O fenômeno da morte e o ser-para-a-morte em Ser e Tempo

Abstract

The theme of this dissertation is delimited around the phenomenological-existential concept of death in Heidegger's existential analytic. This concept belongs to the problematic of Dasein’s being-a-whole in the work Being and Time (1927). Therein, the philosopher focuses on the entity which we ourselves are (Dasein), to understand its mode of being and re-pose the question of the meaning of Being in general by means of a fundamental ontology. The existential analytic, a descriptive-phenomenological investigation of the existentiality of the entity that understands Being, confronts the question regarding the possibility of grasping the whole and the structural totality of this entity, which possesses multiple existential structures. Therefore, how would a unity be sighted from which such an entity could be understood as a whole? As we shall see, the structural unity of existence is obtained in the phenomenon of care: ahead-of-itself-Being-already-in-the-world-as-Being-alongside. In this formulation, all moments of Dasein are announced in unity. However, in resolving the inquiry into the structural whole within the formulation of care, another inquiry emerges: In being-ahead-of-itself, care retains a character of pendency within existing, indicating that existence is a constant constitutive incompleteness in the existent. Can this entity, essentially pending, actually be grasped in its being-a-whole? Since Dasein is that which is ahead-of-itself, it remains an entity that is not yet total, but one that has the potential to be-a-whole. But if it is possible to foresee its structural whole, then this must mean that there is nothing more that it lacks, something which only happens when it is no longer. It would follow from this that the grasping of 'being-a-whole' would then be concomitant with the annihilation of this entity in its 'there' (ecstatic movement), signifying death. Understood thus, it would no longer be possible to grasp being-a-whole, implying the failure of the existential analytic and a fundamental ontology. Nevertheless, Heidegger indicates that the bio-physiological significance of death does not correspond to the existential death of Dasein. The existential possibility of death is properly questioned within the existential analytic. Faced with the problematic of being-a-whole, we must grasp the existential meaning of death, distinguishing it from its ontical-existentiell significations (such as the bio-physiological one). We address this through the question: What is the meaning of death in the existential analytic? The primary objective is to reach the conceptualization of death. As our main hypothesis, we maintain that existence is essentially marked by the possibility of Being-towards-death; this is the existential meaning of death, and existence has the character of finitude. Finitude is not to be confused with bio-physiological death; it concerns the factic limit of the possibilities of being. The methodology employed is exploratory, reconstructive, and theoretical-bibliographical, based on primary, secondary, and tertiary works: Being and Time (in two Portuguese versions), Heidegger’s 1920-1930 corpus, and leading commentators. Moreover, the English version of this abstract follows a terminological comparison between the two primary translations of Being and Time, guaranteeing that the concepts align with both conceptual rigor and the Anglophone academic tradition.