Becoming oneself

on the individuality of aging

Thomas Rentsch

pp. 13-25

in: Mark Schweda, Michael Coors, Claudia Bozzaro (eds), Aging and human nature, Berlin, Springer, 2020

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the individuality of aging. From the perspective of an anthropology of human life as a whole, it interprets aging as a radicalization of the human condition. In this perspective, the radical individuation of the self in the process of growing old comes to the fore. To age means to become oneself in finite, unrepeatable life situations.