Authenticity with Teeth: Positing Process

Publication: in Nikolas Kompridis (ed.), Philosophical Romanticism. New York: Routledge. pp. 61-77 (2006)

It’s popular to require that changes in our social traditions and identities, or in our art and culture, be “authentic.” This criterion of “authenticity” is notoriously vague and can be dangerous. In this essay I propose a new criterion for authenticity, based on faithfulness to structural moments of the process of development rather than to some specific patrimonial content. My proposed criterion derives from Hegel, yet it is similar to the criterion proposed by a staunch anti-Hegelian, Gilles Deleuze.

Click the links below to read this work