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Authenticity has become a widespread ethical ideal that represents a way of dealing with normative gaps in contemporary life. This ideal suggests that one should be true to oneself and lead a life expressive of what one takes oneself to be. However, many contemporary thinkers have pointed out that the ideal of authenticity has increasingly turned into a kind of aestheticism and egoistic self-indulgence. In his book, Varga systematically constructs a critical concept of authenticity that takes into account the reciprocal shaping of capitalism and the ideal of authenticity. Drawing on different traditions in critical social theory, moral philosophy and phenomenology, Varga builds a concept of authenticity that can make intelligible various problematic and potentially exhausting practices of the self.
Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most of modernity's challenges. "The great merit of Taylor's brief, non-technical, powerful book...is the vigor with which he restates the point which Hegel (and later Dewey) urged against Rousseau and Kant: that we are only individuals in so far as we are social... Being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people... The core of Taylor's argument is a vigorous and entirely successful criticism of two intertwined bad ideas: that you are wonderful just because you are you, and that 'respect for difference' requires you to respect every human being, and every human culture--no matter how vicious or stupid." --Richard Rorty, London Review of Books
Today, authenticity is considered an essential part of manifold interpersonal relationships, actions, and agreements. Authenticity’s association with sincerity, honesty, and reliability not only normatively charges the term in the context of social coexistence, but also makes it a demand which we impose on ourselves: The success of our lives is measured decisively by whether we live in harmony with our own convictions, wishes and needs. In philosophy, authenticity has also become the focus of interest, both in the context of the mechanisms of self-knowledge, as well as of personal development. The anthology aims to expand the cooperation across disciplines, in order to develop a comprehensive and profound understanding of authenticity, not by over-simplifying the highly complex subject, but by approaching the underlying concept from different scientific perspectives.
“Be true to yourself”—it is a dictum so ubiquitous that it can seem like both philosophical wisdom and an empty truism. Should we aspire to an ideal of living authentically? What does it mean to be true to yourself? Against Authenticity: Why You Shouldn't Be Yourself is a philosophical exploration and critique of the ideal of authenticity. Simon Feldman argues that if being true to ourselves is a matter of maintaining a strong will, being psychologically independent, achieving self-knowledge, or being morally conscientious, then the best lives we can lead should be expected to involve substantial inauthenticity. Feldman suggests that various construals of the ideal of authenticity presuppose metaphysically confused notions of the self (for example, that there is a determinate “true self”) and that under the guise of indisputable wisdom the ideal perpetuates both objectionably relativistic as well as reactionary moral thinking.Feldman concludes that the ideal of authenticity is one that we would be better off abandoning, independent of our other moral or ethical commitments. With implications for every reader's conception of authenticity and identity, Against Authenticity is an exciting challenge for students and scholars of ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and moral psychology.
Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most of modernity’s challenges. “The great merit of Taylor’s brief, non-technical, powerful book...is the vigor with which he restates the point which Hegel (and later Dewey) urged against Rousseau and Kant: that we are only individuals in so far as we are social...Being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people...The core of Taylor’s argument is a vigorous and entirely successful criticism of two intertwined bad ideas: that you are wonderful just because you are you, and that ‘respect for difference’ requires you to respect every human being, and every human culture—no matter how vicious or stupid.” —Richard Rorty, London Review of Books
Addressing the post-enlightenment problems of meaning and freedom, Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth traces the historical development of the ethics of authenticity in a lucid and vigorous study. The emergence of authenticity as an ethical ideal is probed in relation to the rise of social freedom and individualism which opens up conversations and disagreements with the German Idealists, and later, Habermas, Foucault, and MacIntyre. Taking heed of these intellectual predecessors and proponents of ethical authenticity leads to an original conception of a socio-existential account of ethical authenticity, made possible by the work of both Taylor and Sartre. Moving beyond virtue ethics, discourse ethics and Foucauldian notions of self-care, The History and Ethics of Authenticity constructs a practical ethics of authenticity that is both embedded in and able to transcend the current moment. Making use of contemporary reference points, including the rise of social media, capitalist branding, and competing appeals to identity, authenticity becomes an achievable ethical ideal.
Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty, and Camus were some of the most important existentialist thinkers. This book provides an account of the existentialist movement, and of the themes of individuality, free will, and personal responsibility which make it a 'philosophy as a way of life'.
Thought-provoking and with an astonishing range of references, On Being Authentic is a gripping journey into the self. Beginning with Socrates and Augustine, Charles Guignon argues that being authentic is to have a sincere story to tell.
How looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's worldThe demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and according to which we judge ourselves good or bad, a success or a failure. Perfect Me explores the changing nature of the beauty ideal, showing how it is more dominant, more demanding, and more global than ever before.Heather Widdows argues that our perception of the self is changing. More and more, we locate the self in the body--not just our actual, flawed bodies but our transforming and imagined ones. As this happens, we further embrace the beauty ideal. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough-not without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. And as more demanding practices become the norm, more will be required of us, and the beauty ideal will be harder and harder to resist.If you have ever felt the urge to "make the best of yourself" or worried that you were "letting yourself go," this book explains why. Perfect Me examines how the beauty ideal has come to define how we see ourselves and others and how we structure our daily practices-and how it enthralls us with promises of the good life that are dubious at best. Perfect Me demonstrates that we must first recognize the ethical nature of the beauty ideal if we are ever to address its harms.
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor is best known for major studies on Hegel, for Sources of the Self (1989), a study of the development of modern identity, and A Secular Age (2007), based on the 1999 Gifford Lectures. The Ethics of Authenticity was originally given as a series of lectures on Canadian Radio, and entitled 'The Malaise of Modernity', and Taylor's concerns are to make a critique of modernity, highlighting worrying trends in the development of individualism and what he terms 'instrumental reason' and the subsequent 'loss of freedom'. For all his criticisms, Taylor also wants to retrieve the ethical theme of authenticity, seen in terms of people being true to themselves, but with a restored sense of life being dialogic in character, and lived against the cultural framework of 'horizons of intelligibility'. Written for those coming to the study of Charles Taylor's The Ethics of Authenticity (1991), Dialogic Life provides an introduction and guide to Taylor's thought and a commentary and review of the text. The opening chapter reviews Taylor's life and the development of his thought, and subsequent chapters (2-11) provide a commentary and guide to the ten sections of The Ethics Authenticity. The final two chapters discuss issues arising and offer conclusions on Taylor's work to retrieve and restore the ethical ideal of authenticity. Stephen Loxton retired from a 40-year teaching career in 2019. He now devotes his time to independent research and writing. He worked at a range of schools in the UK, including Millfield, The Godolphin School, and Sherborne School for Girls, where he ran a highly successful I.B. Philosophy course. He has written about twenty school timetables, run Philosophy and Religious Studies Departments, been a Deputy Headmaster, an ISI Inspector, and chaired the Salisbury Local Research Ethics Committee in the 1990s, approving the first clinical trials of the drug Sildenafil, later better known as Viagra. Dialogic Life is his sixth book. Previous books include three guides to topics for A level Philosophy of Religion, on Plato and Aristotle, Conscience and Religious Language. Words and Deeds (2018; revised edition in 2020) is an introduction to the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Nietzsche and the Old Flame (2021) is a study of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. In preparation is Proper Guardians, an introduction and guide to J.S. Mill's On Liberty.