Authenticity (Heidegger) Heidegger maintains that there are two basic ways in which Dasein can exist in the world; namely (i) Inauthentic existence and (Ii) authentic existence Imauthenticity: A dasein who refuses to face his being fully and to assume responsibility for it, is guilty of inauthenticity of existence. inauthentic existence, says Heidegger, is best exemplified by a monotonous of ‘everydayness’, Man Is thrown into the world without his consent. He finds himself in the world with other beings and things. This being-with-others is usually swallowed up in the inauthentic collectivism of the ‘they’. Now we may fail to separate our own individual potentialities from the impersonal mass of mankind at large. We may accept in our day-to-day life, all the standards, the beliefs and prejudices of the society in which we find ourselves. Heidegger calls it ‘public conscience’, he asks: “what else could it be than the voice of the ‘they’? This kind of conscience simply reflects the commonly accepted standards of right and wrong, The true conscience, or the conscience at a deeper level, functions precisely in delivering us from the voice of the ‘they’ “Conscience summons Dasein’s self from its lostness in the ‘they. Only when he stops listening to the voice of the ‘they’ can the existent truly hear the call of conscience. It is the call of authentic existence struggling to be born. This call is addressed to the inauthentic or the fallen self. inauthentic existence which shows itself in the ‘everydayness’ of Dasein is also called ‘fallenness’ by Heidegger. Instead of searching for truly existential projects which will give him a meaningful and authentic existence, Dasein allows himself to be distracted by intraworldly beings. He, therefore, falls away from himself and falls into the world, Fallenness indicates a distinctive type of being, which is ‘completely fascinated by the world and by the Dasein of others in the ‘they’. ‘There are three chief ways in which inauthentic existence on the part of Dasein makes itself known. They are (i) Idle talk or Chatter, (ii) Curiosity and (iii) Ambiguity. The first mode, idle talk or chatter is a kind of useless talk which takes the place of meaningful communication and thoughtful silence. The second way is a type of curiosity, which is a distracting preoccupation with information about life, rather than with the fundamental question in search of the Being of beings. The final mode of inauthenticity is described as ambiguity, which is a giving in to the practical necessities of life rendering a true search after Being impossible. Fallenness, however, does not express a negative quality, it is true that this mode of existence is inauthentic; and yet inauthenticity is a kind of necessary prerequisite for achieving genuine authenticity. Each Dasein arrives at authenticity only by way of a previously inauthentic state. Authentic existence can begin only when we have realized and thoroughly understood what we are. Once we have grasped that human reality is characterized by the fact that each human being is, uniquely himself and no one else, and that each of us has his own possibilities to fulfill, then our concern with the world, instead of being a mere concern to do as people in general do, to do things necessarily for a living as other members of the society live, can become authentic concern, to fulfill our real potentiality in the world. The concept of authenticity, of the necessity for each one of us to realize his own uniqueness, is plainly very like the concept of inwardness or subjectivity as expounded by Kierkegaard. It is precisely in this insistence upon the individuality of the life of each man, and the impossibility of being satisfied with the second hand, the general object, which would do for anyone, that the common character of existentialism is to be found. Heidegger's conclusion have arisen from an examination of the phenomenon of man in the society. We can discover the meaning of our situation only by considering the way in which we are, as it were attuned to the situation. We must analyze our stimmungen or moods. As a direct means of pursuingthe end of discovering the nature of the relation between human beings and beings-in-general for part of the human exposure to the world is shown in the characteristic moods that he adopts. In recognizing that we are in a certain situation we thereby feel in a certain way. Heidegger, here draws a distinction between the two related but different attitudes, that is between fear and anxiety (angst), we experience fear as we recognize some specific threat , constituted for us by our situation, typically a threat to our life itself. We experience anxiety, on the other hand, in the face of nothing in particular in our situation. We are driven by fear, and our purpose is to save ourselves, we are driven by anxiety to drawn ourselves in the trivial, the social, in all the ingredients of inauthentic existence For, there is an inauthentic counterpart, to all the authentic ways of experiencing concern towards the world. In order to understand Heidegger's concept of authenticity, we first have to understand the two concepts, both related to the concept of concern, namely the concept of Nothing and the concept of Time. Dasein as a being-in-the-world is different from the things around him, and, however, one describes the world, there will always be an element of negation. To find out the truth about things is to attempt to reveal them, and this is to show that they are not as they first appear. Moreover, the human being, in seeing himself in the context of the world, and different from other things in it, comes to realize that he is always moving toward some unrealized possibility. By merely staying alive, he is recognizing a future which consists of things which are not yet real. The very idea of change involves negation, what is going to happen is what has not yet happened. Dasein recognizes at the very early stage that he is mortal. This entails the recognition of the truth that sooner or later, he will not exist. Heidegger regards this genuine acceptance of the future non- existence of himself as the first step toward the authentic way of life. In accepting it the human being recognizes that he is alone, distinct from every other person and object in the world, no longer able to turn for support to people in general. He must die his own death, by himself. So not existing at all is the final end towards which he is moving. In this sense Heidegger's concept of Michts means ‘non- existence’ or ‘nothing’. Authenticity consists in a realization of one’s position in the world, one’s isolation and one’s inevitable orientation towards one’s own death. Before this realization can be complete, one has to experience oneself as something suspended over a void. The concept of ‘nothingness’, as Heidegger understands it, is connected explicitly with the finitude of human beings, their essential movement towards their ‘own end in death. The realization of man’s finitude is the beginning of his concept of nothing, and since finitude means the fact that man is mortal. The idea of Nothing and Time are linked, Heidegger insists that man is a temporal being. Temporality is the name of the way in which Time exists in human existence. There would be no concern if there were no temporality. We are aware of the past, the present and the future, in three different ways and accordance with these ways, we are aware first of the ‘facticity’ of ourselves in the world (that is such facts as where we were born, who our parents were, eéc); secondly of the immediate business of the moment, what is actually before our eyes; and finally we are aware of our possibilities, towards the fulfillment of which is the most important.