Abstract
How can we understand the phenomena of loss and mourning in the Heideggerian framework? There is no established interpretation of Heidegger that gives an elaborate account of the phenomena of loss and mourning, let alone gauges its importance for our understanding and assessment of authentic existence in Heidegger. This paper attempts to do both. First, I give a detailed exposition of Heidegger’s analysis of the phenomena of mourning and loss and show that Heidegger’s analysis of mourning in his early and late work is strikingly in line with his collectivist understanding of Being-with. This demonstrates, contrary to what some of his proponents argue, that Heidegger does not follow the kind of dynamic understanding of Being-with that places the other within fine-grained spaces of possibility. Second, with reference to Heidegger’s existential philosophy, I construct a phenomenology of mourning and grief. Though Heidegger himself fails to explain the relationships in which one mourns after a close other, we can develop a unique phenomenology of mourning with reference to Heidegger, which shows that each loss is singular and can be equiprimordial with one’s own death in opening one to the possibility of an authentic existence. In this new understanding of authenticity, loss is regarded as a powerful force, akin to death, in leading one toward their self-owned existence.
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Notes
Heidegger suggests “self-care” (Selbstsorge) as a possible term to delineate one’s relationship with oneself but rejects this term as it is tautological (BT 366). Throughout the article, I will use the following abbreviations to cite Heidegger’s works: BT: (Heidegger, 1962), MFL: (Heidegger, 1984), SGU: (Heidegger, 1985), NHS: (Heidegger, 2013), L: (Heidegger, 2009), OHF: (Heidegger, 1999), BTr: (Heidegger, 2010), H: (Heidegger, 2014).
For a limited and quite unsatisfying literature on Heidegger’s treatment of mourning, see (Dallmayr, 1986; Earle-Lambert, 2011; Ruin, 2019). Though Dallmayr’s reading of Heidegger’s lectures on Hölderlin from 1934 to 5 is helpful in decrypting this arcane text, he just touches on the issue of mourning in passing. Ruin’s brilliant book gives a good exposition of Heideggerian understanding of death. But he does not focus on the issue of other’s death and mourning. Earle-Lambert’s work remains the most direct and elaborate treatment of the issue of mourning in Heidegger in the literature. His analysis is mostly a thought exercise inspired by Heidegger on the experience of mourning rather than Heidegger’s own treatment of the phenomenon. For this reason, he does not locate Heidegger’s ideas on the death of the other within the broader scope of his theory of intersubjectivity. Though the same shortcoming is also found in Robert Stolorow (2007, 2011, 2021), he is the one who went farthest in meditating on loss through Heidegger. Stolorow also marks an important exception in the literature as he points out the irreducible role of loss in attaining a self-owned or authentic existence. Lou Agosta (2010: 65) follows Stolorow and uses this idea in his construction of a Heideggerian philosophy of empathy. In addition to these, Critchley’s (2002: 169f.) criticisms against Heidegger also contain significant seeds for constructing a Heideggerian understanding of mourning.
As a terminological note, it bears noting that grief, mourning, and bereavement are generally distinguished in the literature (Cholbi, 2022: 21f.; Ratcliffe, 2022:4). Grief is generally used to express the personal emotional response to a loss, which indicates a psychological phenomenon happening “inside someone,” while mourning refers to the public expression of that private feeling. Bereavement, on the other hand, is generally viewed as a state of having lost a significant other. Though the distinction made between grief, mourning, and bereavement is useful in many cases and respects, I don’t think that these definitions are definitive and relevant in all studies on loss. Maintaining a clear-cut distinction might especially be hard in the case of a Heideggerian phenomenology of mourning since in the Heideggerian framework, the personal and the social are inseparably intertwined. The distinction is not final or definitive because there are many blurry areas that remain between these terms. For instance, even though mourning generally comprises the social expression of loss, one can also mourn alone. Besides this, not all acts of mourning include grief as their main emotional tone. There can be more “cheerful” ways of mourning, so to speak etc. Throughout the article, apart from a couple of instances where I use the term grief when I emphasize the unsharable and the personal dimension of mourning, I will generally use the word mourning in a generic sense, as a category that encompasses grief, mourning, and bereaving. Mourning may include different forms of losses besides personal losses, such as an ended close friendship, the loss of an important job, the loss of a home country or land. All these personal and non-personal forms of loss may come with both private and social elements. Though I will mainly speak of losing a significant other here, it should be kept in mind that in some cases, the non-personal forms of loss can also be highly profound and, thus, can be as strong as losing a significant other person.
