❤️Something about Philosophy - Authenticity
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The fourth Thursday of the month is our time to get together for camaraderie, a fun meal, and of course a discussion, regarding something about Philosophy.
Authenticity: Owning One’s Being
What does it mean to live authentically—not as a passive product of the “they” (das Man), but as a resolute individual who owns their existence in the face of death, anxiety, and the finitude of time?
We’ll explore this question by reading Division II of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time.
In Division II of Being and Time, Martin Heidegger shifts from analyzing everyday existence to a far more intimate question: What would it mean to truly own one’s life?
Heidegger moves from the everyday inauthenticity of fallenness to the call of conscience, resoluteness, and the ecstatic temporality that makes genuine selfhood possible.
Authenticity, for Heidegger, is not a moral ideal or a personality trait. It is an existential shift—one that emerges when we confront our finitude, loosen the grip of the anonymous “they,” and begin to relate to our lives as something uniquely ours to live.
This is not a conceptual discussion alone. It is an invitation to examine:
• Where we are living by inherited scripts
• Where we are evading or postponing ourselves
• What changes when we face our lives as finite and non-transferable
Our aim will be less about interpreting Heidegger, and more about encountering ourselves through him.
Come prepared not just to discuss authenticity—but to notice where, and how, it is already asking something of you.
Video Commentary
Begin the commentary at 2:33