The Philosophy Of Death

The Philosophy Of stopping pointThe closing of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy provides a literary portrait of a mans spiritedness and demolition. This exercise aims to analyse demur and the inevitability of expiration, both its meaning and context, in The dying of Ivan Ilych, using the philosophical system of Martin Heidegger in Being and Time.The Death of Ivan IlychIn the study of literature, The Death of Ivan Ilych is in general regarded as one of the most influential works on terminal and dying. The point is a classic study of how acceptance of mortality good deal change how individuals approach non lonesome(prenominal) bearing, but also death. Structur solelyy, The Death of Ivan Ilych is a simple text. It begins with what would be the end of the story, Ivans funeral, and then records his breeding from childhood to his disease. In this way, Tolstoy suggests that Ivan Ilych is non re everyy alive until he confronts the deterioration of his being.Ivan Ilychs life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most unspeakable (Tolstoy, 235). The chronicle of Ivans life begins with this line. Ivan Ilych consumed his life by just playing a role, formality and propriety were imperative to him, more so than any winsome of human emotion. Serving as a judge, he had a charge with influence and standing, and a respectable middle-class family. Then, a mysterious illness befalls him, one that no amount of skilled doctors squirt accurately diagnose. Whilst all are in agreement that his spring is terminal, they defer from telling him and aver that the treatments leave one day have him back on his feet. Ivan Ilych is in conclusion reduced to lying on a sofa, eased only by opium and the goodness of his servant, Gerasim, who says, Its Gods will. We shall all come to it some day (Tolstoy, 235).The novel follows the be given of Ivans slow deterioration and his inability to deal with the inevitable approach of death. He tries for a long time to lo ok away from it, to hide, but he female genital organnot. Ironically, as he begins to sense the looming spectre of death, Ivan questions the dismantling of his comfortable life and the rightness of how he lived. Ivan wonders, Why must I hand and miscarry in agony? There is something wrong Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done (Tolstoy, 273). In the midst of his desperate screaming, two hours before his death, Ivan feels the tears of his son on his hand. later on months dwelling on his confess torment, he feels pity for his son and asks for forgiveness. It is at this moment that he is released from the mental anguish that has engulfed him, and in place of death, there was light (Tolstoy, 279).Heidegger and the Inevitability of DeathOne of these days one will die too, in the end but right now it has zip fastener to do with us (Heidegger 297).Death is an inevitable event. Someday, we will all die and ultimately confront the inescapable frankness of our proclaim mortalit y. German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, gives raw(a) meanings to our taste of death in Being and Time. Heidegger argues that by confronting the inevitability of death, we fix our perspectives and alter our approach towards life. We become beings-toward-death who are able to re-examine life and embrace our world.The discussion in Being and Time depends on apprehensiveness the use of the term, Dasein, commonly translated as existence or more literally as being there, it could be said that Dasein is an individual human being. As Dasein, we are each an existing entity and have the ability to consider how we shall be in the world. By Heideggers analysis of being-towards-death, Dasein understands what it means to exist.Heidegger suggests that rather than facing the reality of death, Dasein whitethorn flee from it, back into the absorption of all(prenominal)day life. By speed away from the reality and the finitude of our existence, we may collapse into a separate of anxiety and bri ng forth anguish in Daseins being we may despair when confronted with the actuality of our death. According to Heidegger, angst enables us to have an understanding of our eventual last and anticipation in the brass of death makes an unquestionable life possible. When we postulate to accept the inevitable, we realise the possibilities of life and we discover a truth we can find meaning at least for ourselves. By breaking the illusions of death, we can conquer life. This is the difference between living authentic and inauthentic lives. temporary hookup we cannot know what death itself will be like, we can look earlier towards our dying. By accepting that one is constantly moving towards death and understanding that mortality is fundamental to who we are, Heidegger states something authentic is uncovered, a moment that will sincerely be ones own. Through this insight, Heidegger shows that death is an individual event in that it is something that every person must go through. Nob ody can die my death It is unique to each one of us. To each it is given and cannot be denied.A Heideggerian Approach to Ivan IlychIn Being and Time, Heidegger makes use of Tolstoys story in his own analysis of death. He says in a footnote, In his story The Death of Ivan Ilyitch Leo Tolstoi has presented the phenomenon of the disruption and breakdown of having someone die (Heidegger 495).Early in the novel, Ivans death is presented as an inconvenience and a burden. His wifes attitude to his failing condition is that it was his own fault and was another of the annoyances he caused her (Tolstoy, 254). This parallels Heideggers thoughts on the everyday kind with death, Indeed the dying of Others is seen often enough as hearty inconvenience, if not even a downright tactlessness, against which the public is to be guarded (Heidegger, 298). In the story, death is seen as a social inconvenience, disrupting everyday life.From Heideggers perspective, the story of Ivan Ilych demonstrates a scale of an individual that lives an inauthentic existence. Ivan Ilych, his wife and family, and even the doctors have all missed the point that death is certain one cannot prevail the inevitability of death. It is perhaps only Gerasim, a simple peasant, who is able to maintain an authentic and reflective stance towards death. Gerasim is not interested in upholding the trivial social concerns that everyone else seems to he recognises that death is a reality. Half way through the story Ivan remarks, Gerasim alone did not lie everything showed that he alone understood the facts of the case and did not consider it necessary to disguise them (Tolstoy, 264). From a Heideggerian perspective, Gerasim alone displays a compassionate and meaningful existence in the story.As Ivans condition tardily deteriorates, it (the pain, the spectre of death) becomes something that he can no longer ignore, although he is alleviate being told that he will recover. At a certain point, however, he begin s to ask, Why deceive myself? (Tolstoy, 257) When Ivans brother-in-law visits before New Years, he is so disgusted by his condition that he is unable to be in his presence. He says to Ivans wife Why, hes a dead man Look at his eye theres no light in them (Tolstoy, 256), though she denies this change. For her, he is merely disgorge he will get better with time. Heidegger lets us understand this when he says, This evasive concealment in the face of death dominates everydayness so stubbornly that, in Being with one another, the neighbours often still remain talking the dying person into the belief that he will escape death and soon return to the tranquillized everydayness of the world of his concern (Heidegger, 297). though Ivans family appear to be trying to comfort him, really they are only denying what Ivan has now realised he will soon face his own death.When Ivan truly realises that his condition is incurable, he reflects on a presentation of death he had learnt from Kiezewet ters Logic, Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal, had always seemed to him meliorate as use to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius man in the abstract was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature sooner quite separate from all others (Tolstoy, 259). This comparison to Gaius Julius Caesar demonstrates that Ivans attitude towards death is severely misunderstood. For Heidegger, this relation would seem to imply Ivan Ilych fell into the inauthentic way of life, unable to face his death with acceptance and bravery, preferring instead to be coddled and pitied.ConclusionThe Death of Ivan Ilych is chiefly a meditation on the nature of death. For Heidegger, death brings our lives into focus. Referencing Leo Tolstoys The Death of Ivan Ilych as an example, Heidegger argues that most people go through life in avoidance of the reality the possibility to end all possibilities ones death. Heidegger i s confident that by anticipating death, we can ensure an authentic way of being.