See also (Theunissen, 1986) for a concise and critical treatment of the latter two philosophers’ critiques of Heidegger’s account.
Throughout this essay, I will use ‘the anyone’ as the English counterpart of Heidegger’s notorious ‘das Man’. For the sake of consistency, I will modify Macquarrie & Robinson’s translation of this term (‘the they’) when it appears in the quoted passages from Being and Time.
See note 26 below.
The passage reads as follows: “Listening to... is Dasein's existential way of Being-open as Being-with for Others. Indeed, hearing constitutes the primary and authentic way in which Dasein is open for its ownmost potentiality-for-Being-as in hearing the voice of the friend whom every Dasein carries with it. Dasein hears because it understands” (BT 206). Also, see (Fynsk, 1993: 42–44) for another interpretation, which, as the author expresses in the acknowledgements, is strongly influenced by Derrida’s interpretation of this passage.
See note 21 below.
By the term das Man, as it is well-known by today, Heidegger misleadingly designates both the fundamental phenomenon of Being-with-others as constituting one of the existential structures of Dasein (BT 167–168; OHF 14) and the inauthentic mode of Being-with characterized by distantiality [Abständigkeit], levelling down [Eninebnung], and averageness [Durchschnittlichkeit]. Here, I will limit my use of das Man to the specific mode of Being-with, i.e., the inauthentic mode of Being-with-one-another. For the early discussions on this confusion in Being and Time see (Carman, 1994; Dreyfus, 1995; Olafson, 1994a; b). For some proposals for the solution to this problem, see (Boedeker, 2001; Knowles, 2017). In the context of this debate, it is also worth pointing out that Carman (2005: 286, 293) argues that besides Dasein’s authentic and inauthentic modes of Being, Heidegger also delineates a third mode, which is its “average everyday being,” itself “undifferentiated,” pure and simple, neither authentic nor inauthentic. Theunissen’s (1986: 193–98) reading rightfully challenges a clear-cut distinction between “the average everyday being” and the inauthentic mode of being we find in Carman’s reading.
By designating others as “social equipment,” I mean neither that one simply uses other Daseins in his or her relations with them nor that other Daseins are simply ready-to-hand things that take their meaning through the totality of equipmental relations. Instead, in relating to others as “social equipment,” one does not simply use others but rather, as it is in the case of tools, one is a part of the equipmental whole, absorbed in the activity itself; one is a part of “the work” of others, understands himself or herself through the “works” of others. Stroh (2015: 248–49) also stresses this structural isomorphism between Heidegger’s analysis of Being-with and being of equipment in terms of the totality of involvements. However, by drawing attention to this parallelism between equipmentality and sociality, I do not only aim to emphasize that the other Daseins are encountered within a totality but also aim to show that in the inauthentic mode of Being-with, the other Daseins are encountered primarily through their “work” and practical aspect.
Also see (BT 283), where Heidegger lists “one’s occupation, one’s social status, or one’s age” under the situations in which one Dasein can be represented by another.
“As the non-relational possibility, death individualizes but only in such a manner that … it makes Dasein, as Being-with, have some understanding of the potentiality-for-Being of Others” (BT 309).
To mention just some of the most recent studies on this topic, see (Knudsen, 2020; McMullin, 2013; Stroh, 2015; Thonhauser, 2017; Weichold, 2017). Though McMullin’s discussion of Being-with as at once an intraworldly and world-constituting event is very helpful, I do not think that her claim that “the entire Fürsorge continuum involves a being-toward the other qua Dasein” (McMullin, 2013: 145, italics in original) is textually well supported. I agree with McMullin that a more primordial relationship with other Daseins in terms of its existence must precede the sharp distinction between inauthentic and authentic Being-with (here, Carman’s (2005) interpretation becomes more tempting). But Heidegger, in contradistinction to McMullin’s idea, seems very straightforward in his claim that only when one faces the finitude of oneself through the anxious encounter with death, does one start to relate to others as world-bearing beings. Thonhauser and Weichold, in turn, disregard any such difference in Dasein’s understanding of other Daseins between inauthentic and authentic modes of Being-with in their analysis of social authenticity. While Stroh’s novel reading is in line with my reading in stressing the analogical similarity between equipmentality and sociality, his interpretation pays no attention to the radical modification in Dasein’s understanding of other individual Daseins. Theunissen’s (1986: 182f.) classical treatment of the issue remains one of the most faithful interpretations of this issue.
