Authenticity (or individuality, or autonomy) depends on integration – overcoming conflicts within ourselves. Absolutisation – adopting absolute beliefs associated with groups and authorities – interferes with that integration and thus leads to ‘bad faith’ or a lack of authenticity. This is a tributary video to no. 6 on authenticity in a series on Middle Way Philosophy, and explains how the ideas of thinkers like Sartre on authenticity can be supportive of the practice of the Middle Way.

This is the 27th and final video in the Middle Way Philosophy introductory course.

Some suggested reflection questions:

1. Can you think of some examples of judgements you have made that were relatively authentic or relatively inauthentic?

2. How far do you tend to take responsibility for your interpretation of the ‘signs’ you come across?

3. What’s your experience of counter-cultural attempts to reach authenticity? How far do you think they have helped you to become genuinely authentic, or how far just set up an opposing kind of bad faith?

Suggested further reading:

Existentialism and humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre