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Analysis Of Piotr Hoffman's Death, Time, History

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In his article “Death, time, history” Piotr Hoffman discusses the Division II of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. The essay is logically divided into three main parts. The first one is introduction and brief overview of author’s objectives (Hoffman wants to bring Heidegger back into the framework of the subjectivist tradition, which is not of our particular interest today owing to its controversy). The second part (and the main for me) is named The Human Self and mainly includes such themes as totality and authenticity of Dasein, being-toward-death and care, also emphasizing some parallels between Heideggerian and Cartesian worldviews precisely between the concepts of “constant threat” and “evil demon”. The third and the last part is named …show more content…

For example, a human being throughout one’s life is constantly evolving and changing and only when dies has no changes anymore. However, the problem arises. While moving through passages the reader asks – what does it mean “lack of”? Fortunately, in the paragraph 48 of Being and Time Heidegger points out the difference between the totum (the whole) and the compositum (the sum). He makes an example of debt being paid part by part until it comes “all together” as a sum of money, as a whole. This is actually a characteristic of “something-at-hand” which belongs to the definition of worldhood and is not considered in the article although another problem with understanding totality is connected with it (this fallacy includes our understanding of death as a present-at-hand-item and our inability of understanding the “pure possibility” which death truly …show more content…

We have said that death should be understood as a way of being, “constant threat” and not as an accident which suddenly occurs. This is where the parallel with the Cartesian always deceiving demon can be drawn, according to Hoffman. However, people usually escape this and trying to avoid and neglect the meaning of death. The claim that “a man is mortal” is so widespread especially because it is abstract (death would come hone day but definitely not today) and says nothing. Moreover, as Heidegger mentions, in modern society thoughts about death are valued as a sign of weakness and cowardly escape. This constant running away from death is definitely backgrounded by anxiety and fear, but also by out control-oriented worldview (it means that every “pure possibility” which itself does not depend on any external conditions is diminished by one to the predictable event which can be controlled and used). That is why Heidegger is so opposed to commonsensical understanding of

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