Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T08:30:28.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Heidegger and the Supposed Meaninglessness of Personal Immortality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2016

ADAM BUBEN
ADAM BUBEN*
Affiliation:
LEIDEN [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

For several decades now, a debate about the desirability of immortality has raged on in philosophy of death circles. While these circles and their debates are found primarily within the analytic tradition, Martin Heidegger, who famously introduces the notion of human life (or something like it) as essentially ‘Being-towards-death’, has much to contribute. At first glance, this idea seems to agree with the views of ‘immortality curmudgeons’ like Samuel Scheffler, and, in fact, on the rare occasions that Heidegger is mentioned in the related literature, his name is usually placed on a list of likely pessimists about immortality. Upon closer inspection, however, it turns out that Heidegger's understanding of the relationship between death and meaning allows for a rather uncurmudgeonly view of immortality. In this paper, I argue that the often-misunderstood Heidegger has important supportive insights to offer when it comes to the prospects of an unending life.

Keywords

Being-towards-deathdeathimmortality curmudgeonsSamuel SchefflerBernard Williams
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , Fall 2016 , pp. 384 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Buben, Adam. (2015) ‘Resources for Overcoming the Boredom of Immortality in Fischer and Kierkegaard’. In Cholbi, Michael (ed.), Immortality and the Philosophy of Death (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), 205–19.Google Scholar
Buben, Adam. (2016) Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger: Origins of the Existential Philosophy of Death. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Call, Lewis. (2013) BDSM in American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Chappell, Timothy. (2007) ‘Infinity Goes Up On Trial: Must Immortality Be Meaningless?’. European Journal of Philosophy, 17, 30–44.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert L. (1991) Being-in-the-World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, Hubert. L. (2005) ‘Foreword’. In White, Carol J., Time and Death (Aldershot: Ashgate), ix–xxxvi.Google Scholar
Epicurus. (1994) ‘Letter to Menoeceus’. In Inwood, Brad and Gerson, Lloyd P. (trans. and eds.), The Epicurus Reader (Indianapolis: Hackett), 28–31.Google Scholar
Fairfield, Paul. (2014) Death: A Philosophical Inquiry. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fischer, John Martin. (2009) ‘Why Immortality is Not So Bad’. In Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 79–92.Google Scholar
Fischer, John Martin. (2013) ‘Immortality’. In Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 336–54.Google Scholar
Fischer, John Martin, and Curl, Ruth. (1996) ‘Philosophical Models of Immortality in Science Fiction’. In Slusser, George, Westfahl, Gary, and Rabkin, Eric S. (eds.), Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press), 3–12.Google Scholar
Fisher, Tony. (2010) ‘Heidegger and the Narrativity Debate’. Continental Philosophy Review, 43, 241–65.Google Scholar
Guignon, Charles. (1983) Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Guignon, Charles. (2011) ‘Heidegger and Kierkegaard on Death: The Existentiell and the Existential’. In Stokes, Patrick and Buben, Adam (eds.), Kierkegaard and Death (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press), 184–203.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. (1962) Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, John and Robinson, Edward. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. (1993) ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’. In Farrell Krell, David (ed.), Basic Writings (New York: HarperCollins), 343–63.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Translated by Lovitt, William. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Piotr. (1983) The Human Self and the Life and Death Struggle. Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida.Google Scholar
Kolodny, Niko. (2013) ‘That I Should Die and Others Live’. In Scheffler, Samuel, Death and the Afterlife (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 159–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malpas, Jeff. (1998) ‘Death and the Unity of a Life’. In Malpas, Jeff and Solomon, Robert C. (eds.), Death and Philosophy (London: Routledge), 120–34.Google Scholar
May, Todd. (2009) Death. Stocksfield: Acumen.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, A. W. (2006) ‘Williams, Nietzsche, and the Meaninglessness of Immortality’. Mind, 115, 311–30.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. (1994) The Therapy of Desire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rosati, Connie S. (2013) ‘The Makropulos Case Revisited: Reflections on Immortality and Agency’. In Bradley, Ben, Feldman, Fred, and Johansson, Jens (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 355–90.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1956) Being and Nothingness. Translated by Barnes, Hazel E.. New York: Philosophical Library.Google Scholar
Schalow, Frank. (1994) ‘The Kantian Schema of Heidegger's Late Marburg Period’. In Kisiel, Theodore and van Buren, John (eds.), Reading Heidegger from the Start (Albany, NY: SUNY Press), 309–23.Google Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel. (2013) Death and the Afterlife. Edited by Kolodny, Niko. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiffrin, Seana Valentine. (2013) ‘Preserving Valued or Preserving Valuing?’. In Scheffler, Samuel, Death and the Afterlife (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 143–58.Google Scholar
Smuts, Aaron. (2011) ‘Immortality and Significance’. Philosophy and Literature, 35, 134–49.Google Scholar
Watts, Michael. (2011) The Philosophy of Heidegger. Stocksfield: Acumen.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. (1973) ‘The Makropoulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality’. In Problems of the Self (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 82–100.Google Scholar