Several commentators on Kierkegaard and Heidegger have noted the similarity between Heidegger's account of authentic temporality in Being and Time and Kierkegaard's discussion of time in The Concept of Dread. By drawing attention to a not very well known essay of Kierkegaard's, ?The Decisiveness of Death?, I attempt to show that there is a very close connection between Heidegger's and Kierkegaard's entire views on authentic human existence. In the second part I try to locate in The Present Age, not (...) just the equivalent of das Man in Heidegger as numerous commentators have done, but the presence of the entire temporal structure of inauthenticity with equivalents for each of the ?fallen? modes of inauthentic being described by Heidegger in Being and Time. The result is that the previous attempts by commentators to restrict early Heidegger's originality vis?à?vis Kierkegaard begin to look like masterpieces of understatement. In the process of reaching this conclusion I try to shed light on several often misunderstood aspects of Kierkegaard's thought. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the interpretive view that locates an “undifferentiated mode” – a mode in which Dasein is neither authentic nor inauthentic – in Being and Time. Where Heidegger seems to be claiming that Dasein can exist in an “undifferentiated mode”, he is better understood as discussing a phenomenon I call indifferent inauthenticity. The average everyday “Indifferenz” which is often taken as an indication of an “undifferentiated mode”, that is, is better understood as a failure to (...) distinguish between the possibilities of authentic and inauthentic self-understanding. Dasein's average everyday self-understanding is indifferent to this distinction, and I show that this is precisely what renders it inauthentic. Recognizing this distinction, however, is not enough to render Dasein authentic. Rather, it opens up the possibility of a non-indifferent inauthenticity and what Heidegger calls the possibility of “genuine failure”. To read an “undifferentiated mode” into Being and Time is to misunderstand its methodological progression from Dasein's average everyday, inauthentic self-understanding to its authenticity – “to the thing itself”. A select few passages may at first seem to indicate otherwise. However, Being and Time – like both being in general and Dasein itself – cannot be properly understood “without further ado”.\. (shrink)

This thesis provides a comparative analysis of the different ways Hegel and Sartre understand that consciousness can be alienated. Because understanding the various ways Hegel and Sartre hold that consciousness can be alienated is not possible without first understanding what each thinker understands by consciousness, I first identify and outline the different ways Hegel and Sartre conceptualise consciousness’s ontological structure before identifying the various ways each thinker understands that consciousness can be alienated. The general argument developed shows that while Hegel (...) and Sartre agree that alienation is a constitutive aspect of consciousness’s existence and are, therefore, allies in the battle against it, Sartre’s analysis of consciousness’s ontological structure is unable to provide the same depth of analysis as Hegel’s. Put differently, I believe it is Hegel’s analysis of consciousness’s ontological structure that provides an analysis of alienation that is more nuanced, subtle, complex, and multi-dimensional than the account Sartre’s provides. To support my argument, I first explore Sartre’s understanding of consciousness’s ontological structure. This discloses that, because Sartre defines consciousness as ontologically nothing, he holds that consciousness is defined in strict ontological opposition to objectivity. Consciousness’s ontological nothingness leads Sartre to hold that consciousness is free to choose its mode of being. This leads me to identify what Sartre holds to be constitutive of authentic and inauthentic modes of being. But while Sartre distinguishes between the ontological structure of consciousness and its experiences, I argue that Hegel: 1) does not introduce a distinction between consciousness’s ontological structure and its mode of being, but holds that consciousness’s self-understanding and ontological structure develop through its experiences; and 2) holds that consciousness is not ontologically opposed to objectivity, but is a spiritual synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity. I show that because Hegel holds that consciousness’s intentional object is an aspect of its ontological structure, rather than something simply opposed to itself, and because he recognises that consciousness must learn what it is ontologically by experiencing numerous different relations with its object, he is able to show that while the subject/object binary opposition of Sartre’s analysis of consciousness’s ontological structure describes one potential ontological relation consciousness can have to its object, it is not the only one. Indeed, Hegel’s analysis of consciousness’s ontological structure insists that consciousness will only truly understand its ontological structure if it learns to not think of itself in terms of the subject/object dichotomy and, instead, realises that it is a spiritual synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity. To show how this fundamental difference manifests itself throughout their thought, I identify and compare what each thinker’s understanding of consciousness’s ontological structure means in terms of consciousness’s relation to the world, alienation, authenticity, ethics, self-transformation, and social relations. (shrink)

Heidegger's philosophical project is generally seen as atheoretical and anti-logical because he remarked on the subjective conditions of knowledge and the everydayness of human behaviors. To him, Dasein's everyday reasoning is coercively and inevitably framed by the present-at-hand modes of understanding. Heidegger alerts us about the possible origins of present-at-hand modes of everyday experience. One of them is Das Man that, is associated with a categorical otherness for Heidegger. It can be regarded as an origin of the primordial (...) scheme of experiences for Dasein that takes those experiences for granted as an axiological ground for their lives in the World. Heidegger sees that process as an inauthentic condition for Dasein's fundamental character. Everyday reasoning generates a variety of present-at-hand instruments to understand and interpret the World and Dasein itself; thus, Dasein moves between Das Man and authentic modes. With a Heideggerian approach, this article observes how the characters in the film Druk take themselves out of Das Man and go into the authentic mode and how they do this through alcohol. The primary data source is Druk and the four teacher characters in the film. In the movie, alcohol is not a ready- to-hand object but a tool motivating its users and pushing them to perform. It is an example equivalent to the Heideggerian analogy of the hammer. The movie is a well-fitting example of the Heideggerian position with the story of four teachers who experiment with having a certain amount of alcohol in their blood to achieve a better version of themselves. (shrink)

The article focuses on those paragraphs of the famous text Spiritual Situation of our Time by Karl Jaspers in which he approaches the problem of time from the perspective of philosophical anthropology. This text was published in 1931 and saw multiple editions, including the reprint in 1947, which followed the lecture The Question of Guilt. We surmise from this juxtaposition of texts in the new publication that Jaspers believed in the necessity to revisit the problem of the spiritual situation, but (...) he also regarded his conceptualization of temporality viable in the new context and applicable to analyzing this new situation. We corroborate this hypothesis by close reading of the version of the 1947 text. As there exists a wealth of studies of Jasperss philosophy, we aim to explicate his interpretation of personal historicity and to find a reply to the question why it seems necessary to emphasize the appropriation of time. We demonstrate that the existentialist approach Jaspers offers is a universal model for living in the spiritual situation and for appropriating time. The need to appropriate time is inherent in human nature but the capacity to make sense of it and unravel the potential for authentic existence is not. Human beings are often unaware of their choice of certain time appropriation; moreover, human beings lack consistency in constructing the context of their own historicity. We elaborate in greater detail on the meaning of such concepts as spiritual situation, knowledge of the totality, philosophical life. (shrink)

This chapter offers a reinterpretation of Heidegger’s conception of the social world (das Man) in order to overcome the tension between its conflicting positive and negative characterisations in Being and Time. Rejecting a purely positive or a purely negative reading of das Man, the chapter follows Stephen Mulhall in carving out a middle ground between the two. The chapter takes seriously Heidegger’s claim that it is possible for das Man to undergo an authentic transformation, exploring how best to conceive (...) of this idea. It is argued that the authentic transformation of das Man and the everyday way of being it engenders, is most productively understood with reference to Dasein’s relation to das Man and the way Dasein grasps the world as meaningful. Through this reading it is shown how both an authentic and an inauthentic mode of everydayness can be accommodated. The chapter concludes with an examination of the consequences of this interpretation, arguing for the critical and political potential of authenticity as an attentive and engaged mode of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

This paper shows that while Sartre's account of love relations in Being and Nothingness is famously conflictual, his Notebooks for an Ethics offers a far more positive account. It pays particular attention to the role that each lover's pre-reflective fundamental project plays in shaping the content of their love relationship.

