Being-toward-death in the Anthropocene

Madgalena Hoły-Łuczaj

Being-toward-death in the Anthropocene
On the possibility of contributing-toward-the-death-of-others

Article

26/2 – Fall 2021, pages 263-280

Date of online publication: 30 décembre 2021

Date of publication: 30 décembre 2021

Abstract

“No one can take the other’s dying away from him,” as Martin Heidegger famously claimed, but what he was significantly silent about was that beings, both human and non-human, can mutually contribute to each other’s death. By focusing on the interrelatedness of deaths, this paper presents a reversal of the Heideggerian perspective on the relation between Dasein’s mineness and “being-toward-death.” Drawing upon the structural meaning of death, which consists in the fact that no one can replace me in that I will die, I show that the phenomenon of contributing-toward-the-death-of-others individuates Dasein as well. This will allow us to reread the threat of the They in the context of the Anthro- pocene, elucidating the non-transferable character of my share in others’ death. Finally, the paper aims to deepen our understanding of the change in the character of death which has been brought about by technology in the Anthropocene.

Keywords

Cite this article

Hoły-Łuczaj, Magdalena. “Being-toward-death in the Anthropocene: on the possibility of contributing-toward-the-death-of-others.” Forum Philosophicum 26, no. 2 (2021): 263–80. doi:10.35765/forphil.2021.2602.06.

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