Journal of College and Character

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Martin Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity: A

Philosophical Contribution to Student Affairs
Theory

Glen L Sherman

To cite this article: Glen L Sherman (2009) Martin Heidegger's Concept of Authenticity: A
Philosophical Contribution to Student Affairs Theory, Journal of College and Character, 10:7, , DOI:
10.2202/1940-1639.1440

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© 2009 The Authors

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Featured Articles

Journal of College & Character VOLUME X, NO. 7, November 2009

Martin Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity: A Philosophical

Contribution to Student Affairs Theory
Glen L. Sherman, William Paterson University1

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Abstract

The author demonstrates how the concept of authenticity, as explicated in Heidegger’s early work
Being and Time, contributes to student affairs work. Following a brief presentation of Heidegger’s
philosophical understanding of human existence and how this bears upon his conception of
authenticity is a discussion of key implications of Heidegger’s thought for the field of student
affairs.
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Human Being as Dasein

H eidegger is concerned with how we can understand what being in the world means and our
experience of it. He finds that the first phenomenological fact of existence is that we are
always already out there in the world. He thus describes our human being (as opposed to the
being of an inanimate object or non-human animal) as Dasein. The German expression literally
means there-being. To describe human being as Dasein is an attempt to leave behind
philosophical notions of the individual as subject, and more broadly, the subject-object duality of
the individual and the world, that is, interior consciousness juxtaposed against an objective world
outside of it. Rather, for Heidegger we are out there embedded in the world, engaged with tools
and objects of our experience. Heidegger (1962) says, “Dasein finds ‘itself’ proximally in what it
does, uses, expects, avoids—in those things environmentally ready-to-hand with which it is
proximally concerned ” (p. 155). Only when these tools break down or go missing do we stop
and treat these entities as separate, conspicuous objects. For example, college students relegate
large segments of their personal and social lives to the virtual world and do not think twice about
it—until the network goes down. Then they are suddenly faced with themselves and others in
more traditional ways, if only temporarily. Heidegger’s Dasein, or there-being, intends to capture
the immediacy for us of the “what is” of human experience as we experience it. This immediacy
is fraught with meaning and implications for who we really are.
Heidegger refers to human being first finding itself situated in a world as facticity. In
contrast to the simplistic way existentialism is sometimes portrayed—that humans are absolutely
free to choose—Heidegger’s notion of facticity is acknowledgement that parameters within which
human possibility or freedom reside are delimited. Dasein is thrown into the world, which means
that in some sense one is always a product of the time, place, and culture within which one is
born, lives, and dies. But within this facticity, these circumscribed limits, there is freedom—in
fact, the necessity of choice. In other words, as thrown, we are thrust into a set of circumstances,

1
.Glen L. Sherman is associate vice president and dean of student development at William Paterson
University. His earned his doctorate in clinical psychology at Duquesne University and a master’s degree
in philosophy from Binghamton University.

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2 Journal of College and Character VOLUME X, NO.7, November 2009

and freedom lies in choosing to embrace our thrown possibility. This duality exists at each and
every moment of our existence and bears upon our potentiality for being authentic.

