Since the publication of Sein und Zeit in 1927, scholars have coupled Martin Heidegger’s reflections on authenticity with a rich tradition of thought which reminds us that philosophy can, from time to time, function as a catalyst for self-discovery. While this function is an undeniable feature of Heideggerian authenticity, I would like to suggest that it is secondary to the role that authenticity plays in Heidegger’s philosophical investigations. By analyzing the full phenomena of authenticity and tracing its first technical uses (...) back to Heidegger’s early lectures on Aristotle, I show that Heidegger’s methodological breakthrough in the early 1920s, the development of hermeneutic phenomenology, and the very structure of Being and Time are the result of Heidegger’s appropriation of Aristotle’s philosophical method. By analyzing these lectures and traditionally ignored uses of authenticity in Being and Time, I develop an account of the methodological sense of authenticity which looks to the tradition to uncover phenomena which have been obscured and covered over. In comparing this methodological reading to some standard readings, what I call the existential, intentional, and practical readings of authenticity, I show that the problems which arise in these accounts can be addressed by considering the full phenomena of authenticity and its methodological role in Heidegger’s thinking. Ultimately, I show that the term “authenticity [Eigentlichkeit]” is not only an ineliminable part of the structure of Heidegger’s Being and Time but that it is also at the heart of his phenomenological method. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Question of Whether There Is a Latin American Philosophy Is There Philosophy in Latin America? References Further Reading.

We will argue that Sartre’s failure and Beauvoir’s success in formulating a successful existential ethics lie in their distinct understandings of transcendence. Sartre’s struggle between transcendent consciousness and immanent body undermines being-in-the-world and being-with-others (what is, in Sartre’s language, only a being-for-others) as a way to enrich the self. Contra Sartre, Beauvoir’s notion of transcendence is an upsurge of being which originates in and necessitates bodily immanence. For Beauvoir, transcendence is to be gained only by revelling (...) in immanence, a gesture that puts oneself at risk toward the Other. This putting oneself at risk is, however, the only way to generate an authentic and no longer conflictual encounter with the Other. (shrink)

Frank Mitjans is an architect who has worked in London since 1976. He was introduced to the significance of the figure of St. Thomas More by Andrés Vázquez de Prada, author of the biography, Sir Tomás Moro, Lord Canciller de Inglaterra. In 1977 Vázquez de Prada invited Mitjans to visit with him the Thomas More Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which stimulated his interest in representations of More, his family and his friends. Since August 2002 he has given many (...) presentations and talks on the topography of More’s London to groups of students and other interested people in Britain, Ireland, and Sweden. Frank Mitjans, architecte qui travaille à Londres depuis 1976, fut initié au personnage de Saint Thomas More par Andrés Vázquez de Prada, auteur de la biographie Sir Tomás Moro, Lord Canciller de Inglaterra. En 1977 Vázquez de Prada l’invita à l’accompagner dans sa visite de l’exposition Thomas More à la National Portrait Gallery, évènement qui aiguisa son intérêt pour les représentations de More, de sa famille et de ses amis. Depuis août 2002 il a régulièrement fait des présentations et des exposés à des groupes d’étudiants et d’autres en Grande-Bretagne, Irlande et Suède au sujet de la topographie du Londres de Thomas More. The recent exhibitions of the works of Holbein in London and Basel, and scholarly publications such as Holbein and England, have rekindled interest in the Portrait of Thomas More and his Family, and in the late sixteenth-century versions of Holbein’s presumed lost original. The present paper analyses the differences between the sixteenth-century versions and Holbein’s 1527 composition sketch, and concludes that the sketch is a more reliable witness to Holbein’s lost painting than the later versions, as well as the only authentic witness to More’s intentions; though anything we learn from the drawing must be checked against what we know from More’s letters and writings and other biographical data. From the later versions, however, and in particular from the references to Seneca on them, we can learn about those who commissioned them and England’s peculiar historical circumstances. (shrink)

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)

The purpose of my paper is to challenge the binary classification of authenticity, which is currently employed in the bioethical debate on enhancement technologies. According to the standard dichotomy, there is a stark opposition between the self-discovery model, which depicts the self as a substantial and original inwardness, and the self-creation model, which assumes that the self is an open project, that has to be constituted by one’s free actions. My claim is that the so-called self-creation model actually conflates (...) two distinct versions of authenticity: one that is decisionist and one that is experimentalist. Hence, my proposal is to distinguish between three different models of authenticity: (i) self-discovery, which is an expressivist model of authenticity; (ii) existential commitment, which is a decisionist model; and (iii) reinvention of the self, which is an experimentalist model. Such a three-fold distinction will vast a more nuanced and clear light upon the enhancement debate. (shrink)

This essay attempts to provide a preliminary outline of a theory of identity. The first section addresses what the sociologist Niklas Luhmann has called ‘the problem of identity’, or, in other words, the mind–society (rather than the mind–body) problem: In how far can the internal (psychological) self and the external (social) persona be integrated into a unit? The second section of the essay briefly defines a basic vocabulary of a theory of identity. ‘Identity’ is understood as the existentially necessary formation (...) of a coherence between the ‘self’ (the ‘I’ as it is experienced in thoughts and feelings), its body and its social ‘persona’ (the individual person with its social attributes). Three different major paradigms of identity formation are distinguished from one another: a sincere identity is constructed through a firm commitment of the self to its social roles; an authentic identity is constructed through the creation of a social persona on the basis of one’s unique and original self; a ‘profilic’ identity, as we call it, is shaped by successfully presenting a personal profile under conditions of second-order observation as they prevail, for instance, in the social media, but also in other contemporary social systems. In the third section of the essay, we present a sketch of the historical sequence of these three paradigms of identity. Although these paradigms are not mutually exclusive and can coexist, it seems that sincerity flourished in pre-modern society, while authenticity came to prominence along with the functional differentiation of modern society and is now, along with the increased significance of second-order observation, gradually overshadowed by the influence of profilicity. (shrink)

Leadership and the Unmasking of Authenticity presents a philosophic treatment of the core concept of authentic leadership theory, with a view toward illuminating how authors in the history of philosophy have understood authenticity as an ideal for humanity. Such an approach requires a broader view of the historical origins of authenticity and the examination of related ideas such as self-knowledge and deception. The chapters of this volume illuminate the conflict between the contemporary understanding of authenticity and traditional philosophy by (...) revisiting the ideas of thinkers who express self-knowledge as a cornerstone of their philosophy. Tracing the origins of our contemporary concern for authenticity to the writings of 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, this book explores the key thinkers writing in the wake of Rousseau's emphasis on sincerity, namely Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger, to show that their acceptance of authenticity as an ideal for humanity was ambiguous at best. This volume also covers representative authors in the earlier history of philosophy, such as Plato, Niccolò Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, and John Locke. The result is a keen, in-depth analysis of works of philosophy and political philosophy that broach questions of authenticity, self-knowledge, and deception. This critical contribution to authentic leadership theory and the theory of authenticity will be a key resource for both undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of leadership studies, political science and philosophy. Contributors include: J.C. Byham, B.E. Cusher, E.A. Dolgoy, J. Fortier, N.W. Harter, M.A. Menaldo, H. Pedersen, J.M. Warner. (shrink)

Desire satisfaction theorists and attitudinal-happiness theorists of well-being are committed to correcting the psychological attitudes upon which their theories are built. However, it is not often recognized that some of the attitudes in need of correction are evaluative attitudes. Moreover, it is hard to know how to correct for poor evaluative attitudes in ways that respect the traditional commitment to the authority of the individual subject's evaluative perspective. L. W. Sumner has proposed an autonomy-as-authenticity requirement to perform this task, (...) but this article argues that it cannot do the job. Sumner's proposal focuses on the social origins of our values and overlooks the deep psychological roots of other evaluative attitudes that are just as problematic for welfare. If subjective theories of welfare are to be at all plausible they may need to abandon or modify their traditional commitment to the authority of the individual subject. (shrink)

Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems, and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Art and Performance offers a unique discourse and an original aesthetic theory. It argues that fusing perspectives from the philosophy of Existentialism with insights from the 'universal science' of cybernetics provides a new analytical lens and deconstructive methodology to critique art. In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists' works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, (...) eternal recurrence, the absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and 'noise', feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon's ground-breaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system. (shrink)

This book uncovers and explores the constant tension between the historical and the transcendental that lies at the heart of Michel Foucault’s work. In the process, it also assesses the philosophical foundations of his thought by examining his theoretical borrowings from Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, who each provided him with tools to critically rethink the status of the transcendental. Given Foucault’s constant focus on the (Kantian) question of the possibility for knowledge, the author argues that his philosophical itinerary can be (...) understood as a series of attempts to historicize the transcendental. In so doing, he seeks to uncover a specific level that would identify these conditions without falling either into an excess of idealism (a de-historicized, subject-centered perspective exemplified for Foucault by Husserlian phenomenology) or of materialism (which would amount to interpreting these conditions as ideological and thus as the effect of economic determination by the infrastructure). The author concludes that, although this problem does unify Foucault’s work and gives it its specifically philosophical dimension, none of the concepts successively provided (such as the e;piste;mè, the historical a priori, the regimes of truth, the games of truth, and problematizations) manages to name these conditions without falling into the pitfalls that Foucault originally denounced as characteristic of the “anthropological sleep”—various forms of confusion between the historical and the transcendental. Although Foucault’s work provides us with a highly illuminating analysis of the major problems of post-Kantian philosophies, ultimately it remains aporetic in that it also fails to overcome them. (shrink)

The subject of the aesthetic has returned to cultural and literary debates with a vengeance. The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies is a timely and authoritative collection of essays that analyze the role of aesthetics in American and British cultural studies, and reflect on its recuperation in the field. Contains first-rate, original essays that analyze the role of aesthetics in American and British cultural studies, and reflect on its recuperation in the field. Contributors are leading scholars, internationally based. Includes substantial (...) introductory material by the editor. (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)

Susan Wolf proposes that there is a virtue of character we all dimly recognize but cannot put a name to, a virtue that involves living with an expectation and a willingness to take responsibility for more than what one is rationally on the hook for. For Wolf, recognizing this virtue helps explain why we should feel moved to offer up our time and resources to help resolve the problems we become entangled with by accident. In this thesis, I argue that (...) her account of the nameless virtue does not go far enough and thus does not do justice to her “irrationalist” impulse but that we can look to Heideggerian authenticity in order to make the requisite changes while preserving her core sentiment. So, I present an interpretation of authenticity that focuses on reticence, anticipation, and resoluteness in order to develop a better model for assessing her moral luck cases. (shrink)

Do laypeople and philosophers differ in their attributions of knowledge? Starmans and Friedman maintain that laypeople differ from philosophers in taking ‘authentic evidence’ Gettier cases to be cases of knowledge. Their reply helpfully clarifies the distinction between ‘authentic evidence’ and ‘apparent evidence’. Using their sharpened presentation of this distinction, we contend that the argument of our original paper still stands.

Cicero is one of the most important and influential thinkers within the history of Western philosophy. For the last thirty years, his reputation as a philosopher has once again been on the rise after close to a century of very low esteem. This Companion introduces readers to 'Cicero the philosopher' and to his philosophical writings. It provides a handy port-of-call for those interested in Cicero's original contributions to a wide variety of topics such as epistemology, the emotions, determinism and (...) responsibility, cosmopolitanism, republicanism, philosophical translation, dialogue, aging, friendship, and more. The international, interdisciplinary team of scholars represented in this volume highlights the historical significance and contemporary relevance of Cicero's writings, and suggests pathways for future scholarship on Cicero's philosophy as we move through the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Heidegger’s relationship with Nazism has been debated since the 1930s. In the late 1930s, Georges Bataille wrote an incomplete text that would have added to these debates, “Critique of Heidegger: Critique of a philosophy of fascism.” I draw on this fragment and Bataille’s writings from this era in order to develop a fuller critique of Heidegger and his relationship to fascism. This expanded critique completes the promise of Bataille’s original fragment, offering a full Bataillean criticism of Heidegger and displaying (...) the connections between his philosophy and Bataille’s understanding of fascism. This critique hinges on Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and community, as a Bataillean reading would interpret these ideas as mere inauthentic useful concepts in the name of a nostalgic vision of the ancient Greeks. Heidegger wanted to fight against modern technological alienation—exemplified by the modern sciences and founded on subject based modern metaphysics—by returning to a more originary relationship with Being, but, on Bataille’s reading, without the will to pervert modern ideology and the political system. This desire for a return renders his Destruktion of the history of metaphysics means to an end, further calcifying preexisting values. As a result of this inability to pervert, Heidegger’s return promotes the reconstitution of contemporary political structures with a strong centralized authority figure empowered to guide this nostalgic return. (shrink)

Tsvetan Todorov, in his book Us and Them. French Thinking on Human Diversity, asked the following question: “How does one, how should one relate to those who do not belong to the same community as we do?” This question has been posed somewhat differently by intellectuals of the Americas anxious to develop paradigms of identity that will contribute to the successful construction of a society whose aim is to integrate heterogeneous ethnic groups: “How does one, how should one relate to (...) those who are members of our new society but who live either on its margins or who are frequently considered as different?” The mixed-race (métissage) approach, applied to the Latin Americas situation, was in part a response to this question. Here the “us” did not designate metropolitan Europeans engaged in thinking about the “others,” that is to say non-Europeans, but Latin Americans thinking about relations among various dominant groups and the varying “others” within their own society, since the “others” were part of “us.” The meaning of “us” is equally problematic when applied to North America. “What happens when words like ‘community’ and ‘us’ cease to have the clear and immediate meaning that Todorov seems to ascribe to them?” Sherry Simon recently asked. Although offering a general critique of the monological conception of culture and identity – a critique based on Bakhtin's work on polyphony and dialogism, on James Snead's investigation of the hybrid nature of several texts belonging to the European canon (such as The Odyssey and The Divine Comedy), and on the studies of Angelo Ara and Claudio Magris in regard to the heterogeneity of Trieste – she nevertheless begins her essay on a personal note, describing life in the multicultural city of Montreal, where “many children come out of mixed or immigrant marriages, some going to French schools, some to English,” and who can not “define themselves as products of a single culture” (pp. 15-16). Although I agree with Sherry Simon that the “us” of culture is never a given (it should be mentioned that Todorov himself writes that we must “give up basing our thinking on such a distinction” [between us and them] p. 421), it is essential here to emphasize the special ambiguity of the conception of “us” in the ex-colonies of the New World, where the “collision of cultures” implied not only, on the one hand, a confrontation among Spanish, Portuguese, British, and French colonists, but also between the colonists and the African slaves as well as with the immigrants who arrived after independence. Todorov's conception of nationhood (p. 422) as “a more or less perfect (although never total) coincidence of a State and a culture” - which he toned down a bit by adding that a culture is often identified with a particular region, a group of countries, or even a stratum of the population (pp. 424-425) - is even less applicable to the new societies of America than it is to Europe. Not only are we talking about hybrid societies (and what society isn't, to some degree?), but of societies conceived as hybrid, either multicultural (Canada) or mixed-race (Latin America). If, as Ernest Renan insisted at the end of the XIXth century, the idea of the modern nation is based on a conscious disregard for our diverse ethnic origins, the concepts of identity of the societies of the New World have often been based on an explicit symbolization of their heterogeneity. (shrink)

