some actual object, while concern focuses on freedom and possibility Only such mood, says Heidegger, will bring about "impassioned freedom towards death" (Heidegger 1962:311) Heidegger's reflections on death, therefore, are not obsessions with morbidity Nor does he offer a religious hope of life after death Instead, healthy anxiety about death provides courageous awareness and acceptance of death and one's finitude What it means for a human being to be is to exist temporally in the stretch between birth and death Being is time, and it is a different concept from the Time that we use to know (The infinite physical time, which run from the past to the future), the Time of our Being is finite, and our existence will come to an end with our death In short, if we want to understand and live as our true self, as an authentic human being, then we need to continually project our lives onto the horizons of our death, what Heidegger calls "Beingtowards- death" 2.3.2 Being-towards-Death Heidegger emphasized the fact that human is the only kind of existence have the possibility to aware that they will die None of the other animals has that possibility 13 Animals can fight each other, to survive as instinctive activities without mindful of the fact that Death may come to them A deer run away from the lion, but it can never know that its death will occur if the lion wins in the race Which mean, awareness of death is a unique part of a human, and distinguish a human being from every other thing in this world But most of the time, most of us seem to be successful in forgetting this fact We are living with the denial of death, and according to Heidegger, that is what responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives We can never be able to fulfil our lives without acknowledging that we are dying Heidegger said the human being must understand that he/she is a "Being-towards-death" "As soon as man comes to life, he is at once old enough to die" (Heidegger 1962:298) So, what is death? "Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein" (Heidegger 1962:294) Therefore, the awareness and the acceptance of death is a requirement for authentic existence We know that this is the time for us to overcome our Throwness and be more conscious of "The Nothing" and that we own ourselves to escape the clutches of the chatter for the sake of Authenticity with the little help thinking about death 2.3.3 Freedom towards Death As mentioned above, Dasein temporal and finite compared to the Time Dasein was thrown into its existence Finding itself is already existing in this world; it is seeking meanings by keeping throwing itself to the front, or in other words: keep projecting towards the future Which mean, Dasein is in the present, but at the same time, it's not in the present It is always Being-ahead-of-itself Dasein is still incomplete, and its completion is Death, thus, Being-towards-Death As an inevitable result, Dasein confronts with a predicament It cannot understand the whole meaning of its ontology since it's projected towards the possibility of the future and is always incomplete However, when Dasein's existence is complete, it no longer exists to understand it It is still incomplete, and then at the complete mode, it cannot acknowledge this itself Therefore, for Dasein to thoroughly understand its existence is problematic Dasein can never experience its death, but he suggested that it's possible to have a limit taste of it through the death of others, as Being-with-others 14 "When Dasein reaches its wholeness in death, it is simultaneously losing the Being of "Being-there"- Dasein" (Heidegger 1962:237) By its transition to no-longer-Dasein, it gets lifted right out of the possibility of experiencing this transition and of understanding it as something experienced Surely this sort of stuff is denied to any particular Dasein in relation to itself But this makes the death of Others more impressive In this way, the termination of Dasein becomes "Objectively" accessible Dasein can thus gain experience of death, all the more because Dasein is mostly with Others In that case, the fact that death has been, therefore " Objectively given must make possible an ontological delimitation of Dasein's totality" (Heidegger 1962:237) A one's death cannot be outstripped, which mean, even though Dasein can see another's death in relation on its being, or even its dying, but in the end, Dasein still cannot experience its death You can see someone around you dying, and know that someday you may die, too, in various unexpected ways, but it just something on the surface You only see that person dying, or know that person dying, but can't share the same experience with that death of others since Death is Dasein's ownmost possibility Death completes Dasein Heidegger uses a comparative metaphor as a simple but effective to signify the end of Dasein The way death complete Dasein just like the ripening of the fruit completes its life circle Dasein's relation to death is shown through projection toward the future, thus, as a possibility This relation can be existentially understood during life and not during the very instant of death "Death is the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein Therefore, death reveals itself as the possibility which is one's own most, which is non-relation, and which is not to be outstripped" (Heidegger 1962:294) Since death is the death of an individual Dasein, my death is mine, and mine only It is when my being ends when my relationships end and when my possibilities are no longer exist This non-relational aspect is my own most This death, as the possibility of my being, brings my being into authenticity by making it central and crucial Being authentic, on the other hand, allows for the possibility of facing my death a particular way: I am sure of my death, my death is unavoidable, my death is a non-relational possibility and the end of my being always ahead of myself Dasein as Being-towards-death is, 15 essentially, in its being towards life Death is the backdrop against which we see life It's a way to be, not a way to end Being-towards-the-end is a way of Being-towards-Death Being-at-the-end is the non-existence of Dasein It is in Being-towards-Death that Dasein can have the freedom to be what it truly is Death rescues Dasein from the inauthenticity of the "they" that allows it to become what it entirely is Death takes part in every potential possibility of Dasein And for Heidegger, as potentiation, it can be anticipated Be able to anticipate signifies an authentic mode of Being-towards-Death Death is inevitable for everyone, but somehow, it is indefinite Dasein does not know when, or what will kill it, but it's mortal for sure Knowing that you going to die, but not know anything about the death of yourself cause anxiety for Dasein Anxiety is the result of the combination between knowing that invisible actuality of death keeps lurking around But for Dasein to be in its authentic mode, it will never allow such anxiety grow enough to turn into fear of death, which will then run away from the fact and be lost in the Theyself While anticipating its mortality, Dasein actualizes its humanity as much as possible, and be fear of death will paralyze this process Dasein's Being-in-the-world