Name: GLADSON PEREIRA DA CUNHA
Publication date: 10/07/2025
Examining board:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| LEANDRO PINHEIRO CHEVITARESE | Examinador Externo |
| LUCIO VAZ DE OLIVEIRA | Presidente |
| SAMON NOYAMA | Examinador Externo |
Summary: Death is a phenomenon of human existence. However, according to Byung-Chul Han’s
perception of, a South-Korean philosopher living in Germany, members of contemporary
Western society have sought at all costs to eliminate the gravity of death from their
consciousness as a phenomenological fact of existence. Not even philosophical thought
has escaped this tendency. To this purpose, Han argues, Western philosophers have made
use of the resources of metaphysical thought to eliminate from consciousness the horror
of human finitude and mortality, dialectically working on the pains and negativities of
life, with the aim of attributing to them a new meaning beyond what can be
phenomenologically achieved. On the other hand, according to Han death leads to
nothingness, although it has to offer, an existential perspective for the living. This
dissertation therefore aims to discuss Byung-Chul Han's thoughts on death, as presented
in two specific works: Todesarten (1998) and Tod und Alterität (2002). This work
focuses on three modes of experiencing death, according to Han: (1) the mournful
experience of death, through which the human being becomes aware of the negativity of
existence, from the gravity of the recognition of his finitude instead of opposing his denial
or heroic reaction, either through attachment to himself or through attachment to the other,
he assumes himself as a “nobody” serenely disposed to others. (2) the ethical experience
of death, which describes human behavior in the face of death in contrast to Han's
proposal and, finally, (3) the community experience of death, in which Han's
understanding of human existence as not an experience of self-referential isolation will
be presented, but of openness not only to other human beings, but also to the entire world
around him.
