Joel asked:

What does 'Phenomenology of Death' mean to you?

What does 'Freedom' mean to you?

============

I would question whether, strictly, there could be a phenomenology of death, that is of death as such,
the essence of death, death itself rather than the secondary effects death has.

This is because I can know nothing about death, it is refractory to knowing, death as such cannot be
represented in thought or consciousness or rather death as such exceeds any thoughts. Death itself
is a pure question mark, a stumbling block that shows us the limits of our relation to the world. And
yet at the same time it points us beyond those limits: Death shows me that existence is not my own,
there is this 'something other' than I cannot grasp. The world is not just my world any longer, the fact
of death shows me that something absolutely alien, foreign can invade the world, shattering whatever
secure and comfortable hold (theoretical or otherwise) I thought I had, In this sense the supreme
uncertainty and mysteriousness of death points me to the realization that reality is bigger than me,
bigger but unknowable. (When we consider that phenomenology as a philosophical method is often
criticised for being inescapably solipsistic, to have found a way out of the enclosure of my own
consciousness at the very point where this consciousness comes to an end [literally] offers an
interesting possibility for a re-examination of phenomenology.)

Of course it is not just my own death that concerns us; Other people also die. Here death is just as
mysterious, but another aspect also reveals itself, the death of another person calls my freedom in to
question, if the realization of my own death shows that the world is not my own the other person's
death shows that my freedom is not my own. A dying person calls to us for help, for us to be there for
her, not to let her die alone, to keep her company, to stop doing what ever it is we are doing and to be
responsible, this is not just some theoretical hypothesis designed to justify some view, but I believe
an everyday occurrence. It is there in the person's eyes, a silent and yet unmistakable appeal...
According to Levinas (a philosopher who spent most of his time dealing with these issues) "The death
of the other who dies affects me in my very identity as a responsible 'me' ". My freedom, my life,
before the death of an Other, is at the disposal of the Other.

This may sound a little excessive to some, but remember we are dealing here with excessive
subjects. Of course it may very rarely happen that we give up our time perhaps our life for another,
maybe that is because in the face of the pure question mark of death we become to scared to look,
and yet I am pretty sure than when we do encounter an other person's call for help the connection
between death and freedom becomes apparent.

Brian Tee