Historizing is the way Dasein takes up possibilities and roles to project itself into the future. It is why we experience continuity throughout our lives, and it is the basis for historicality – our sense of a more general continuity of “history.” In Being and Time,Heidegger identifies both inauthentic and authentic modes of historizing that give rise, respectively, to inauthentic and authentic modes of histori-cality. He focuses on historizing at the individual level but gestures at a communal (...) form of historizing. In this paper, I develop the concept of co-historizing in both its authentic and inauthentic modes. I argue that Heidegger’s unarticulated concept of inauthentic co-historizing is what necessitated the planned (but unfinished) second half of Being and Time – the “phenomenological destruction of the history of ontol-ogy.” I consider what it means to take responsibility for our destiny as a people and specifically as a community of philosophers. (shrink)

This research work examines Heidegger's (1889-1976) contention that phenomenology can inspire, illuminate, motivate, reinforce and guide (human) individual's actions. It achieves this by adapting Heidegger's phenomenological approach to analyze and interpret representative everyday factical experiences of nepotism, selfishness and mass mentality in the (Nigerian) society. Doing this helps to ascertain whether these experiences have any phenomenological link with inauthenticity. Also, it provides a close reading and interpretation of Heidegger's treatment of authentic existence, and explores the possibility of complimenting it with (...) the phenomenology of Commensality, as a mode of care and a way to authenticity. In this manner, it strategically explores possible ways of inspiring individual Daseins to authenticity, and with it engendering a positive transformation of the (Nigerian) society. Presenting and elaborating the phenomenology of Commensality, the work highlights the relationship and the differences between the phenomenology of Commensality and the ontical or sociological understanding of commensality as obtained in African traditional societies. Phenomenology of Commensality argues for the 'renaissance' of Commensality, concretely expressed as Onyenkeanyi, and not just for its 'revival'. The research work further develops the phenomenology of education for Commensality, discussing the possible content and focus of its curriculum, while differentiating it from ethics. The proper implementation of phenomenology of education for Commensality could inspire and illuminate individual Daseins to authenticity, and thereby becomes an improvement strategy for the positive transformation of the (Nigerian) society. As a phenomenology, it is appropriate that the people and places analyzed take on a definite character, which is why the Nigerian society is used. However, it is expected that the implications of the findings presented here will be general and accurate enough to allow application to any number of similar situations. (shrink)

In this article I have argued that the issue of the effect of education on one getting educated is an ontological one. I make my case with the help of Heidegger's concepts of Dasein, and man's-being-in-the-world. I first argue that tradition is constitutive of one's being, and that man's being is in-a-tradition, and then make the case that education is located in tradition, and that education is a process by which one is initiated into that tradition. As (...) a consequence getting educated in a tradition outside one's own has the effect of dislocating the being of the one getting educated. (shrink)

This chapter offers a reinterpretation of Heidegger’s conception of the social world in order to overcome the tension between its conflicting positive and negative characterisations in Being and Time. Rejecting a purely positive or a purely negative reading of das Man, the chapter follows Stephen Mulhall in carving out a middle ground between the two. The chapter takes seriously Heidegger’s claim that it is possible for das Man to undergo an authentic transformation, exploring how best to conceive of this (...) idea. It is argued that the authentic transformation of das Man and the everyday way of being it engenders, is most productively understood with reference to Dasein’s relation to das Man and the way Dasein grasps the world as meaningful. Through this reading it is shown how both an authentic and an inauthentic mode of everydayness can be accommodated. The chapter concludes with an examination of the consequences of this interpretation, arguing for the critical and political potential of authenticity as an attentive and engaged mode of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

Traditionally, phenomenology has understood the self in light of intentionality and hence the world. However, contemporary French phenomenology—as represented here by Jean-Luc Marion—contends that this view of subjectivity is open to challenge: our mode of existence is not simply one of “being-in the-world.” I develop this claim by examining Marion’s reformulation of the reduction. Here, the phenomenon of vanity is key. I first present Husserl’s and Heidegger’s own formulations of the reduction. Following Marion, I show that the blow of (...) vanity neutralizes both, by undercutting the respective questions to which they respond. For, in response to vanity’s own question—“What’s the use?”—neither the transcendental nor ontological reductions have a reply. Vanity consequently renders the Heideggerian distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity existentially moot. To establish this, I evaluate how existing interpretations of authenticity overlook the phenomenon of vanity. Phenomenology, I urge in conclusion, should shift its attention to the horizons opened by Marion’s erotic reduction. (shrink)

Heideggerian philosophy is frequently chosen as a philosophical framing, and/or a hermeneutic analytical structure in qualitative nursing research. As Heideggerian philosophy is dense, there is merit in the development of scholarly resources that help to explain discrete Heideggerian concepts and to uncover their relevance to contemporary human experience. This paper uses a meta-synthesis methodology to pool and synthesise findings from 29 phenomenological research reports on Being-with in the nurse–patient relationship. We firstly considered and secured the most relevant Heideggerian elements (...) to nurse–patient Being-with. Under these deductive codes, we then inductively developed sub-themes that seemed to explain the multifaceted nature of Being-with, through a secondary analysis and synthesis of published data from 417 patient, carer and nurse participants. Dasein-with was enhanced when nurses had first-hand experience with a phenomenon. Nurses moved between the inauthentic they-mode, and the authentic self-mode. Through circumspection, technology and people were encountered environmentally feeding into nursing attention, assessment and communication. Nursing as a social arrangement was expressed through either leaping-in care or leaping-ahead care. There was a place for both inauthentic and authentic discourse that nurses wove through the ontic everydayness of nursing tasks. (shrink)

