Meaning And Authenticity

Everywhere we hear talk of decline, of a world that was better once, maybe fifty years ago, maybe centuries ago, but certainly before modernity drew us along its dubious path. While some lament the slide of Western culture into relativism and nihilism and others celebrate the trend as a liberating sort of progress, Charles Taylor calls on us to face the moral and political crises of our time, and to make the most of modernity's challenges. "The great merit of Taylor's brief, non-technical, powerful book...is the vigor with which he restates the point which Hegel (and later Dewey) urged against Rousseau and Kant: that we are only individuals in so far as we are social... Being authentic, being faithful to ourselves, is being faithful to something which was produced in collaboration with a lot of other people... The core of Taylor's argument is a vigorous and entirely successful criticism of two intertwined bad ideas: that you are wonderful just because you are you, and that 'respect for difference' requires you to respect every human being, and every human culture--no matter how vicious or stupid." --Richard Rorty, London Review of Books

Presents a dialogue between Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor, thinkers who placed a high value on the search for human authenticity, both of whom maintain that there is a normative conception of authentic human life that overcomes moral relativism, narcissism, privatism, and the collapse of the public self.

In a society that pushes conformity, how can you be courageously authentic despite fear of judgment? Award-winning leadership and diversity expert Ritu Bhasin gives you the tools to make this happen. This is more than a call to "be yourself"-it's a rally to disrupt the status quo, bring your differences to the light, and help others do the same.

Your world demands more every day. It's easy to feel trapped and stressed, tested by lack of time, and challenged by others telling you what to do. As a result, you miss out on what's really important to you. For you.

The language of self-fulfilment, self-realization, and self-actualization (in short, ‘authenticity’) has become common in contemporary culture. The desire to be authentic is implicitly a desire to shape one’s self in accordance with an ideal, and the concern for what it means to be authentic is, in many ways, the modern form of the ancient question what is the life of excellence? However, this notion of authenticity has its critics: Christopher Lasch, for instance, who equates it with a form of narcissism and Theodor Adorno, who views it as a glorification of privatism. Brian J. Braman argues that, despite such criticisms, it is possible to speak about human authenticity as something that addresses contemporary concerns as well as the ancient preoccupation with the nature of the good life. He refers to the work of Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor, thinkers who place a high value on the search for human authenticity. Lonergan discusses authenticity in terms of a three-fold conversion–intellectual, moral, and religious–while Taylor views authenticity as a rich, vibrant, and important addition to conversations about what it means to be human. Meaning and Authenticity is an engaging dialogue between these two thinkers, both of whom maintain that there is a normative conception of authentic human life that overcomes moral relativism, narcissism, privatism, and the collapse of the public self.

A handy guide to problems of confused or disputed usage based on the critically acclaimed Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Over 2,000 entries explain the background and basis of usage controversies and offer expert advice and recommendations.

Today, authenticity is considered an essential part of manifold interpersonal relationships, actions, and agreements. Authenticity’s association with sincerity, honesty, and reliability not only normatively charges the term in the context of social coexistence, but also makes it a demand which we impose on ourselves: The success of our lives is measured decisively by whether we live in harmony with our own convictions, wishes and needs. In philosophy, authenticity has also become the focus of interest, both in the context of the mechanisms of self-knowledge, as well as of personal development. The anthology aims to expand the cooperation across disciplines, in order to develop a comprehensive and profound understanding of authenticity, not by over-simplifying the highly complex subject, but by approaching the underlying concept from different scientific perspectives.