Authentic existence requires accepting that we will die
Evidence
If we are temporal beings by our very nature, then authentic existence means accepting, first, that we are finite and mortal. We will die: this all-important realisation is what Heidegger calls authentic ‘Being-towards-Death’, and it is fundamental to his philosophy. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 292
If we are temporal beings by our very nature, then authentic existence means accepting, first, that we are finite and mortal. We will die: this all-important realisation is what Heidegger calls authentic ‘Being-towards-Death’, and it is fundamental to his philosophy. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 292
Categorization
- DEFINE: Terse definition of Being-towards-Death.
- XREF: The Heideggerian acceptance of mortality connects to Sartre’s and Camus’s treatments of death and finitude across the book. — connects to: Death belongs to facticity, not to freedom, and transforms us into the outside. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1268; Death cannot be an authentic human possibility because it negates all projects; Suicide cannot escape absurdity because it too awaits a future meaning it denies itself — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1257 (+8 more)
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 292
Broader Connections
- Being-towards-death means accepting finitude as the core of authentic existence
#corroborates(0.97) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 292 - Being-towards-death frames mortality as the source of authentic existence
#corroborates(0.95) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 933 - Accepting mortality can make life more meaningful and compassionate
#expands(0.78) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 814 - Mortals accept symbolic immortality when literal immortality is unattainable
#qualifies(0.72) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 472 - Existential therapy accepts rather than argues against the reality of isolation
#exemplifies(0.72) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 752 - Refusing to recognize others’ death erodes one’s own humanity
#expands(0.70)