Everydayness and the They

D asein’s inevitable tendency is to fall into an everyday mode of existence, an absorption into
the common world of experience that is most readily at-hand. This everyday way of being
Heidegger names the they (das Mann). The they is everyone and no one in particular. In this
everyday mode of existence, we forget ourselves. It “dissolves one’s own Dasein completely into
the kind of Being of ‘the Others’, in such a way, indeed, that the Others, as distinguishable and
explicit, vanish more and more” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 164). This everyday mode of being tends
toward the average, a leveling down of the truest and best possibilities of Dasein to a common
currency of existence. It is the common world of experience made up of fads, styles, behaviors,
and vernacular, in which we automatically participate and take for granted. We experience it
ourselves in so far as our everyday and habitual concerns occupy our attention and behavior.
Most of the time, then, the self which each of us is, is derived from the common understandings
and possibilities which they define for us—the clothes we buy in shops, the notions and ideas we
hold about current issues, the common expressions we utilize, the activities and events in which
we engage. In other words, for the most part Dasein unknowingly surrenders its unique
individuality to these commonly defined styles of living, thinking, and communicating and
defines itself by them. It is not we ourselves, as individuals, who have constructed these, but
rather das Mann. So that the way Dasein is absorbed for the most part in its everyday concern is
in-the-world, is prescribed by the they. Heidegger (1962) says: “The ‘they’, which supplies the
answer to the question of the ‘who’ of everyday Dasein, is the ‘nobody’ to whom every Dasein
has already surrendered itself . . .” (p. 165). What is especially poignant about this tendency for
college students is how it relates to what we typically refer to as the developmental stage in which
they are establishing their individual identity. This is a time when they are most prone to trying
on and fleeing into what is trendy or common precisely because they carry the burden of
establishing their own authentic self-defined identity.
While we cannot and should not try to avoid these average ways of taking up our lives,
our everyday activities in the world of our concern, it is also the case that these are leveled down
ways of knowing ourselves. In this everyday mode we have not really found our selves—in fact,
we have lost our true selves, our authentic selves. In this mode, we are inauthentic. And yet, the
designation inauthentic is not intended pejoratively or critically, but rather as a description of an
existential fact. In its reduced-to-average mode, Dasein is alienated from its authentic self. Our
everyday self, as suggested above, is a common reduction of our own genuine possibilities and
the person we can authentically be. Heidegger (1962) describes our average everydayness as
bringing Dasein “tranquility” (p. 222), and suggests that in some way it provides the illusion that
all is well and everything is in order, when in actuality, something is amiss.

Anxiety

A nxiety occurs when the totality of involvements, the entities within the world, the way
Dasein was once engaged with the they world, falls away. In that moment “the world has
the character of completely lacking significance” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 231). Nothing and no one
is appealing or can be engaged, for in that moment Dasein no longer can understand itself in
terms of the way the world is publicly interpreted, but rather is thrown back upon itself and its
“freedom of choosing itself and taking hold of itself” (p. 232). Dasein has been individualized.
Anxiety “pursues Dasein constantly and is a constant threat to its everyday lostness in the ‘they’ ,
though not explicitly” (p. 234). It is always there, omnipresent and on the verge of breaking

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 Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity 3

through, though we are very adept at fleeing from it. But what exactly is it that we are fleeing?
“That in the face of which one has anxiety is Being-in-the-world as such” (p. 230) or our essential
finitude, which demands that we will all die.
When individuals move along comfortably in their everyday, inauthentic modes of
engagement (e.g., when students are engaged in a social networking website, when they are
eating in a food court with friends, or when they are engaged in studying), they enable themselves
to lose sight of this central fact.

