Angelo de Melo

December 6, 2013
Phil 336
Final Exam

1. According to Heidegger, what is Being-toward-death, and why is it important

for authenticity?

Heidegger claims that the self is an event, which is defined by the actions one has

chosen throughout ones life. Since our Being is something that remains in progress

right until we die, some may get the impression that the self is fulfilled when it dies

– much like how a mango is fulfilled once it ripens and falls of the tree ready to eat.

But this is flawed because ones Being ends when they die. Therefore Being-toward-

death is a way of Being when the Dasein realizes the finiteness of their life, that

death is an inescapable moment in the future. This means that our lives gain

meaning from the direction it is headed as a totality.

The concept of Being-toward-death is important for authenticity because

Heidegger believes it helps us to recognize our finitude. Coming to the realization of

that our lives will one day end causes the feeling of Anxiety to arise in the Dasein.

This feeling of Anxiety will allows us to confront the fact that we must make

something of our lives through our own actions if we want to be more than just

public roles that any other of the they can fulfill. Thus becoming authentic is

accepting that we are responsible for what are lives are becoming and thus choosing

to shape them into the existence of our own making.

 2. Sartre claims that once you recognize that you have a belief, it ceases to be a

full belief. What reasons does he have to think this is true?

Sartre’s assertion that full belief ceases once that belief is recognized is a

complicated concept to grasp. It is hard to understand why noticing you have a

belief means that it is no longer a belief. To try and understand we can state what a

belief is according to Sarte, “the adherence of being to its object when the object is

not given or is given indistinctly”. Sartre sees full believe as unconscious because a

belief inherently infers doubt because it is not a fact. Once someone brings this

doubt to light one must recognize that it is not a certainty that the belief is true and

thus if one keeps on believing they are in bad faith. To quote Sarte, “ [I]f I know that

I believe, the belief appears to me as pure subjective determinism without external

correlative.”

Sartre’s reasons for thinking this concept of believe to be true stem from his

understanding of the unconscious. Sarte says that belief is a being that questions its

own being. When a belief is unconscious one is not questioning it thus it can remain

a belief. Once you recognize the belief one must question it and then accept that on

does not know it to be true.

 3. Explain why Heidegger and Sartre reject the idea that authenticity means
being true to your true self, or true to your inner nature.
Heidegger and Sartre both reject the claim that finding ones inner self will

ultimately lead to authenticity. Though they are in agreement they both have

different reasons for arriving at this conclusion. Heidegger claim that instead of

pulling back from society to introspectively search for ones inner nature one should

instead become more engaged in the society one lives in and learn more about the

historical culture of the society one lives in. To him one becomes authentic by

understanding the ways in which we are shaped by our culture and observing the

possibilities our culture presents to us. Once one has a firmer understanding of such

they can utilize Being-toward-death to make it possible for us to shape ourselves

into unique individuals and create the Being that we want.

Sartre claims that any attempt at what he calls sincerity (trying “to be what one

is”) will lead to bad faith. Sartre feels that humans can never simply be anything

because that would involve “assuming a particular identity and sustaining its

existence”. The problem with this is according to Sartre’s existentialism identity is a

result of our actions, we as humans make our identity therefore it is not something

that we inherently are.