This idea of “co-disclosing” or “co-historizing” gains a more solid expression and overt political overtones in Heidegger’s lecture courses from the 1930s as he talks about the people and its relationship with the Führer in an overt manner. We find a more comprehensive exploration of these themes that are hastily treated in Being and Time in Heidegger’s two lecture courses from the subsequent semesters of 1933–1934 where Heidegger takes up the issue of the community more directly. See especially (NHS 57, 63–4; L 140–142; H 22, 198f.). For a selection of Heidegger’s writings, speeches, and letters showing his relationship with the nationalist socialist party, see (Wolin, 1993). Among the vast literature on Heidegger and Nazism, maybe the most well-known, controversial, and vociferous is Emmanuel Fayé’s (2005) massive book. For a more moderate approach to this issue, see (Karademir, 2013).
According to Heidegger, one’s communal bonds designate one’s freedom, that is, one’s freedom to become true to one’s Being, freedom to resolutely give oneself over a goal (NHS 63). In that regard, it is not surprising that Heidegger, in his rectoral speech in 1933, despises “false academic freedom” marked by “lack of concern, [and] arbitrariness in one’s intentions and inclinations” in favor of true freedom dedicated to a greater goal, through which “the bond and service of the German student will unfold” (SGU 475–476).
The fact that Heidegger examines this calling for a people in terms of the fundamental attunement of mourning may provide indirect textual support for the reading of conscience’s call as a call for mourning that I proposed in the previous paragraph.
Derrida (2005: 241) argues that Heidegger’s concept of authentic Being-with-others allows us to conceive the existential depth of other’s death, but such an understanding is actually present in Being and Time, albeit in a discreet form. Derrida argues that “the voice of the friend” can also be a source of the uprooting that brings Dasein to its ownmost possibility for existence. Thus, he (2005: 236) contends that what is at issue in Heidegger’s idea of “the call of the friend” might be “minimal community” or “minimal friendship” as the ground of any other form of sociality. However, even if we understand Heideggerian Being-with as a sort of “minimal friendship” preceding any other form of sociality including both the harmonious ones such as friendships and disharmonious ones such as war and conflict, this basic and fundamental friendship would be purely ontological. As being purely ontological, this notion of friendship would be categorically different from the ontic notion of friendship which is precisely the one at stake in the experiences of mourning and loss. Even if we concede the existence of this concept of friendship grounding all other intersubjective relations, the impersonal “friends” that constitute it would hardly be the sort whom I can mourn. For, can we mourn such a friend, which seems to be so anonymous, i.e., a mere ontological condition shared by all Daseins? The friend in Derrida’s reading is simply someone, an other Dasein, and not necessarily someone significant or close. In other words, “the friend” in Derrida’s reading seems too figurative. After all, if all others are friends, does not the category “friend” become useless, empty without any concrete content? To be even sharper, it is hard to see what such an interpretation actually contributes to our understanding of Heidegger as it seems to simply replace the word “other” with “the friend” without suggesting what this reading would imply for Heidegger’s problematic treatment of the anyone and the people. Thus, the friend Derrida finds in his reading of Heidegger seems still too general and ontological.
To be precise, here, my point here is not that there is no social dimension to the experience of dying or mourning. Instead, I argue that if we follow the Heideggerian characterization of death as having an unsharable existential significance, we should also make the same claim for mourning. The existential solitude, or as Heidegger somewhere else calls “metaphysical isolation” (MFL 137) that Dasein experiences when it confronts death can also be experienced due to the constant possibility of mourning and loss. However, this socially exclusive aspect of mourning and death is just a dimension of an otherwise thoroughly social phenomenon. Different aspects of the sociality of death have been analyzed through historical (Aries: 1991), anthropological (Seale, 1998: 50–73), and sociological perspectives (Charmaz, 1980: 162–165). Besides these, the essays in (Hagman, 2016: 65–115) show the irrevocable intersubjective dimension of mourning in psychoanalytic treatment. Most recently, Nina Lykke (2022: 7–23) has shown that non-human actors can also be a part of the intersubjective dimension of mourning.