It has long been known that memory need not be a literal reproduction of the past but may be a constructive process. To say that memory is a constructive process is to say that the encoded content may differ from the retrieved content. At the same time, memory is bound by the authenticity constraint which states that the memory content must be true to the subject's original perception of reality. This paper addresses the question of how the constructive nature (...) of visual memory can be reconciled with the authenticity constraint. In what respect and to what extent may the content of a visual memory differ from the original perceptual state while still adequately reflecting the subject's original perception? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Authenticity, Antiquity, and Authority: Dares Phrygius in Early Modern EuropeFrederic ClarkDares Phrygius, “First Pagan Historiographer”In his Etymologies, Isidore of Seville—the seventh-century compiler whose cataloguing of classical erudition helped lay the groundwork for medieval and early modern encyclopedism—offered a seemingly straightforward definition of historiography, with clear antecedents in Cicero, Quintilian, and Servius.1 Before identifying historical writing as a component of the grammatical arts, and distinguishing histories from poetic fables, Isidore (...) confirmed that “history is a narration of deeds [narratio rei gestae], through which things done in the past are discerned.”2 Thereafter, he equated historical writing with eyewitness observation, insisting that “among the [End Page 183] ancients, no one wrote history unless he had been present and seen those things to be recorded.”3 But Isidore’s further treatment of historiography grew more perplexing. Upon affirming that “among us, Moses first composed a history, on the beginning of the world,” he unexpectedly declared that “among the pagans, Dares Phrygius first composed a history, concerning Greeks and Trojans.”4 Only later did the encyclopedist mention more well-known Greek historians (to modern audiences at least) like Herodotus. 5Isidore’s invocation of his “first pagan historiographer” referred most likely to the De excidio Troiae historia (henceforth DET), a fifth- or sixth-century Latin pseudo-history billed as an eyewitness account of the Trojan War. Conveyed in sparse, dry, and inelegant language, the DET was long thought to have been the war diary of one Dares Phrygius, purportedly a Trojan participant in the conflict.6 In reality, the Latin DET was a two-part forgery, as its spurious dedicatory epistle—supposedly from the Augustan-era biographer Cornelius Nepos to the historian Sallust—claimed that “Nepos” had discovered the work in an Athenian archive and rendered it “truly and simply” (vere et simpliciter) from Greek into Latin.7 While potentially derived from a Greek antecedent, perhaps composed as an anti-Homeric jeu d’esprit during the Second Sophistic, the Latin Dares was assuredly not an accurate and verbatim translation of any lost Greek original. 8Notwithstanding its uncertain origins, Isidore’s pagan counterpart to Moses would go on to achieve canonical status in the medieval Latin West, and survives today in approximately 200 manuscripts. Moreover, Dares’s authority was extended through practices of compilation integral to medieval [End Page 184] textual culture.9 This compilatory impulse—which spawned countless multi-text anthologized codices and similarly animated Isidore’s encyclopedism—encouraged the Phrygian’s codicological pairing with numerous sources both ancient and medieval. Not only did the DET serve, codicologically, as a prologue to Trojan origin narratives like Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, but it was also integrated into the structure of universal history, utilized as a means of augmenting the Chronicon of Eusebius-Jerome.10 Throughout the Middle Ages, Dares served not only as a name to invoke, but also as a source to appropriate and rework: to insert into universal chronicles, append to Trojan genealogies, or render into epic verse. Moreover, the pseudo-author’s status as “first pagan historiographer” was hardly lost on medieval sources: for instance, when William of Malmesbury inserted the DET into his anthology of ancient Roman histories, he made sure to include Isidore’s endorsement directly before the text’s incipit.11 For nearly a millennium, Dares’s fabricated claims of antiquity and autopsy constituted airtight guarantors of textual auctoritas.Between Criticism and Credulity: Dares in Early Modern ScholarshipBut Dares did not remain undisturbed in the canon. Instead, the DET saw its first recorded challenge with the advent of the early Renaissance. Writing in 1400 in his De tyranno, the Florentine Chancellor Coluccio Salutati turned to the Phrygian when debating a favored subject of nascent Italian humanism—the history of early Rome. Here Salutati sought to counter the long-held claim, attested in the DET, that Aeneas was not a pious hero driven from Troy, but rather a duplicitous traitor who had himself betrayed the city to the Greeks.12 The Florentine Chancellor correctly acknowledged that Aeneas’s treason was alleged by “the most ancient historians Dares [End Page 185] Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis” (Dictys, another late antique... (shrink)

The dispute between Sunni and Shia does not only revolve around the problems of theological leadership, ways of worship, but also points to the authenticity of the Quran. Among the Sunnis, the authenticity of the Quran has been conserved since the revelation times. As for the Shiites, some scholars of this school state that there has been a distortion (tahrif) of the Quran. They also allege that several verses and chapters in the Quran have been changed even they were deleted, (...) especially those concerning the leadership. This study aimed to find out the differences in the Sunni-Shia views on the Quran’s authenticity, genealogically, its process, and its legal status. Based on qualitative research methods, this study used a comparative approach to analyze the details of the differences between these theological views. The result indicates that according to the Sunnis, the Quran will always be preserved as words of God. Meanwhile, in the Shiites, there are two different views about the authenticity of the Quran. The first states that the Quran was distorted during the first three caliphate era. The second states that the Quran is forever in its originality. Among Indonesian Shiites, there is no discourse on the distortion of the Quran. (shrink)

One of the central worries raised in relation to ecological restoration concerns the problem of authenticity. Robert Elliot, for example, has argued that restoration “fakes nature.” On this view, restoration is like art forgery: it deceptively suggests that its product was produced in a certain way, when in fact, it was not. Restored landscapes present themselves as the product of “natural processes,” when in actuality, they have been significantly shaped by human intervention. For Elliott, there seem to be two sources (...) of inauthenticity in ecological restoration: first, the restored landscape is inauthentic because its natural genealogy has been disrupted by the intervention of humans: it has lost its authentic natural identity; second, the restored landscape is inauthentic because it pretends to be something it is not: it obscures its own history. We argue that the first sense of authenticity is problematic; however, the second concern—about obscuring history—is important. Case studies involving the naturalization of former military lands can be used to tease out more fully the ways in which landscapes can be “inauthentic” by misleading observers about their genealogy. In such landscapes, it is not departure from “the original” per se that is the source of inauthenticity; rather, restored landscapes fail to be authentic when they deceptively obscure critical elements of their past. (shrink)

In a thoughtful paper, Peter Martin Jaworski has written, “The debate over originals, authenticity, fakes, duplicates, and forgery got its start in the mid-60s and then continued until the ‘80s.”Peter Martin Jaworski. “In Defense of Fakes and Artistic Treason: Why Visually-Indistinguishable Duplicates Are as Good as the Originals.” Journal of Value Inquiry (2013), pp. 391–405. Quotation at p. 392. The debate, at least insofar as I participated in it, questioned whether original paintings and forgeries were sufficiently alike – sufficiently (...) the same kinds of things – that as a general rule the same qualities could be predicated of them. I and others argued they were not. To know the qualities of a painting, to make sense of the many often conflicting interpretations critics may offer of the same canvass, one must as a first step know what kind of painting it is. The relevant qualities of a painting, call them “artistic” or “aesthetic” or “stylistic” or whatever, are predicated of them i .. (shrink)

