Smrt – Esej o konenosti Dasturov Francoise (2017)

This philosophical essay examines humanitys awareness of death and the ways religion, metaphysics and culture seek to overcome it. It analyses Western philosophical attempts, from Plato to Hegel, to define a realm beyond death, then explores an alternative relationship that does not evade or neutralise mortality. Drawing on Heideggers analysis of being-towards-death, Franoise Dastur argues that speaking about death requires the free acceptance of the finitude of human existence. No longer contrasted with the infinity of divine being beyond death and time, finitude returns human existence to its earthly, temporal and bodily nature. Thinking of mortality as constitutive of our openness to the world also means thinking of birth as a finite and limited capacity to have a world: dying is a condition of birth, and death is a condition of life. The most authentic relationship to our own mortality is, paradoxically, found in joy and laughter. The contents are in Czech.