I'm inclined to go with Kant: treat others not as means ONLY but ALSO as ends in themselves. — gurugeorge

I understand your position and your advice. Yet, the problem with authenticity is that it replaces possible ethics in relations with the other. Levinas founded his ethics with the exception of looking at other’s eyes, and nowadays direct (and authentic) eye contact has become a cultural norm serving the business. From one side, it is so convenient, from another it almost eliminates ethics dimensions.

I've always thought Sartre was gratuitously judgemental about that waiter. — andrewk

Maybe Sartre's waiter is more authentic, his reactions are not finally determined yet.

To the extent that authenticity means anything to me, it is relaxation, — andrewk

What about reflection? Most likely, a true authenticity lives in the thought.

It is the gift that very few people have of being able to just act without constantly judging themselves or wondering what others think of them. — andrewk

It is almost impossible. So-called "authenticity" is like an imperative: we must live and judge ourselves
according to dominating "authentic" norms.

An authentic asshole is invariably full of shit; the project is to be fake - to fake humanity. — unenlightened

I am a tremendous faker, the best faker you have ever seen, I'm so tremendously talented at faking that everyone thinks I'm authentic, except those who are pretending not to be impressed, and they really think I'm authentic, they just don't like what I authentically am, which they believe, by the way. So everyone thinks I'm authentic, and I even believe it myself. And that's what authenticity is - a convincing fake. — unenlightened

So, if you do not believe in authenticity, why are you still a part of the game?
How can we differentiate between fake and authentic?

The problem of authenticity is not just about curious cultural observations or one’s pretension for looking original and unusual. It has much more implications. Nowadays, many groups of people (for example transgenders) try to support their claims for the legitimacy of their new self-identification by appealing to the authenticity of their feelings.

Levinas founded his ethics on the relation with the Other, and one of the essential elements was looking directly at the Other’s eyes. For Levinas, it was the most challenging moral test – to open yourself toward the other world. In North America, the direct eye contact has become a cultural norm. In general, don’t we encounter
a situation, where the slogan “Be Yourself” has become a tool for imposing dominating cultural standards? And, at the same time, real authenticity, related to becoming and therefore invisible, is pushed aside?

Authenticity is more of a process than an established condition — Bitter Crank

I agree with you.

One has to know someone quite well to know whether they are being authentic or not. One can't even automatically assume authenticity for ones self without some self-examination. — Bitter Crank

It is a kind of automatic reaction when one identifies something as not natural, not usual.

Could you explain your interest in Descartes?

I just want to add to your observation that during his suspension and doubt,
Descartes was actually also supported somehow by his belief in the existence of the world as a whole,
not just a few separate things in front of him.

My point is that Descartes's meditation and doubt reflected not just his intellectual way of being, but also the existential-being-in the world. He was not a philosopher of his chamber, of his ivory tower.

Descartes's knowledge was unaffected because all during his meditation, his chamber continued to project its reality into him -- it never ceased to act on him in sensible ways: scattering light into his eyes, pressing up on his bottom, holding his manuscript in place as he wrote. His awareness of this dynamic presence, of this intelligibility, was him knowing that he was in his chamber, and it was unaffected by his suspension of belief. — Dfpolis

Don't you think that Descartes's awareness was supported not only by a simple physical presence of the things in his room but also, more broadly, by rootedness of the things in the world?

it seems that within our own sphere, our 'hyletic nucleus,' we are absolutely incapable of expressing to anyone else, specifically and superlatively, meaning.
Is this the case?
Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all? — Blue Lux

If we consider the full continuum of the space opened by loneliness, it is possible to find in the one of its borders death – related existential experiences. Blanchot argued that relation to death creates one of the foundations of our human conditions: “Death, in the human perspective, is not a given, it must be achieved. It is a task, one, which we take up actively, one which becomes the source of our activity and mastery. Man dies, that is nothing. But man is, starting from his death. He ties himself tight to his death with a tie of which he is the judge. He makes his death; he makes himself mortal and in this way gives himself the power of a maker and gives to what he makes its meaning and its truth. The decision to be without being is possibility itself: the possibility of death.” (”The Space of Literature”) So, after all, we are not alone, even it looks like we are isolated in our closed sphere. Loneliness is a way of approaching the impersonal and atemporal.

The truth was never guaranteed to be consoling to our feelings. The truth is the truth and how we feel about it is another matter entirely. — Harry Hindu

You can not separate the truth from the feelings on this topic. It is not about mathematical proof. Feelings, magnified by mass-media, can help to promote political decisions, and further to mobilize
sufficient expertise in different fields to support and fabricate a desirable "truth".