This paper argues against the priority of temporality over spatiality, which Heidegger defends in Being and Time . The argument, however, does not follow the turn in Heidegger's philosophy and his later retrieval of the spatial but is developed as a delimitation—that is, as an internal critique and reconstruction—undertaken within the transcendental framework of his early thinking. This delimitation proposes a demonstration of the fundamental role of spatializing, defined as dissemination, in the constitution of human Being-in-the-world. A rethinking (...) of human Being-there in terms of the co-originality of spatiality and temporality permits a revisiting of the question of the transcendental and makes it possible to pursue the overcoming of a philosophy of the subject that, critics often point out, Heidegger unsuccessfully sought to transgress in his early work. (shrink)

Reading Heidegger’s Being and Time, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” and the 1934-35 lecture courses Hölderlin’s Hymns“Germania” and “The Rhine,” the aim of this essay is twofold. First, the essay attempts to elucidate the manner in which the work of art functions as a superlative event of “ truth -happening”, which facilitates the movement of Dasein into the truth of Being as a legitimate member of a community, serving as, “the origin of a people’s authentic (...) historical existence.”1 Second, it explains why this notion of art as the historical manifestation of Being is crucial to understanding the shift, or “ turn,” in Heidegger’s philosophy of the 1930s and 1940s, i.e., it examines the philosophical problems Heidegger rectified when moving from Being and Time, and the conceptual-linguistic constraints of metaphysics and the subject-centered model of Dasein, to the later works on art and poetry. (shrink)

Early period (h. I-III) works are the most basic data sources in tafsīr studies. However, the related works were shaped within the conditions of the period. In this process, the literacy and schooling rate is low. It is not easy to obtain sufficient writing materials. For this reason, the information was initially transferred as a verbal, some of the original material that has been written has not survived. The information, which is usually narrated and sometimes written, can be learned (...) through the written copies of the next dates. However, there are serious time intervals between the author and the manuscript copies. This time period has led to some problems. There are such works that the author is controversial. There is such information that it is obvious that it was added later. Although some works belonging to the period were compiled from the sources of the following centuries, they were printed under the name of some people who lived in the early period, as if they gave the impression of author copy. Each of these matters has the quality to affect the nature of the information to be used as reference and the perception to be created on it. The relation of the subject with the interpretation of the Qur'ān and the fact that it is binding has a special importance, therefore, it requires knowing the formation stages of the reference source, especially in the commentary of tafsīr. In the article, the author-work relation in early tafsīr works has been tried to be processed on a sufficient number of examples with their respective dimensions.Summary: Early works in tafsīr studies are the most basic data sources. However, the related works were shaped within the conditions of the period. The data at the beginning were verbally transmitted, but some original material that has been written has not survived until nowadays. Therefore, the information about tafsīr are derived from the mainly Buhkārī (d. 256/870), Muslim (d. 261/875), Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), Nasā’ī (d. 303/915) which have tafsīr contents, and encyclopedic sources which have been contended narrations suhc as Țabarī (d. 310/923) and Ibn Abī Ḥātim (d. 327/938).Some later dated work/s belonged to people who lived in the early period alo contribute to this accumulation. However, in scientific studies it is necessary to pay attention to the harmony or difference between the author manuscripts and copies which have been survived. Because the limited possibilities of the period, the time interval between the author and the writing copy, the corrosion that occurred in the texts over time, the capacity or thought the scribe has caused the addition and reduction of the original copy of the text. Although it is rare, it is also possible to attribute the work to a well-known person of the period in order to gain the reputation of the views in the work.In this regard, the article first draws attention to the time difference between the author and the copies that have survived to the present day. Accordingly, it was emphasized that there may be works with controversial belonging to the author. Because, it may be that the names of those who expand, explain or shorten the work with additions are given as the author's name.It is shown with examples that additions to the work could be made in the time interval between the author and the manuscript that has survived to the present day. However, sometimes the difference between copies can be based on many reasons, from the ignorance of the obscene to its forgetfulness and even deliberate replacement. Even in the hadith narrations that attribute special importance to its narration, it is quite possible that the additions were made intentionally or unknowingly, even after the transition to the written period.However, this study was carried out only on tafsīr works. Because even the sampling on a limited number of tafsīr works pushes the limits of the article.In the study, the original texts of the selected works as samples such as Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Farrāʾ, Abū ʿUbayda, etc. were reviewed, and the master's and doctorate studies on the relevant works and the period, especially their editorial evaluations, were tried to be examined as much as possible. In the evaluations, the classical period sources such as Ibnu-Nadīm, Thaʻlabī and Ibn Khallikān, where tafsīr works were subject, as well as the Ottoman period like Edirnevī; Modern era works such as Brockelman and Sezgin were used. Books, articles and encyclopedia articles evaluating the manuscripts were also used.The study revealed that when the early tafsīr references were given, the author-copy relationship should be taken into consideration. Because, although some names are mentioned as mufassīr in the sources, it is controversial whether some of them convert the relevant information into written form. Because the period of the compilation is started in the period of tâbiûn in its earliest form. It is understood that even though the writing is partially activated, the tendency to convey information by narration continues from the examples given.The fact that no original work of the period reaches the present day, there is a serious time gap between the oldest manuscripts carrying the relevant information to the present day and its authors raises the issue of the reliability of the information. This is an issue to be considered in research and updating of information. Because it was seen that some information was difficult to determine the author. In addition, it has been understood that there may be additions afterwards besides the possibility of missing or misreported information due to various factors during the transfer. The fact that narration analysis has not been done properly in the context of the tafsīr science can lead to wrong conclusions in some works, if the possibility of reaching the information added later has not been taken into consideration.In addition, creating author copies from manuscripts is a challenging process with some difficulties in itself. No matter how fastidious it is shown, it should not be forgotten that the work is compiled from manuscripts, it should be known that errors may occur despite the maximum sensitivity.It is another point to consider that some information should be associated with the author and turned into a book based on the narrations in the sources of the next period. It should not be forgotten that some works were created by collecting the narrations of the next period. When the process in its formation is not taken into account, there is a possibility that the relevant information creates an early perception of false perception, as well as the belief that it expresses correct and precise information in all aspects due to its connection with the sacred. It is obvious that there is a difference between the original information from the author's pen and the quality and knowledge value of the information collected by claiming belonging to the author from later works. It is necessary to pay attention to this difference in information transfer.Therefore, during the investigation of the envoy, whose main task is to determine the will of Allah, he has to take into account the mentioned features of the early works. Reliable knowledge transfer and correct religion perception can only be achieved with this care. (shrink)

This book-length treatment of Gy rgy Luk cs' major achievement, his Marxist aesthetic theories. Working from the thirty-one volumes of Luk cs' works and twelve separately published essays, speeches, and interviews, Bela Kiralyfalvi provides a full and systematic analysis for English-speaking readers. Following an introductory chapter on Luk cs' philosophical development, the book concentrates on the coherent Marxist aesthetics that became the basis for his mature literary criticism. The study includes an examination of Luk cs' Marxist philosophical premises; his theory (...) of the origin of art and the relationship of art to life, science, and religion; and his theory of artistic reflection and realism. Later chapters treat the concepts of type and totality in Luk cs' category of specialty, the distinctions between allegory and symbolism in his theory of the language of art, and Luk cs' understanding of aesthetic effect and form and content in art. There is a separate chapter on Luk cs' dramatic theory. This lucid and readable account of Luk cs' aesthetic theories will be of special interest to students of literature, aesthetics, and drama. In addition, it will be appreciated by those generally concerned with Marxist theory. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In his dialogue the Timaeus, Plato recognized two aspects of time, the past and the future, but not the present. In contrast, Aristotle's analysis of time in the Physics took its orientation from the 'now'. It is the latter path that Husserl follows with his conception of the 'original impression' (Urimpression). However, in certain parts of Husserl's Bernau Manuscripts, the present loses significance because of a novel interpretation of protention. This development, which revitalizes Plato's understanding of time, is furthered (...) in Heidegger's late lecture Time and Being: the present can be understood on the basis of the 'withdrawal' which determines the mutual relation between the arrival as authentic future and the having-been as authentic past. (shrink)

