Heidegger Kierkegaard Reception

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Heidegger's Reception ofKierkegaard: The ExistentialPhilosophy of DeathAdam Bubenaa Leiden University CollegePublished online: 24 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Adam Buben (2013) Heidegger's Reception of Kierkegaard: TheExistential Philosophy of Death, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 21:5,967-988, DOI: 10.1080/09608788.2013.825576

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ARTICLE

HEIDEGGERS RECEPTION OF KIERKEGAARD: THEEXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY OF DEATH

Adam Buben

After briey drawing attention to two key strains in the history ofphilosophys dealings with death, the Platonic and the Epicurean, Idescribe a more recent philosophical alternative to viewing death interms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed bythe likes of Sren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, and MartinHeidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaardsdespite the undeniable inuence exerted on him by the nineteenthcentury Dane. By exploring this inuence, a deep connection betweenthem on the topic of death becomes apparent. Although both of thesethinkers arise from the Platonic/Christian tradition, I discuss how theyhandle Epicurean insights about death in their work, and therebyprescribe a peculiar way of living with death that falls somewhere inbetween the Platonic and the Epicurean strains. This way of approachinglife through death, in which Kierkegaard and Heidegger show signs ofreaction to (and in some cases, inuence from) both strains, is what Icall the existential philosophy of death.

KEYWORDS: Kierkegaard; Heidegger; death; Platonic; Epicurean

It should come as no surprise by now that Heidegger relies on Kierkegaardwhen describing Being-towards-death in Being and Time, despite the factthat he does not explicitly mention the Dane in this regard. In addition to thisrelative silence, however, determining what precisely Heidegger owes toKierkegaard on this topic is further complicated by Heideggers generalopinion that his efforts go beyond what Kierkegaard is able to accomplishin a more explicitly Christian context. Although there is some very helpfuldiscussion of Heideggers dependence on Kierkegaardian ideas aboutdeath in the work of Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Guignon, Michael Theunissen,and John van Buren, there is surely more to be done especially when thereis such a paucity of literature that ties both Kierkegaards thinking aboutphysical death and his sense of Christian dying to the world togetherwhen considering his impact on Heidegger. By looking closely at the

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2013Vol. 21, No. 5, 967988, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2013.825576

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many points of convergence between the Kierkegaardian and Heideggeriandescriptions of allowing death to penetrate ones existence, and at what canbe determined about Heideggers reception of Kierkegaard, I will provide amore thorough understanding of the relationship between them when itcomes to the issue of death. Ultimately, I believe that Kierkegaards inu-ence goes right to the very heart of Heideggers project; despite their differ-ences, there is an over-arching sense in which Kierkegaard and Heideggerare working on the same philosophy of death.Given its universality and potential for disruption, death has been one of

those few topics that attract the attention of just about every signicantthinker in the history of Western philosophy, and this attention has resultedin diverse and complex views on the nature of death itself, the afterlife, andwhat it all might mean for the living. The complicated role of death in Beingand Time, much like Kierkegaards treatment of the topic, could hardly havebeen developed without relying upon this vast assortment of philosophicalliterature. This rich history can be roughly broken up into two maincamps, strains, or philosophies of death: the Platonic, which emphasizes per-sonal afterlife and recommends meditation on death as preparation for thispost-mortem experience, and the Epicurean, which casts doubt upon per-sonal afterlife and encourages becoming desensitized to death. Exemplarythinkers from each strain include Plato, Augustine, Luther, and Pascal onthe one hand, and Epicurus, Epictetus, Montaigne, Spinoza, and Schopen-hauer on the other. Jeffrie G. Murphy suggests a similar dichotomy, albeitwithout the association of Plato and Christianity, when he points out thatthe approach to death found in the Stoics and the Epicureans amongothers is, in many respects, interestingly different from the way of think-ing about death that Christianity introduced into our civilization (Ration-ality and the Fear of Death, 44). While both Kierkegaard and Heideggerare rooted in the soil of the Platonic/Christian tradition, I intend to show howthey react to Epicurean insights, thereby prescribing a peculiar way of livingwith death what we might call an existential philosophy of death thatmanages to avoid the major shortcomings of both the Platonic and the Epicureanstrains. Thus, in the course of providing a more thorough account of the connec-tion between Kierkegaard and Heidegger on death-related issues than has pre-viously been offered, I will also suggest a unique characterization of thegenealogical development of their largely shared project.

1. WHAT HEIDEGGER WAS READING

Although Heidegger never explicitly discusses Kierkegaard in any greatdetail (as he does so many other thinkers that have a profound impact onhis thought), there is no doubt that he was well-versed in Kierkegaardswritings. Consider, briey, what was available to him. Besides the numer-ous translations of Kierkegaards works that appeared in German prior to

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the twentieth century (Himmelstrup, Sren Kierkegaard International Bib-liogra, 258), a twelve-volume collected works, edited and mostly trans-lated by Christoph Schrempf, appeared between 1909 and 1922; and all buttwo of these volumes were published by 1914 (GW, vols. 112).1 This dateis signicant given that Heidegger himself admits that between 1910 and1914 he enthusiastically read Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Kierkegaard,among others (FS, x; cf. Guignon, Heidegger and Kierkegaard onDeath, 184; McCarthy, Martin Heidegger, 99). In his courses leadingup to Being and Time Heidegger even quotes Either/Or, Practice in Chris-tianity, and the Attack from the Schrempf edition (he also refers to TheConcept of Anxiety from this edition in the rst of his Being and TimeKierkegaard notes; PI, 137; OHF, 83; BT, 492).2 But it is not justSchrempfs work that makes 1914 a signicant year for Heideggers recep-tion of Kierkegaard. For it was also in this year that Theodor Haeckerstranslations of Kierkegaards more edifying or upbuilding (opbyggelig)works (with accompanying commentary)3 began to appear in the Austrianjournal of cultural and literary criticism known as Der Brenner; and Hei-degger was a subscriber to this periodical from 1911 until it ceased publi-cation in 1954 (see van Buren, The Young Heidegger, 150; Janik, Haecker,Kierkegaard, and the Early Brenner, 220; Malik, Receiving Sren Kierke-gaard, 3717).On the topic of death, Heidegger was exposed to the complete range of

Kierkegaards thoughts well before writing Being and Time and there canbe little doubt that these thoughts had a most signicant impact upon hisnotion of Being-towards-death.4 In 1915, Haeckers translation of At aGraveside (titled Vom Tode), curiously missing most of the introductoryreection at a funeral, appeared in Der Brenner (VT, 1555),5 and as Theu-nissen has argued, it did not escape Heideggers attention. In fact, Theunis-sen believes that his remark about Kierkegaards edifying writings in anote just before the death chapter (Being and Times second mention of Kier-kegaard; BT, 494) refers primarily to this, Kierkegaards most concentrated

