Both view authenticity as a mode of being or a continual process of being in the world. Both require self inquiry, Heidegger through Dasein and Taylor through self interpretation. Martin Heidegger and Charles Taylor have theories of authenticity that are distinctive, if similar. Kierkegaard suggests in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “existence itself, the act of existing is a striving.” 4 Thus, the meaning in life, according to Kierkegaard, relieson the synthesis of the temporal and the eternal through a continuously restored commitment to an external being. Only such a person aimed at achieving a coherent unity can be an existing individual. The agent, according to Kierkegaard, achieves unity only by making a continuously renewed choice, a commitment to another person or being. The conflict between the temporal and the eternal aspects of our lives cannot be resolved with rational dialectic.
Therefore, like Sartre’s, ethical objectivity is lacking.įor Kierkegaard, meaning in life is reliant on a commitment to unity. There is no presence of a value in de Beauvoir’s account of authenticity. 3That an agent wills herself as a disclosure of being seems to apply more to epistemology than to ethics. De Beauvoir discusses authenticity as an ambiguous existence requiring the willing of herself “to be a disclosure of being” in order to become authentic, asserting her freedom. However, “If value is totally contingent upon freedom, then such talk ofĮthical ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ becomes inappropriate since it implies an ethical objectivity totally lacking in Sartre’s theory.” 2 Sartre’s authenticity seems more of a contradiction of reasoning than an existential virtue. An agent acts with regard to the realization of her freedom she is aware of her limitations, the ambiguity of her freedom. Sartre asserts his version of authenticity as a moral imperative based in natural freedom. Many of the existentialist arguments bear a striking resemblance to the views on authenticity introduced in the Platonic dialogues yet none is as comprehensive, successful or enduring. Plato’s dialogues as a body of work represent an exhaustive argument for the necessity of authenticity in fact it is the most paramount pursuit fundamental to rational beings. This is, I think, the unique contribution of existentialism to ethical theory.” 1 Plato’s discussions of various themes in his dialogues, including those that Greene asserts are of no concern to the existentialist, are embedded in a complex structure that is itself a dynamic and recurring demonstration of authenticity. Marjorie Greene describes authenticity as an exclusively existential virtue: “What the existentialist admires is not the happiness of a man’s life, the goodness of his disposition, or the rightness of his acts but the authenticity of his existence. My objective is to show that the ancient account includes critical elements deficient in the current definitions of authenticity.
In addition, I offer parallels between popular notions of authenticity and the elements deemed critical in its definition, with accounts revealed in Plato’s dialogues representing the ideal of authenticity. I present here a conception of authenticity from a perspective supported by a contemporary reading of Plato following a brief description of some of the current existential representations of authenticity. The current discussions on authenticity extend from continental philosophy however, I argue in this paper that along with countless metaphysical and epistemological topics, the notion of authenticity has been a philosophic matter since Plato wrote his dialogues, and has yet to be presented as comprehensively or as successfully. Both designations, that of being uniquely existential and that of being an existential virtue, require inquiry. Mindi Torrey, University of South FloridaĪuthenticity is commonly identified as a uniquely existential matter and generally as an existential virtue. Winner of the Gerritt and Edith Schipper Undergraduate Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper at theĥ2nd Annual Meeting of the Florida Philosophical Association