Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger: Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death - Softcover

Adam Buben (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810132508 ISBN 13: 9780810132504

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2016

Synopsis

Death is one of those few topics that attract the attention of just about every significant thinker in the history of Western philosophy, and this attention has resulted in diverse and complex views on death and what comes after. In Meaning and Mortality, Adam Buben offers a remarkably useful new framework for understanding the ways in which philosophy has discussed death by focusing first on two traditional strains in the discussion, the Platonic and the Epicurean. After providing a thorough account of this ancient dichotomy, he describes the development of an alternative means of handling death in Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard’s despite the undeniable influence exerted on himby the nineteenth-century Dane. Buben argues that Kierkegaard and Heidegger prescribe a peculiar way of living with death that offers a kind of compromise between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains.

About this title

About the Author

Adam Buben is an assistant professor of comparative philosophy at Leiden University College in the Netherlands.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger

Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death

By Adam Buben

Northwestern University Press

Copyright © 2016 Northwestern University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8101-3250-4

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
List of Abbreviations, 
Introduction, 
1 The Platonic Strain, 
2 The Epicurean Strain, 
3 Kierkegaard's Death Project, 
4 Kierkegaard's Appropriation and Criticism of the Tradition, 
5 Death in Being and Time, 
6 Heidegger's Reception of Kierkegaard: The Existential Philosophy of Death, 
7 The Limits and Legacy of the Existential Philosophy of Death, 
Notes, 
References, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The Platonic Strain

Plato

After "unsuccessfully" defending himself against the charges brought by his accusers, Plato's Socrates elaborates on the notion of death as a transition into another form of existence in the Phaedo. Although Socrates continues to discuss the possibility of death as the way to nonexistence in this retelling of the final prison dialogue, he seems far less open to it than he is in the Apology. This difference in attitude toward the possibility of annihilation may have something to do with Plato's inclusion of Pythagorean interlocutors, given Pythagorean belief in the transmigration of souls. Leaning toward the idea of continued existence, the Phaedo is largely focused around the famous claim that "the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death" (64a). This claim is as perplexing to the participants in the conversation as it might be to modern readers. After all, what could it mean to connect philosophy and death so intimately?

This connection, it turns out, is deeply rooted in what has come to be known as "Platonic metaphysics." According to this view of the nature of things, as described in the Phaedo, a human is made up of both body and soul, and prior to birth the soul exists apart from the body in a pure state, bordering on the divine, in which it has access to a more perfect knowledge of reality than is possible while embodied in the world (75b–77a). Thus, if Socrates can establish that the soul will return to such a state after death, when it is again separated from the body, then it will be reasonable to view death as a great gain, rather than as a great loss (which is the common sentiment Socrates also rebuts in the Apology). In a departure, then, from his noncommittal attitude in the Apology and in opposition to future Epicurean doctrines, Socrates offers several arguments in the Phaedo in support of a specific sort of postmortem existence of the soul. For example, he adopts a cyclical view of life and death in which "living" souls can only come from "dead" souls, and he supplements this notion by explaining why only what is bodily can ever be properly destroyed (77c–80d). Although his arguments do not seem entirely compelling to either the modern reader or, in many cases, his interlocutors (and Socrates himself may come to no firm conclusion), what is important to notice for the sake of the present account is the desirability of release from the corruptible body in the interest of attaining lasting truth and knowledge (64c–70d).

This desirability not only explains why philosophers, as lovers of knowledge or wisdom, should "fear death least of all men" (Phaedo 67e), but it also explains the troubling notion of philosophy as practice for death. Socrates points out that it is their very love of wisdom that causes philosophers to cultivate the qualities of the soul at the expense of the worldly interests of their bodies. It is a similar sort of casting off of bodily interests in exchange for a higher existence of more perfect knowledge that takes place when one's life ends, if Socrates's arguments are to be believed. There is a sense then, albeit a limited and impermanent one, in which the practice of philosophy attempts to separate the soul from the body and imitate the experience of being dead (80d–81c). For this reason, Socrates claims that philosophizing is a sort of dying and "true philosophers are nearly dead" (64b). To characterize the Platonic strain of the philosophy of death thus far: the highest form of life approximates, as closely as possible, being dead, which is really a prolonged and perfected form of existence.

Early Christian Appropriation

A few hundred years after the establishment of the numerous schools of philosophy in Greece, the Apostle Paul undertook several journeys in the first century C.E. around the Greco-Roman world of the Mediterranean in order to preach the message of Jesus Christ. Although he founded churches in several cities of significance to the history of philosophy, including one in relatively close proximity to Athens (at Corinth), the New Testament reports that his encounters with philosophers were occasionally somewhat hostile. In fact, the book of Acts (which may or may not be a reliable source of information about Paul's activities) describes Paul's time in Athens, where he was not able to found a church, and suggests that his less than stellar results in Plato's hometown were due in part to disagreements with "some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers" (Acts 17:18 [NRSV]). Nonetheless, it would seem that the lessons of Greek thought (which might include, perhaps somewhat indirectly, Platonic lessons) were not lost on the well-educated Paul.