1On Schrempfs translations, see Malik, Receiving Sren Kierkegaard, 3369, 377.2The passage from the Attack, inOntology The Hermeneutics of Facticity, is actually from an1896 translation of Kierkegaards Point of View by Dorner and Schrempf. Heideggers Fore-word to this lecture course from 1923 also acknowledges that for the ideas it contains,impulses were given by Kierkegaard (OHF, 4). This is not the only time Heidegger makessuch a statement (see Kisiel, The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, 452).3Schrempfs edition mostly ignored these works due to their explicitly Christian content; hedid attempt to address this lacuna with a partially completed series of new translations inthe 1920s.4In the appendix to Ontology The Hermeneutics of Facticity Heidegger acknowledges Kier-kegaards signicance for his understanding of death with the cryptic statement, the death ofChrist the problem! Experience of death in any sense, death life Dasein (Kierkegaard)(OHF, 86).5On the interesting specics of this volume of Der Brenner, see Malik, Receiving Sren Kier-kegaard, 381, 391.

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discussion of death.6 But there is plenty of reason to believe that Heideggerwas also well acquainted with many of Kierkegaards other signicant treat-ments of death-related matters. For example, within Being and Times deathchapter itself, Heidegger includes a note of appreciation for Jaspers discus-sion of death as a limit-situation in Psychologie der Weltanschauungen(BT, 495). Interestingly, it is in this very section of Jaspers magnum opusthat one can nd a massive quotation from the brief but focused discussionof thinking death as an example of how to become subjective in Kierke-gaards pseudonymous Concluding Unscientic Postscript to PhilosophicalFragments.7 Thus, even if Heidegger was not thinking of At a Gravesidespecically in writing about death in Being and Time, it seems certain thatsome of its major themes were on his mind.8

Among the other texts that have important contributions to make towardsan overall understanding of Kierkegaards views on death, Heidegger alsoseems quite familiar with The Concept of Anxiety, which he explicitlyacknowledges, and The Sickness unto Death, which he does not. At thevery least, he must have had a thorough second-hand knowledge of thesedetailed pseudonymous discussions of the fallen, sinful situation ofhumans and its connection to various senses of death via Jaspers reviewof Kierkegaard (which Heidegger mentions in his third and nal Kierke-gaard note in Being and Time; BT, 497).9 This review focuses on the kair-ological understanding of temporality found in Anxiety and Sickness, anunderstanding that is derived from the New Testament and comes to playa signicant role in Heideggers account of death.10

6Theunissen, The Upbuilding in the Thought of Death, 328. Also see Pattison,Tre Taler vedtaenkte Leiligheder, 1812; and Schulz, A Modest Head Start, 331, 357. Schulz mentionsAt a Graveside along with Lilies in the eld from 1847.7Jaspers, Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, 26970 (Jaspers quotations are from theSchrempf edition); CUP, 1:16570/SKS, 7:1538. It has become common practice toinclude reference to the new Danish fourth edition of Kierkegaards works because the com-plete English edition only provides a concordance with older Danish editions.8Heidegger even points out Kierkegaards inuence on Jaspers on the topic of death (KJ, 910, 223). Also see van Buren, The Young Heidegger, 170, 1756. Van Buren acknowledgesHeideggers earlier encounter with Kierkegaard, but claims that it was not until studyingJaspers book that Heidegger engaged in his rst intensive reading of Kierkegaardsworks (The Young Heidegger, 150). This claim seems questionable given all of the Kierke-gaard that was available to Heidegger between 1910 and 1915, and his own remarks about hisreading e.g. I was already confronting the works of Kierkegaard when there was as yet nodialectical literature (MF, 141). It may be true, however, that Heideggers 19191921 Com-ments on Karl Jaspers was his rst detailed discussion of Kierkegaardian themes. For more onthe KierkegaardJaspersHeidegger relationship on matters of death, see Schulz, A ModestHead Start, 354; and Blattner, Heideggers Debt to Jaspers Concept, 15365.9Heideggers note also mentions Jaspers discussion of the moment, which refers to Anxietyseveral times (Jaspers, Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, 10817).10Jaspers, Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, 41932; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:515; Galatians4:4.

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Moving on to somewhat more speculative claims about his reading activi-ties, Heidegger never explicitly acknowledges Kierkegaards considerationof the radical Christian sense of dying to the world in late writings such asFor Self-Examination and The Moment (although both texts are found inthe Schrempf edition and before; FSE, xiii). Given his fascination with theKierkegaardian concept of the moment, and his apparent familiarity withthe attack literature, however, it is hard to believe that Heidegger overlookedKierkegaards series of pamphlets by the same name. There is also whatseems like an early formulation of some of Heideggers key concepts (e.g.Das Man, or the they) in Kierkegaards treatment of the public and level-ling in The Present Age, which appears in the 1914 Der Brenner (KG,81549, 869908). Additionally, various collections of discourses (andjournal entries), including Works of Love and Christian Discourses inwhich Kierkegaard presents his views on the proper relationship to thedead and the afterlife, respectively appeared in German both before andafter the turn of the century. In fact, it seems that almost every work (atleast in part) of real signicance to Kierkegaards philosophy of death wasavailable in German well before Heidegger began working on Being andTime. The two notable exceptions are Kierkegaards dissertation, whichgives some attention to death in Platos works, and the Purity of Heart dis-course that, according to some scholars, has interesting resonances with Hei-deggers treatment of death (see Davenport, Wholeheartedness, VolitionalPurity, and Mortality, 1712; Himmelstrup, Sren Kierkegaard Inter-national Bibliogra, 258; Malik, Receiving Sren Kierkegaard, 3812;Schulz, A Modest Head Start, 38891).Clearly Heidegger had access to Kierkegaards work, read it, and found

value in it, especially those texts that deal most explicitly with death. Whythen does Heidegger only occasionally acknowledge Kierkegaard in Beingand Time, with none of those occasions in the death chapter, and why arethese acknowledgments so seemingly dismissive of someone he obviouslyrelies upon? Some have suggested simple egotism or even gone so far asto accuse him of approaching blatant academic dishonesty (e.g. Caputo,Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and the Foundering, 2034; McCarthy, MartinHeidegger, 114). I am not sure, however, that these sorts of suggestionsand accusations are entirely fair given Heideggers apparent willingnessover an extended period of time to point out Kierkegaards inuence on anumber of topics, even if only briey. While the seemingly dismissivetone of his statements about Kierkegaard in Being and Time is mostly dueto his rather strict view of the purpose of philosophy, I would like tosuggest two other mitigating factors that ought to be considered when eval-uating the nature and thoroughness of Heideggers citations. My goal is notto exonerate Heidegger completely or excuse his oversights, but rather toprovide a more nuanced understanding of his possible motivations.To begin with, he expresses concern in several places about the rampant

