W-obec śmierci. Studium intymności sytuacji granicznej
In the Face of Death. A Study of the Intimacy of a Limit Situation

Author(s): Anna Walczak
Subject(s): Philosophy, Ethics / Practical Philosophy
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: death; limit situation; corporeality; experiencing; relation
Summary/Abstract: In the Face of Death. A Study of the Intimacy of a Limit Situation is an academic monograph representing the revived trend of existential discourse (with an emphasis on issues related to the death drive) in the humanities, as broadly understood, as well as social sciences. The monograph presents the author's outlook on two key individuals who found themselves in an existential limit situation when faced with death. These individuals in the book are the First One Facing Death (mainly someone terminally ill) and the Second One Facing the Passing of the First One – as his companion of choice. The connotation of the limit situation has been extended if compared to the concept described by Karl Jaspers, allowing its intimate aspect in its peculiar, ever-fragile discreetness to be highlighted, implying the need for the attentive physical presence of the Second One there. With reference to contemporary thought on the body and corporeality, these categories have also been given different meanings from those commonly used in order to bring out the First One Facing Death’s multidimensional essence of being and to unveil the architectonics of the Second One's attentive physical presence beside him, with him and, perhaps, for him. The monograph employs a phenomenological reduction to the actual experience of the limit situation by the First and the Second One. Its aim is to reveal its essential meanings from beneath layers of obviousness.

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