The personality is fluid. It contains all sorts of potentialities. Consciousness is potentiality. Consciousness consists of it's relation to its potentialities. A consciousness and furthermore a personality is not defined by the expressed. The authenticity of an individual is between the expressing and the expressed. A person expressing themselves to be a certain way is in a sense based upon an appeal to the willing of an inapprehendable object; however, it is this relationality in terms of the object that defines the mode of consciousness associated — Blue Lux

Does it mean that you deny the existence of the permanent "subject" of consciousness?
May I reformulate your point in the following way: consciousness is a resulting vector of an assemblage of different, even non-human factors?

Am I thus alone to my own experiences after all? — Blue Lux

According to Bakhtin, even our intimate feelings and experiences are determined by outer-social
organization: "The experiential, expressible element and its outward objectification are created, as we know, out of one and the same material. After all, there is no such thing as experience outside of embodiment in signs. Consequently, the very notion of a fundamental, qualitative difference between the inner and the outer element is invalid ... Furthermore, the location of the organizing and formative center is not within (i.e., not in the material of inner signs) but outside, It is not experience that organizes expression, but the other way around - expression organizing experience. The expression is what first gives experience its form and specificity of direction."

The complexity is a result of our ignorance on this topic. Occam's Razor dictates that the best explanations are the the simplest. — Harry Hindu

I admit your point about our ignorance. Yet, it is impossible to ignore the problems discussed in this thread. I think it would be useful to apply analytical tools and concepts developed by Foucault, even though they look too complicated.

We encounter an explosive proliferation of gender identifications:
• Agender
• Androgyne
• Androgynous
• Bigender
• Cis
• Cisgender
• Cis Female
• Cis Male
• Cis Man
• Cis Woman
• Cisgender Female
• Cisgender Male
• Cisgender Man
• Cisgender Woman
• Female to Male
• FTM
• Gender Fluid
• Gender Nonconforming
• Gender Questioning
• Gender Variant
• Genderqueer
• Intersex
• Male to Female
• MTF
• Neither
• Neutrois
• Non-binary
• Other
• Pangender
• Trans
• Trans*
• Trans Female
• Trans* Female
• Trans Male
• Trans* Male
• Trans Man
• Trans* Man
• Trans Person
• Trans* Person
• Trans Woman
• Trans* Woman
• Transfeminine
• Transgender
• Transgender Female
• Transgender Male
• Transgender Man
• Transgender Person
• Transgender Woman
• Transmasculine
• Transsexual
• Transsexual Female
• Transsexual Male
• Transsexual Man
• Transsexual Person
• Transsexual Woman
• Two-Spirit

To understand this phenomenon it is possible to apply an approach developed by Foucault in "The history of sexuality": "It is the multiplication of discourses concerning sex in the field of exercise of power itself: an institutional incitement to speak about it, and to do so more and more, a determination on the part of agencies of power to have it spoken about, and to cause it through explicit articulation and endlessly accumulated detail. An imperative was established ... you will seek to transform your desire, your every desire into the discourse."

Derrida "Cogito and the History of Madness"

I agree with you. That is why I am not sure about authenticity. We inherited Cogito as fundamentally split! "The act of Cogito is no longer a question of objective, representative knowledge -
there is a value and a meaning of Cogito, as of existence, which escapes the alternative of a determined madness or a determined reason...I philosophize only in terror, but in the confessed terror
of going mad". Yet, anyway, we must produce positivistic sentences and meaningful utterances!:blush:

I brought this quote to calm down our discussion. :smile:

Authenticity is the expression of oneself how they are, — Blue Lux

Any kind of human expression assumes the split between the expressed and expressing.
Actually, there is a real void between them. I think that the authentic thought is in-between.

Be with another person who 'represents' these words. Be around them I mean. Engage in a real conversation about life and desire. Only in a respectful, meaningful exchange will you find the true meaning of what these words like transgenderedism mean, or homosexuality. That is the authenticity I am talking about. The paradigm of authenticity would be the paradigm that is not idle talk. Like, instead of saying that I am gay I say that I am absolutely, completely, unequivocally and unquestionably in love with and sexually attracted to someone who has the same gender and sex as myself. — Blue Lux

I hope you don’t mean that discussing transgenderism with a heterosexual man is an idle talk. I asked you about authenticity just because it is important for me to find the criteria for differentiation between fake and authentic. As Adorno pointed out:” the sacred quality of the authentic talk belongs to the cult of authenticity rather than to the Christian cult, even where - for temporary lack of any other available authority - its language resembles the Christian. Prior to any consideration of particular content, this language molds thought. As a consequence, that thought accommodates itself to the goal of subordination even where it aspires to resist that goal.”