Live commerce is a phenomenally innovative form of social commerce in China. In this paper, the authors aim to explore the authenticity of live commerce. By employing a qualitative approach using in-depth interviews and grounded theory, 21 initial categories are classified into six core categories. Among them, authenticity-associated concepts are classified into explicit concepts and implicit concepts. Explicit concepts of authenticity are associated with objectively authentic cues, while implicit concepts of authenticity are associated with subjectively authentic experiences. Moreover, (...) the study explores the relationship between explicit concepts of authenticity and product commitment, as well as the relationship between implicit concepts of authenticity and affective commitment. Both of these paths are found to influence consumers' shopping-related behaviors. Although consumers can more easily perceive explicitly authentic cues than implicitly authentic experiences, this study suggests that the latter may be more effective in inducing shopping behaviors. In addition, the effect of streamer attractiveness on opinion leader building is addressed, while authenticity is found to be an alternative approach to attract consumers both for attractive and nonattractive streamers. Finally, the study addresses theoretical implications and practical implications as well as suggestions for future research. (shrink)

This paper argues for a revised concept of authenticity entailing two demands that must be balanced. The first demand moves authenticity from the position of a strictly self-regarding virtue towards the position of a fully social virtue, acknowledging the crucial feature of steadiness, i.e. self-consistency, as being precisely what we ‘naturally’ lack. Nevertheless, the value of personal authenticity in a modern, open society comes from the fact that it brings about not only steadiness, but also the public development of (...) a variety of existential options that can be understood as Millian ‘original experiments in living’. Thus the second demand of authenticity is a demand for ‘experimental’ authenticity which covers the whole spectrum of technologies of the self, from Nietzschean ‘brief habits’, to the use of enhancement technologies. (shrink)

In Being and Time Heidegger gives an account of the distinctive features of human existence, in an attempt to answer the question of the meaning of being. He finds that underlying all of these features is what he calls 'original time'. In this clear and straightforward introduction to the text, Paul Gorner takes the reader through the work, examining its detail and explaining the sometimes difficult language which Heidegger uses. The topics which he covers include being-in-the-world, (...) being-with, thrownness and projection, truth, authenticity, time and being, and historicity. His book makes Being and Time accessible to students in a way that conveys the essence of Heidegger's project and remains true to what is distinctive about his thinking. (shrink)

This book explores the philosophical, legal, and theological roots of Western multiculturalism, that is, the encounter and coexistence of different cultures within a liberal society. Rather than concerning themselves with the particulars of cultural dialogue, the authors of this volume go deeper and question the very reality of "multiculturalism" itself. As a whole the volume devotes attention to the origins of human nature, arguing that regardless of how different another person or culture seems to be, universal human experience discloses what (...) it means to be human and to relate to others and to God. The contributors represent different cultures and faith traditions but are united in friendship and in the conviction that the Christian faith enables an authentic approach to long-standing debates on multiculturalism. Contributors: Massimo Borghesi Francesco Botturi Marta Cartabia Carmine Di Martino Pierpaolo Donati Costantino Esposito Stanley Hauerwas Antonio Lopez Francisco Javier Martnez Fernandez John Milbank Javier Prades David L. Schindler Angelo Cardinal Scola Lorenza Violini Joseph H. H. Weiler. (shrink)

Brown examines the types of scene that exist, along with related concepts such as authenticity and the 'really' real. It also explores the effectiveness of scenes in spreading new actions and ideas, as welll as their role in both facilitating 'difference' and introducing originality and newness in modern society. Finally, the book deals with the fragility of scenes, why they can often become subsumed by normality and how this might be prevented.

This paper attempts to reconcile, what appear to be, two conflicting accounts of authenticity in Heidegger’s thought. Authenticity in Being and Time is commonly interpreted in ‘existentialist’ terms as willful commitment and resoluteness in the face of one’s own death but, by the late 1930’s, is reintroduced in terms of Gelassenheit, as a non-willful openness that “lets beings be.” By employing Heidegger’s conception of authentic historicality , understood as the retrieval of Dasein’s past, and drawing on his writings (...) on Hölderlin in the 1930’s and 1940’s, I suggest that the ancient interpretation of leisure and festivity may play an important role in unifying these conflicting accounts. Genuine leisure, interpreted as a form of play , frees us from inauthentic busy-ness and gives us an opening to face the abyssal nature of our own being and the mystery that “beings are” in the first place. To this end, leisure re-connects us with wonder as the original temperament of Western thought. In leisurely wonder, the authentic self does not seek purposive mastery and control over beings but calmly accepts the unsettledness of being and is, as a result, allowed into the original openness or space of play of time that lets beings emerge-into-presence on their own terms. (shrink)

This article discusses the ordinary, the existentialist, and the virtue‐ethics senses of the word ‘authenticity’. The term ‘authentic’ in ordinary usage suggests the idea of being ‘original’ or ‘faithful to an original’, and its application implies being true to what someone (or something) truly is. It is important to see, however, that the philosopher who put this technical term on the map in existentialism, Martin Heidegger, used the word to refer to the human capacity to (...) be fully human, not to being true to one's unique inner nature. Authenticity might also be thought of as a virtue, and interesting questions arise whether such a virtue should be regarded primarily as a personal or as a social virtue. (shrink)

Can a person from Latin America be a Catholic, or a feminist, or a democratic socialist in an authentic way? These identities come from Europe, and given the colonial history of Latin America, it seems reasonable to think that decolonizing the Latin American mind is a condition for its authenticity. Further, it seems reasonable to think that decolonization itself requires extirpating ideas and identities originating from the colonizers, especially those used to establish the colonial order. Thus, it seems that (...) Latin Americans cannot adopt such identities; authentic decolonization demands otherwise. In this paper I argue that the thought of twentieth century Mexican philosopher Jorge Portilla provides a persuasive account of the nature of authentic self-creation that allows for a kind of decolonization that makes it conceptually possible for Latin Americans to be Catholics, feminists, or democratic socialists in an authentic fashion. That is, authentic decolonization of the mind, I argue, need not involve a blanket rejection of identities originating from the colonizers; instead, it can be understood as a particular kind of authentic self-creation: one that is appropriately sensitive to the colonial history of the identities freely chosen by the agent. (shrink)

A sensibility is, on a rough first pass, an emotional orientation to the world. It shapes how things appear to us, evaluatively speaking. By transfiguring things’ evaluative appearances, a change in sensibility can profoundly alter one’s overall experience of the world. I argue that some forms of sensibility change entail (1) risking one’s knowledge of what experiences imbued with one’s prior sensibility were like, and (2) surrendering one’s grasp on the intelligibility of one’s prior emotional apprehensions. These costs have consequences (...) for Laurie Paul’s ‘problem of transformative experience.’ Paul has argued that when we are poised to become someone new, our inexperience generates problems for authentic choice about our own futures. By reckoning with the epistemic losses involved in sensibility change, I show that this problem must not be confined to novel transformations. Prior experience does not guarantee the knowledge or understanding necessary for choosing authentically (in Paul’s sense). If the problem Paul highlights is indeed a problem _at all,_ then, it is a still more pervasive and intractable one than it has been taken to be. (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)

