The realization of the finitude of one’s own life shapes human self-understanding in at least three respects. Awareness of the finality and irreversibility of a lost life reveals life as a value to which one adopts a stance – in one way or another – whenever one acts. Awareness of the constant and inevitable risk of losing one’s life opens up and limits horizons of meaning for guiding action, providing both the occasion and the motives for constructive or destructive strategies to secure one’s existence. Awareness of the deferral of the inevitable – the fact that one must die, but not yet (Levinas) – opens up horizons of meaning, and specifically of time, for creative approaches to shaping one’s life. All three aspects compel us, in every act – including those involving the lives of others—to take a stance regarding the life of the Other.

Further Reading:

The origin of time in the „not yet“? (Time Subjects)

Keywords:

Finitude, living and dying

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