I mentioned in the Habermas contra Heidegger thread that the Frankfurt school critiques Heidegger, and the Existentialists in general, for their project of authenticity.
This has gotten me thinking, because in my view authenticity is extremely important. When I consider that idea critically, I see that to some degree my focus on authenticity is pre-reflective. I have a visceral response to discourse of authenticity and an innate impulse to move in that direction.
I think it's high time I put it on the table, and this seems like a good forum to start.
My basic position is that authenticity is of fundamental importance to treating human problems, both on an individual and societal level. It is my belief that often when people behave in destructive ways, they are often not being honest with themselves about what they are doing. To put it another way, when people understand the truth of what they want in the world, they are less likely to cause suffering for themselves or others.
I realize there is a core optimism at the heart of this belief, which is a little funny because I am something of a cynic and a misanthrope. However, one can draw systematic empricial support for this view. The foundation of psychoanalysis, for example, is that when people understand the truth of what is going on in their lives it has an immensely therapeutic effect.
I would also add that when people act in coarsely destructive ways, such as certain American politicians I could name, it is often accompanied by coarse and obvious instances of dishonesty. On the contrary, the rare politicians I have seen who seem highly ethical, like Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin, exhibit a deep commitment to truthfulness.
Of course, it is not necessarily the case that more ethical behavior will lead to less suffering, but I believe that by definition ethical behavior at least works TOWARDS less suffering.
So there it is - the short version of my conviction that authenticity is the ground of ethical and therapeutic human action. I'd love to debate it on an ideas level.
PS I have cross-posted this idea to a couple different tribes, but I don't think that is inappropriate because I'm willing to carry on the discussion independently in each Tribe.
This has gotten me thinking, because in my view authenticity is extremely important. When I consider that idea critically, I see that to some degree my focus on authenticity is pre-reflective. I have a visceral response to discourse of authenticity and an innate impulse to move in that direction.
I think it's high time I put it on the table, and this seems like a good forum to start.
My basic position is that authenticity is of fundamental importance to treating human problems, both on an individual and societal level. It is my belief that often when people behave in destructive ways, they are often not being honest with themselves about what they are doing. To put it another way, when people understand the truth of what they want in the world, they are less likely to cause suffering for themselves or others.
I realize there is a core optimism at the heart of this belief, which is a little funny because I am something of a cynic and a misanthrope. However, one can draw systematic empricial support for this view. The foundation of psychoanalysis, for example, is that when people understand the truth of what is going on in their lives it has an immensely therapeutic effect.
I would also add that when people act in coarsely destructive ways, such as certain American politicians I could name, it is often accompanied by coarse and obvious instances of dishonesty. On the contrary, the rare politicians I have seen who seem highly ethical, like Senator Russ Feingold from Wisconsin, exhibit a deep commitment to truthfulness.
Of course, it is not necessarily the case that more ethical behavior will lead to less suffering, but I believe that by definition ethical behavior at least works TOWARDS less suffering.
So there it is - the short version of my conviction that authenticity is the ground of ethical and therapeutic human action. I'd love to debate it on an ideas level.
PS I have cross-posted this idea to a couple different tribes, but I don't think that is inappropriate because I'm willing to carry on the discussion independently in each Tribe.
posted by:
|
-
Unsu...
Re: authenticity
Fri, March 4, 2005 - 12:53 PMI agree that authenticity is very important. We live in a world that isn't just largely inauthentic, it practically worships the inauthentic. It seems that you can't get ahead in society without bowing to the inauthenticness of the "they-self" as Heidegger would put it, but then again, that's the nature of it. The authentic man couldn't be a part of the society. (Or could he?)
So I guess I want to ask, is being authentic opposed to living within the boundaries imposed by society, which seems to reject everything that is authentic? Heidegger seemed to think that someone could only live authentically at certain times, like when death becomes a possibility. I would like to think there's a way that we can live authentically our entire lives. But can we really? -
-
Re: authenticity
Fri, March 4, 2005 - 3:38 PM> The authentic man couldn't be a part of the society. (Or could he?)
One can frame this question by opposing two classical views:
“A man who really fights for the right, if he is to preserve his life, even for a little while, must be a private citizen, not a public man."