Are the methods of synthetic biology capable of recreating authentic living members of an extinct species? An analogy with the restoration of destroyed natural landscapes suggests not. The restored version of a natural landscape will typically lack much of the aesthetic value of the original landscape because of the different historical processes that created it—processes that involved human intentions and actions, rather than natural forces acting over millennia. By the same token, it would appear that synthetically recreated versions of extinct (...) natural organisms will also be less aesthetically valuable than the originals; that they will be, in some strong sense, ‘inauthentic’, because of their peculiar history and mode of origin. I call this the ‘genesis argument’ against de-extinction. In this article I critically evaluate the genesis argument. I highlight an important disanalogy between living organisms and natural landscapes: viz., it is of the essence of the former, but not of the latter, to regularly reproduce and die. The process of iterated natural reproduction that sustains the continued existence of a species through time obviously does not undermine the authenticity of the species. I argue that the authenticity of a species will likewise be left intact by the kind of artificial copying of genes and traits that a de-extinction project entails. I conclude on this basis that the genesis argument is unsound. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on the concept of authenticity and its implications for our projects of self-creation, particularly those involving the use of "enhancement technologies". After an introduction to the concept of authenticity and the enhancement debate in the first part of the thesis, part 2 considers the main analyses of authenticity in the contemporary philosophical literature. It begins with those emphasizing _self-creation_, and shows that, despite their merits, such views cannot adequately deal with certain types of cases, which require a (...) third option, “true self” accounts, emphasizing _self-discovery_. However, it is argued that in their existing versions, accounts of this third sort are also unsatisfactory. Part 3 of the thesis proposes a new account of the "true self" sort, intended to improve upon existing ones. Common problematic assumptions about the concept of the true self are critiqued, after which a new analysis of that concept is presented, based on seven different conditions. Two specific definitions of authenticity, respectively emphasizing self-expression and the preservation of one's true self, are provided, and its relation to various associated notions, such as integrity or sincerity, are examined. Finally, part 4 looks at the implications of the previous parts for the enhancement debate. In particular, it discusses the prospect of technologically enhancing our personality and mood dispositions. Do such interventions always threaten our authenticity, as some worry? A negative answer is provided to that question. Various potential pitfalls hinted at by the inauthenticity worry are discussed and acknowledged. It is, however, argued that such enhancements could still in principle be used in a fully authentic manner, and that they have the potential to bring about genuine improvements in our mood but also to our moral capacities and our affective rationality more generally. (shrink)

Although Heidegger’s explicit account of “poetic dwelling” belongs to his later philosophy, there are important indications that he was already engaging with the core matter of the notion in his early thought. Contrary to the idea that in Being and Time, “dwelling” amounts to mere practical coping with the environment, we would like to demonstrate that the notion is already a poetic issue in his early thought, as it requires the appropriation of our relation to the world via an (...) authentic experience of finitude. Following a topological mode of thinking, the paper thematizes the connections between Heidegger’s early and later thought, and elucidates the following three points: First, “freeing” and “letting” appears as the appropriate ethos of a poetic experience of finitude, one that maintains the “clearing” of meaningfulness. Second, a topological reading of Being and Time can explicate the notions of authenticity and inauthenticity as different disclosures of the clearing where human being-world correlation occurs. Third, the notion of “keeping-still” (Schweigen) can be interpreted as an authentic disposition that frees space for the disclosure of existence. The paper concludes that an authentic experience of finitude through “stillness” appears to reorient human ethos by releasing “discourse” from absorption in “idle-talk” and that such an act of existential re-orientation of one’s disposition towards the world is the essence of “authenticity,” and Heidegger’s early “poetic dwelling”. (shrink)

Michel Houellebecq’s Anéantir has received mixed reviews. Houellebecq’s focus on loving intimacy and care for the elderly within the nuclear family allegedly showcases his transformation from an embittered critic of the capitalist status quo to an apolitical novelist interested in the private sphere. I argue that this criticism overlooks Houellebecq’s concerns about old age and love in his earlier novels and how they relate to his social critique. Particularly Houellebecq’s Possibilité d’une île presents a critique of lonely precarity as the (...) dominant mode of being-in-the-world today. Though critics of post-Fordism have already described post-Fordist forms of life as opportunistic, fearful, and cynical, Houellebecq adds that this uncertain marketized lifestyle also leads to bitterness that increases with old age. By confronting Houellebecq’s phenomenology of contemporary life to Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, I argue that, whereas Heidegger highlights the role of anxiety and death in fostering a sense of meaning to human existence, Houellebecq rather argues that such an authentic confrontation with death has become impossible in contemporary culture and that love is instead the emotional tonality most responsive to the cultivation of a meaningful good life. (shrink)

The analysis of Dasein’s modes of being (authentic, inauthentic and original) shows us that originality has a close relation with authenticity. Originality is not an ontological dimension in opposition to authenticity and inauthenticity which are ontical dimensions, but the ontological beingtowards- death and the authentic and ontic resoluteness composes it. If that is the fact, then temporality cannot be conceived as an original and indifferent phenomenon that explains the movement from inathenticity to authenticity and the other way round. (...) Our hypothesis is that this movement can only be explained by speech, i.e. vocation and ‘temptation’, but that Heidegger despised this fact, due to his methodological goal of having only one phenomenon, time, as sense of being. (shrink)

Long-term cancer survivorship is an emerging field that focuses on physical late-effects and psychosocial implications for the inflicted. This study wishes to cast light on the underlying ontological aspect of long-term survivorship by philosophically exploring how being in life post cancer is perceived by survivors. Sixteen in-depth interviews with 14 Danish cancer survivors were conducted by the author. Having faced a life-threatening disease but no longer being in imminent danger of dying, survivors still considered death a defining yet (...) dynamic component in their approach to life as a moving toward the end, sparking a sense of vitality in mortality. In order to unfold the interviewees’ renewed existential understanding post cancer, this study employs Martin Heidegger’s ontological analysis of death. In survivorship, my participants can thus be understood as being left with the perpetual choice between living in inauthenticity or in authenticity. The difference between the two modes of existence exhibits two diverging ways of relating to death, self, and being-in-the-world. At the same time, the role of death in long-term survivorship reflects back on the magnitude of the initial existential and moral upheaval triggered by the cancer diagnosis. Understanding the role of death in long-term survivorship can positively inform the field of cancer rehabilitation and long-term survivor care. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s view of conformity comes in his description and understanding of Das Man or “the One”. There is controversy within Heidegger scholarship regarding the interpretation of Das Man as an existential mode. Most scholars interpret Das Man to mean the existential mode of inauthenticity and delineate the two modes of authenticity and inauthenticity in Heideggerian existentialism. Less popularly, scholars like Hubert Dreyfus and Michael Zimmerman interpret the positive and negative aspects of Das Man and suggest the third mode (...) of indifference in Heidegger’s _Being and Time_. This paper follows Dreyfus’ understanding of Das Man to posit indifference as a third mode of being that is structurally similar to inauthenticity but motivationally different from it. It then uses this difference to categorize two forms of moral conformity in Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the difference between a morality of custom and a morality of conviction. The problematic of this paper concerns the distinction between these two forms of moral conformity and the moral status of people like Adolf Eichmann whose actions Arendt describes as the banality of evil. Usually seen as preservative of morality, Arendt shows how conformity may be a site for moral conflict. (shrink)