Kierkegaardism in educated German circles in the early 1920s (Kisiel, The


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Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, 275, 316, 397, 541). A simple perusalof the increasingly inuentialDer Brenner between 1919 and 1923 suggests justhow much Kierkegaard must have been in the air at this time (cf. Malik,Receiving Sren Kierkegaard, 3713). Heidegger seems to feel that this newfad is supercial and fails to grasp the proper lessons of Kierkegaard (FC,1501; also see McCarthy, Martin Heidegger, 99). In order to avoid beingassociated with such a trend, it may be the case that Heidegger is not overlyeager to make reference to Kierkegaard by the mid-1920s even if Kierkegaardremains an important inuence on his thinking (cf. Guignon, Heidegger andKierkegaard on Death, 184; McCarthy, Martin Heidegger, 1003).But even if this potential explanation of Heideggers reticence is uncon-

vincing, there is another, perhaps more substantial, reason as to why Heideg-ger might be less interested in drawing a great deal of attention to his debt toKierkegaard. In Ontology The Hermeneutics of Facticity, just afteracknowledging the impulses he has received from Kierkegaard andothers, Heidegger makes an interesting claim about the irrelevance oflisting his historical inuences in this way. He states,

This is for those who understand something only when they reckon it up interms of historical inuences, the pseudo-understanding of an industriouscuriosity, i.e., diversion from what is solely at issue in this course and whatit all comes to. One should make their tendency of understanding as easyas possible for them so that they will perish of themselves. Nothing is to beexpected of them. They care only about the pseudo.

(OHF, 4)

Basically, Heidegger seems to believe that these sorts of supercial historicalconcerns can only distract from the meaningful task at hand. He is certainlynot opposed to the historical tracing, or destruction, of an ideas development,which is what often occupies his various courses from the 1920s, but he seesmere trivial pursuit in reading a text with the goal of simply naming thethinker responsible for the original expression of each passing thought. Whilehe demonstrates that he is more than willing to name names, he claims thatsuch lists will fascinate only the shallowest of intellects when there is seriousphilosophical work to be done. With this admonishment in mind, it would bebest at this point to turn away from questions about which of Kierkegaards dis-cussions of death Heidegger was reading and when, in order to consider moresubstantial issues of inuence and attain a more thorough grasp of the develop-ment of the existential philosophy of death.

2. A FEW APPARENT BORROWINGS

Although many connections between Kierkegaard and Heidegger on death-related issues have already been made in the surrounding literature,

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especially concerning anxiety and the moment, much less has been saidwhen it comes to things like dying to the world and the ideas about mortalityand the afterlife presented in At a Graveside and the more explicitly Chris-tian discourses. While it is surely worth making note of the many fruitfulpoints of convergence that have already been suggested, the main focushere must be on those connections that have received too little attentionand remain in need of further development. Ultimately, it will be of mostinterest to see how Heidegger begins to join Kierkegaard in forging an exis-tential philosophy of death by interacting with certain gures from the afore-mentioned key strains in the history of philosophys dealings with the topic.Perhaps the best way to start looking at the relationship between these two

thinkers on the matter of death is in terms of At a Graveside, even thoughHeidegger never cites it. There are both obvious connections concerningissues such as the uncertainty, or indeniteness (ubestemmelig in Danish,Unbestimmtheit in Sein und Zeit, and unbestimmbar in Der BrennersVom Tode), of the when of death, and other less frequently discussedclues that also suggest Heideggers debt to this discourse. One of theseclues is the way Heidegger dismisses the experience of the death of theother in his quest for the proper approach to death. He claims that theothers death is not something that a particular Dasein that entitywhich understands what it is to be (Guignon, Heidegger and the Problemof Knowledge, 68) can experience in the relevant sense and, so, he con-cludes that only ones own death is of interest for the sake of his inquiry(BT, 2814). Of course, limiting himself to a consideration of ones owndeath makes more sense once he comes to explain death as a way to be.Heidegger takes up the problem of death in the rst chapter of Division

Two of Being and Time in an attempt to grasp the complete structure ofDasein. His account of this structure up to this point has not addressed thefact that there is in every case something still outstanding about Dasein its end (BT, 276). Because death is often said to be the end of Dasein, Hei-degger considers common ways of understanding the ending of things inorder to determine which might apply to death. Among the possible waysof understanding ending is the fullment of ripening fruit. Even though Hei-degger ultimately rejects ripening as the appropriate sort of ending for adescription of Daseins death (ripening is a sort of realizing of a purpose,while death initially seems to be what makes this sort of achievement doubt-ful in that it often leaves projects unnished), there is an aspect of hisdiscussion of ripening that he retains (BT, 288). Like the fruit whichcarries its not-yet ripe with it as it ripens, Dasein carries its not yet at anend with it while it exists. That is, it carries its death with it as that whichit is not yet. He states,

just as Dasein is already its not-yet, and is its not-yet constantly as long as itis, it is already its end too. The ending which we have in view when we speak


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of death, does not signify Daseins Being-at-an-end, but a Being-towards-the-end of this entity. Death is a way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it is.

(BT, 289)

Death, for Heidegger, is not some concluding event on the horizon; I amalways my death, in the sense of being towards it (cf. Guignon, Heideggerand Kierkegaard on Death, 1945).If the issue at hand were the simple event of passing away, or demise,11

one could argue that no one has any better access to their own death than tothe death of another, but there is something uniquely accessible about onesown particular Being-towards-death (BT, 28991). Later in the chapter,when Heidegger goes on to describe the authentic (eigentlich)12 self pro-vided by the anticipation (vorlaufen; running ahead towards) of death,13

he states, understanding does not primarily mean just gazing at ameaning, but rather understanding oneself in that potentiality-for-Being(BT, 307). To try to understand Being-towards-death by focusing on theother would amount to nothing more than this gazing, while true understand-ing comes only through appropriation.It is precisely this sort of appropriation that Kierkegaard is after in At a

Graveside, when he speaks of the jest of thinking about death in generalwithout also thinking of oneself in connection with it. Although this dis-course takes the imagined funeral of a loved one as its point of departure,Kierkegaards purpose in depicting this imagined occasion is to show thedifference between the effect of the others death on the living and theeffect that a relation to ones own death can have on the living. He states,to think of oneself as dead is earnestness; to be a witness to the death ofanother is mood (TDIO, 75/SKS, 5:446). In this context, the distinctionbetween earnestness and mood should evoke the difference betweentaking ownership in thoughtful commitment and being whisked awayby a passing emotional reaction. While this shared interest between Kierke-gaard and Heidegger concerning the benets of a proper relationship with

11Since death is to be conceived as a way to be, a dying (Sterben) of sorts, Heidegger dis-tinguishes it from the perishing (Verenden) of living things (BT, 2845) and demise(Ableben), which is the unique version of passing away that is specic to the nature ofDasein. Heidegger explains, the ending of that which lives we have called perishing.Dasein too can end without authentically dying, though on the other hand, qua Dasein, itdoes not simply perish. We designate this intermediate phenomenon as its demise (BT,291).12Eigentlich literally means something like enownable. Thus, becoming authentic meansbecoming ones own, or owning up to what one is; and authentic Being-towards-death is anowning up to oneself as this sort of Being.13Kierkegaards pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, also considers whether death can be antici-pated (CUP, 1:168/SKS, 7:155), but the Danish anticiperes (antizipiert in the Schrempfedition) has no etymological connection to Heideggers vorlaufen, despite their commonEnglish translation.