Though Heidegger’s Being and Time is often cited as one of the most important philosophical works of the last hundred years, its Division Two has received relatively little attention. This outstanding collection corrects that, examining some of the central themes of Division Two and their wide-ranging and challenging implications. An international team of leading philosophers explore the crucial notions that articulate Heidegger’s concept of authenticity, including death, anxiety, conscience, guilt, resolution and temporality. In doing so, they clarify the bearing (...) of Division Two’s reflections on our understanding of intentionality, normativity, responsibility, autonomy and selfhood. These discussions raise important questions about how we may need to rethink the morals of Division One of Being and Time , the broader project to which that book was devoted, the shaping influence of figures such as Aristotle and Kierkegaard, as well as Heidegger’s relationship with his contemporaries and successors. Essential reading for students and scholars of Heidegger’s thought, and anyone interested in key debates in phenomenology, ethics, metaphilosophy and philosophy of mind. Contributors: William Blattner, Clare Carlisle, Taylor Carman, Steven Galt Crowell, Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Sophia Dandelet, Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Guignon, Jeffrey Haynes, Stephan Käufer, Denis McManus, Stephen Mulhall, George Pattison, Peter Poellner, Katherine Withy, Mark A. Wrathall. (shrink)

Though Heidegger’s _Being and Time_ is often cited as one of the most important philosophical works of the last hundred years, its Division Two has received relatively little attention. This outstanding collection corrects that, examining some of the central themes of Division Two and their wide-ranging and challenging implications. An international team of leading philosophers explore the crucial notions that articulate Heidegger’s concept of authenticity, including death, anxiety, conscience, guilt, resolution and temporality. In doing so, they clarify the bearing of (...) Division Two’s reflections on our understanding of intentionality, normativity, responsibility, autonomy and selfhood. These discussions raise important questions about how we may need to rethink the morals of Division One of _Being and Time_, the broader project to which that book was devoted, the shaping influence of figures such as Aristotle and Kierkegaard, as well as Heidegger’s relationship with his contemporaries and successors. Essential reading for students and scholars of Heidegger’s thought, and anyone interested in key debates in phenomenology, ethics, metaphilosophy and philosophy of mind. _Contributors:_ William Blattner, Clare Carlisle, Taylor Carman, Steven Galt Crowell, Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Sophia Dandelet, Hubert Dreyfus, Charles Guignon, Jeffrey Haynes, Stephan Käufer, Denis McManus, Stephen Mulhall, George Pattison, Peter Poellner, Katherine Withy, Mark A. Wrathall. (shrink)

The correlational study is aimed at validating theAuthenticity Scalein Russian culture. Authenticity is considered a trait responsible for a person’s ability to be oneself. It helps people resist environment pressure and prevent self-alienation, which contributes to maintaining psychological wellbeing. The original Authenticity Scale includes three subscales:Authentic Living, Accepting External Influence, andSelf-Alienation. In total, 2,188 respondents (Mage= 26.30,SDage= 13.81; 78.1% female) participated in the survey. The dimensionality of theAuthenticity Scaleand its measurement invariance across sex, age, and depression rate subgroups (...) was examined with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses; the original tripartite structure was kept. Convergent validity was tested through correlation analyses with theWarwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale, theInternational Positive and Negative Affect Schedule Short-Form, theCentre of Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale, theRosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and theSatisfaction with Life Scale. According to the CFA results, the structure of the Russian version differs from the original one slightly (item 1 was moved from the subscaleAuthentic Livingto the subscaleAccepting External Influenceand item 4 was excluded); however, the modified factor model showed the best absolute and comparative fit statistics [CFI = 0.961, TLI = 0.949, RMSEA = 0.050 (90% CI [0.40; 0.60]) and SRMR = 0.037]. The reliability (McDonald’s Omega) of theAuthenticity Scalesubscales was satisfactory and ranged from 0.78 to 0.84. It was revealed that youth are more likely to have high scores onAccepting External InfluenceandSelf-Alienationthan adults. Men and women did not significantly differ on the sub-scores ofAuthenticity Scale. Multigroup CFA also showed thatAuthenticity Scalescores may be biased in people with high levels of clinical depression, in terms of the item intercepts.Authentic Livingis positively connected with mental wellbeing, self-esteem, positive affect, satisfaction with life, and negatively with depressive symptoms and negative affect; reverse trends were found forAccepting External InfluenceandSelf-Alienationsubscales. The Russian version of theAuthenticity Scaleis a valid, reliable tool that may be recommended for use in various areas of non-clinical practice. (shrink)

The uneasy tension between ongoing disputes about Turkey's Europeanisation and an emphasis on cultural authenticity has characterised much of Turkish social and political thought over the last two centuries. This article explores conceptions of Europe, modernity and tradition contained in the writings of two twentieth-century Turkish writers, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901–1962) and Peyami Safa (1899–1961) whose writings express an anxiety of cultural authenticity. Varieties of communitarian thinking, coupled with an emphasis on a ‘synthesis’ between past and future, tradition and modernity, (...) Turkey and Europe, had been invoked and advocated by many writers and scholars who sought to come to terms with the challenges surrounding Turkey's Europeanisation throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Tanpınar and Safa are widely considered to be among the most influential representatives of this deeply rooted communitarian tradition in modern Turkish social imaginary. By drawing on Tanpınar's and Safa's essays on politics, society, culture and the East–West distinction, this article demonstrates the radical divergences between their perspectives and draws out the political implications of their views of Europe, modernity and tradition. Although he appears to be one of the advocates of Turkey's Europeanisation and the idea of a civilisational synthesis, Safa's conservatism is based on a sketchy theory of radical particularity and cultural essentialism that reflects a repudiation of universalism and cosmopolitanism, and which shows a tendency bordering on a celebration of all collectivist self-assertions and struggles against liberal democracy. Tanpınar's communitarian vision, on the other hand, with its emphasis on ‘tradition’ and ‘continuity’, aims to reconcile the political ideals of European modernity with a restored cultural tradition. One of the primary purposes of this article is to fully work out the originality of Tanpınar's thought by highlighting the intimations of a distinctively hermeneutical dimension that figure prominently in his writings, and which have largely gone unnoticed. (shrink)

The article builds on Husserl’s “trivial” observations from the manuscript Reason — Science. Reason and Morality — Reason and Metaphysics on the topic of conscience, to then question the neglect of the topic of misguided conscience or self-deception in Heidegger’s model of conscience from §§ 54–60 of Being and Time. In Heidegger’s conception of conscience (as a silent call appealing to the authenticity of Dasein) we will not find a number of points important to the Husserlian understanding of conscience: (...) neither the unrevealed horizons of prior life, nor the relativity of intersubjective contexts, nor a misguided (and doubting) conscience, still less a search for (presumed) evidence. That said, the way Heidegger axiomatically sets up the original culpability of Dasein creates a number of dead ends or blind spots in this model. It is to these that Mark Richir addresses in his interpretation (or, more precisely, two alternative interpretations), speaking of the “original symbolic mishap” that befell Dasein, and then of the “symbolic tautology” in which it has become a prisoner. Richir’s critique is not aimed at “overcoming” Heidegger’s model of conscience, but at demonstrating a transcendental illusion — probably inevitable for one who is guided by “authenticity” and the “inner voice.” This is a kind of critical phenomenology of “authenticity”, which manages to avoid the closedness of phenomenology in itself by “grafting” in it poststructuralism. This is why both the first and the second interpretation by the Belgian phenomenologist focus on the problem of symbolic structures: “original symbolic mishap” in the first case and “symbolic tautology” in the second. (shrink)

