The awareness of our impending personal death and how increased mortality salience provides meaningfulness in our lives

Abstract

The awareness of our impending death contributes to the provision of meaningfulness in our lives by imbuing a sense of urgency and risk with regards to the limits of time imposed by our finitude, through the bolstering of our cultural worldviews and by forming our self-esteem and self-preservation. Various subconscious psychological mechanisms are employed to buffer against the existential dread that permeates our existence, through the denial of our mortality; however, the extent to which this provides meaning is largely dependent on several factors in the individual's life, including personal experiences, cultural beliefs, and education. Prior to any deep philosophical reflections on death, we are inclined towards a universal approach of assessing meaningfulness. My central thesis is that it is through the acceptance of our finitude that we learn to provide our own personal meaning in life by understanding that we inhabit a world that is indifferent to any universal notions of meaning. Through an exposition of recent psychological empirical research and by exploring the work of Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Levinas this dissertation examines these themes and suggests that meaning must come from within, by accepting death and embracing a life lived with others.