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ones own death may not be very shocking, it is of crucial importance forgrasping the points of intersection that follow (cf. Theunissen, The Upbuild-ing in the Thought of Death, 3356).Another clue to Heideggers debt can be found in his closely related dis-

cussion of Being-certain of death (cf. Magurshak, The Concept ofAnxiety, 1856). Although the certainty (Vished and Visse in Danish,Gewissheit and Gewisse in both Der Brenners Vom Tode and Sein undZeit) of death is an often-discussed link between Kierkegaard and Heidegger,the surprising difculty of making this connection in the right way renders itan issue worth revisiting. Heidegger points out that while everydayness isempirically certain of death (as mere demise) in the sense of not doubtingsome coming event, this uncritical everyday attitude is not certain in thesense of Being-certain of Being-towards-death (BT, 299302). This differ-ence is between a derivative disinterested assent to some objective factand an involved making something ones own and behaving accordingly.Heidegger states, the explicit appropriating of what has been disclosed ordiscovered is Being-certain (BT, 355). Because death is not to be under-stood as the objective event of demise for Heidegger, but rather as a personalway to be, it is clear that he is less drawn to the derivative sort of certaintythat everydayness applies to the thing it calls death (demise).Although Kierkegaard does not draw such a sharp death/demise distinc-

tion14 and, therefore, might initially seem guilty of only dealing with whatHeidegger describes as the empirical certainty of demise, there is a way ofseeing Kierkegaards discussion of certainty as a precursor to Heideggersnotion of Being-certain. Kierkegaard does not even concede that everyday-ness is certain of, in the sense of not doubting, its demise. In everyday con-versation people may say that they are certain, but their actions speak louderthan their words. If they really do not doubt death, why then do they behavein ways that treat life as though it is without limits (cf. JP, 1:335)? Asexamples of this behaviour (and its underlying attitude), Kierkegaard men-tions an excessive soul-destroying sorrow and paralysing shock at theunexpected deaths of loved ones (as though certain death can ever beentirely unexpected), and the taking on of projects without considerationfor the fact that death can come at any time (TDIO, 75, 956/SKS, 5:446,4634). Like Heidegger, Kierkegaard seems to be distinguishing betweenan empty objective acknowledgement of certainty and a sort of genuinelyappropriated Being-certain that is manifested in the way one behaves inthe world.

14See, however, his pseudonymous discussion of the more complicated impact of death onhumans in comparison with the impact of death on simpler organisms (CA, 92/SKS,4:3956). Might this brief digression have some inuence on Heideggers technical differen-tiation of death-terminology? After all, a footnote just before his death chapter mentionsAnxiety. Also see Theunissens brief account of the various Christian senses of death, includ-ing bodily, spiritual (sinfulness), and mystical (dying to) (The Upbuilding in the Thought ofDeath, 3434).


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A third At a Graveside clue concerns the anti-Epicurean nature of Kier-kegaards and Heideggers respective projects.15 Epicurus famouslycombats the fear of death with his claim that death means nothing to theliving because (as paraphrased by Kierkegaard) when it is, I am not, andwhen I am, it is not (TDIO, 73/SKS, 5:444; cf. Epicurus, The Philosophyof Epicurus, 180). Heidegger, on the other hand, like Kierkegaard beforehim, attempts to provide an account in which you are and death also is(TDIO, 75/SKS, 5:446). As I previously pointed out, Heidegger suggestsDaseins coexistence with death when he shows how it is possible,through Being-towards-death, to grasp Daseins wholeness and essentialstructure. This is remarkable given that under the standard (Epicurean)view of death as demise it seems that Dasein is always missing something(what is still to come) while it exists, and at the moment of possible com-pletion there is no longer Dasein (BT, 2801). Heidegger explains,

dening the existential structure of Being-towards-the-end helps us to workout a kind of Being of Dasein in which Dasein, as Dasein, can be a whole.The fact that even everyday Dasein already is towards its end that is tosay, is constantly coming to grips with its death shows that this end, con-clusive and determinative for Being-a-whole, is not something to whichDasein ultimately comes only in its demise. In Dasein, as being towards itsdeath, its own uttermost not-yet has already been included.

(BT, 303)

Because death understood as Being-towards-death is something that onecarries along with one (or simply is) in existing, and does so authenticallyin anticipating death (BT, 311), Heidegger seems to have in some senseavoided problems that have traditionally been associated with the inabilityto experience death (demise). But it appears that in developing his strategyfor avoiding these problems Heidegger may have had the benet of aprototype.In discussing Kierkegaards retroactive power (tilbagevirkende Kraft) of

death,16 George Connell claims that it is very like Heideggers notion ofauthenticity and resoluteness in the face of death (Four Funerals, 436).

15Kisiel briey notes the implicit anti-Epicureanism in Heidegger that Kierkegaard openlyexpresses (The Genesis of Heideggers Being and Time, 339). Cf. Theunissen, TheUpbuilding in the Thought of Death, 3401. On Kierkegaards critique of Epicurus, seeStokes, The Power of Death, 387417.16Heidegger also speaks about the power that comes from approaching death in a certain way(BT, 436), but while Kierkegaards expression and its translation in Der Brenners VomTode use the word Kraft, Heideggers expressions involve the word Macht (e.g. bermachtand Ohnmacht; there is a common Danish equivalent: Magt). Macht, unlike Kraft, connotespolitical power; given Heideggers interest in authenticity, or owning oneself, perhaps hemeans to suggest that the anticipation of death leads to a sort of ruling over oneself (cf.BT, 357).

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What Connell seems to have in mind about Kierkegaards account is the wayin which an individuals death, rather than simply annihilating this individ-uals life, meaningfully impacts this life while it is still being lived (FourFunerals, 4345). Kierkegaard states,

what is decisive about the explanation, what prevents the nothingness of deathfrom annihilating the explanation, is that it acquires retroactive power andactuality in the life of the living person; then death becomes a teacher tohim and does not traitorously assist him to a confession that denounces theexplainer as a fool.