Towards the end of the Tābi‘ūn generation (the generation of Muslims who followed the Sahaba [companions of the prophet Muhammad]), there was a search for a name through history, for people who were members of Ahl as-Sunnah (people of the tradition and the community of Muhammad [peace be upon him]), and were distinguished from other people with their understanding of zuhd (asceticism) and faqr (indigence), and their sensitivity to worship and to abide by righteous deeds. In this process, any name (...) other than Tasawwuf (Islamic mysticism, commonly known as Sufism) was not generally accepted because it was considered incomplete and inadequate in expressing the knowledge, state, behavior, and approaches of Sufi. The debate about the origin of the word Tasawwuf has continued from the first time to the present day. Some authors have argued that the original word was not in Arabic and hence it was not known during the time of Sahaba, while other authors have argued that it was in Arabic and that it was known in the time of Sahaba. Also, there were differences of opinion about the origin of the root word for Tasawwuf among the authors who argued that the origin of the word Tasawwuf was Arabic. When Sufi works are examined, it can be seen that each Sufi made many descriptions of Tasawwuf in accordance with the subjects they cared about and the state in which they lived. However, this study does not aim to examine the terminological descriptions of the notions of Tasawwuf expressed in the historical process, but to bring up some discussions about the origin of the word and to examine some issues related to the subject.Summary: There has been an ongoing search for a name for the group who was a part of Ahl as-sunnah and were distinguished from others with their outside appearances and zuhd (asceticism), and made intensive efforts for the elimination of the heart (sense of selfishness and ego). Some authors declared that this group was essentially famous and known, but that a name was needed to distinguish them from other people and to show their privileges. In the early days, some distinguishing names such as abid, nasik, vari‘, zahid (following are some of the descriptions/meanings of these names; one who prays a lot, servant of God, extremely religious, someone who gave up earthly possessions for God, etc.) were given to the pioneer Sufis. However, these names were not seen as a distinguishing feature because they were also given to other non-Sufi individuals, and the use of these names did not become widespread in later times. In addition, since these names indicated only one characteristic of the Sufi in terms of their meaning, they were considered incomplete and inadequate, and there was a need for a more comprehensive name. In addition to these names, there was also a search for new ones in some regions. Among these names, some names such as fuqaraa (the poor), ghuraba (eccentric and noncomformist), sayyaheen (pilgrims), shiqaftiyyah (cave people), dju’iyyah (who eats just enough to survive), malamatiyya (someone who believes in the value of self-blame), nouriyyah (someone who is trying to reach the God's light [nour in Arabic]) and moqarraboon (blessed). Khorasan, Basra, Damascus, and Baghdad are the locations where new names were searched for extensively. These names used in these regions have not gained prevalence in the historical process either. As a more comprehensive name in the historical process, the word Tasawwuf/Sufiyyah (sufism) was preferred. The word Sufism, which means "one who wears wool", signifies an external meaning. However, the main distinguishing feature of Sufi is not the external aspect, but the internal state and scholarship/wisdom. In this context, the relationship between name and person has always been the subject of discussion. Depending on the spiritual education of Sufi, there will be constant changes in their spiritual state and wisdom. There has been a lack of an encompassing name to express this change. Because of this insufficiency, the word Tasawwuf, which includes external meaning, has been accepted as an umbrella term, which also included the internal meaning. In addition, because wearing wool garments was the custom of elite servants of God such as prophets and saints, Sufis considered it appropriate to be known by this name. Tasawwuf has been accepted as a word that encompasses the meanings of words such as zuhd, faqr, vera’ (being afraid to sin), morality, adherence, nusq (praying for and worshipping God). In this sense, Tasawwuf does not mean only morality, zuhd, or worshipping. It refers to a feature that encompasses all of these and also includes other meanings.There are two different views on whether the word Sufism was known and used during the times of Muhammad (PBUH), Sahaba, and Tābi‘ūn. According to one view, the term Tasawwuf was not known during this period. For this reason, the advocates of this view accept Tasawwuf as a way of thinking and approach which is formed by some non-Islamic influences such as Indian, Iranian, Christian, Jewish, and Greek Philosophy. Contrary to this view, according to some advocates, Tasawwuf was known and used not only during the time of Muhammad (PBUH), Sahaba, and Tābi‘ūn, but also during Jahiliyyah period (ignorance period in Arabia before the advent of Islam. Wool (Suf) symbolized devotion during the Jahiliyyah period. When someone tied wool around his neck and head, this movement meant devotion. There are apparent connections between wool and sacrifice in some customs during the Jahiliyyah period.The fact that the word Sufism does not appear in Qur'an verses and hadith (the record of the words, actions, and approval of Muhammad [PBUH]) and that no one from the two prominent generations of Islam, Sahaba, and Tābi‘ūn, was called Sufi does not make it necessary to search for the origin of Tasawwuf in non-Islamic sources. Because although Tasawwuf is not mentioned in verses and hadith, there are some words such as Moqarraboon and Abrar (good samaritan) which correspond to Sufi. The names Sahaba, and Tābi‘ūn were the most honorable names for these two generations, this should explain why no one in the Sahaba, and Tābi‘ūn generations used the name Sufi or needed any other name. Although the name Sufi was not used as a word in the time of Sahaba, it is known that the life of Sahaba is the main premise of the Sufi lifestyle. For this reason, the Sufis took Sahaba as an example, especially the Ashab al-Suffa (young, unmarried, and poor Sahaba, who dwelled in the Suffas [shades] Muhammad [PBUH] built near the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi [a mosque the prophet built while in Medina]).With the preference of this word, discussions about the origin of the word have come up. Among these discussions, the most effective ones were whether the origin of the word was Arabic and if so, what was the root word. Authors such as Al-Qushayri and Ali Hujwiri did not accept the word Sufism as an Arabic word. According to them, there was no comparison showing that the word originally was Arabic. Whatever meaning is given, it is not correct to derive the name Sufi from a root word in Arabic according to the language rules. In this context, it is more appropriate that it is a moniker, not a word derivative. Contrary to Al-Qushayri and Ali Hujwiri, authors such as Abu Nasr as-Sarraj, Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi, Sohrevardi, Ibn Taymiyyah, and Ibn Khaldun accept the origin of the word as Arabic, but they disagree about the word origin. Abu Nasr as-Sarraj, who is among the first sources of Tasawwuf, stated that the word origin was Safa (enjoyment), while authors such as Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi, Sohrevardi, Ibn Taymiyyah, and Ibn Khaldun stated it was the word Suf (wool). According to them, if the origin of the word is accepted as Suf, in terms of vocabulary, the word becomes authentic and the wording correct. According to al-Kalabadhi, the words put forward about the origin were allied in terms of meaning, even if they appeared different on the outside, and the meanings of all these names were collected in the word Suf. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Zoroaster's Influence on Anaxagoras, the Greek Tragedians, and Socrates. By Ruhi Muhsen Afnan. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969. Pp. 162. $5.00) Of the author's Zoroaster's Influence on Greek Thought a striking flaw was the misleading rifle. In this earlier volume not one example of Zoroastrian impact was pointed out to corroborate the claim. Now, in the preface to the new work, the author discloses that the (...) class='Hi'>original title had merely been "Zoroaster and the Trend of Greek Thought" and that the publishers changed it into "Zoroaster's Influence" etc. "to give the book a more attractive heading" (p. 9). This fiat of the publishers, however, was then gratefully felt by the author a~ a "challenge.... prodding" him to the "venture" (cf. p. 10) of attempting to substantiate (what was before just his belief) "that the illumination vouchsafed by Zoroaster generated the Enlightenment attributed to the Periclean Age of Athens" (p, 12) and to demonstrate, for instance, an ostensible basic similarity between the pfiilosophy of Anaxagoras and the teachings of Zoroaster. This venturous attempt fills six long chapters supposed to show that "Medism," or Zoroastrianism, was the great spiritual power menacing the autochthonous Athenian values, and that Anaxagoras and his circle and Aeschylus, Euripides, Socrates, and Thucydides essentially were propagandists of Zoroastrianism who undermined the pagan culture of Athens. True, the general presentation of Medism and its role in the spiritual struggle of the Periclean Age is sometimes thrillingly interesting reading. Yet, for us the main question is: Has the author succeeded in his attempt? There are prerequisites of such an undertaking. Thorough and first-hand knowledge of both sides of the topic is indispensable, in the first place. To question the historical authenticity of a modern believer's presentation of Zoroastrianism might seem improper. But it should still be permitted sharply to distinguish between the official traditional version and the results of recent serious research. The other side of the topic is concerned with those who, according to the author's claim, were downright prophets of Zoroastrianlsm. Whether this holds true of Aeschylus and Euripides, whether, for instance, really all the dramatis personae of Euripides' Ion were meant as nothing, but symbolizations of the antagonistic spiritual powers of Medism and Athenianism, this to discuss, and perhaps to doubt, is up to literary analysts. But two of those alleged heralds are philosophers: Anaxagoras and Socrates. (Incidentally, what about Heraclitus and Empedocles?) Well, let us forget about Socrates. The "real" Socrates is such an intangible figure anyway that it would not make much sense to argue with any of the author's allegations about him. In the presentation and "analysis" of the philosophy of Anaxagoras, however, the decisive shortcomings come to the fore. The level of the author's general philosophical training is not quite equal to the task. Conceptual haziness, confusion [469] 470 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of fundamental notions (e.g.,"creator" and "demiurge") are omnipresent. Sometimes even a confusion happens of Anaxagoras with Democritus when the "atom" is ascribed to Anaxagoras (p. 48). And the author does not seem to feel the fatal inadequacy of merely second-hand knowledge. While he in longura et latum argues with Aristotelian presentations and misrepresentations of Anaxagorean tenets, there is good reason for the suspicion that he might never have read even one authentic sentence written by Anaxagoras himself. For those interested in general cultural history, this book, the religious diatribe of a modem Zoroastrian believer, is very worthwhile reading. For the historian of philosophy, itis of rather modest value. P-~LIX M. CLEVE New School for Social Research New York City The Esthetics of the Middle Ages. By Edgar De Bruyne. Trans. Eileen B. Hennessy. (New York: Frederick Uugar, 1969. Pp. viii+232. $6.50) This book has a very complex character. It is the English translation of a French work, L'Esth~tique du moyen dge,I which, in turn, is a one-volume abridged version by Edgar De Bruyne of his own original three-volume work, I~tudes d'Esth~tique M~di~vale.2 Thus, one may evaluate this book either as a translation or, presupposing the faithfulness and correctness of the translation itself... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Zoroaster's Influence on Anaxagoras, the Greek Tragedians, and Socrates. By Ruhi Muhsen Afnan. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969. Pp. 162. $5.00) Of the author's Zoroaster's Influence on Greek Thought a striking flaw was the misleading rifle. In this earlier volume not one example of Zoroastrian impact was pointed out to corroborate the claim. Now, in the preface to the new work, the author discloses that the (...) class='Hi'>original title had merely been "Zoroaster and the Trend of Greek Thought" and that the publishers changed it into "Zoroaster's Influence" etc. "to give the book a more attractive heading" (p. 9). This fiat of the publishers, however, was then gratefully felt by the author a~ a "challenge.... prodding" him to the "venture" (cf. p. 10) of attempting to substantiate (what was before just his belief) "that the illumination vouchsafed by Zoroaster generated the Enlightenment attributed to the Periclean Age of Athens" (p, 12) and to demonstrate, for instance, an ostensible basic similarity between the pfiilosophy of Anaxagoras and the teachings of Zoroaster. This venturous attempt fills six long chapters supposed to show that "Medism," or Zoroastrianism, was the great spiritual power menacing the autochthonous Athenian values, and that Anaxagoras and his circle and Aeschylus, Euripides, Socrates, and Thucydides essentially were propagandists of Zoroastrianism who undermined the pagan culture of Athens. True, the general presentation of Medism and its role in the spiritual struggle of the Periclean Age is sometimes thrillingly interesting reading. Yet, for us the main question is: Has the author succeeded in his attempt? There are prerequisites of such an undertaking. Thorough and first-hand knowledge of both sides of the topic is indispensable, in the first place. To question the historical authenticity of a modern believer's presentation of Zoroastrianism might seem improper. But it should still be permitted sharply to distinguish between the official traditional version and the results of recent serious research. The other side of the topic is concerned with those who, according to the author's claim, were downright prophets of Zoroastrianlsm. Whether this holds true of Aeschylus and Euripides, whether, for instance, really all the dramatis personae of Euripides' Ion were meant as nothing, but symbolizations of the antagonistic spiritual powers of Medism and Athenianism, this to discuss, and perhaps to doubt, is up to literary analysts. But two of those alleged heralds are philosophers: Anaxagoras and Socrates. (Incidentally, what about Heraclitus and Empedocles?) Well, let us forget about Socrates. The "real" Socrates is such an intangible figure anyway that it would not make much sense to argue with any of the author's allegations about him. In the presentation and "analysis" of the philosophy of Anaxagoras, however, the decisive shortcomings come to the fore. The level of the author's general philosophical training is not quite equal to the task. Conceptual haziness, confusion [469] 470 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of fundamental notions (e.g.,"creator" and "demiurge") are omnipresent. Sometimes even a confusion happens of Anaxagoras with Democritus when the "atom" is ascribed to Anaxagoras (p. 48). And the author does not seem to feel the fatal inadequacy of merely second-hand knowledge. While he in longura et latum argues with Aristotelian presentations and misrepresentations of Anaxagorean tenets, there is good reason for the suspicion that he might never have read even one authentic sentence written by Anaxagoras himself. For those interested in general cultural history, this book, the religious diatribe of a modem Zoroastrian believer, is very worthwhile reading. For the historian of philosophy, itis of rather modest value. P-~LIX M. CLEVE New School for Social Research New York City The Esthetics of the Middle Ages. By Edgar De Bruyne. Trans. Eileen B. Hennessy. (New York: Frederick Uugar, 1969. Pp. viii+232. $6.50) This book has a very complex character. It is the English translation of a French work, L'Esth~tique du moyen dge,I which, in turn, is a one-volume abridged version by Edgar De Bruyne of his own original three-volume work, I~tudes d'Esth~tique M~di~vale.2 Thus, one may evaluate this book either as a translation or, presupposing the faithfulness and correctness of the translation itself... (shrink)

Rousseau is considered to be at once the most modern political thinker of the 18th century and the most ancient in his allegiance to classical republicanism. These essays address the place of liberty in his moral and political philosophy, and the origins, meaning, strength, weakness and significance of his argument.

It has recently been pointed out that the cloudiness of the concept of authenticity as well as inflated ideologies of the ‘true self’ provide good reasons to criticize theories and ideals of authenticity. Nevertheless, there are also good reasons to defend an ethical ideal of authenticity, not least because of its critical and oppositional force, which is directed against experiences of self-abandonment and self-alienation. I will argue for an elaborated ethical ideal of authenticity: the ambitious ideal of a continuous self-reflective (...) process of ‘self-authentication’. For this purpose, the ideal of being authentic in expressing and unfolding one’s individual personality and characteristics will be combined with the ideal of being ‘an authentic person’ - whereby ‘a person’ is to be understood in a Kantian sense as an autonomous person who is reasonable and morally responsible. (shrink)