This chapter provides an interpretation of the early Heidegger’s underdeveloped conception of the undistinguishedness of everyday human existence in Being and Time. After explaining why certain translation choices of some key terms in this text are interpretively and philosophically important, I first provide a concise argument for why the social constitution interpretation of the relation between ownedness and unownedness makes better overall sense of Heidegger’s ambivalent attitude toward the social constitution of the human being than the standard existentialist (...) interpretation of this relation. I then proceed to the heart of this chapter, which develops his inchoate conception of the undistinguishedness of everydayness by arguing that it specifies the third distinctive mode of concrete human existence in addition to ownedness and unownedness. Accordingly, I show how unownedness is actually a generic phenomenon with two distinct species, namely, undistinguishedness and disownedness, which are at once closely related to, but also differ in significant respects from, each other. Consequently, instead of taking for granted a one-dimensional and mutually exclusive opposition between ‘authenticity’ and ‘inauthenticity’, I argue that we should adopt a two-dimensional and more nuanced understanding of the relations among undistinguishedness, disownedness, and ownedness that intersects with Heidegger’s underappreciated distinction between genuineness and ungenuineness. After raising and replying to some objections to this interpretation of undistinguishedness, I conclude this chapter by briefly sketching three of its philosophical consequences and pointing out its potential as an important resource for contemporary social theories. (shrink)

Authentic assessment has been proposed as having potential to enhance student learning for a changing world. Conventionally, assessment is seen to be authentic when the tasks are real-to-life or have real-life value. Drawing on Martin Heidegger’s work, we challenge this conceptualisation as narrow and limited. We argue that authenticity need not be an attribute of tasks but, rather, is a quality of educational processes that engage students in becoming more fully human. Adopting the mode of authenticity involves calling things into (...) question, challenging public assumptions and striving to take a stand in the situations encountered. In addition to assessing student achievement, then, authentic assessment can enhance integration of what students know and how they act with who they are becoming. (shrink)

How does everyday, inauthentic Dasein dominated by das Man become authentic? The aim of this article is to answer this and other questions about Dasein's authenticity by carrying out an analysis of the 'call of conscience'. This analysis, in turn, provides insights about Dasein's possibility for ethical existence. We will see that even though there are some puzzling issues in Heidegger's explanation of Dasein in its everydayness and its authenticity, the Heideggerian Existential Analytic is not 'anti-ethical' as some have claimed. (...) We will also see that the Existential Analytic's commitment to the ontic raises doubts about Heidegger's claim that the Analytic is prior to any ethics and examine how reading Being and Time as a project of 'metontology' may dissolve these doubts. Finally, the paper offers a suggestion about the importance of 'authentic historicality' in a factical account of the moral life. (shrink)

The paper addresses the question of whether authenticity is a conceptual possibility for Dasein given Heidegger’s insistence in Being and Time that Dasein is necessarily fallen into its mode of everydayness and that fallenness is necessarily inauthentic. By exploring the relationship between Dasein and existentials, I reveal a structure of possibility in allexistentials that provides the seeming paradox a resolution. I use the concept of “logical existentialism” to explore what Heidegger may have meant when he talks of existentials and (...) I look at some passages from The History of the Concept of Time to read propensity as the substance of falling. In the process, l address and discard the only two real attempts in the secondary literature to cope with the paradox: that of Hubert Dreyfus and Rudi Visker.L’article se penche sur la question de savoir si l’authenticité est une possibilité conceptuelle du Dasein, étant donnée I’insistance de Heidegger dans Être et Temps à I’effet que le Dasein est nécessairement déchu dans ses modes de quotidienneté, et que la déchéance est nécessairement inauthentique. À travers I’exploration de la relation entre le Dasein et les existantiaux, je révèle une structure de possibilité dans tous les existantiaux qui permet une résolution du paradoxe apparent. J’utilise le concept d’ «existentialisme logique»pour explorer ce que Heidegger voulait sans doute dire par les existantiaux, et je considère certains passages des The History of the Concept of Time pour interpréter la propension comme substance de la déchéance. Ce faisant, j’aborde et rejette les deux seules tentatives de résolution du paradoxe dans la littérature secondaire: celle de Hubert Dreyfus et de Rudi Visker. (shrink)

The paper addresses the question of whether authenticity is a conceptual possibility for Dasein given Heidegger’s insistence in Being and Time that Dasein is necessarily fallen into its mode of everydayness and that fallenness is necessarily inauthentic. By exploring the relationship between Dasein and existentials, I reveal a structure of possibility in allexistentials that provides the seeming paradox a resolution. I use the concept of “logical existentialism” to explore what Heidegger may have meant when he talks of existentials and (...) I look at some passages from The History of the Concept of Time to read propensity as the substance of falling. In the process, l address and discard the only two real attempts in the secondary literature to cope with the paradox: that of Hubert Dreyfus and Rudi Visker.L’article se penche sur la question de savoir si l’authenticité est une possibilité conceptuelle du Dasein, étant donnée I’insistance de Heidegger dans Être et Temps à I’effet que le Dasein est nécessairement déchu dans ses modes de quotidienneté, et que la déchéance est nécessairement inauthentique. À travers I’exploration de la relation entre le Dasein et les existantiaux, je révèle une structure de possibilité dans tous les existantiaux qui permet une résolution du paradoxe apparent. J’utilise le concept d’ «existentialisme logique»pour explorer ce que Heidegger voulait sans doute dire par les existantiaux, et je considère certains passages des The History of the Concept of Time pour interpréter la propension comme substance de la déchéance. Ce faisant, j’aborde et rejette les deux seules tentatives de résolution du paradoxe dans la littérature secondaire: celle de Hubert Dreyfus et de Rudi Visker. (shrink)

In "Unambiguous Calling? Authenticity and Ethics in Heidegger's Being and Time", Tanja Staeler revisits the concept of authenticity in order to investigate several assumptions often taken for granted in secondary literature. She argues that the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity should be read as a methodological and, more precisely, phenomenological distinction. Showing that authenticity cannot really be understood as a state one can be in, she argues that talk of a 'transition' to authenticity is, at best, unhelpful. Her argument, (...) consequently, moves to the notion of the 'call of conscience' in order to investigate the ethical implications of the notion of authenticity. She justifies the unambiguous character of the 'call of conscience' with the help of Lévinas' thought. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that the question of educational time is absolutely essential in contemporary debates concerning the fate of the university. In order to examine the nature of educational time, this article first outlines Heidegger's distinction between temporality and Temporality. Second, the author makes a clarification between inauthentic and authentic learning as two forms of educational temporality. Here the article turns to the work of Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus on expert skill building versus standardised or generic (...) forms of learning. When inauthentic and authentic forms of temporality are brought to light through this distinction, new ways of understanding the convergence and divergence of learning modes open up for critical reflection. Third, the article suggests that while differentiations internal to learning are critical in the struggle to define the nature of education, education cannot be reduced to its temporalising forms. At this point, the work of one of Heidegger's late students, Giorgio Agamben, becomes important for grounding the educational experience in Temporality through study. At stake here is carving out a time in education for enpresencing versus self-projection through action. And finally, the article turns back to Hediegger in order to see the ethical limitations of too quickly collapsing education into learning—even if that learning is authentic. (shrink)