Finitude and Death

D asein is always in relation to death, but most of the time in the awareness that accompanies
our average everyday selves, this relationship is disregarded. We live as if death is an
abstract idea that is off some time in the distant future, never really to happen. We typically do
not live with its reality present to us, guiding our day-to-day decisions. This indifference is
possible because “Along with the certainty of death goes the indefiniteness of its ‘when’”
(Heidegger, 1962, p. 302). This uncertainty allows us to evade death by escaping into our
everyday world of concern and living as if life is unending, full of infinite possibility. Even in
experiencing the death of others (e.g., when we grieve for significant others), there is a distancing
of that experience from the reality of our own death. We rarely identify that occurrence with our
own possibility of dying. The expanse of time ahead of us typically seems, if not infinite, lengthy
and full of possibilities. This outlook is especially true for college students, who oftentimes
behave and make decisions as if they were immortal. They often avoid acknowledging the reality
that death could come at any moment. Yet, it is ultimately a critical fact of who we all are, and
this fact defines our existence profoundly. “As soon as man comes to life,” writes Heidegger, “he
is at once old enough to die” (p. 289).
Now you might say that to dwell on this morbid subject is depressing, and certainly we
would not advocate that our primarily youthful and full-of-promise college students be
preoccupied with this issue. Heidegger himself clarifies that he is not suggesting that we brood
over our impending death. But mortality, the ultimate human reality, needs to be reckoned with
rather than avoided: what would everyday living be like, how would it impact us, to switch into a
more realistic understanding of and appreciation for our mortality and death’s significance?
For Heidegger, when Dasein truly reckons with the reality of death and owns that its fate
is sealed by the limitations death imposes, our finitude, the everyday world falls away—others,
the objects of concern, everything. These are the moments of anxiety described previously.
Think of what happens to persons the moment they receive a diagnosis of cancer or another
terminal disease. Think of what happens more typically to college students when they receive a
diagnosis of HIV or are involved in a serious car accident. The dread and anxiety experienced in
that moment are uniquely their own. There is nothing anyone can do for them. They are
completely alone with the knowledge that they could be facing the end (or at least a radically
modified existence). And although the possibility has always been there (and always is for each
of us at all times), they are staring death in the face for the first time, and it is looking back at
them. What these individuals do with that knowledge is telling. How often have we seen or heard
that for someone in this situation, all priorities shift suddenly—whatever time remains is allocated
to what is now deemed essential and most important. In the case of students awakening from a
near-death experience with alcohol poisoning or overdose, their resolve about how to conduct
themselves in the future is typically dramatically different than what had been the case up until
that point.
The previous examples are concrete instances when Dasein cannot flee from the reality of
its situation (unless it goes into the mode of denial, which often happens, at least for a while).
What Heidegger is talking about, however, is that while Dasein for the most part covers over and

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4 Journal of College and Character VOLUME X, NO.7, November 2009

flees from this awareness of our being toward death, this reaction is not the only possibility. It is
possible for this truth to somehow be kept in sight. “The entity which anticipates its non-
relational possibility [death], is thus forced by that very anticipation into the possibility of taking
over from itself its own most Being, and doing so of its own accord” (p. 308). In this regard,
Heidegger says:

When one becomes free for one’s own death, one is liberated from one’s lostness in those
possibilities which may accidentally thrust themselves upon one; and one is liberated in
such a way that for the first time one can authentically understand and choose among the
factical possibilities lying ahead of that possibility which is not to be outstripped [death].
(p. 308)

Each Dasein must “own” and reflect upon what this reality means for what she or he does
in the sense of knowing and defining what is most valuable, most important, most essential—and
then live in harmony with this. Heidegger says, “holding death for true does not demand just one
definite kind of behavior in Dasein, but demands Dasein itself in the full authenticity of its
existence” (pp. 309-310).

Authenticity

F or Heidegger, being authentic does not require some exceptional effort or discipline, like
meditation. Rather, it entails a kind of shift in attention and engagement, a reclaiming of
oneself, from the way we typically fall into our everyday ways of being. It is about how we
approach the world in our daily activities. Dasein inevitably moves between our day-by-day
enmeshment with the they and a seizing upon glimpses of our truer, uniquely individual
possibilities for existence. The challenge is to bring ourselves back from our lostness in the they
to retrieve ourselves so that we can become our authentic selves.
This finding of itself by Dasein, Heidegger says, is a response to the voice or call of
conscience. He does not mean here anything like a moral imperative to do the right thing
according to an external law, but rather a clear and focused listening to and heeding of one’s
unique capabilities and potential. In doing so Dasein authentically understands itself and is able to
act in the world accordingly. This type of action for Heidegger would be authentic and ethical
action in the sense of its indication that one is being true to oneself, hence the language of
conscience. For instance, in career development work in college and university, counselors offer
guidance to students so they can better understand themselves in terms of their aptitudes,
interests, and abilities. They encourage them to discover their true “vocation” (their calling), the
type of work which would suit them and be their own. This calling is precisely what Heidegger is
talking about. Heidegger refers to this unique and special moment in Dasein’s existence, when
there is clarity about the self, as the moment of vision. In conjunction with this moment of clear
vision, Heidegger uses the concept of resoluteness to capture what it means for Dasein to heed
this call of conscience and act accordingly and consistently, over time. He says that resoluteness
or resolve means “letting oneself be summoned out of one’s lostness in the ‘they’” (Heidegger,
1962, p. 345) and carving out one’s unique and authentic place in and approach to the world,
doing one’s work with this special intent and self-knowledge.