(TDIO, 97/SKS, 5:465)

It appears that in this retroactivity, Kierkegaard has, like Heidegger, found away of understanding death as somehow coexistent with the life of an indi-vidual. Although Kierkegaard does not exactly put this coexistence in termsof the lessons Heidegger learns from Being-towards-death, it does not seemtoo far-fetched to see in the idea of death as a teacher, death as a way to be.

3. SIMILAR PROJECTS17

Heideggers apparent connections with the graveside discourse are only partof the story of the overall similarity between the role of death in Being andTime and Kierkegaards death project. Not only does Heidegger share par-ticular concepts with Kierkegaard, they also seem to have a similarpurpose in overcoming the Epicurean view and encouraging an existenceso intertwined with death. In Kierkegaardian terms, the goal here is dyingto the world as schematized rst by the pagan Plato, exemplied perfectlyby Christ, described in the New Testament, and passed down, more or(occasionally) less authentically, by a series of Christian thinkers.18

Despite the fact that Kierkegaard remains rmly engaged in this Christianconversation, he expresses a great deal of disdain for the objective metaphys-ical speculation that some of these thinkers engage in when it comes to issuessuch as the afterlife. Kierkegaard understands the doubts and difculties con-cerning the possibility of a personal afterlife posed by thinkers in the Epicur-ean strain (beginning with Epicurus for whom the soul consists of atoms that

17Aspects of this section make up the jumping off point for Buben, The Perils of OvercomingWorldliness, which is actually a sequel of sorts to the present paper despite its earlier pub-lication date.18See e.g. Phaedo, 64ab; Romans 6:68; 2 Corinthians 4:102, 5:1419. On Kierkegaardsunderstanding of dying to the world, see e.g. CD, 17, 72, 172, 184, 208, 2423/SKS, 10:29,81, 183, 1945, 21617, 2489; FSE, 7685/SKS, 13:98105; and SUD, 6/SKS, 11:118. Onhis view of the mistakes of even his most promising Christian predecessors and his role as cor-rective, see e.g. JP, 1:712, 2:354, 368, 3:82, 101, 467/SKS, 23:323, 24:491, 25:4001,4323, 26:44.


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disperse at the moment of death), and rejects attempts to demonstrate thatthere will be such an afterlife by certain thinkers in the Platonic strain(see, for example, the numerous arguments Platos Socrates puts forwardin the Phaedo). However, he treats both these difculties and these demon-strations as irrelevant and faithfully appropriates the afterlife, behaving asthough it will be so (cf. CD, 21213/SKS, 10:2201; CUP, 1:1717/SKS,7:15864).19 One might even suggest that Kierkegaard nds the doubt ofthe Epicurean strain useful in order to correct a Christianity that has lostthis sense of appropriation and instead spends its time speculating (cf. JP,2:3801/SKS, 22:44, 24:4489).This combination of the maintenance of dying to the world and the refusal

to speculate about the afterlife is a key aspect of what distinguishes the exis-tential philosophy of death from its Platonic/Christian and Epicurean prede-cessors. Thus, it is absolutely crucial, for understanding Heidegger asengaged in something like Kierkegaards blending of lessons from thesetwo key strains, to point out that Heidegger is also opposed to speculationabout the afterlife (BT, 292). But is there a conict between their viewsgiven that Kierkegaard seems to retain faith in personal immortality in theface of his concession to the doubt found in the Epicurean strain? Whilethere is little reason to believe that there is a similar retention in Heidegger,one need not see insurmountable opposition since Heideggers bracketing ofthis issue does not include an explicit rejection of the afterlife (cf. Theunis-sen, The Upbuilding in the Thought of Death, 3413, 347).On the other side of Kierkegaards existential combination, it is just as

crucial to realize that Heidegger is involved with something like a secular-ized version of the Christian sense of dying to the world.20 Dreyfus issurely onto something when (in discussing Postscripts notion of dying toimmediacy) he states, for Heidegger being-unto-death is dying to allimmediacy (Being-in-the-World, 312).21 And, without mentioning Kierke-gaard, Iain Thomson emphasizes Heideggers Pauline movement in which

19For more on Kierkegaards personal relationship to the afterlife, see Marks, KierkegaardsUnderstanding of the Afterlife.20On this issue, van Buren describes Heideggers debts to Paul, Augustine, Luther (especiallyhis commentaries on Genesis, which Heidegger quotes from just after quoting Kierkegaard inPI, 137), Pascal, and Kierkegaard (The Young Heidegger, 15867, 1746, 1869). Theunissenbriey notes the debts that both Kierkegaard and Heidegger owe to Tertullian, Ambrose,Augustine, and Luther on the topic of death (The Upbuilding in the Thought of Death,3389, 3436). See also BT, 494.21Dreyfus uses Climacus formulation of dying to from the Postscript, where one trades alower immediacy (the common worldly way of understanding oneself and ones place) fora higher one that resembles the Christian relationship with God. Since Heidegger abandonsthe lower and also avoids the faithful acceptance of the higher, Dreyfus sees him but notKierkegaard as a proponent of dying to all immediacy. Rather than hastily suggestingwhat is certainly a key difference between them, Dreyfus could have made more out of thefact that for both Kierkegaard and Heidegger the purpose of dying to the world (Kierkegaardsmore common formulation) is to nd a new life or new way of viewing existence.

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we turn away from the world, recover ourselves, and then turn back to theworld, a world we now see anew, with eyes that have been opened (Heideg-gers Perfectionist Philosophy, 456).22 Just as Kierkegaard is critical of allways of relating to oneself that are dictated by human understanding of theworld, since they forego or prevent a genuinely faithful relationship withChrist, Heidegger is interested in severing the connections to ones existencethat have been unquestioningly received from the they in everydayness,because these connections prevent grasping what one authentically is(BT, 30711). In other words, one must die to the distracting ways of exist-ing that one just happens to have fallen into in order to see clearly what ismost properly ones own (cf. van Buren, The Young Heidegger, 17782;McCarthy, Martin Heidegger, 10811).23 Both Kierkegaard and Heideggerdescribe the distractions handed down by the everyday world as accidentalor incidental (tilfldige in Ved en Grav, zufallige in both Der BrennersVom Tode and Sein und Zeit) in the sense that there is nothing that one canreceive from this everydayness that is absolutely essential to onesexistence.24

Whereas the world tends to focus on what can be accomplished or actua-lized in a given period of chronological time (which of course can never beguaranteed, rendering all actualization merely accidental), Kierkegaard andHeidegger emphasize the kairological moment (Danish: jeblikket, German:Augenblick; both literally mean the blink of an eye)25 in which how one

