Heidegger on Authenticity: Realizing Finitude

Heidegger thinks the authenticity and inauthenticity of Dasein from out of a specific relatedness into which he places Dasein together with its being.

Inauthenticity as Lostness in the They

According to Heidegger, between Dasein and its being, there exists a relatedness because Dasein’s being is an issue for Dasein. In this relatedness, Dasein’s being is announced as something that Dasein can either attain or lose and let recede into forgetfulness.

For Heidegger, both authenticity and inauthenticity are modes of Dasein’s being in the world. Heidegger says that Dasein becomes authentic only when it chooses itself and thus achieves itself in its being from out of its own being in the world. Inauthentic Dasein, on the other hand, is completely lost in the They and therefore fails to achieve itself in its being. 

Dasein, whose everydayness is completely dominated by the They, is, originally and to a large extent, inauthentic, unable to take responsibility for its own possibilities and projects, and unable to come face to face with itself and its commitments. In a word, inauthenticity takes place when Dasein lets the They determines its possibilities and decides its projects.  

But this does not mean that authenticity detaches Dasein from the They or renders them radically apart or distanced from each other. Authenticity merely renders modified or altered the relation linking together Dasein and the They without rendering them unrelated. Authentic existence renders modified the way Dasein exists in the world, in its world. 

Authentic Being-one’s-Self does not rest upon an exceptional condition of the subject, a condition that has been detached from the “They”; it is rather an existentiell modification of the “They”— of the “They” as an essential existentiale.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

Authenticity only renders modified the relation into which Dasein and the They are brought together: What does this mean? Authentic Dasein does not leave behind the world that it shares with the They; it does not leave behind the world already formed by and through the They; authentic Dasein does not leave the They behind. Authentic Dasein also remains absorbed in the They, for absorption is a characteristic of Dasein’s existence in the world; both authentic and inauthentic existences are absorbed in the They. The danger, for Heidegger, is not Dasein’s absorption in the They, but rather Dasein’s lostness in the They.

This “absorption in” has mostly the character of Being-lost in the publicness of the “They”. Dasein has, in the first instance, fallen away from itself as an authentic potentiality for Being its Self.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

In a word, inauthenticity takes place when Dasein is lost in the They. This lostness renders Dasein’s own existentiality concealed from Dasein. Inauthentic Dasein misses itself and is not itself, for it is dispersed into the They and unable to find itself. 

Inauthenticity occurs and holds sway because there exists an enormous pressure to conform to the They. Dasein constantly finds itself thrown into an already decided world and thus finds itself continuously forced to assimilate to what is holding sway in its world. In an already pre-determined and pre-decided world, Dasein only appears to be choosing, while, in fact, it is only carrying out what the They expects and demands.

In other words, the choices of Dasein are not genuine acts of choosing; they are merely unthought and unquestioned scopes through which the They implements its own decisions and choices. Hence, inauthentic Dasein is distanced and alienated from its own possibilities; it constantly follows and awaits the They; it thinks toward its own possibilities only through the They.

Finitude and the Possibility of Authenticity 

According to Heidegger, death, as a possibility, as the possibility of Dasein’s impossibility, is Dasein’s ownmost possibility and, in its being entirely Dasein’s own, thus what could modify the relation linking together Dasein and the They. Authentic Dasein does not evade its ownmost possibility, the possibility of its own impossibility, but rather anticipates it, according to Heidegger. 

Anticipating death does not mean awaiting it as an event. Anticipating death means that the finitude of Dasein has disclosed itself to Dasein and, through this disclosure, has thus enabled Dasein to become free for its own finitude and free in its understanding and choosing of the factical and finite possibilities offering themselves in its world.

Anticipating death enables Dasein to think differently toward its own possibilities, both the already attained and the still awaited. This different thinking, this free glimpsing, enables Dasein to modify its relation with the They in such a way that allows Dasein to not take the possibilities of the They as its own possibilities and to not impose its own possibilities on others.

Resolutely anticipating death disrupts Dasein’s complete dispersion into the They; resolutely anticipating death disrupts Dasein’s unquestioned and unthought conforming to the They. This disruption is first made possible through an encounter in which Dasein is brought face to face with the possibility of its own impossibility. In other words, the possibility of Dasein’s impossibility brings Dasein face to face with its own unique possibilities of being.

Conscience, Heidegger says, confirms that authenticity belongs to Dasein’s possibilities and capabilities, for it calls upon Dasein to acknowledge responsibility for its own existence in the world. Conscience, Heidegger says, calls upon Dasein to take responsibility for its entire existence. 

Authentic Dasein attends to the call of its conscience; authentic Dasein listens to itself. Through its attending to its call of conscience and through its listening to itself, Dasein takes itself back from the They. “Hearing the call of conscience” enables Dasein to free itself from the world that the They completely decides and forms; “hearing the call of conscience” enables Dasein to take itself back from the They in such a way that allows Dasein to carry out genuine acts of choosing. 

Authentic Dasein carries out genuine acts of choosing because this choosing is carried out in the space opened up by the encounter in which Dasein comes face to face with the possibility of its own impossibility. This encounter reveals Dasein’s freedom to Dasein and allows Dasein to realize that it is still able to grasp and choose itself in its being. 

In other words, the moment at which Dasein is brought face to face with its finitude is itself the moment when Dasein is brought before the authenticity of its own being. In Being and Time, Heidegger says that a particular transparency permeates the choosing of authentic Dasein:

The more authentically Dasein resolves—and this means that in anticipating death it understands itself unambiguously in terms of its ownmost distinctive possibility— the more unequivocally does it choose and find the possibility of its existence, and the less does it do so by accident. Only by the anticipation of death is every accidental and ‘provisional’ possibility driven out. Only Being-free for death, gives Dasein its goal outright and pushes existence into its finitude.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

According to Heidegger, death renders Dasein free; it frees Dasein in the sense that it enables Dasein to take back or even give up any particular resolution. Through death, Dasein comes to itself and thinks differently toward its factical situation in the world. Authentic Dasein, Heidegger says, realizes and grasps its concrete situation in the world. Inauthentic Dasein, on the contrary, is only familiar with the “general circumstances” surrounding its existence. 

This means that authentic Dasein deliberately thinks its being and fundamentally chooses its own possibilities. Hence, authenticity, Heidegger says, individualizes Dasein. This individualization happens because authentic Dasein is not dispersed into the They anymore. 

To the being of authentic Dasein belongs thus a certain freedom; freedom from the They, freedom from the complete dispersion into the They, freedom from being lost in the possibilities that the They imposes and announces as fixed and determined. Lostness in the They indicates inflexibility and unfreedom. Inauthentic Dasein is unfree insofar as it is unable to encounter a meaningful world that is not determined, formed, and decided by the They.