In this article, the author argues that the question of educational time is absolutely essential in contemporary debates concerning the fate of the university. In order to examine the nature of educational time, this article first outlines Heidegger's distinction between temporality and Temporality. Second, the author makes a clarification between inauthentic and authentic learning as two forms of educational temporality. Here the article turns to the work of Hubert Dreyfus and Stuart Dreyfus on expert skill building versus standardised or generic (...) forms of learning. When inauthentic and authentic forms of temporality are brought to light through this distinction, new ways of understanding the convergence and divergence of learning modes open up for critical reflection. Third, the article suggests that while differentiations internal to learning are critical in the struggle to define the nature of education, education cannot be reduced to its temporalising forms. At this point, the work of one of Heidegger's late students, Giorgio Agamben, becomes important for grounding the educational experience in Temporality through study. At stake here is carving out a time in education for enpresencing versus self-projection through action. And finally, the article turns back to Hediegger in order to see the ethical limitations of too quickly collapsing education into learning—even if that learning is authentic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Where the “They” LiesFeminist Reflection on Pedagogical InnovationAndrea Janae SholtzAs feminist philosophers attempt to articulate problems of marginalization based on race, class, gender, sexuality, we navigate a complex and confusing set of paradigms of exclusion and inclusion. A significant barrier is that binary logic is difficult to eradicate even in calls for greater inclusivity, and the language and mentality of “us” versus “them,” where “them” indicates an imposing force, (...) social institution, or privileged section of the population “doing” something to the “us” remains. Pedagogically, this poses a difficulty in that, often, we are teaching not the marginalized but those who may feel themselves implicated as the “They.” Either as male, white, financially well-off, American, politically conservative, or some combination thereof, students who are presented with these critical materials many times bridle under the supposed accusing eye of the text. Closing the distance from the immediate rejection of the material and to a genuine encounter is the key issue. The question is how can one thoughtfully model critical practice that engages students rather than constructing them as the “They”?What is the nature of the “They”? How can references to the “They” be anything other than gross generalizations? Martin Heidegger has a robust conceptual understanding of the “They” as an existential possibility of Dasein. Dasein initially, and for the most part, understands itself as composed of everyday interpretations of the world indicative of the “they-self.” Significantly, everydayness also constitutes a mode of relating to others, that of indifference or passing each other by (Heidegger 1996, 116). Heidegger calls this the [End Page 72] inauthentic mode of Dasein, juxtaposing this to Dasein’s authentic existence, which is not simply a move toward a greater individuality but toward the “We.” Aside from providing a theoretical platform for discussing the problematic of the “us/them” binary, the transformation in attunement that leads beyond the “They” toward the “We” has important ethical implications, which I will link to feminist Gloria Anzaldúa’s understanding of mestiza consciousness. Their similarity consists in the emphasis on a new mode of thinking as a necessary condition for moving away from the superficiality of thought that hinders us from truly encountering each other and our world/s.Heidegger argues that we are indebted to a philosophical legacy that takes the subject as the primary basis of analysis, separating it from the surrounding world to determine its traits and characteristics. We are unable to see that a “subject without a world ‘is’ not initially and is also never given” (Heidegger 1996, 109). The “who” of Dasein is never reached, because we fail to think through what it actually means to be in the world. In Being and Time, chapter 4, “Being-in-the-world as Being-With and Being a Self: the They,” Heidegger discusses Dasein as a relational Self. Making sense of the inextricable link between these terms clarifies the “who of Dasein,” and, by association, who the “They” is.Dasein is, first and foremost, Being-in-the-world, where world indicates the referential totality of significance. We are never in the world in isolation, therefore Mitdasein (Being-with-others) is implicit to Being-in-the-world and an existential condition of Dasein. Dasein shares a world (now a Mitwelt) irrevocably. Sharing a world with others seems so obvious that we do not take the time to interrogate what it actually entails. This, in turn, conceals the very effort to understand the “who” of Dasein, requiring analysis of how we are with other Daseins.Heidegger begins by interrogating everyday existence. Heidegger says that deficiency and averageness characterize everyday being with one another and misleads us to interpret Mitdasein as a pure objective presence of several subjects, dividing “us” from them. The subject of everydayness is the “They.” The “They” is typically understood as not myself, but this is where one would be mistaken in terms of Heidegger’s analysis. In a passage crucial to understanding Mitdasein, Heidegger writes, “The ‘others’ does not mean everybody else but me—those from whom the I distinguishes itself. They are, rather, those from whom one mostly does not distinguish oneself, those among whom one is, too” (Heidegger... (shrink)

Jesper Ahlin Marceta published an article in this journal in which he formulated his “argument from testability”, stating that it is impossible, at least practically, to operationalize procedural authenticity. That is, using procedural accounts of authenticity, one cannot reliably differentiate between authentic and inauthentic desires. There are roughly two ways to respond to the argument from testability: top-down and bottom-up. Several authors have endeavored the top-down approach by trying to show that some conceptions of authenticity might be operationalizable after all. (...) At present, however, the bottom-up approach has not been put to the test. That is, no attempt has been made to use a currently existing assessment tool to guide the development of an account of authenticity. In this paper, I will investigate what it means to develop an account of authenticity bottom-up based on measures of concordance. More specifically, I will investigate the following three research questions. First, how do concordance and authenticity relate at a conceptual level? As crucial similarities exist between these concepts, concordance measures seem to offer a good starting point for the bottom-up approach. Second, how do judgements of concordance differ from judgements of authenticity? Both their scope and the way they are justified will turn out to be different. This suggests novel ways to react to Marceta’s argument from testability. Third, should we develop a theory of concordance? The positive answer to this question will point towards a central limitation of the bottom-up approach. (shrink)

The quickening pace of technological development on a global scale and its increasing impact on the relation between human beings and their lifeworld has led to a surge in philosophical discussions concerning technology. Philosophy of technology after the “empirical turn” has been dominated by three approaches: actor-network theory, critical theory of technology and postphenomenology. Recently, scholars have started to question the philosophical roots of these approaches. This paper critically questions Ihde’s early adoption of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology in postphenomenology. First, (...) the paper clarifies the central contributions of Heidegger’s philosophy of technology to postphenomenology. It then uses Heidegger’s early work on Aristotle to argue that Ihde’s notion of “use context” is based on a distorted account of Heidegger’s notion of the “totality of relevance”. Correspondingly, it contends that this has led to a misinterpretation of Heidegger’s technology critique. Second, an alternative reading of Heidegger’s ideas concerning technology is offered. This reading traces Heidegger’s use of the concept of telos in the totality of relevance to his discussion of Aristotelian virtue. It is subsequently shown how the question of the temporality of the mode of being of virtue is related to the notion of authenticity, which lies at the heart of Heidegger’s philosophy. Finally, the paper argues that postphenomenology could gain from philosophers who targeted Heidegger’s central notion of authenticity, notably Arendt and Ricoeur. (shrink)

