Being-towards-grief: rethinking death awareness

ABSTRACT

In this article I develop the notion of Being-towards-grief as a way of conceptualising the blurred intersection between relationality and finitude. In contrast to an existential philosophical and psychological tradition that has privileged one’s own death in a rationalised fashion, I argue that we become aware of death through the relentless possibility of the other dying and the uncertainty and distress that this implies. Furthermore, I suggest that this encounter is paramount to an inherently ethical process of subjectification. I become who I am through an encounter with the possibility of the death of the other and the responsibility that this implies. Instead of a resolute and future-oriented life affirmation, the death awareness that Being-towards-grief entails, points to an acceptance of and humbleness with regard to human limitations, and gratitude for a common past.

KEYWORDS:

• Being-towards-grief
• death awareness
• grief
• otherness
• death

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. I do not make any claims of presenting an authoritative history of death awareness. Other readings are surely possible (See, for example: Ariès, 1981). Rather, it should be read as one suggestion with regard to how current understandings of death awareness have been profoundly inspired by the theoretical development in the existential tradition.

2. This certainly blurs the boundary between interpersonal and existential loneliness. Interpersonal loneliness is existential and the opposite.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Obel Family Foundation [28153].

Notes on contributors

Alfred Bordado Sköld

Alfred Bordado SkÖld is currently a Ph.D.-fellow at the research centre “The Culture of Grief“ at the Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University. His dissertation, ‘Relationality and Finitude’ investigates the socio-ontological and existential aspects of partner bereavement. Through a longitudinal qualitative interview study, he explores the self- and world-transforming effects of losing a loved one in psychoanalytical, deconstructive and existential phenomenological perspectives. His further research interests comprises Death Studies, The Philosophy and Psychology of Love, and Critical Happiness Studies.