On the specific issue of death, Paul seems to have found a great ally — probably unknowingly — in the philosophy of Plato. Just as Socrates sees a way of approximating death through philosophical pursuits, Paul sees faith in Christ as producing a living death in the believer. The dying of the pre-Christian self and the subsequent rebirth as a follower of Christ, which this death makes possible, is a recurring theme throughout his New Testament letters. But one need not rely entirely on Paul in order to get the impression that Christianity and life as we ordinarily know it are not destined for peaceful coexistence. According to the gospels, Jesus himself often warns his disciples that a life of worldly concerns is not conducive to the proper care of the soul (e.g., Matt. 16:24–26; Luke 14:26). Because a worldly life is inhospitable to a Christian soul, Paul points out that such a life must end before Christianity can take root (e.g., 2 Cor. 4:10–12, 5:14–19; Gal. 2:20). But how exactly is one to understand death as the precondition for Christian life? Fortunately for the aspiring Christian, Christ's own life provides a model for finding life in death.

Just as Christ is said to have died on the cross to overcome the sin of the world, but later rose from the dead, one who would be a follower of Christ must also die to the sin of the world in order to live free from its tyranny (1 Pet. 2:24). There are two senses in which this analogy might hold true for the Christian. First, there is a sense in which one must physically die in order to be reborn in a heavenly afterlife, free from the sinful world. Second, there is a sense in which one must figuratively die to the sinful desires and preoccupations that come from being in the world, in order to become ready for Christ-like living. Romans 6:6–8 states, "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed. ... If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him." While this passage might support both senses, each of which is quite similar to particular issues presented in the Phaedo (setting aside what are some clear differences concerning the nature of the afterlife), it is the latter, figurative, sense of dying to the world that will play an important role in Kierkegaard and Heidegger's existential refutation of the Epicurean position. But these two are hardly the first to adopt and develop the figurative sense of Christian dying to the world, and it is certainly not the case that they derive their respective understandings of this dying solely from biblical sources. In order to see how dying to the world passes down to them, it will be necessary to trace a line through a few of the high points of Christian thought after Paul.

From Neoplatonism to Medieval Christianity

Even though it is easy enough to point out striking similarities between New Testament writings and those of Plato, there is less need for speculation when it comes to connecting Platonism with the Christian teachings of Augustine (354–430). In his Confessions, Augustine (7.13–27) details the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity, including the influence of Neoplatonism on his thought during the period leading up to this conversion. Like the original Platonists, this more recent incarnation holds that the philosopher is to be prepared and long for a time when the more perfect soul will be unleashed from its corrupt bodily and worldly shackles. Plotinus (205–270) (Enneads 1.6.6), perhaps the greatest of the Neoplatonists in the century prior to Augustine, recounts the ancient virtues of the philosopher and states, "Courage is but being fearless of the death which is but the parting of the Soul from the body, an event which no one can dread whose delight is to be his unmingled self. And Magnanimity is but disregard for the lure of things here." Echoing both this very Platonic sentiment of disenchantment with the bodily world and Jesus's own words in Luke 14, Augustine (De libero arbitrio 2.2) tells his interlocutor, in On Free Choice of the Will, that as Christians, "we must wholeheartedly desire and love [Godly] things and place no value on what is earthly and human." Pushing this eschewal of worldliness even further, Augustine's most significant appropriation of Platonic thought as it relates to Christian dying to the world can be found in his doctrine concerning original sin.

Plotinus (Enneads 1.6.5–6) speaks in great detail of the situation of a soul, which is naturally pure and good, once it becomes "sunk in manifold death" as the result of a "fall" into the life of worldly lusts and material pleasures. Given its corrupt and tainted, or as Plotinus puts it, "ugly," state, a soul in this condition is no longer capable of understanding the beautiful reality of things. It is only by turning away, in a movement reminiscent of Plato's (Republic 514a–521b) famous image of the cave, from such a degraded life of corporeal passion toward a more divine existence in the realm of the intellect, that such a soul can be purified and restored to its prior perfect state (Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.7–9). This Neoplatonic account of the fall and rise of the soul runs parallel in several significant ways to Augustine's understanding of original sin. Due to the fall from the natural state of perfection in the Genesis story, the descendants of Adam and Eve, that is, all of humankind, are doomed to take on a new nature and live the life of the sinful, lustful flesh. Rather than experiencing everlasting goodness and wisdom, humans must face ignorance, hardship, and death — both physical and spiritual (Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.18–20). Fortunately, just as Plotinus identifies a way out of such a corrupted state, Augustine also claims that redemption comes by way of giving up, or paradoxically dying to, the spiritually dead way of life to which humans have become accustomed. But is Augustine's understanding of this shedding of worldliness exactly what Plotinus has in mind?