Connecting Heidegger’s Philosophy with Student Affairs

H ow does this philosophy bear upon theory and practice in student affairs work? One
criticism might be that this theory is too esoteric and full of jargon, too abstract to be
relevant. Another criticism might say that it is not empirically based, especially with current

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 Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity 5

professional emphasis on evidenced-based practice. What Heidegger gives us is a larger picture,

the study of the nature of how humans experience themselves and the world, which is prior and
foundational to traditional theories and ways of thinking that student affairs has utilized to ground
its practice. Heidegger’s phenomenology claims to take a step back from the way we ordinarily
conceptualize and theorize about reality and begin from immediacy of experience, which has
priority for him, and elicit the structure of experience from there. For Heidegger, true
understanding of experience must begin with this phenomenological starting point, the
immediacy of experience. This manner of understanding lies at the basis of human science and
qualitative research. What Heidegger explicates in Being and Time are fundamental constituents
of existence that necessarily inform experience—for example, the horizon of death and its
implications for our lived reckoning with time. These core constituents of existence necessarily
impact any theory we might choose to utilize as a ground for work with students in activities or
programming.

Dasein and Student Development

T heories of student development generally have a positive tone to them and convey growth
and forward progress. Even when there are challenge and disintegration of old values or
ways of thinking, there usually follow re-integration and re-consolidation into a new way of
perceiving and experiencing. And while this process sometimes occurs by way of a temporary
moratorium or regression to prior levels of development, the overall movement is conceived like
a number line, with latter occurrences consecutively representing increased value or enhanced
experience. In contrast to this developmental orientation, a definition of identity formation
consistent with Heidegger’s notion of Dasein, with its fallenness (into the they) and thrownness,
the back and forth motion of everydayness and authenticity, would not move along a comparable
trajectory. Rather, there is a kind of repetition or ever-lasting return to our true selves, which we
are fated to repeat. This condition is inevitably part and parcel of who we are. As Zimmerman
(1981) pointed out, there is a kind of cumulative effect of numerous and repeated moments of
resoluteness wherein the student may come to recognize her or his true self over time. If we
accept the conception of identity and identity formation as fundamentally related to authenticity,
then it provides an organizational principle for all our activities, which is to create an
environment and numerous opportunities for students to discover their true selves.

The Student’s Everyday World of Concern and the They

A stin’s notion of involvement (1984) reflects an application of the philosophical idea

Heidegger intends in his discussions of the way Dasein is first and foremost circumspect
with the everyday environment. When a student is unable to become involved in the environment
(due to feelings of discomfort or not being included), the student becomes distanced from her or
his immediate environment. It becomes a problematic object of observation. When this happens,
students are unable to engage in the absorbed way Heidegger describes and are self-conscious and
isolated. The locale they are now living or working in has become disrupted, is not comfortable,
and they may not succeed. Facilitating comfort, helping them feel at home, is a necessary first
step for creating conditions in which later on they can better understand themselves. This process
of acclimation, then alienation is consistent with what Heidegger has described as a natural
inclination to fall into the everyday and is consistent with student affairs professionals’ intention
to create an environment of self-discovery for students. It is also consistent with Sanford’s notion
(1967) of providing the right balance of support and challenge. Thus many of our programs like
orientation or first year seminar, which are intended to create an environment or atmosphere
where students can begin to feel at home and are able to move through and readily engage in the

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6 Journal of College and Character VOLUME X, NO.7, November 2009

world of the campus environment, remain absolutely critical. The question becomes toward what
end are we making them comfortable? What is it that we as student affairs professionals hope that
students will ultimately be able to do (or be) in the college environment, and beyond? What
Heidegger’s philosophy would suggest is that this programming should be in the service of
assisting students with discovering their true selves—over time. As such, we would need to select
appropriate messages that convey this intent. First year programs hold the potential for creating
the proper environment for a student’s emerging and subsequent process of self-discovery.

