Abstract

In this article, we analyze the basic role of finitude in Heidegger and Foucault’s philosophy. We argue that finitude makes possible Heidegger’s concept of being and the history of being as well as Foucault’s concept of the modernity and the entire history of western thinking in later Foucault. To accomplish this objective, we conduct the following: We analyze the basic finitude in Heidegger’s ontology; We explain “analytic of finitude” in early Foucault’s work namely the birth of the clinic and the order of things; We describe Foucault’s interpretation of Heidegger’s formulation of finitude; We specify the place of partial and relative nothingness in Heidegger and Foucault’s approach to human finitude; We explain that individuality, resistance, truth and historicity are possible by finitude in philosophy of them; And finally, we analyze how Foucault meets Heidegger in passing epistemological understanding of finitude and arriving at practical understanding of self-finitude and outlining the history of being.