The authenticity argument
It is by taking on my death that I truly become myself.
Supports
Heidegger · Being and Time · 1927
- In everyday busyness, I mostly live as "one" lives: scattered among tasks, rumors and everyone's opinions, I keep postponing the question of what I truly want.
- Death, however, cannot be delegated: no one can die in my place, and no one knows when. It is my ownmost possibility, the one that sets me apart and that nothing surpasses.
- Facing it lucidly, instead of fleeing it, brings me at once back to the essential: this finite time is mine, and it is for me to answer for it, here, now.
Therefore Therefore facing death is not morbid: it is the condition of an existence, chosen rather than undergone.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
Deepenings
Fleeing into the "they"
- notes that death is everywhere softened: "one dies," we say, as if it were an anonymous and distant fact, never my own death.
- This flight is reassuring but costly: by hiding my finitude from me, it also robs me of the urgency that could make my life truly mine.
How far does this reasoning convince you?
Not at all
Entirely
Put to the test
Objection