Kaufmann Existentialism and Death *

Existentialism is not a doctrine but a label widely used to lump together several philosophers and writers who are more or less opposed to doctrines while considering a few extreme experiences the best starting point for philosophic thinking. Spearheading the movement, Kierkegaard derided Hegel's system and wrote books on Fear and Trembling (1843), The Concept of Anxiety (1844), and The Sickness unto Death, which is despair, (1849). Three-quarters of a century later, Jaspers devoted a central section of his Psychology of Weltanschauungen (1919) to extreme situations (Grenzsituationen), among which he included guilt and death. But if existentialism is widely associated not merely with extreme experiences in general but above all with death, this is due primarily to Heidegger who discussed death in a crucial 32-page chapter of his influential Being and Time (1927). Later, Sartre included a section on death in his Being and Nothingness (1943) and criticized Heidegger; and Camus devoted his two would-be philosophic books to suicide {The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942) and murder (The Rebel, 1951). It was Heidegger who moved death into the center of discussion. But owing in part to the eccentricity of his approach, the discussion influenced by him has revolved rather more around his terminology than around the phenomena which are frequently referred to but rarely illuminated. A discussion of existentialism and death should therefore begin with Heidegger, and by first giving some attention to his approach it may throw critical light on much of existentialism.