KNOWING DASEIN’S BEING-A-WHOLE THROUGH HEIDEGGER’S PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH AND ITS SARTRE’S CRITIQUE
KNOWING DASEIN’S BEING-A-WHOLE THROUGH HEIDEGGER’S PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH AND ITS SARTRE’S CRITIQUE

Summary/Abstract: Heidegger uses the term Dasein to refer to the ontological structure of man who exists as a being immersed in various modes of life situations, therefore how Dasein gets its individuality and unity is the central question of his thought. For Heidegger, the question of unity and individuality of Dasein is directly related to knowing Dasein’s ‘being-a-whole’. He inquires that Dasein as a ‘being-in-the-world’ always engages in a continuous determination of its own-self and never reaches its wholeness. ‘Not yet’ and ‘yet to come ‘is the permanent state of the ontological structure of Dasein. So, knowing Dasein’s ‘being-a-whole’ is a problem. As death breaks all of the possibilities of Dasein, we can say that at the moment of death, Dasein reaches its ‘wholeness’. But the problem that Heidegger raises is that when Dasein gets ‘wholeness’ in the moment of death, it loses its ‘being-in-the- world’. Therefore, it cannot grasp its ‘wholeness’. He is of the view that although death as an end of life cannot be experienced by Dasein, Dasein due to its continuous feelings of a ‘not yet’ and ‘yet to come’ experiences that the moment ‘now’ is finite and its being is being- towards-the-end. As being-towards-the-end, Dasein anticipates death. This anticipation of death provides unity and wholeness to Dasien. Sartre regards this approach as mistaken. For Sartre, what truly represents being of man is that for which man is responsible. Man is not responsible for his death. He is responsible for his act of free determination. It truly represents man’s ‘beings-a- whole’. This paper focuses on an understanding of man as unity or ‘being-a- whole’ through Heidegger’s apprehension of ‘death’ and Sartre’s response. This paper highlights how the difference between Heidegger’s and Sartre’s understanding of death discloses their diversified approaches of understanding of unity and individuality of ‘being-in-the-world’.

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