Episode #102 - Heidegger Pt. 3 - Authenticity

In this episode, the focus is on Heidegger’s critique of the modern philosophical tendency to view the world as an object to be known rather than a context we’re fundamentally embedded in. Building on the legacy of Descartes, Heidegger challenges the subject-object framework and instead asks us to examine what it is like to be a human being. Central to this inquiry is the concept of Dasein—a being that both questions its own existence and is constantly engaged in meaningful activity. Heidegger outlines three forces that shape what Dasein cares about—facticity (the conditions we’re born into), fallenness (how we adopt behaviors from others), and existentiality (our unique potential for choice). Living authentically, then, means confronting these influences and taking responsibility for our own existence, even in the face of mortality. Heidegger argues that truly facing death reveals who we are beyond social roles or surface-level identities, and he calls on us to return to our cultural traditions with clarity, living deliberately rather than passively.

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