On paper, ‘smart cities’ are an easy sell. Thanks to the transformative power of information and communication technologies (the much-vaunted ‘internet of things’), smart cities purport to offer managers and bureaucrats a more harmonious and efficient means of reducing traffic, managing assets, and increasing public safety. However, I am dubious of these utopian sentiments. Indeed, I argue that the benefits that smart cities purport to provide cohere poorly with a number of our shared phenomenological intuitions about the relationships(s) between authentic (...) experience and technologised society. While many of these intuitions are, strictly speaking, pseudo-problems, they deserve our attention. The belief that technologised urban spaces somehow corrode our potential for authentic experience is one that carries enormous power, as Charles Taylor argues, authenticity is nothing less than the contemporary moral ideal. Consequently, it indelibly colours the relationships that we forge with our artefacts. These issues will only grow more pressing as our ‘dumb cities’, already so opaque to experience, give way to hyper-technologised ‘smart cities’. -/- However, it is possible to design our way out of these pseudo-problems. Assuming we accept my argument that the distinction between authenticity and the device paradigm is premised upon a certain kind of category error, there is no categorical or definitional reason why it is not possible for urbanised, technologised spaces to feel authentic, whether by virtue of their aesthetic properties, or because they facilitate ‘authentic’ behaviour. Indeed, I argue that ‘inauthenticity’ is an aesthetic rather than an ontological category (much like ‘ugliness’, or ‘boring-ness’), with feelings of inauthenticity serving as evidence of a basic failure of design. Redressing these failures of design requires that we adopt a novel approach to the design and use of technical objects—and particularly when these objects are the almost invisible, semi-autonomous constituents of the ‘smart city’. Consequently, in the concluding analysis of the chapter I outline how the feeling of authenticity can be invoked in the smart city and, consequently, how these failures of design can be avoided. (shrink)

Meet Tega. Blue, fluffy, and AI-enabled, Tega is a relational robot: a robot designed to form relationships with humans. Created to aid in early childhood education, Tega talks with children, plays educational games with them, solves puzzles, and helps in creative activities like making up stories and drawing. Children are drawn to Tega, describing him as a friend, and attributing thoughts and feelings to him ("he's kind," "if you just left him here and nobody came to play with him, he (...) might be sad"). Scholars and members of the public alike have raised the alarm about relational robots, worrying that the relationships that people, and especially children, form with such robots are objectionably inauthentic. We, members of an interdisciplinary team that developed and studies Tega, make this inauthenticity worry precise and offer practical recommendations for addressing it. We distinguish two kinds of (in)authenticity -- inauthenticity as unreality, and inauthenticity as deception -- arguing that neither is just what others have thought it is. With our distinction in hand, we argue that the authenticity concern can be met only through co-design methods -- methods that give stakeholders of all kinds (e.g. parents, educators, and children themselves) a genuine say in how relational robots are built. (shrink)

In this essay I provide a reading of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner that focuses upon the question of the kind of creatures the Replicants are depicted as being, and the meaning that depiction should have for us. I draw upon Stanley Cavell's account of the problem of other minds to argue that the empathy test is in fact a mode of resisting the acknowledgment of others. And I draw upon Martin Heidegger's account of authenticity and mortality to argue that (...) this acknowledgment is crucial if one would become human. The film does not so much suggest that Replicants are, as such, human, but rather that humanity is won through the encounter with the inauthentic. (shrink)

Encounter is one of the magical keywords of our time which seems to open up new vistas. Rencontre, Encounter, Begegnung, the Festschrift dedicated to Professor F. J. J. Buytendijk is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the meanings of the three terms are by no means identical. In encounter the negative sense “meet in a hostile manner”, prevails in Begegnung the affirmative sense, whereas rencontre is neutral and can be used in both senses. Secondly, whereas Festschriften tend to become a nuisance, (...) occasionally arranged by the recipients ad majorem auctoris gloriam, this one is well-deserved and well-arranged. Buytendijk is a leading Dutch biologist, physiologist and psychologist of European stature with an excellent resistance record. Since the contributors were asked to refer to his paper, La phénoménologie de la rencontre, the most important papers are contributions to a psychology of rencontre. Thus the volume becomes representative of an important trend in European biology and psychology. The collaboration of biologists, psychologists and psychiatrists with philosophers is exemplary and fruitful. A non-behaviourist and non-materialist experimental psychology, a personalist counterpart to a behaviourist stimulus-response psychology, emerges in outlines. It has transcended the isolated individual and isolated impressions and ideas, and regards man as a being-within-the-world together with other persons. the influence of Husserl's phenomenology and of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit is outstanding. New categories are used, such as “authentic” and “inauthentic” rencontre, and new problems arise, e.g. the smiling of a child interpreted as a primitive mode of rencontre, and that of “Se fermer et s’ouvrir”. It is quite impossible to discuss here single contributions. It must suffice to say that they confirm Buytendijk's central conception that somehow mind is already present within the organism, and that on the other hand, blind necessity penetrates human affairs. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue that Marcel’s idea of freedom as participation in being is what constitutes authentic freedom and existence. A “pessimistic” existentialist, Sartre conceives of authentic freedom and existence or life as making free choices and committing oneself to one’s chosen mode of life and taking responsibility for it. However, this stand of absolute freedom of choice, irrespective of the morality and nature of one’ actions with regard to human essence and ontological status as (...) finite and potential being in need of plenitude, could lead to the loss of sense of being and the proliferation of evil in a society. This is because one might freely choose to indulge in an act that negates the essence of humanity and engenders self-destruction as well as the destruction of others, since, for the “pessimistic” existentialist, one only has to be committed to it and accept its accompanying responsibility to qualify as authentic freedom and existence. I will argue that Marcel’s conception of freedom as participation in being leads to an individual’s awareness of their ontological status as a finite being and that their finitude imposes a limitation on their hold on being and generates some self-trepidation that they might lose their sense of being, and consequently propels them to engage in those acts that are consistent and compatible with their essence and are geared towards self-realisation. I will conclude that genuine freedom and authentic life lie in participation in being. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: “Meeting” on the Internet From Virtual to Real World Meeting Dating, Objectification, and Self‐Definition Dating and Authenticity.

