On Being Authentic
eBook - ePub

On Being Authentic

  1. 208 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

On Being Authentic

About this book

'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.

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Yes, you can access On Being Authentic by Charles Guignon in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Philosophy History & Theory. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2004
eBook ISBN
9781134507672
Topic
Philosophy
Subtopic
Philosophy History & Theory
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
conversation:...

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Content
  6. Preface
  7. One The Culture of Authenticity
  8. Two The Enchanted Garden
  9. Three The Modern Worldview
  10. Four Romanticism and the Ideal of Authenticity
  11. Five The Heart of Darkness
  12. Six De-centering the Subject
  13. Seven Story-Shaped Selves
  14. Eight Authenticity in Context
  15. Notes
  16. Index