The death that is mine: The ambiguity of authenticity in 'Being and Time'

This thesis is an investigation of Heidegger's notion of authenticity in Being and Time that emphasizes the importance of Heidegger analyses of Angst and death for understanding his controversial notion of "authenticity" (Eigentlichkeit). I challenge the notion that the "individuation" of the fundamental attunement of Angst is a kind of solipsism or that the mode of-being Heidegger describes as authentic being-toward-death is some sort of heroic voluntarism. By giving the death analysis the central place that Heidegger intended we will discover that authenticity is not to be thought in opposition to inauthenticity and by following the implications of Heidegger's notion of a resolute, authentic-being-toward death as an existentiell way of being-in-the-world, we will see that being-with ( Mitsein) is integral to authenticity. This interpretation of Being and Time is unique in its development of the notion of a discourse of reticence (Verschwiegenheit) as a mode of discourse that demands that we think what I will call a "ritual community of being-mortal-with." This is a mode of being-with that is able to recognize the mortality of the singular Dasein in its ritual practices in a way that does not cover over the ambiguity of authenticity. I then develop this notion of the discourse of reticence into an original notion of "authentic mourning" that compliments what is arguably Heidegger's greatest' philosophical contribution to contemporary debates on the nature of responsibility.