Stolorow (2011: 70; 2007), in his autobiographical narrative, emphasizes this aspect of death following the death of his beloved wife due to cancer.
A similar point is made by Stolorow (2021: 2). Outside the context of Heidegger, the idea that a part of us dies with the death of a significant other has also been maintained by Butler (Butler, 2006: 22) and Charmaz (1980: 17).In a eulogy upon the death of Louis Althusser, Derrida (2001: 115) also eloquently expresses a similar thought: “What is coming to an end, what Louis [Althusser] is taking away with him, is not only something or other that we would have shared at some point or another, in one place or another, but the world itself, a certain origin of the world his origin, no doubt, but also that of the world in which I lived, in which we lived a unique story”.
A similar point has been made by Levinas who argues that the “Death of the other” is “the first death” (Levinas, 2000: 43; see 1987: 75). However, in Levinas, this affectivity (which he sometimes delineates by the term “trauma”) remains on the level of abstract transcendence that opens us to infinity. In tandem with this, we see a very limited interest in Levinas towards what we can regard as the “worldly” aspect of losing the other, that is, the experience of mourning and loss. In Levinas’ philosophy, the more “ontic” or “mundane” feelings are absorbed into a more primordial experience of responsibility. The other remains infinitely distant from me in its absolute singularity, inaccessible and nonmanifest. For this reason, my relation to the other can only be a “relation without relation” (Levinas, 1969: 80). The other is out-worldly (in the Heideggerian sense), or beyond Being. In that regard, the death of the other, for Levinas, signifies the ethical demand of death for the other. Thus, though Levinas thinks a great deal about death, he rarely gives special attention to mourning and loss. It should come as no surprise that we barely encounter the word “mourning” in Levinas’ oeuvre. To further Tina Chanter’s (2001: 221) apt observation, we can say that Levinas devotes his life to the mourning of philosophy but barely to a philosophy of mourning. The experience of mourning allows us to demonstrate the singularity of the other within a worldly milieu, i.e., in a context of situational meanings, without disregard for the worldly aspect of those encounters as we find in Levinas’ argument. In that regard, my argument seeks to open a path between the Levinasian account of the singularity of the other and the Heideggerian accounts of particularity of the other, and thus shows a compelling third possibility between them.
Here, my reference is to a passage appearing at the very beginning of Heidegger’s (1969: 23) Identity and Difference and Derrida’s (2005: 241) claim that there is “an unceasing meditation on friendship in Heidegger’s path of thinking”. The passage reads as follows: “When thinking attempts to pursue something that has claimed its attention, it may happen that on the way it undergoes a change. It is advisable, therefore, in what follows to pay attention to the path of thought rather than to its content”. It bears noting that Derrida is sometimes more careful with his reading of Heidegger, as he asserts the problematic of mourning as he deals with it “has only a very limited affinity with that of Heidegger” (Derrida, 1995: 321) and he contends that “In Being and Time, the existential analysis does not want to know anything about the ghost [revenant] or about mourning” (Derrida, 1993a: 60).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Aret Karademir, Murat Baç, Terence Holden and Abdullah Başaran for their helpful comments and criticisms on the earlier drafts of this paper. Without their help, this article could not have its present form. I am also grateful to James Griffith and Darien Santmyer for their stylistic suggestions that helped improving the language of the text. I am also greatly indebted to the anonymous referees from The Philosophical Forum and Human Studies for their thoughtful feedback, which greatly improved this paper. Lastly, many thanks to my friend Yıldırım Beyazıt who introduced me to the works of Robert Stolorow.
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Aktas, A. Thrown into the World, Attached to Love: On the Forms of World-Sharing and Mourning in Heidegger. Hum Stud (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-023-09701-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-023-09701-6