Hegel, Heidegger ve Levinas'ta Ölümün Kurucu Rolü

Abstract

Death is a subject which has often been dwelled on both in the fields of science, art and philosophy since the day when mankind has existed. This issue has provided production in many different areas, people have tried to understand this unknown, and have tried to offer prescriptions for life by thinking about death. Because what man is predominant is not death but life. Religious, ethical and philosophical sermons have tried to explain people's concerns about life and death. Life and death belong to each other, and when life begins, the person also begins to contact with death. As a consequence of this connection, man is always in search of a meaning towards death. In this study, death was dealt with because of the implications that Hegel, Heidegger and Levinas reflected in their philosophy. The conception of death of all three philosophers is different from each other. It also plays a decisive role in their understanding of subject. The aim of this work is to show how the subject of death is handled by these philosophers by focusing on the perceptions of Hegel, Heidegger and Levinas on death. For this purpose, in the first part of this work, Hegel's conception of death was examined in his early texts and Phenomenology of Spirit. Thus, it has been shown that what kind of role the individual has as a subject of death. In the second part, Heidegger's concept of death in Being and Time was studied. In the context of Heidegger's conception of death, Dasein's authentic existence is addressed. The role which Heidegger cast to subject of death is revealed within the frame of the idea of this authentic existence. In the third part of our study Levinas' conception of death was studied. In the context of his criticism of Western metaphysics, the role of subject in Levinas' concept of death was emphasized through his thoughts centering on the death of others. This study assert that Hegel’s, Heidegger’s and Levinas’ thoughts on death has a constitutive role on the subject of death.