Between inevitable finality and immortality. The Vladimir Jankélévitch and Józef Tischner duet on death

Abstract

Death is one of the most important human experiences which have an impact on our life. As a philosophical topic death occurs mainly in the domain of bioethics and philosophical anthropology. This article discusses and confronts two concepts of death: the concept of Vladimir Jankélévitch, the French philosopher from the circle of philosophy of spirit, and the concept of Józef Tischner, the Polish phenomenologist and the creator of philosophy of drama.

Józef Tischner elaborates on the Christian concept of death, looking for the solution to this problem in the act of Jesus. From the analysis of death emerges its sense i.e. its inner structure. When a close person or relative dies what follows is the experience of emptiness and absence. A similar thing happens in the case of my own death, but then the experience of emptiness is directed against me, taking the shape of the „active desolation”. There are two possible reactions of man to the phenomenon of death: fear or protest. He attempts to get over death by giving it some meaning. Tischner mentions here heroic death, martyrdom, death as an escape from the world and sanction death. The fullest answer to the problem of death is brought by Christianity and the act of Jesus, which consists in provoking death. The death that is voluntarily accepted becomes a gateway to the eternity or, in other words, true life.

Jankélévitch treated death with dead seriousness. The solutions provided by religions are unacceptable to him for they generate cold comfort only. Every man is mortal, but it is death that determines life, making it unique and exceptional. Jankélévitch employs here the term of „organobstacle”. Each organ is useful in something to man but, at the same time, it limits him somehow. The same can be said about death. It limits human life but, simultaneously, man would not be man without death.

It could seem that there is not a common point in these two abovementioned concepts, and the reason for the radical parting of the ways of Tischner and Jankélévitch lies in their religious views and opinions. For both of them death is an affirmation and a sign of life, but life that is perceived in a completely different way: for Tischner the point is the resurrection and the eternal life, for Jankélévitch the point is the temporal and earthly existence. Nevertheless, these two approaches converge by introducing the principal of love. According to Jankélévitch, only love does not die and becomes the promise of the future. Also for Tischner, man rises from the dead only as much as he loves.