Bearers of Transience: Simmel and Heidegger on Death and Immortality

This article reconsiders the relationship between Simmel and Heidegger. Scholars commonly argue that Simmel’s work on the topic of death and mortality influenced the early Heidegger’s work on the same topic, as evidenced in Being and Time. I argue however that Simmel’s work particularly in the Lebensanschauung should be read as challenging the basic presuppositions of Heidegger on death. I then compare the two on the issue of immortality in order to show that Simmel is much closer to the subsequent critics of Heidegger than he is to Heidegger himself.