is its ownmost An authentic Being-towards-Death is when Dasein know the possibility of its non-existence, but still be able to fulfil a genuine life and not fear to face the end of its own by any means, being responsible for all the decisions without evading into inauthenticity The crucial key for Dasein here is to realize that there are no other choices to make, except accepting its death the way it is "We may now summarize our characterization of authentic Being-towards-Death as we have projected it existentially; anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in the theyself and brings it face to face with the possibility of being itself, primarily unsupported by concern full solicitude, but of being itself, instead, in impassioned freedom towards deathfreedom which has been released from the illusion of "they", and which is factual, certain of itself, and anxious" (Heidegger 1962:311) Theyself, through their idle talk, will then somehow drag Dasein in the hole, keep it still in there, fleeing from the death and waiting for the future instead of projecting it The "They" leads Dasein away from its authenticity And to prevent Theyself from doing it, 16 Dasein has to take itself from the irresoluteness of the Theyself to the resoluteness of its authenticity But how can we resolutely keep Dasein in its authenticity? Heidegger said it is due to the openness of Dasein to the call of its conscience Because when Dasein knows that it's not alright to be in the inauthentic mode, that it is not in its full potential being, only then there will be resoluteness in the actions that will release Dasein from inauthenticity 17 CONCLUSION It is no doubt that Heidegger plays an integral part in modern philosophy about death, not because of his great work "Being and time", where Heidegger addressed issues related to death His most important contribution in philosophy about death is to appeal to people to be more aware of human life, that they should pay more attention to their real existence, to understand their true self As the start of the issues, death is a central beginning for understanding this In conclusion, to be authentic or inauthentic, this depends on whatever Dasein's projected possibility is its own or not As an authenticity, Dasein has to face in death, to reveals itself as a finite existence, and show its care to the world is thrown There are possibilities for the future These possibilities are possible because of the thrownness of the past Dasein is looking at the past, projecting towards such a future and looking back constitutes the now of the present As an authenticity, Dasein is not lost in the "they" because of anticipatory resoluteness Authentic being taken death as its own most, and not only stop itself from fleeing away by the fear for death, Dasein anticipates its death by projecting its possibility, from which it can see how it was As a human being surrounded by the crowd, lost its true self in the shadow of Theyself, living with the values, not of my own, inauthentic being must resolutely call back into its authenticity Through the call of conscience, the inauthentic being will find its way back to authenticity Dasein, as temporally finite, is closed concerning it is possibilities, its ultimate nonrelational possibility is death, which it is as Being-towards-Death It thus comes up against a nothingness might be when at its Being-at-the-end, recovering from the lostness in Theyself Facing this Nothingness without fear, as if it's a part of our life like fate, feel free to enjoy our life facing death In this sense, freedom is fate, and this fate is nothing other than authentic historicity Only being free for death gives Dasein its absolute goal and knocks existence into its finitude And to be free from the cares about the end, Dasein hands itself down to itself, open for death, and that's the decision of an authentic being In short, for more simply put, being is time as primordial freedom As Martin Heidegger has expressed his idea quite clear: 18 "If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself" Because we have not been aware of our existence that we live in a state of inauthenticity In order to change into the authenticity self, we need to live through projecting our self Because death is undeniable, you can never experience your death through someone else's death That is why we have to start living for our self, create our values, that no one can that for you As for today, we have been living to think someone around will help us, or for the sake of someone else, you have to sacrifice your self Heidegger showed that it's useless It is said that only when we realized that other people could not save us from our Death that we are likely to stop living for them, to stop worrying too much about what others think, and save energies not to waste them to impress people never really liked us in the first place Nevertheless, what Heidegger tells us is intermittent fascinating, wise and useful "Anyone can achiever their fullest potential, who we are might be predetermined, but the path we follow is always of our choosing We should never allow our fears of the expectations of others to set the frontier of our destiny Your destiny can't be changed, but it can be challenged Every man is born as many men, and dies as a single one" 19 BIBLIOGRAPHY Vietnamese Sources Nguyen Vu Hao (2015) Giáo trình Triết học phương Tây đại (Modern Western Philosophy) Hanoi: Vietnam National University Publishers Tran Thai Đinh (2005) Triết học sinh (Existentialism) Hanoi: Van Hoc Publisher English Sources Alattas, O.S Martin Heidegger on Being-towards-Death Becker, E (1973) The Denial of Death US: Free Press Zorn, D (1979) Heidegger's Philosophy of Death Akademia (2) Feifel, H (1993) The Problem of Death Sage Journal Critchley, S (2009) Being and Time part 6: Death Guardian < https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jul/13/heidegger-being-time > Epicurus (1994) Letter to Menoeceus, in The Epicurus Reader Indianapolis Hackett Publishing Heidegger.M (1962) Being and Time New York: Harper & Row Publishers Hornsby, R What Heidegger means by Being-in-the-world < http://royby.com/philosophy/pages/dasein.html> Pennington, R The Primordiality of Death in Heidegger's Metaphysics Philosophia, Heidegger- Being Towards Death Plato (1996) Apology, in The Collected of Plato New York: Bollingen Foundation McGrath, S.J (2008) Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Wheeler, M (2011) Martin Heidegger Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Wisnewski, J.J (2013) Heidegger: An Introduction Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 20 ... Overview of Heidegger and his work "Being and time" Chapter Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being and time" 2.1 Dasein – the starting point for Heidegger's conception of death 2.2... understanding of the ideas of Heidegger's philosophy of Death through his famous work "Being and Time" RESULTS Chapter The background and premises of Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being. ..TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION RESULTS Chapter The background and premises of Heidegger's conception of death in his work "Being and time" 1.1 The background 1.2 History of conceptions on death