As an adolescent, I learned several epigrammatic sayings so obviously true that they hardly seemed worth preserving as I grew older. One was from the Bible: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set ye free." In my intellectual games, I would occasionally use these sayings. Because I was interested in protecting myself from the truth, however, the sayings never affected me. In college, where I became skilled at using philosophical terms, I assumed I was pursuing the truth about myself and the world. In fact, by depending on theories to explain things, I was able to postpone confrontation with the truth. These sayings and theories revealed their proper depth only when I was called on to make decisions which altered my self understanding. After one such decision, when I had experienced how truth could free me from self-imposed bondage, the real meaning of the Biblical epigram manifested itself through me. I say"through" instead of "to" in order to emphasize that the insight did not stand apart from me as a mere concept. It broke in upon me and transformed me. For the first time, I understood the difference between easily acquired intellectual comprehension and hard-won insight. The latter is far more threatening because it involves change. In that moment, I was re-integrated with the world. No longer was I an isolated ego amidst a collection of objects. For a time, I was open to myself and to the world. Everything seemed to be renewed and filled with possibilities. This kind of experience , which happens to all of us, enabled me to understand more profoundly what Martin Heidegger has said about the relation between authentic human existence and Being. This deeper understanding has, in turn, helped me to become more open. As Heidegger used to say, the text speaks only to those who are ready to hear it. We can judge the adequacy of his theory of authenticity only because we can compare it with our own experience.
The topic of this essay is the development of Heidegger's concept of authentic human existence. This concept unites in a unique way two of the major strands of Western philosophy: The theoretical-ontological and the practical-dramatic. The former maintains that philosophy is ontology: The theoretical understanding of Being. The latter holds that philosophy is the quest for self-understanding which results in a dramatic change in one's existence. According to Heidegger, this change allows us to become more fully what we already are: beings who understand what it means for things to be. If we exist in a way true to our own Being, we experience the Being of things far more profoundly than we do by manipulating concepts about Being. Presupposition-laden theories about Being often prevent he philosopher from experiencing the truth directly. Without such experiential insight, however, his work remains second-hand. The true philosopher knows that wisdom comes only when one takes risks and endures suffering.
In Being and Time Heidegger explained that human existence constitutes the openness where beings can be revealed. For Heidegger, for something "to be" means for it to be revealed, uncovered, made manifest. Being refers not to a thing but to the event of being manifest. Without the openness which occurs only through human beings, other beings would persist but they would not be disclosed. Humans exist as this openness in an inauthentic or an authentic way. To be inauthentic means to objectify oneself as a continuing ego-subject, thereby concealing the fact that one is really openness or emptiness. To be authentic means resolving to accept the openness which, paradoxically, one already is. One can be open to other people and to possibilities only when freed from the distortions of egoism. Authenticity means to be most appropriately what one already is.
(This is the beginning of the introduction to a great book on the thought of Martin Heidegger)
