Martin Heidegger in his book Being and Time addresses issues related to death, including his work towards the exploration of mortality. This fact is very important I think for understanding Heidegger on the topic of death and the importance it has in his Philosophy. For Heidegger, the human being cannot achieve a complete or meaningful life, or any kind of "authentic existence", unless he comes to terms with what he described as his "temporality", which involves the act of come to terms with the fact that a human being is a finite and temporal being. For Heidegger the awareness of a death is a central theme for understanding his ideas on the temporary nature of the human being (Kaufmann, pge 211, 1988). While we know that death is lifeless and marks the end of a life, Heidegger thought that death was also a different interpretation of what death is. Heidegger presents a radically different interpretation of death because in Being and Time death is not just about the end of existence. Recognizing the inevitable certainty of one's death also reveals something that is more important than this simple fact. Heidegger's aim in the first part of Being and Time is to discuss and discover the deeper aspect of death in relation to its relationship with life. Heidegger did not accept that death was simply not the end of life as the final end of everything (at least for life). To help understand the meaning of death for Heidegger it is important to look at his original work on being or existence. First, Heidegger states that the goal of his existentialist work in Being and Time is "to work out the question of the meaning of being and to do so concretely" (Being and Time, p. 1, 1978). Heidegger did so as a response to contempt... middle of paper... commanding Heidegger, to become fearful of the prospect of death. He argues that the correct response to death in one's life is a form of "courageous anxiety" (Heidegger, pge 310, 1978). There is a distinction between this anxiety and the actual fear of death, where the fear is linked to some object, person or idea (in this case the prospect of death). Anxiety involves what Heidegger describes as a “passionate freedom towards death” (Heidegger, pge 310, 1978) because anxiety is about human freedom or lack thereof regarding choices we cannot make. As previously pointed out, death is out of our control and therefore should be regarded with anxiety rather than outright fear of something we cannot control. Heidegger tries to explain death in these ways because he wishes to explore the way in which the anguish of death is linked to being, and not out of some kind of morbid curiosity..