ABSTRACT
Many of the paths followed thus far have led us to the same crossroad. The authenticity-thesis was shown to contain a methodological claim centered on the notion of the “self-congruency of a symbolic whole” – a notion which can be partially explicated with reference to the notion of the congruency of a life-history. In that context “congruency” was claimed not to be reducible to a mere aspect of consistency, but to include other dimensions, which were not spelled out any further. In chapters 2, postmetaphysical phronesis has been defined as the ability to choose between conceptual schemes embedding incompatible or differently ranked values in contexts where no a priori or external standard can be invoked. And while phronesis reconstructed along these lines thus appeared to be ultimately about the weighing of values, it has been argued that the weighing of values is conceptually linked with the furthering of the authenticity of the identity in whose service it is carried out. Also in this case we have been left in need of a further specification of what the expression “authenticity of an identity” might mean and what dimensions it may include. In chapter 3, the discussion of the normativity without principles presupposed by Kant’s notion of reflective judgment once again pointed to the notion of authenticity or integrity of an identity, understood from this angle as the regulative idea that enables reflective judgment to operate. It was argued that by reformulating Kant’s idea of the “furthering of life” in terms of self-realization or of the attainment of an authentic relation to oneself we gain access to a more hermeneutic and less naturalistic understanding of the nature of the universalism embedded in reflective judgment. Yet, the constituents of an authentic relation to oneself remained to be spelled out and the suggestion was offered that such specification should be carried out in the vocabulary of psychoanalytic theory.
