Heidegger's Ontological Analysis of Death and its Prefiguration in Nietzsche

Being-With Dying: Authenticity in End-of-Life Encounters

“…This section contains some of those narratives and their respective interpretations, situating data patterns into perspective with Heidegger's structures of advancing toward death and inauthentic and authentic being-toward-death. 8 A brief overview of those structures fits here to clarify what it means to authentically approach death. Heidegger's inauthentic mode of being unto death is a closed, denial of death.…”

“…Inauthenticity shows itself in an evasive flight from death, which is characterized by (1) concealing reality, (2) hedging or prevarication, (3) drawing to the ordinary, (4) using soothing cliché's, and (5) separating. 7,8 Heidegger believed that a person could transform from inauthentic to authentic being through the call of conscience and by being willing to hear the call. He posited that the call of conscience resonates through us in an ''ontological guilt'' felt at the gut level as a gap between the way we are being and the way we ought to be.…”

“…8 Acceptance of death also has a social function that enables us to understand and evaluate the possibilities of our fellow beings to have attunement to another's subjective reality. Contemporary psychologists refer to the social ability of understanding the possibilities of others as ''attunement.''…”

“…That ontological (what is deeper within) perspective integrates awareness and acceptance of death into the core of human being where it can function as a fundamental defining phenomenon of life and relationships. 8 Acceptance of death also has a social function that enables us to understand and evaluate the possibilities of our fellow beings to have attunement to another's subjective reality. Contemporary psychologists refer to the social ability of understanding the possibilities of others as ''attunement.''…”

“…A framework of authentic being-with dying, which paralleled Martin Heidegger's structures of authentic being-towarddeath, emerged from the study illustrating attitudes, interpersonal, and transformational skills that make appropriate being-with dying more likely. 8 …”