22I do have some reservations about Thomsons description of the anticipation of death interms of an actual experience of complete world-collapse (Heideggers Perfectionist Phil-osophy, 453), given that Heidegger never suggests this sort of emotional breakdown.Although it may not be Thomsons intention, this formulation gives the impression that onemight pass through and be nished with death at some point, whereas both Kierkegaardand Heidegger believe that death, or dying to, is a task for a lifetime, a possibility to strugglewith and exist in but not to be actualized (cf. CUP, 1:16482/SKS, 7:15267; and BT, 50;also see Possen, Death and Ethics, 12232).23Although Heidegger makes it clear that everyday falling into an inauthentic grasp of onesplace in the world (like sin on Kierkegaards view) is a common and unavoidable aspect ofDasein (BT, 51), many commentators argue that Heidegger is not offering a merelyneutral description. The struggle for authenticity (like Kierkegaards faithful striving) issomehow a better way of existence than inauthentic complacency. See e.g. Berthold-Bond, A Kierkegaardian Critique of Heideggers Concept, 119, 125; Hoberman, Kierke-gaards Two Ages and Heideggers Critique, 228.24In Kierkegaard, see e.g. TDIO, 75, 96/SKS, 5:446, 464. Heidegger speaks of becoming freefrom the entertaining incidentals [Zuflligkeiten] with which busy curiosity keeps providingitself (BT, 358). Cf. BT, 435, 440, where Heidegger continues to rely on the same Kierke-gaardian language of the accidental and trivial what-concerns about output. Alsocompare Magurshak, The Concept of Anxiety, 177.25Besides touching on Heideggers obvious connections to Kierkegaards consideration ofjeblikket, both Dreyfus (Being-in-the-World, 3212) and Kisiel (The Genesis of HeideggersBeing and Time, 4378) offer brief, but helpful connections to the Greek ( = theappropriate time) especially Aristotelian and Christian roots of this kairological senseof time (cf. BP, 288). The best source for these sorts of connections is van Burens discussionof Heideggers lecture courses from the early 1920s (The Young Heidegger, 190202). In


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relates (regardless of the chronological time available) to the possible is whatreally matters (Magurshak, The Concept of Anxiety, 180).26 In both his ownname and under pseudonym, Kierkegaard describes the new sense of timethat Christianity introduces as the intersection of eternity with worldly tem-porality in a present moment that reconciles the fallen condition one comesfrom with the salvation one runs towards. For example, Vigilius Haufniensisstates, the fullness of time is the moment as the eternal, and yet this eternal isalso the future and the past (CA, 90/SKS, 4:393). To put it another way: in amovement that transcends any common sense of temporality one comes toparticipate in the past, yet timeless, act of cleansing sacrice (the crucixion)and thereby receives another chance for the future (van Buren, The YoungHeidegger, 1923). With ever-present anxiety and vigilance one renews orrepeats ones commitment to the divine in repentance of sins and longingfor mercy. The moment of life comes to take on an eternal signicance byconstantly shaking loose from lostness in a highly contingent temporalworldliness.Despite Heideggers apparently dismissive claim that Kierkegaard could

not see the more primordial temporality (BT, 497) that underlies the theo-logical view of the moment in terms of the eternal, the de-theologizedaccount that Heidegger provides shows many signs of beneting from Kier-kegaards work on this topic. Heidegger is also interested in something like alived synthesis of Daseins past and future Dasein is a projecting ahead ofitself based on limitations it has fallen (or been thrown) into. In owning up tothe possibilities that are available to it in the SituationDasein resolves upon(not to be confused with the everyday happenings or situations with whichthe they is rather unreectively engaged), and responsibly choosing fromamong them which to pursue (the resolute repeating of inherited or past pos-sibilities into the future), Dasein pulls itself out of its standard (in the sense ofa default-setting) fallenness and takes possession of itself (see van Buren,The Young Heidegger, 1925).27 Among the many such descriptions Hei-degger provides, consider the following:

these courses Heidegger explains how the Pauline innovation with respect to time (a lived syn-thesis of past, present, and future) was initially grasped and later botched by Augustine,paving the way for the medieval scholastic mistake of treating time as an innite series ofnow-moments. The account goes on to explain how Luther and then Kierkegaard (who Hei-degger will later say has seen the existentiell phenomenon of the moment of vision with themost penetration; BT, 497) contribute to the recovery of the primal Christian kairologicalsense of time.26Of course this relationship will take on a different shape for Kierkegaard than for Heidegger,given that future possibility for the former is the eternal signicance of the divine, while forthe latter it is ones own projection into whatever is available to it. For Kierkegaard there is onefoundational what issue, but for Heidegger this is not so.27Van Buren also describes what Heidegger derives from certain Christian thinkers on theseissues; for example, he claims that with Kierkegaards help Heidegger develops the notion ofconscience as the call and renewal of anxious care from ones authentic self to onesinauthentic or fallen self a call of essential guilt, which must be chosen and taken up into

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to the anticipation which goes with resoluteness, there belongs a Present inaccordance with which a resolution discloses the Situation. In resoluteness,the Present is not only brought back from distraction with the objects ofones closest concern, but it gets held in the future and in having been.That Present which is held in authentic temporality and which thus is auth-entic itself, we call the moment of vision.

when its heritage is thus handed down to itself, its birth is caught up into itsexistence in coming back from the possibility of death (the possibility which isnot to be outstripped), if only so that this existence may accept the thrownnessof its own there in a way which is more free from Illusion.

(BT, 387, 443; also see BT, 4367)

Like Kierkegaard, Heidegger is looking for a way out (albeit not necessarilyone that is easily maintained) of an unreective and decient state that prior-itizes contingent worldly accomplishment and the quantiable temporalitythat such accomplishment requires (he capitalizes Present above to dis-tinguish it from the ordinary chronological now moment). According totheir view, anything that is qualied purely by this everyday chronologicalsense of time is necessarily a distraction aimed at aiding one in trying toee ones essential responsibility to be oneself (whether before God ornot) (see van Buren, The Young Heidegger, 191, 1945; cf. CA, 923/SKS, 4:3956).It is their shared concern about what is chronologically accidental and

their interest in avoiding it that leads both Kierkegaard and Heidegger todescribe this process (of avoiding it) in terms of death. In considering phys-ical death, which is not their primary focus, they are able to pick out impor-tant formal indications of essential features of human existence and adeeper sense of dying. Briey, formal indication is Heideggers method oflooking to everyday factical life as the inroad for developing concepts tobring what is hidden on a pre-philosophical level to an explicit philosophicalunderstanding (Schalow, The Kantian Schema, 311). Formal here meanswithout content, and the idea is that one might be able to derive unnoticedschematic or structural aspects of, in this case, the role of death in humanexistence by examining more common content-laden notions of whatdeath is all about (cf. BT, 285; also see Kisiel, The Genesis of HeideggersBeing and Time, 33940; Thomson, Heideggers Perfectionist Philos-ophy, 465; KJ, 9). One key example already raised is the indication ofthe structural not-yet found in Heideggers discussion of ripening fruit.The consideration of more concrete senses of death also suggests the con-

tingency of all attachments to or ways of understanding ones place in theworld. For both Kierkegaard and Heidegger the image of death is employedbecause there is no better way to awaken someone from the complacent

ones futural possibility (The Young Heidegger, 185). Heidegger himself acknowledges hisdebt to the New Testament and the Augustinian tradition on the topic of care (BT, 492).


