An "Authentic" Problem in Heidegger's "Being And Time"

Abstract

There is a tension in Heidegger's concept of authenticity. On the one hand, authenticity is described as the correlate of inauthenticity and has the function of mineness (Jemeinigkeit) in contrast to the impersonality of the they (das Man). On the other, authenticity is prescribed as an ideal. In this paper, I will examine critically the interrelation of the three concepts of conscience, authenticity, and resoluteness. More specifically, I will show that if authenticity is an ideal towards which Dasein should aspire, then care as the primordial structural totality, as the unity of Dasein, would become questionable. For it would conspire to undermine the a priori status of care. However, the general tenor of Being and Time suggests that authenticity is the meaning of Being, and this thesis is strongly supported by the dimension of care as the matrix of meaning.1 Therefore, since care is