- Socrates
and
"Waste no time arguing what a good man should be; be one."
- Marcus Aurelius
Let's say that Socrates represents a discourse ofauthenticity, and Aurelius represents a discourse of public engagement.
Socrates might argue, with the Existentialist, that authenticity is a private matter that ultimately is the basis for unconverting truth, beauty, and goodness.
Aurelius might reply, with the Frankfurt school, that this is a self-indulgent exercise. We basically KNOW what the right thing is - what we need to do is get on it in the public domain, where it will show up, and actually do some good.
How does one find the appropriate balance?
>So I guess I want to ask, is being authentic opposed to living
>within the boundaries imposed by society, which seems to reject
>everything that is authentic?
Nietzsche says that there are two components to common ethics: 1) you do what everyone else does, and 2) you do what everyone else does BECAUSE everyone else does it. He argues that for this reason, philosophical reflection is ITSELF transgression from the perspective of the herd, because it violates 2), even if the philosopher goes on to validate 'common sense'.
> Heidegger seemed to think that someone could only live
> authentically at certain times, like when death becomes a
> possibility. I would like to think there's a way that we can live
> authentically our entire lives.
Is it possible to always be awake? To never live on auto-piolot? Whew .. I get tired just thinking about it. -
-
Re: authenticity
Mon, March 13, 2006 - 10:32 PMHave we yet begun to think the Authentic? Wonderful quotes to be sure, but if we go back to Being and Time, Authenticity is cleary defined as being what one is. Thus, authenticity cannot be comprehended without an account of the nature (Wesen) of the human being. So, the question of authenticity is always the question of humanity. To reject authenticity as jargon is to succumb to the triumph of subjective reason, which is the fullest incarnation of nihilism. -
-
Re: authenticity
Mon, March 13, 2006 - 11:08 PM> To reject authenticity as jargon is to succumb to the triumph of subjective reason, which is the fullest incarnation of nihilism.
Seriously, Tristan - you actually believe this? You are saying that the members of the Frankfurt school - and these are real humans, mind you - you believe they "subcame to the triumph of subjective reason, which is the fullest incarnation of nihilism", because they rejected the discourse of authenticity?
Who cares if Heidegger said authenticity cannot be comprehended without an account of the nature of the human being? He's not the Pope - he's just some guy who wrote some stuff.
You know, I think that's the very worse tendency of Heidegger - his portentious, oracular quality. Are we talking about ideas here, or what? Heidegger lets the logic of his prose argue for him. But come, let us leave that to the sophists. We are philosophers. -
-
Re: authenticity
Wed, March 15, 2006 - 2:31 PMAuthenticity means simply "being what one truly is". To reject authenticity is a standard move against essentialism, but it leads us nowhere but nihilism. We reject authenticity because we misunderstand Wesen (essencing, not essentia). To really understand what Heidegger means by authenticity, I think we need to think phusis - the pre-plantonic conception of being, and its relation to Logos before Logos becomes related to idea. But, we might disagree about phusis if you think Greek being is poesis and phusis isn't any more important than techne. Either way, in our attack on Heideggarian authenticity we need to recognize its place in the larger ontological framework.
Do I think that Adorno and Marcuse succumb to nihilism? Well, I think Marcuse explicitly succumbs to the danger of En-framing in "One dimensional Man". I think Adorno is better, and has a lot of Heidegger's later insights despite setting himself over against Heidegger almost as Kierkegaard did Hegel.
I'm not sure if Heidegger ever says that authenticity cannot be comprehended without an account of phusis, but I'm saying it. But I'm not the Pope either. (this doesn't seem like a reason to dismiss my thinking.)
-
-
Re: authenticity
Wed, March 15, 2006 - 11:03 PM"Of course in Heidegger, as in all who followed his language, a diminished theological resonance can be heard to this very day. The theological addictions of these years have seeped into language, far beyond the circle of those who at that time set themselves up as the elite. Nevertheless, the sacred quality of the authentics' talk belongs to the cult of authenticity rather than to the Christian cult, even where - for termporary lack of any other available authority - its language resembles the Christian. Prior to any consideration of a particular content, this language molds thought. As a consequence, that thought accomodates itself to the goal of subordination even where it aspires to resist that goal."