The analysis of Dasein's struggle for authenticity will be the main focus of this article. By virtue of Dasein's ontological predispositions, selfhood is subjected to inauthentic existential modalities already constitutive of its Being. In the case of the false Dasein, fallenness is exacerbated in that Dasein constricts its comportment primarily to the modes of the inauthentic, thereby abdicating its potentiality-for-Being. The false Dasein results from ontical encounters within pre-existing deficient ontological conditions of Being-in-the-world that are thrust (...) upon selfhood as its facticity. These deficient ontological structures predispose Dasein to develop intrapsychic psychological deficits that further contribute to Dasein's false existence. Through the medium of Heidegger's existential ontology, Sartrean bad faith, and psychoanalysis, I will demonstrate that the throes of selfhood encompass a dialectical course meandering through experiential modes of authenticity and falsehood, in which this very process itself is an authentic enterprise, that is, it is the necessary constitutional structure of Dasein itself as Being-toward-becoming its possibilities. (shrink)

Existence as reflected in natural language is not a univocal notion, but divides into different modes of being, such as existence (as, roughly, endurance) and occurrence. One aim of the paper is to distinguish sharply between abstract artifacts and non-existent objects (e.g., plans vs. planned events that fail to occur); another is to argue for validity as a mode of being distinct from existence, as well as for corresponding distinctions among non-being.

Analysis of the social-cognitive substrate of scientific activity reveals that much of science functions in an inauthentic mode whereby a materialist world view constrains the authentic practice of science. But materialism cannot explain matter, as evidenced by empirical data concerning the nature of physical manifestation. Nor, then, should materialism be the basis for our interpretation of consciousness. It is time to move beyond scientific materialism and develop transcendent theories of consciousness. Such theories should minimally meet the following criteria: they should (...) be based on all of the usual empirical data concerning consciousness, including altered states of consciousness; they should take into account data about anomalous phenomena and transcendent states of consciousness; they should address the issue of existential meaning and provide soteriological guidance; and they should be consistent with the most accurate theories of physical manifestation, such as relativistic quantum field theories. Speculating within a quantum-theoretic context, consciousness could be inserted as a primitive element into reality by providing a role for intention in the selection process of observables, the collapse of the state vector, or the ordering of quantum fluctuations. But consciousness could be more fundamental, in the sense of a deep consciousness coinciding with a pre-physical substrate, from which intention shapes both mental experience and physical manifestation. If any significance can be attached to the mathematical formalism of relativistic quantum field theories, perhaps creation and annihilation operators, which determine the fluctuations of a quantum field, can metaphorically be regarded as the avenue through which intention acts. Morphic fields within the pre-physical substrate could hold in place patterns that shape the reality that we experience. Among such morphic fields could be ones that correspond to the world view of scientism. By becoming authentic, one could break from such constraints and consider alternative possibilities that can include various forms of radical transformation. (shrink)

This is a draft of a paper that explores the nature of belief in structure of human consciousness. Are beliefs necessarily embedded in a position? It also aims at exploring the relation between positions and authentic mode of being.

In general, the Sartrean concept of the subject as "being-for-self" and "being-for-others" is read as if Sartre had sketched these structures as given "a priori" and therefore as unalterable . One of the consequences of this interpretation lies in calling Sartre's theory contradictory, especially with regard to his ethics, because of the assumption that, based on this concept, changing the inauthentic structures of the subject into authentic ones would be impossible. Contrary to this interpretation, I argue that Sartre's (...) philosophical theory is by no means contradictory, neither in its relation to ethics nor as it relates to the complete edition of Sartre's philosophical writing, if one tries to understand what kind of theoretical requirements Sartre considered to be relevant and necessary . From this point of view, it is possible to work out an adequate and consistent interpretation. In order for me to argue for the immanent consistency of Sartre's theory and for the resulting possibility of an ethical theory based on it, I will discuss some aspects of the relation between epistemological, ontological and ethical elements within Sartre's philosophical system. (shrink)

Despite recognizing the importance of developing authentic corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, noticeably absent from the literature is consideration for how employees distinguish between authentic and inauthentic CSR programs. This is somewhat surprising given that employees are essentially the face of their organization and are largely expected to act as ambassadors for the organization’s CSR program (Collier and Esteban in Bus Ethics 16:19–33, 2007 ). The current research, by conducting depth interviews with employees, builds a better understanding of how employees (...) differentiate between authentic and inauthentic CSR programs, and how these judgments influence their perceptions of the organization. We find that employees rely on two different referent standards to form authenticity judgments—the extent to which the image put forth in the CSR program aligns with the organization’s true identity and the extent to which the CSR program itself is developmental. To assess the former, employees draw on cues about resource commitment, alignment between elements of the organization’s CSR program, emotional engagement, justice, and embeddedness. The latter assessments are based on the extent to which the organization adopts a leadership role with regards to its CSR initiatives. We also find that perceived authenticity can lead to positive outcomes such as organizational identification and employee connections. This study contributes to the broad literatures on both CSR and authenticity, as well as more specifically adding to the conversation on authenticity as a potentially valuable lens for enriching business ethics theorizing. (shrink)

In this issue of the Hastings Center Report, Tony Hope, Jacinta Tan, Anne Stewart, and Ray Fitzpatrick, reporting on twenty-nine interviews they conducted with women with so-called anorexia nervosa, note that the participants recurrently raised issues of authenticity. The paper reflects on the way their behaviors, experiences, and choices can be considered authentic , or inauthentic . The authors also pose a question about the normative implications of their analysis—if some choices are inauthentic, then is it ethical to override them? (...) For example, they suggest that “showing respect” for the sufferer “does not necessarily mean simply acceding to the person’s .. (shrink)

Within educational philosophies that utilise the Heideggerian idea of ‘authenticity’ there can be distinguished at least two readings that correspond with the categories of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ utopianism. ‘Strong-utopianism’ is the nostalgia for some lost Edenic paradise to be restored at some future time. Here it is the ‘world’ that needs to be transcended for it is the source of our inauthenticity, where we are the puppets of modernist-capitalist ideologies. ‘Authenticity’ here is a value-judgment, understood as something that makes you (...) a better person. The ‘inauthentic’ person is simply deceived. ‘Weak-utopianism’ is recognising the forces for change in the ‘everyday-immanent’ where we do not look to overcome the world but own it as ‘heritage’. ‘Authenticity’ here is an ontological choice, a modification of inauthenticity, not its opposite. The ‘cult of the authentic’ relates to the ‘strong utopianism’ where ‘authenticity’ has become fetishized, harking back to a purer, pre-modern state, untainted by the ideals of the Enlightenment and ethos of capitalism. ‘Authentic education’ is the overcoming of our environments and socio-historical contexts, opening up new horizons of meaning. The radical notion of freedom that this implies, where one is free from rather than free in the realisation of constraint, may also be another dividing line between the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ readings, which lend themselves to a Messianic narrative. It will be argued that if ‘authentic education’ is understood through a ‘strong utopianism’ it actually re-enforces those very same dystopian ideals they look to overcome as characterised by ‘enframing’. (shrink)

