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69 Chapter 2 Finite Wanderers Modern Western philosophy has made the subject the epicentre of inquiry. Kant suggests that the antennas of knowledge could neither reach God, nor yield an understanding of the infinite, but that certainty about the rules, which should guide a rational moral subject, would be more easily attainable. Even if the thing-in-itself proved to be somewhat elusive, patterns of subjective enquiry could be postulated more readily. Nevertheless, this retreat on the part of the subject proved to be dissatisfactory to many philosophers, because human beings yearn for something beyond their own reason to appeal to. Even Kant did not dispense with the notion of God entirely because human beings need a kind of “external reassurance” that their moral behaviour would somehow be rewarded. While the afterlife was unknowable, Kant reluctantly concedes that even our rationality is not sustainable without it. He widens the potential rift between the knowing subject and an unknowable world, and in so doing prepares the way for a philosophy of authenticity by focusing attention on the subject in a more direct way than had ever been done before. Hegel tries to soothe the modern mind by turning errors into partial truths that propel the subject along the path towards absolute knowledge. The finite does not fly in the face of the absolute, rather, it is the absolute itself in process. The grand Subject works through tottering individual subjects. In this way, Hegel tries to bridge the divide between subject and cosmos that Kant’s philosophy had drawn attention to. The ideal of authenticity maintains the preponderance of the subject but at the same time marks a shift away from the universal self towards a celebration of its specificity and nonuniversalizable nature. Kierkegaard 70 Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Daoist Thought vehemently rejects the Hegelian system and makes clear that we are burdened with weighty ethical decisions without having recourse to the kind of metaphysical comfort provided by notions of the absolute. While Kierkegaard maintains a faith in God, this is a God that is radically other and cannot provide readymade solutions to human dilemmas. Faith in an inherently ordered universe is abandoned. Kierkegaard’s philosophy suggests that the way in which individuals deal with their finitude, in light of the absence of an ordered universe, is the main test that the authentic self would have to undergo. Indeed, I would argue that authenticity becomes a greater concern once the pillars of metaphysical faith start to crumble. The subject can no longer simply derive its meaning from a clear notion of its place within a cosmic order. On the contrary, authenticity necessitates the creation of a meaningful life in an ungrounded world. According to Nietzsche, metaphysics equates sameness with truth, which has the effect of rendering the human subject predictable. Ironically , once metaphysical truths become too ritualized, faith in them begins to crumble. Normal and abnormal, rather than right and wrong, become expressions of social approval and scorn. It is no surprise that the ideal of authenticity is often formulated against the backdrop of a homogeneous mass culture, which is condemned in the writings of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, and is often seen as an upshot of metaphysical thinking. In such an environment, eccentricity and difference become powerful forms of revolt. Nietzsche venerates the iconoclast who strays from the norm. He sees mass culture as an attempt to stymie the constant becoming and flux that he associates with life. The growing spectre of facelessness sparks renewed interest in individuality and uniqueness , and the exhortation to chart a path that is uniquely one’s own becomes a common refrain. This is more than just a marking of difference , it also signifies a way of participating in the kinesis, or movement, that constitutes life in Nietzsche’s view. Heidegger also espouses an ideal of authenticity which had been driven underground in the stampede of that he calls the they-self or das Man. According to Heidegger, uniqueness has to be celebrated in order to actively find a place within the cosmos or Being. By making a niche for oneself (that one can call one’s own), one is also heeding the call of Being. Heidegger, like Nietzsche, does not insist that the self peel away the artificial exterior layers to reveal a true inner core, but rather that the authentic self be aware of its particular context and build a home within it rather than blindly accepting the conditions that he...

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