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slumber of a thoughtless existence (for example, as a merely cultural Chris-tian, or a they-self) that is not essentially and necessarily theirs.28 That onewill die signies that existence has to be given up one way or another, andrealizing this already has a way of weakening the bonds of meaning that arepassed down to us merely by existing in the world (TDIO, 75, 95/SKS,5:446, 463; BT, 294, 3078). But what is more, the uncertainty withregard to the when of demise suggests a general indeniteness in existence,particularly in connection with worldly endeavours and understanding(TDIO, 956, 99/SKS, 5:4634, 467; BT, 302, 310). Given this structuralindeniteness one need not feel constrained to interpret existence strictlyas a function of the specic projects, relationships, and goals that theworld recommends. Without such constraints, both Kierkegaard and Heideg-ger (in importantly different ways, given their views on theology) believethat it is possible to appropriate meaning for oneself in the light of ones con-tingent, and admittedly culturally textured, situation (cf. McCarthy, MartinHeidegger, 113).

4. BONDING OVER FEAR AND ANXIETY

Having already examined much about how Kierkegaard and Heidegger con-struct their view of death both with the help of, and in spite of, certainaspects of the two traditional strains, there is still one other key issue to con-sider on which they see eye to eye. Turning rst to the thinkers from theEpicurean strain, with whom they have in common the avoidance ofvarious metaphysical conundrums surrounding a personal afterlife, Kierke-gaard and Heidegger perceive a major problem in treating death as though itis nothing to us. Because Epicureans, Stoics, and their more modernadmirers encourage ignoring or at least defanging death, it appears asthough they are trying to withhold or suppress what seems like the bestway to get an indication of what one really is.29 Through such withholding,

28This is the sense of wakefulness engendered by the thought of death in Works of Love andAt a Graveside (e.g. WL, 353/SKS, 9:347; TDIO, 76, 813/SKS, 5:447, 4514). In his earlylectures, Heidegger traces this sort of wakefulness from the New Testament notion that onemust always be prepared (even in the metaphorical darkness of worldly night, when itwould just be easier to fall asleep and get lost in distraction) to offer an account ofoneself because there is no telling when Christ will return (cf. Matthew, 25:13, 26:405).Thus, wakefulness is closely bound not only with the uncertainty of death, but also withthe kairological moment of ever-present vigilance. See van Buren, The Young Heidegger,175, 178, 18891, 193, 195, 202.29Of course, Heidegger does not explicitly criticize the views on death or the afterlife of any ofthese thinkers in Being and Time. Like Kierkegaard, he would no doubt also have objections totheir metaphysical arguments in support of less personal notions of posthumous existence, butwhat really binds Heidegger to Kierkegaard at this point is how readily applicable the formerscriticisms of everyday views on death are to Epicureans, Stoics, moderns, and certain nine-teenth-century thinkers, even if he does not mention them by name in this regard.

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the Epicurean view enables getting lost in everyday life as it is understoodby ones culture.But perhaps it will be objected that since the existential conception of

death is not entirely focused on death as the event of physical passingaway, there might be a sense in which Kierkegaard and Heidegger are nolonger directly engaging with the Epicurean position. If offering up thesort of coexistence with death that Kierkegaard and Heidegger suggestseems like an underhanded way of dodging a straightforward Epicureanclaim, maybe some further discussion of their existential account willdemonstrate that there is something more substantial to their critique ofthis strain. Given the important lessons that both Kierkegaard and Heideggerlearn from physical death, it seems doubtful that either of them is guilty ofdodging the issue or refusing to acknowledge some underlying fear.30 Infact, it might be said that Kierkegaard and Heidegger are simply concedingpart of Epicuruss argument: death (in the sense of demise or physicalpassing away) cannot be experienced. However, the further claim thatdeath need not be feared, which is often somehow grounded on the factthat it cannot be experienced, remains a source of concern about Epicurussview and any of its more recent incarnations. The issue that Epicurus seemsto miss has nothing to do with the evils of death, experienced or not, but withthe indeniteness of life given death. Why should this issue not trouble onestill capable of being troubled?Heidegger claims that anxiety is the necessary, even if not always obvious,

state-of-mind of Dasein, given its essential Being-towards-death (BT,295).31 As he says about the they, treating death as Epicurean thinkersdo seems to transform this anxiety into fear in the face of an oncomingevent. Such thinkers then often disparage fear of this event as foolish andcowardly, discouraging any intimate encounter with it, and adding yetanother layer of deceit to the already disingenuous swap of anxiety for

30Thomson states that some might accuse Heidegger of using his discussion of anxiety andBeing-towards-death to avoid or repress his fear of demise (Heideggers Perfectionist Philos-ophy, 466). Cf. Mjaaland, The Autopsy of One Still Living, 372. Thomson also points outthat Heidegger seems to anticipate and briey respond to such a charge (BT, 357). Emphasiz-ing what demise suggests (or indicates) about the structure (or form) of human existence,which is Heideggers primary task when discussing it in Being and Time, does not diminishthe signicance of demise or its fearful character.31This is another point where Heidegger might borrow something from Anxiety, which alsoconnects some kind of death-awareness with a fundamental anxiety about existence (CA,45/SKS, 4:350). Van Buren traces this connection from Genesis 2:17 (which Haufniensisquotes) through Paul, Augustine, Luther, Pascal, and Kierkegaard to Heidegger (The YoungHeidegger, 1725). Van Buren (The Young Heidegger, 174), McCarthy (Martin Heidegger,109), and others also point out that Kierkegaard (especially Haufniensis) and Heidegger sharethe distinction between fear, which is always about something specic, and anxiety, which isdirected towards nothing i.e. the essential indeniteness of existence (see e.g. CA, 42/SKS,4:348; and BT, 2301, 310).