I quote Adorno not because I view him as an authority per se, but because he has so perfectly identified the constellation of sophistry that operates in Heidegger's idiom. How easy it is, to adopt an authoritative air when recapitulating what Heidgger discovered, and how seductive it is to lend one's self authority by speaking in this way. And how easy it is, for revelation to take t.he place of argument in his terminology. I speak from long experience!
Beyond that, I confess myself uninterested in wandering through Heidegger's labyrinthine maze of rarefied jargon. I don't believe the answer to being or time is to be found in the Greeks. I do not accept the problem set that Heidegger set out for the West, and I think it is largely meaningless. -
-
Re: authenticity
Wed, March 15, 2006 - 11:07 PMI guess, if it's not obvious, my views on this topic have changed somewhat since I started this thread in March of last year.
-
Re: authenticity
Thu, March 16, 2006 - 1:04 AMIf you don't get back to the beginning, how do you expect to get out of the current epoche? Well, I suppose you could go join the raging schools of critical theory...wait...where are all the adornians? -
-
Re: authenticity
Thu, March 16, 2006 - 8:09 AMFunny! You're a good sport.
Seriously though, the Frankfurt school still exerts a tremendous influence.
My feeling is that the best way to move forward is to move forward. I don't see us as bound within a problematic that originated by the Greeks. I feel that perspective was articulated by a man for whom Greece and Germany had a grand destiny. In my interpretation, the idea that we're somehow bound to a European crisis is born in part from a historical misapprehension that overvalues Europe, disregards most of the rest of the world, and is jealously hostile toward other ways of knowing than philosophy. On the block where I live, I can say that the impact of Aristotle is rather small.
I guess it may boil down ultimately to a matter of what questions you find compelling. In the last five years, the people who have really illuminated my sense of what being, space, and time are about are folks like Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Jean Piaget, and Ludwig von Bertalanffy.
How do you see Heidegger as going back to the beginning, and what problem do you feel that he addresses? I'm not certain that I'm convinced there is a Seinsfrage, but I'm open to considering it. -
-
This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: authenticity
Sat, March 18, 2006 - 12:56 PMHeidegger goes "Back to the Beginning" in the collection, "Early Greek Thinking", in his reading of Being as Phusis (mostly late twenties/early thirties, but Derrida still thinks its eminent in the 50s, apparent in the Principles of Reason lecture course (lecture eight). Also, there is the essay on Aristotle and Phusis but I havn't read that one.
Authenticity is almost certainly the wrong place to begin a discussion of Heidegger's importance to the task of thinking today. In my reading, the eminent concept is Epoche - the notion that our thinking is epochally determined by what we hold the human to be, beings to be, knowledge to be etc... The question concerning technology is the most important entry point. It is difficult to discuss authenticity because the simplicity of authenticity in BT (simply being the who of one's own self) is altered in the Beitrage, the emphasis on resolve shifts to readiness for the last God. Difficult to understand Heidegger without understanding his reading of Nietzsche (Which I claim no expertise in). Heidegger's a hard thinker, worthy of apprenticeship. We hardly can settle the debate on a tribe forum. -
-
Re: authenticity
Sat, March 18, 2006 - 8:07 PMWell, having read many books and essays by Heidegger, I can say that this thread won't be the beginning or the ending of the debate for me, personally. My interest in examining the question of authenticity has been to regard that specific argument on its own merit, not as a way to examine Heidegger's thinking in general.
I was curious about your take on the Being Question because it's not clear to me that Heidegger was really laying out a compelling philosophical agenda. My impression is that you believe that he was.
For myself, I'll say that what I find most useful and interesting about Heidegger is his formulation of ontological questions in Being and Time. I particularly apppreciate his rigorous phenomenological grounding of the question, in the sense that Dasein implicates a clearing that already finds awareness and world inextricably bound, and mutually-implicating in every dimension. I think that's of tremendous interest and importance, myself.
For my $.02, Heidegger is a lot less persuasive when he paints with broad strokes, about either the history of thinking or its destiny.
So, Tristan, would you be interested in elaborating on what drives your interest in Heidegger, or how you find him helpful? So far I've found your remarks quite interesting. -
-
Re: authenticity
Sat, April 22, 2006 - 2:40 PMI'm all for authenticity in Being and Time.