Augustine is surely on board with the Neoplatonic concerns about material pleasures and corporeal passions, and he is also in agreement about turning toward something higher and divine in order to avoid such worldly snares. However, it is at the point in Augustine's account where he discusses what is involved in this turning that one can find the major Christian innovation in the Platonic strain of the philosophy of death. While Plotinus believes that the road to redemption is an intellectual one taken by particular souls, Augustine (De libero arbitrio 3.19) claims that the human capacity for such a self-motivated intellectual transformation has been irreparably damaged by the fall — humans are "born in the blindness of ignorance." In other words, there can be no pulling oneself up by one's own bootstraps when one's legs are shattered (compare Carr 2001, 184–85). Given this desperate situation, Christianity in general, and Augustine specifically, must posit another capacity if redemption is to be possible. They believe that God in his mercy "showed them the path of faith in the blindness of forgetfulness" (Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.20). For the Christian, reliance on reason, or intellect, is just one more aspect of the corrupt, damaged, human condition that one must in some sense die to in order to regain the perfect human nature that God originally created. Paul himself actually points out that, to the allegedly "reasonable" world of corrupt humanity, Christianity can only appear offensive or foolish, and so a new way of seeing is necessary (1 Cor. 1:23). Humbling oneself, admitting the insufficiency of one's intellectual capacities, and faithfully appealing to God's grace for help are the only recourses for finding life in death (Augustine, De civitate Dei 13.1–5, 10–12).

The paradoxical predicament of the Christian described up to this point can be summarized as follows: humans have left a situation of life without death and entered into one in which they must live with the constant reality of death. In order to overcome this present situation, a human must give up, or "die to," this dead way of life; but this is no easy task and a divine act of redemption becomes necessary. Through this act, humans are able to pass from a corrupt state of living death — biologically alive for the time being and actively engaged in affairs of the world, but spiritually decaying and headed to perdition — to a purified state of living death. Although biological life persists in this latter state as well, one is able to thrive spiritually, unobstructed by the concerns of ordinary human life, while looking forward to eternal blessedness.

The period of Christian thought after Augustine, the medieval period, is a long and complicated one that I cannot begin to do justice to here, given that my ultimate goals must soon lead the discussion quite a bit farther abroad historically. Nonetheless, it will be worthwhile to highlight two aspects or trends from this period. One prominent movement that was particularly popular during the early Middle Ages is monasticism (its popularity seems to have waned somewhat during the later Middle Ages with the rise of mendicant orders). This movement seems worth mentioning briefly given that it is a mechanism intended to facilitate dying to worldliness. In the monastery, one is closed off from the everyday world in order to cultivate one's spiritual relationship with the divine. Although this apparently powerful expression of dying to the world has its share of notable advocates, some of the key Christian thinkers included in my present account, including Kierkegaard, reject it. Besides the fact that these thinkers can find no biblical precedent for precisely this sort of behavior, they seem to agree that, in spite of its intentions, monasticism does not really lead to proper dying to the world. Martin Luther (1483–1546) (Luther 2000, 234–35), for instance, who was no stranger to monastic living, argues that the monastery is a relatively tranquil place that shuts out worldly suffering so that one might indulge in the more pleasant aspects of being alive.

A significant trend from the later medieval period that will be worth introducing now is Scholasticism. This trend is perhaps best characterized by the writings of natural theologians like Anselm (1033–1109) and Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). The latter's work — probably Scholasticism's most paradigmatic example — integrates Greek thought in the form of the newly "rediscovered" texts of Aristotle during the Crusades, and seems to carve out a more substantial place for reason, or human capabilities in general, than Augustine would have condoned (for the record, it is not as though Augustine rejects every use of reason to supplement faith). Besides the famous Scholastic arguments for God's existence, based on pure reason in the case of Anselm's ontological argument and reason aided by experience of the world in other cases, Aquinas actually goes so far as to distinguish, explicitly, between separate domains for reason and faith within Christian doctrine. Although Aquinas (Summa Theologica I, Q. 2, Art. 2, ad. 1) does speak of the primacy of faith in some sense for the sake of being a Christian, he claims that faith is only necessary for appropriating certain articles of church doctrine (e.g., the Trinity), while reason is sufficient for grasping other articles, such as the existence of God. Given this compartmentalizing of reason, I do not mean to suggest that Aquinas, or Scholasticism in general, breaks entirely with the earlier Augustinian sense of Christian dying to the world or its more anti-rational aspects. The Scholastic position does, however, offer a convenient adversary to those who would restore these traditional aspects to their place of prominence in such dying.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810132508
• ISBN 13: 9780810132504
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216