Ontological Analysis

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The first problem with unmediated self-expression is that the self is dialectically composed rather than characterized by wholeness. This inwardness, which is characterized in authenticity is no less contingent than so-called facticities; Hegel characterized it as a negation of the subject.11 The wholeness of the self uncritically presupposes an arbitrary superiority of the subject to the object. This constitutes a form of "objectivism" which fails to relate the subjective and the objective historically situated knowledge in a way that resembles positivism.12 Self-reflection is eliminated in this model; the ego is posited as greater than the world and the empirical content of subjectivity is entirely denied.13 In reality there are two interlocking parts of the self: the …show more content…
The only way that the self could be reified would be that these institutions that shaped it were somehow forgotten and abstracted; rather than represent actual objective social relations, authenticity resembles a form of commodity fetishism.24 Ontology segregates itself from the cultural and holds itself to be superior to be the culturally mediated; by doing this, ontology makes itself more vulnerable to said mediation.25 By claiming that the individual owns herself, authenticity dangerously ignores the extent which psychology or society allow one to own herself; it also ignores the social conditions that led to the concept of authenticity.26 Hatred towards these fields ignores the aspects that can help avoid reification; this leads to the object being reified furthermore.27 By ignoring the social relationships that shape the self, authenticity both undermines the self and makes itself more vulnerable to said

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