Discrepantie tussen ‘jezelf zijn’ en ‘jezelf voelen’

Discrepancy between ‘being yourself’ and ‘feeling yourself’

This commentary puts forward two critical remarks and two suggestions regarding the concept of ‘experiential authenticity’ and the extent to which this concept ties into ‘everyday experiences of being oneself’. The first critical remark explicates a tension in the purported goal of De Haan’s article: on the one hand De Haan states that she wants to do justice to the everyday experience of inauthenticity, on the other hand the article seems to work towards a normative account of authenticity. I argue that the former, descriptive goal is suitable for ‘experiences’ of (in)authenticity, and the latter, normative goal fits ‘being (in)authentic’, but that a normative account of particular experiences is problematic. The second critical remark problematizes the distinction between ‘experiential authenticity’ and ‘existential authenticity’ by arguing that, in both cases, values play a decisive role (rather than values playing a decisive role in existential authenticity and experience playing a decisive role in experiential authenticity). The first suggestion is to take into account different modes of relating to oneself (namely, in a reflective and an unreflective manner). The second suggestion is to rely on existing data concerning experiences of inauthenticity rather than relying on self-formulated or hypothetical examples.