Anxiety, Death, Authenticity, Resoluteness

C learly, we would not want students to dwell on death and acquire morbid outlooks. The
approach described in this article is not a proposal that campus leaders and other staff
members routinely gather up students and ask them to contemplate, in some type of encounter
group, their deaths and the significance of death on their lives. But being attuned to the
transitional periods of students’ lives, while encouraging them to be more open to the call of
conscience and challenging them to be more reflective about what truly matters to them, is
important and desirable. Professionals do encourage this type of reflective process already, for
example, in the area of career development and counseling when students go for help in crisis.
Heidegger himself implies that these things (like the call to conscience) are not intended to be
cultivated in others or even self-consciously in ourselves. Such contrived promotion of these
concepts would be too subjectivistic or even moralistic, and that is not Heidegger’s intention.
And yet, there definitely are times when students are more open to possibilities than at
other times, when they are in an exploratory mode, whether these times concern their relations
with others or with their world. For instance, every year on many campuses students who drink
excessively are transported from residence halls to hospital emergency rooms for alcohol
poisoning. Other students are present and aware of what is happening. They are deeply affected
by what they witness and the possibility that the students will die. They themselves may or may
not have been drinking with the students. This observation is a “teachable moment,” when student
affairs staff can facilitate greater insight and resultant intent. One might ask students, “What does
this terrible shocking experience say to you about your own lives and the choices and decisions
you wish to make in the future?” In other words, besides being supportive, the staff member can
also encourage reflective thinking that deeply informs students’ creation of their authentic selves.
Zimmerman (1981) says: “The resolute person faithfully holds himself open for the moment of
truth, although he cannot know when it will come” (p. 98). That openness to such moments of
truth would apply to student affairs staff members in their work with students, as well as for the
Dasein of all students in relation to their own being. Without being directive or forcing the issue,
student affairs staff can aid students in their reflection and help them aim at a trajectory within the
horizon of the student’s authentic self.

Conclusion

A uthenticity suggests a unifying theme for students’ transformative experience that trumps
every other possibility. Heidegger would suggest that for each and every student, whether or
not he or she is philosophical by inclination, there is a reckoning with the reality of Dasein—that
finitude brings with it the reality of authenticity and inauthenticity, the need to hearken to the call
of conscience and to be resolute in a way that guides the choices Dasein makes. While we are
destined to fall away from this authentic mode of existence into the world of everyday concern, it
is also within this world of concern that we build our lives by the decisions we make and the tasks
we undertake every day. Hence, choosing one general direction over another (e.g., the pursuit of

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 Heidegger’s Concept of Authenticity 7

money as an end in itself or social service work), being a certain way, and being invested in
certain values, rather than others, do result in a different totality and quality of experience.
If the truth of students’ authentic existence is always to be discovered, then their purpose
in attending a college or university may be greater than they know when they arrive. At some
level, all students probably know that they will be altered in fundamental ways through their
college experiences, but they probably do not really know in advance how this will occur, what
this means. One might argue that they eagerly and willingly seek these transformations out—that
is the reason they attend. This philosophical approach suggests that the aim of all of our
programming and interactions would be to facilitate students’ understanding of themselves and
help them discover how to find their way and be true to themselves, which could also entail
exposing the everyday world and the possibilities of worlds beyond it.

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8 Journal of College and Character VOLUME X, NO.7, November 2009

References

Astin, A. W. (1984). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal
of College Student Personnel, 25, 297-308.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson, Trans.). New York:
Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)
Sanford, N. (1967). Where colleges fail: A study of the student as a person. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Zimmerman, M. E. (1981). Eclipse of the self: The development of Heidegger's concept of
authenticity. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press.

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