It is a relatively persuasive attempt to name the experience of shift, revaluation, sudden disclosure, it is the "threshold" experience, at least in so far, as we become capable of thinking and being at the threshold. Could we really hope to have a threshold experience, without in some sense, "authentically" becoming what we are, becoming somehow recapitulated, disclosed, making a "decision", and resolving ourselves therein. Heidegger is concerned to show how Being-towards-the-end, which he thinks as death and as also as en-tele-cheia, is the privileged threshold event, that individualizes Dasein through and through, thereby freeing Dasein for becoming the whole of what it is.
The transition from Division 1 to Division 2 was in order to gain a more fundamental insight into the "whole of the care-structure", that is, into the whole of the existentiale categoriality in light of which the existentiell movements of Dasein have always already been articulated or hermeneutically circumscribed. The path toward the whole of the carestructure is not accessible, Heidegger, argues without a turn-around of the basic orientation of our being-in-the-world.
No discussion of "authenticity" in BT will be complete or even worthwhile without first attempting fully placing it in the whole of that text, and coming to grips with the strictly philosophical work it attempts to perform.
Of course, the language of the existential analytic leaves much to be desired in its formalization of the "rhetorical" aspect of authenticity. The question of the who . . . comes to bracket the jargon of authenticity. Look to the "Who?" to see that for which authenticity was an inadequate name.
Heidegger's philosphical agenda is hermeneutical recovery of the beginning of philosophy, and a turning of the first beginning (historically incorporated) towards the second beginning, through engagement with poetry, and hidden healing power of technology.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Unsu...
Re: authenticity
Thu, June 29, 2006 - 2:12 AMI am sympathetic to much of what Barnaby has said (outside of his initial post).
1. Authenticity seems to me to remain merely jargon, a way of patting yourself on the back for a job unknown to be well done or not, until you come up with a compelling account of whatever measure you want to hang authenticity on --- an account of human nature, a story about the true self, the will of God, or what have you. (I've not heard one yet.)
2. I think when you set off after essences without essentialism, essences mind you which are thick enough to stand an account of authenticity on, you're walking a dead-end path. I think Heidegger bedecks that path with twinkling lights and profound shadows, but I don't see that anyone's got much of anywhere by it.
What is an essence which is an essencing and not an essentia? The way something happens to be? the way it is for now? the unfolding press of history? But if that is what I'm to hang authenticity on, then aren't we actually talking about a deep fatalism and conservatism?
3. I suppose going back to the Greeks is just another way of attempting to step outside of time and place --- another grasp after transcendence in the form of an attempt to master history and confound it with its alternative. A new god, but older than the old one, strong enough to up-end all the old works, relieve us of our destiny, and ... and .... (Oh, get back to work!)
Of course, I'm not any sort of Heidegger scholar, so my sense of what he is up to is likely simple-minded. I'd like hear how, though, and in fairly straightforward terms, because I'm afraid that I've never been able to get much farther than I have here.
4. I agree with Barnaby that Heidegger's Buddhistic phenomenological insights are interesting, but even these don't strike me as tremendously important. I don't see that philosophy or science has much to make of them, nor do I think they have much ethical import.
My guess is that the primary importance of this aspect of Heidegger is private and soteriological. Reading Hedeigger can bring people deeply engaged with the metaphors and projects of Western philosophy to say things like, "I guess it may boil down ultimately to a matter of what questions you find compelling" --- supposing they don't become caught up in Heidegger's own metaphors and projects, that is.
But the thing with soteriological philosophy --- you know, Rorty comes to mind nowadays --- is that once you've drunk the potion, once you've learnt to think outside of the metaphors and projects that drew you to philosophy in the first place, there's really not much left to do with the cup.
Oh, you know, it might very finely made, and you might whittle away a lifetime of intelletual energy studying its making or trying with the seriousness of utter frivolity to divine the shape of your other interests and concerns in light of its curves. You might fall in love the primordial sounds of the language itself, with Heidegger, or delight in Nietzsche's prose or Rorty's slick levity. But I think all that ought to be discouraged. (Oh, get back to work!)
