Employing Heidegger in Death Studies

Writing in Mortality, Thomas Byrne of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presents Heidegger’s analysis of death in a form that is philosophically exact yet usable by qualitative and empirical researchers, rather than relying on isolated quotations or slogans.

The paper works in two steps. It first reconstructs Heidegger’s account of being-towards-death. It then shows how that account can guide empirical work through a methodology the author calls Phenomenologically Directed Qualitative Research (PDQR), whose structure is designed so that Heidegger’s distinctions shape how lived experiences of death are studied.

A note from the lab

Heidegger is cited often in writing on death and dying, but rarely in a way researchers can put to work. A careful bridge from existential philosophy to qualitative method is directly useful for existential inquiry in healthcare, where we look for rigorous ways to study how patients, families and clinicians live with mortality.