Conference paper
Meaningfulness of death
Ante Vučković
orcid.org/0000-0002-5049-2934
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split
Abstract
In the beginning of his work the author explains that the attitude
towards death has been subjected to several shifts in our time. On
this background he paralelly analyses Heidegger's and Levinas's
opinion about death and shows the basie sensation of christian
attitude towards death.
Heidegger considers death as a mode of human existenee and
selfcomprehension. Death is anticipated by heroie accepting of mortal
life, thus enabling the autenticity of life and characterising death as
one's own option. But, bringing out one's own death in the first plan,
blocks the view of someone else's death.
Levinas considers death as entirely related to the Other One.
Phenomenologically viewed, death is not the end, but an unknown.
Death is the subject's suffering and passiveness, an advance sign of
the limit of subject's power and of unpredictable, leaving to an
individual no space for initiative. Through eros Levinas reveals the
relation, which is not the relation of power, but which at the same
time brings out the death of the other one in the first plan. Hence,
love shows that I am more affected by someone else's death than by
mine. The face of the other man demands not to be left alone before
death. Instead of autenticity Heidegger deals with, Levinas puts
forward responsibility for the other one. With Heidegger, talk about
death is soaked in anxiety, while with Levinas with responsibility for
the other one.
Christianity, which lives from the experience of death and
Christ's resurrection, meets with the phenomenon of death through
overwhelming trust, despite the man's limiting impotence at the
beginning and at the end of his life. Death itself is mute. The idea of
death does not penetrate from the other side. Thoughts, seeking for
the meaningfulness of death, reflect seeking for the meaningfulness of life, thus showing that the meaningfulness of death is found in
meaningful life, but not reversely.
Keywords
death; sense; anxiety; responsibility; trust
Hrčak ID:
50872
URI
Publication date:
20.3.1998.
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