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fear (BT, 298). If Heidegger is right in holding that some anxious grasp ofBeing-towards-death underlies any notion or fear of death understood aspassing away (which, again, cannot be experienced), then it is possible toview the famous Epicurean mantra (and its Stoic and modern counterparts)as nothing more than an evasion of the only way one can really know death atall.But the Epicurean strain is not alone in facing this criticism related to the

overcoming of fear. Although the Platonic strain is, on the surface, moresupportive when it comes to cultivating a relationship with death, the miti-gation of the fear of death with promises of a personal afterlife that one often(but perhaps not always) nds in this strain (see e.g. Luther, A Sermon onPreparing to Die, 1115) is no less evasive of the anxious relationship withthe indeniteness that is essential to ones existence, according to Heideggerand Kierkegaard. Besides facing the same problems that plague the Epicur-ean attempt to overcome fear, Kierkegaard suggests a further concern aboutPlatonic/Christian mitigation. This tradition often nds some comfort intaking an afterlife for granted, but the quality of this afterlife remains tobe seen. Kierkegaard wonders, is there not bound to be unsureness infear and trembling until the end my salvation is not yet decided (CD,212/SKS, 10:220). In addition to the danger that life could always endbefore one relates properly to the divine, it is also possible that one mightapproach such a relationship but then fall away again due to worldly temp-tation or suffering. Since there is a certain anxiousness about ones veryexistence (both pre- and posthumous) built right into a truly Christian under-standing of life, Kierkegaard is opposed to seeking security or using faith inthe afterlife to provide comfort and diminish worries about death. Instead,impending death coupled with such faith should intensify the pressureand anxiety surrounding the uncertainty of ones soteriological standing(cf. TDIO, 818/SKS, 5:4517; CD, 21012, 2414/SKS, 10:21820,24751).The upshot of all this is that while it is possible to identify particular

aspects of each strains views on death that are appropriated (or at leastappreciated) by the existential philosophy of death, it is also the rejectionof the one major aspect that the Platonic and the Epicurean have incommon the desire to make death less frightful that helps unify Kierke-gaard and Heidegger in their existential account.

5. FINAL REMARKS

Although the goal of this article is to consider what Kierkegaard and Heideg-ger have in common concerning proximity to the Platonic and Epicureanstrains in the philosophy of death, perhaps something more should be saidabout how they differ. This is, of course, an issue that I have mentioned

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briey along the way, and one that I discuss in greater detail elsewhere(Buben, The Perils of Overcoming Worldliness, 6979), but inclosing, I would like to offer one quick suggestion for further exploration.When compared with Kierkegaard, it seems that Heidegger has a slightlycloser connection to the Epicurean strain, corresponding to his notablyless dogmatic relationship with the Platonic.As I have argued throughout, both Kierkegaard and Heidegger have rm

roots in the Platonic/Christian notion of dying to the world. Moreover,they each exhibit a healthy respect for the Epicurean strains concernsabout the signicance of death and the possibility of an afterlife, evenas they attempt to overcome, or at least side-step, some of its mostcentral insights. Putting all of this together, Kierkegaard and Heideggerwant to assign death and its imagery an important role in underminingthe common everyday approach to life in the world (like the Platonists,but unlike the Epicureans) without relying on the threat/promise of anafterlife to come (like the Epicureans, but unlike the Platonists). Beyondtheir similar use of the Epicurean as a foil (on the role death plays inlife), however, their respective motivations for bracketing the afterlifesuggest an interesting divergence between them when it comes to thisstrain. Kierkegaard employs the Epicurean strain, at most, to correct aChristianity that focuses too much on the possibility of the hereafter andnot enough on the nuances of proper dying to the world in the here andnow. Heidegger, on the other hand, has little interest in making such cor-rections, which allows him to occupy a more neutral position between thetwo traditional strains.The Epicurean rejection of the possibility of an afterlife is based on meta-

physical views that conict with certain common (and one might saydubious) religious beliefs. Even though Kierkegaard has concerns abouthis own religious milieu, he maintains beliefs that rule out complete rejectionof a personal afterlife. Because Kierkegaards thought is committed to atleast some Christian metaphysical dogma (e.g. the belief that the immortalGod became a mortal man who died and rose from the dead), he cannotendorse the Epicurean disdain for these sorts of religious doctrines evenif he understands, respects, and makes use of such disdain. Simply put, Kier-kegaard views the Epicurean strain while still quite rmly entrenched in thePlatonic/Christian strain. Since Heidegger, however, wilfully jettisons allvariety of traditional metaphysics, his relationship to both strains remainsmore impartial. His notion of anticipatory resoluteness bears a structuralresemblance to Christian dying to the world and spiritual rebirth, butwithout the explicitly religious content that Kierkegaard clings to. In theabsence of this content, Heidegger need not see Epicurean afterlife-denialas opposed to his own view; at the same time, his bracketing of the afterlifeissue does not necessitate the adoption of such denial. Unlike Kierkegaard,


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he entertains aspects of each strain with no particular investment in seeingeither propped up.32

Submitted 15 October 2012, revised 19 May 2013, accepted 12 JulyLeiden University College

SIGLA TO KIERKEGAARDS WORKS

CA The Concept of Anxiety, translated by Reidar Thomte in collaboration withAlbert B. Anderson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.

CD Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress,translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997.

CUP Concluding Unscientic Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, 2 vols.,translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1992.

FSE For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself!, translated by Howard V. Hongand Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.

GW Gesammelte Werke, 12 vols., edited by Christoph Schrempf. Jena: Diederichs,19091922.

JP Sren Kierkegaards Journals and Papers, 7 vols., translated by HowardV. Hong and Edna H. Hong and assisted by Gregor Malantschuk. Bloomington,IN: Indiana University Press, 19671978.

KG Kritik der Gegenwart, Brenner-Jahrbuch (1914): 81549, 869908. AustrianAcademy Corpus und Brenner-Archiv: Brenner Online. Online Version: DerBrenner, Herausgeber: Ludwig Ficker, Innsbruck 19101954, AAC DigitalEdition No 2. http://www.aac.ac.at/brenner.

SKS Sren Kierkegaards Skrifter, 28 vols. (plus corresponding commentaryvolumes), edited by Niels J. Cappelrn et al. Copenhagen: Gads, 19972013.

SUD The Sickness unto Death, translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.

TDIO Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, translated by Howard V. Hong andEdna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

VT Vom Tode, Brenner-Jahrbuch (1915): 1555.WL Works of Love, translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.

SIGLA TO HEIDEGGERS WORKS

BT Being and Time, translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson.New York: Harper and Row, 1962.

BP The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, translated by Albert Hofstadter.Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1982.

FC The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude, trans-lated by William McNeill and Nicholas Walker. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Uni-versity Press, 1995.

FS Frhe Schriften. Frankfurt am Main: Klosterman, 1972.

32I am grateful to Megan Altman and Patrick Stokes for their comments on early drafts of thispaper, and to my anonymous referees for their very helpful suggestions.

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KJ Comments on Karl Jasperss Psychology of Worldviews. In Pathmarks, editedby William McNeill and translated by John van Buren, 138. Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1998.

MF The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, translated by Michael Heim. Bloo-mington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984.

OHF Ontology The Hermeneutics of Facticity, translated by John van Buren. Bloo-mington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999.

PI Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, translated by Richard Rojce-wicz. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001.

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Heidegger Kierkegaard Reception