On Being Authentic

Charles Guignon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134507672
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory
• Edition: 1

'To thine own self be true.' From Polonius's words in Hamlet right up to Oprah, we are constantly urged to look within. Why is being authentic the ultimate aim in life for so many people, and why does it mean looking inside rather than out? Is it about finding the 'real' me, or something greater than me, even God? And should we welcome what we find?Thought-provoking and with an astonishing range of references, On Being Authentic is a gripping journey into the self that begins with Socrates and Augustine. Charles Guignon asks why being authentic ceased to mean being part of some bigger, cosmic picture and with Rousseau, Wordsworth and the Romantic movement, took the strong inward turn alive in today's self-help culture. He also plumbs the darker depths of authenticity, with the help of Freud, Joseph Conrad and Alice Miller and reflects on the future of being authentic in a postmodern, global age. He argues ultimately that if we are to rescue the ideal of being authentic, we have to see ourselves as fundamentally social creatures, embedded in relationships and communities, and that being authentic is not about what is owed to me but how I depend on others.

Index

Achebe, Chinua 22

alienation 48, 143

anthropocentrism 32

Arendt, Hannah 34

Ariès, Philippe 83–4

Aristotle 91–2, 175–6n8

art: and creation of the self 69

artist: and authenticity 74–6; concept of 70–1; and self-expression 70

Artaud, Antonin 105

authentic self 2, 152–3

authenticity viii, 3, 7, 55, 59–60, 69; culture of 8, 50, 65; defined 6, 59, 81, 146; ethics of 149; and expression 6, 8, 10, 12, 147, 161; historical account of xiii; and modernity 3–4, 15, 81, 107, 159; narrativist view of 140–1; problems with 9–10, 147–8; and the religious tradition x–xii; social context of 155, 161, 163; value of 147, 159–60

autonomy 149–50

Bacon, Francis 33

Bakhtin, Mikhail 120–1

Barfield, Owen 17

Bataille, Georges 105

Beauvoir, Simone de 45, 151

belongingness 7, 23

Berger, Peter 172n20

Bible 7, 15, 23, 54, 74; see also biblical time

binary oppositions 80–2, 96, 126; valorized 81

Bruner, Jerome 142, 151; on pacte autobiographique 142

Calhoun, Cheshire 153, 155–6, 160

Carnegie, Dale vii

Cavell, Stanley viii–ix

childhood 83–4, 87, 88, 91–2, 175n3; Miller on 87–90; Rilke on 73–4; Rousseau on 57; Tolstoy on 84

Chopra, Deepak 5

Christ 7, 95

Christianity 14, 23, 30, 95; Jung on 94; and soteriology 15; and time 24, 60

civilization 102–3

Coles, Robert 93

Conrad, Joseph: The Heart of Darkness 104

contemptus mundi 30

contingency 116, 143

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