These essays concern what one of the writers calls "the philosophical problems raised by the existence of modern science," distinguishing and relating various ways of knowing, especially the scientific and philosophic. For R. J. Henle in the first and eighth essays, science and philosophy are set off from the humanities as alike in seeking pure intelligibility, but different in that science knows indirectly through a constructional concept while philosophy knows directly the ontological concept. J. Maritain discusses the shortcomings of the (...) Vienna school of philosophy of science and the kinds of knowing proper to theology, philosophy, and science. J. Fitzgerald considers Maritain's inclusion of modern science in the Aristotelian-Thomist concept of scientific knowledge. R. Blackwell sketches four approaches to a theory of discovery in science: logical, psychological, historical, and epistemological. G. P. Klubertanz, discussing modern science in the light of Thomist doctrine, finds it like the philosophy of nature in having as its object the sensible material thing but differing in definitions, principles, and modes of proof. J. Ladrière argues the importance of intentionality in one essay, and later that both science and philosophy are authentic knowing, but that science is a description of regional ontologies while philosophy is the foundation of those ontologies. E. McMullin discusses the change from Aristotelianism to modern scientific "qualified" realism. E. Caldin finds that theological and scientific knowledge have the same structure but answer different questions. The last five essays deal with more specialized topics. F. J. Crosson: Can a machine be conscious? R. J. Henle: How does anthropology contribute to an understanding of man? A. Fisher: Freud and Husserl, and the essential intentionality of psychical life. Two surveys of modern analytic philosophy conclude the volume, E. J. McKinnon: Reflections on a methodology for integrating philosophy and science; and G. P. Klubertanz: A proposal for integrating the schools of philosophy of science.--L. G. (shrink)

Student authentication and authorship checking systems are intended to help teachers address cheating and plagiarism. This study set out to investigate higher education teachers’ perceptions of the prevalence and types of cheating in their courses with a focus on the possible changes that might come about as a result of an increased use of e-assessment, ways of addressing cheating, and how the use of student authentication and authorship checking systems might impact on assessment practice. This study was carried out within (...) the context of the project TeSLA (an Adaptive Trust-based e-assessment System for Learning) which is developing a system intended for integration within an institution’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) offering a variety of instruments to assure student authentication and authorship checking. Data was collected at two universities that were trialling the TeSLA system, one in Turkey, where the main modes of teaching are face-to-face teaching and distance education, and one in Bulgaria, where the main modes of teaching are face-to-face teaching and blended learning. The study used questionnaires and interviews, building on existing TeSLA project evaluation activities and extending these to explore the specific areas we wished to examine in more depth.In three of the four contexts cheating was seen by teachers as a serious and growing problem, the exception was the distance education context where the teachers believed that the existing procedures were effective in controlling cheating. Most teachers in all four contexts expected cheating to become a greater problem with increased use of e-assessment. Student authentication was not seen as a major problem in any of the contexts, as this was felt to be well controlled through face-to-face proctored assessments, though the problem of assuring effective authentication was seen by many teachers as a barrier to increased use of e-assessment. Authorship checking was seen as a major issue in all contexts, as copying and pasting from the web, ghost writing and plagiarism were all reported as widely prevalent, and authorship checking was seen as becoming even more important with increased use of e-assessment. Teachers identified a third category of cheating behaviours, which was the accessing of information from other students, from written materials, and from the internet during assessments.Teachers identified a number of approaches to addressing the problem of cheating: education, technology, assessment design, sanctions, policy, and surveillance. Whilst technology was not seen as the most important approach to prevention, student authentication and authorship checking systems were seen as relevant in terms of reducing reliance on face-to-face proctored examinations, and in improving the quality of assessment through supporting the employment of a wider range of assessment methods. The development of authorship checking based on computational linguistic approaches was an area of particular interest. Student authentication and authorship checking systems were not seen as being able to address the third category of cheating behaviours that the study identified. (shrink)

The paper deals with the notion of guilt according to Heidegger’s philosophy and its repercussions for the understanding of guilt according to criminal law doctrine and theory. Heidegger’s notion on guilt is tantamount to Dasein’s incapacity to exhaust all its existential possibilities, whereas legal guilt has to do only with man’s legal indebtedness, which is an aspect of inauthenticity, a deficient mode of ontological responsibility. This does not mean, though, sheer amoralism or apologetics to violence. In late Heidegger one may (...) discern traces of an ontological ethics, which refers to Dasein’s attunement to Being and especially to the sparing and healing of the Fourfold as these are coming to presence through poetic dwelling; through, that is, an authentic contact with the Uncanny, meaning a radical exposure to Being’s enigmatic hiddenness, the endurance in front of the abyss of Nothingness. In this framework there remains no space for assuming any moral-juridical responsibility, because Dasein is predestined to err constantly due to the ruptures and turnings of Being’s history. Legal blameworthiness is thus obsolete because, injustice being according to Heidegger the dis-jointure of Being’s order, there is ontologically no imputable ‘legal’ crime; there is only Dasein’s eventful projecting-opening within errancy. Whether though this notion of ‘Being’ is a new ‘arche’ to be superseded emerges then as the crucial question. To regain any non-metaphysical notion of guilt is after Heidegger only possible through a theoretical move which cannot ignore his legacy but also has to go beyond the Master. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to do the following: I will discuss the notions of intentionality and self-understanding of Dasein as developed in Heidegger's Basic Problems of Phenomenology. In doing so, I will try to show the interrelation of Dasein's always being intentionally directed towards something and its self-interpretation. As we will see, the everyday world has, for Heidegger, a character of "equipmental contexture." This means that Dasein returns to itself from out of things, equipment, tools, or - quite (...) differently - the work of art. In a word, Dasein is mirrored back toward itself from the things made, from the products of techne. From this will follow the important distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity. There is a sense in which the following pairings could be discerned: tools or pieces of equipment link up with inauthenticity, while the work of art links up with authenticity. I will say more on the subject of tools a bit later in the essay. Both kinds of things are things insofar as they are entrenched in techne. The common root seems almost inexplicable in the light of the vast difference between tools and the artwork. Moreover, both Dasein and techne seem to have another equally enigmatic common root: that of temporality. Temporality is the essential bond between Dasein and the double sense of techne, which suggests the double-sidedness of temporality itself. It is precisely this doublesidedness that I would like to have as the backdrop to my discussion as a whole. Finally, I will turn to a few pages of Heidegger's Being and Time and Bernard Stiegler's book Technics and Time I in order to complicate this notion of the two senses of temporality, the owned and disowned, originary and everyday, and its relation to work and techne. The overarching question here will be: Can the distinction between authenticity and inauthenticity be sustained? (shrink)

The purpose of the present project is to show the manner in which Early Heidegger's notion authenticity is vague. We cannot, given the rest of Heidegger's ontology of Dasein in Being and Time, tell what counts as a case of authentic, rather than inauthentic existence. The first half of the present work is devoted to carefully explaining some relevant, general features of Dasein's ontology, followed by an explanation of the structures associated with authenticity. In the third chapter I defend (...) Heidegger's account of authenticity and, in the process, my own interpretation of his account. In the final chapter I argue in favor of my main claim that Heidegger's notion of authenticity is vague in nature and that a case of a particular, authentic Dasein cannot be definitively derived. (shrink)