Abstract

Aging is an integral part of human existence. The problem of aging addresses the most fundamental coordinates of our lives but also the ones of the phenomenological method: time, embodiment, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and even the social norms that grow into the very notion of aging as such. In my article, I delineate a phenomenological analysis of aging and show how such an analysis connects with the debate concerning personal identity: I claim that aging is not merely a physical process, but is far more significantly also a spiritual one as the process of aging consists in our awareness of and conscious relation to our aging. This spiritual process takes place on an individual and on a social level, whereas the latter is the more primordial layer of this experience. This complicates the question of personal identity since it will raise the question in two ways, namely who I am for myself and who I am for the others, and in a further step how the latter experience shapes the former. However, we can state that aging is neither only physical nor only spiritual. It concerns my bodily processes as it concerns the complex reflexive structure that relates my former self with my present and even future self.

Highlights

  • Aging is an integral part of human existence

  • Some of them might be still with us, while others have left us. All these instances provoke big questions in us: Who am I? Who was I back ? Who am I going to be? Who or what have I become? In short: the problem of aging addresses the most fundamental coordinates of our lives, and the ones of the phenomenological method: time, embodiment, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and even the social norms that grow into the very notion of aging as such

  • I delineate a phenomenological analysis of aging and show how such an analysis connects with the debate concerning personal identity: First, I argue that the predominance of the Heideggerian discourse on death has allowed many fundamental aspects of our finite human lives, aspects such as aging, to fall into relative obscurity

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Summary

Sternad

Aging is an integral part of human existence. Over the course of our lives, we undergo dramatic changes. In short: the problem of aging addresses the most fundamental coordinates of our lives, and the ones of the phenomenological method: time, embodiment, subjectivity and intersubjectivity, and even the social norms that grow into the very notion of aging as such. But the process of aging consists in our awareness of and conscious relation to our aging This spiritual process takes place on an individual and on a social level, whereas the latter is the more primordial layer of this experience. Fourth, this complicates the question of personal identity since it raises the question in two ways, namely who I am for myself and who I am for others, and in a further step how the latter experience shapes the former. I argue that we need both aspects, the physical as well as the spiritual dimension, or the problem of human aging breaks down and becomes meaningless

The discourse on aging in phenomenology
The experience of aging
Social age
Aging and personal identity
Conclusion
Full Text
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