The common-sense idea of "authentic" is something that is "real" or "genuine", but rather than playing around with synonyms, I want to see if I can set out some preliminary qualifiers for something being authentic.
- Scientific/Empirical authenticity. This one is pretty self-explanatory, and has been the foundation of science since the days of Francis Bacon- what we can prove by experiment is "authentic" everything is is to be relegated to less than "authentic"- to the murky world of philosophical squabblings if you like. Probably the most important proponent of this view was WVO Quine. The problem with this is that it is just too narrow-minded, of course the scientific method can give us amazing results about facts, truths about objects in the world; but it can tell us nothing about moral truths or existential truths(it may give us some interesting data about moral and existential semantics, but says nothing about ontology). The second problem- the one I can't get around is that it cannot prove the truth of it's own claims. When one applies Descartes' scepticism it becomes clear that we must remain entirely agnostic about the power of science to give us results that are actually true. As Einstein said, the only unintelligible thing about the universe is that it is intelligible. I don't agree entirely with this statement, but I think it illustrates my point nicely.
- Dogmatic authenticity. This one is my own invention, and I think it's important to realise the power it has when one considers questions of this kind. Dogmatic authenticity takes as it's qualifier one particular thing or aspect of human life- whether that is the Bible, the Qur'an, Marxism, Hegelianism, etc... What I mean is that authenticity is judged by how it fits into a particular worldview. Take for example certain strains of Zionism, for these people, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 was an event not just in history, but it was a part of their "prophetic calendar". This gives certain events, people, documents or beliefs a kind of authenticity which is not extended to others as it does not fit in with a certain belief system. For an excellent critique of this kind of "authenticity" see Karl Popper's The Open Society And It's Enemies and The Poverty Of Historicism. I am talking about this primarily in a political way, but it has ramifications beyond the political sphere.
- Existentialist Authenticity. Stephen can now finish huffing because I am now going to talk about existentialism and continental philosophy and all that. For an existentialist, having an authentic relationship between your Daesin and the world means that you are not relying on anything empty or illusory or transient. For example, consider the many people who gave their lives fighting for the ideal of communism, they devoted and sacrificed their lives for something they believed was greater than themselves(that's what Daniel Dennett- my hero, whom I love; but often criticise- says is the 'meaning of life': "to find something greater than yourself and devote your life to it.") but now we can see that Communism is a failed utopia, therefore these people, according to someone like Sartre, have lived their lives in "bad faith". So can we ever have "good faith"? Well, that's a question that I doubt philosophers will ever agree upon. I've written on this elsewhere and my own opinion is that to have "good faith" one must become irrational. I mean irrational in the sense that you must make a decision informed by faith, and not by deductive evidence. With any decision like this there is always an element of risk, there will always remain several "what if" questions, but it is the only way to avoid despair according to thinkers like Kierkegaard and Sartre.
In conclusion I would stress that in seeking the third kind of authenticity, one must get beyond the limiting scope of the first kind but also avoid going so far as the second kind. I think that humans are a peculiar mixture of rational and irrational, and that rather than seeking to get beyond this, we should learn to live with it, and the first step in doing so is in understanding the human condition. Stephen will hopefully clean up the absolute dog's dinner I've made of trying to explain this....
Dave.
"When one applies Descartes' scepticism it becomes clear that we must remain entirely agnostic about the power of science to give us results that are actually true."
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for science to give you things that are actually true, I think you've misunderstood the method; it's designed to give the most accurate answer. The implicit assumption that a more accurate answer is somehow "true"-er is technically separate. e.g. "Shut up and calculate" is a perfectly valid answer to the question of which interpretation of QM is true.
"The second problem- the one I can't get around is that it cannot prove the truth of it's own claims."
Isn't this pretty much true by definition? I want to say that it's a consequence of GIT, but I'm not sure you can extend the logic in quite that way. Regardless, it would be very suspicious to me if any system of reasoning turned around and validated itself.