In other words, this talk by 'them' about the abstraction of 'transgenderism' is fundamentally inauthentic, as it does not relate to any specification of personality or existence, but of an objective generalization of what it might be for someone who fits under that category.
There must be, to remain within a sphere or paradigm of authenticity, a separation between what is real, like my trans friend Ryan and me the homosexual, and this talk of trans people and homosexuals. — Blue Lux

Could you explain your understanding of "a sphere or paradigm of authenticity"? Do you mean that your feelings and thoughts have another (maybe better, or more real) ontological status?

I understand and respect your feelings! How can we differentiate between people's choices and commercializing the most intimate human feelings and bringing them on the market of available identifications?

Probably, for the first transgenders it was really an act of free choice.

Well, 'trans'gender means to go beyond gender. So. You can be whatever you want to be. You can describe yourself in any manner. That is your freedom. — Blue Lux

Here is the problem: to become a transgender by many people ( and, by transgenders themselves) is understood as a manifestation of their freedom, as a free choice of a new identity. Yet, isn't this process is guided and taken up by mass-media and by so many institutions and organizations? So, it is rather taking part in a mass movement than a free choice of an individual identity.

Has the issue of transgenderism become politicized?
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/gender_confusion_a_tool_of_the_left.html

The problem here is the binary. Many transgender people say that they are non binary. However, the binary has implications. — Blue Lux

Is that possible to exist "in between"? I've met a transgender who said: "Today mourning I felt as if I was a man, and later as if I was a woman..." So, is that possible to avoid the binary in self-identification?

Actually, it is an explosive proliferation of gender-related identities. Can this process develop on its own? Are there some forces and institutions behind?

Most likely, the thesis “doing injustice is worse than suffering injustice” was constructed by Plato to back his own presentation of the event of Socrates’s death.
So, according to Plato, Socrates preferred “suffering injustice” and actually committed "a philosophical suicide”. Is suicide still a greatest ethical choice available for us?

This system of rules assumes a high level of consciousness, reflection upon one's performances, kind of self-development and readiness to change yourself. Yet, most people unconsciously adopt themselves to prevailing norms and social environments. As far as they reach
a convenient equilibrium, they do not change themselves anymore.

That is obviously not possible. You are either female or male. You can't be something in between or a third weird gender, especially as we humans are a mammalian species. There are only two genders. Its a fact that cannot change. — Terran Imperium

Why not? It is a cliche, stereotype. Gender is socially produced and constructed. A construction of new gendered orientation(s) has become a powerful vector of individualization and self-fulfillment. It would be interesting to explore what forces are actually involved in this process.

According to the Oxford Living Dictionaries:
"A state or condition in which a person's identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional ideas of male or female gender."
According to this definition, Trans-genderism is the matter of ideology.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary:
"The condition of someone feeling that they are not the same gender (= sex) as the one they had or were said to have at birth." — Terran Imperium

And, by this definition trans-genderism is the matter of somebody's personal self-identification. Both definitions open a way for changing gender. But what about "no gender"?

Scott Berman in his essay "Socrates and Callicles on Pleasure" wrote:"Socrates himself is a hedonist...
The difference between Callicles and Socrates on the pleasure and the good is that Callicles does not take into consideration the structures of the pleasure or the pains he avoids whereas Socrates thinks that you have to take into consideration these structures."

Hedonism is generally understood as a philosophy that sets the pursuit of pleasure (understood in the sense of pleasures that are sensorily gratifying, ecstatic, etc.) as the primary ethical goal. — gurugeorge

I replied to gloaming, who wrote:"

Hedonism is the force — gloaming

".
If we consider again Socrates's thesis:"doing injustice is worse than suffering injustice”,
it was deciphered recently by Deleuse and Guattari as "Where one believed there was the law, there is, in fact, desire and desire alone. Justice is desire and not law."

I am going to side with Socrates — gloaming

Don't you think that Socrates was using his thesis just as a pretext? Indeed, he was obsessed by the desire to win by any cost.

A triumph of desire over pleasure? Hardly. Hedonism is the force majeure of modern thinking, as I see it. Self indulgence is a pressure, to be sure, but it's mostly as an end-state t — gloaming

We disagree just in terms: Hedonism is based on a desire,
and self-indulgence is a pleasure. If you write that self-indulgence is a pressure, that means that it is a result of the more fundamental process, causing an endless pleasure-chasing.

"Massumi is simply recapitulating in his way".
According to Massumi, the subject of enancuation " I do" is the abstract machine.
It is a different interpretation of this performative.

A good example of how a performative function of " I speak" can be clarified is saying " I do" at a wedding ceremony. As Brian Massumi wrote: "Say " I do" and your life will never be the same.
Your legal, social and familial status instantly changes. Before you open your mouth you are one thing. By the time you close it you have landed in another world. A particular man and a particular woman say " I do" - their words undoubtedly have personal meaning for them in their hearts! But their personal intension is not responsible for the magical transformation that has changed their lives.
What has brought them to say this words and what makes this words effectively transformative is a complex interplay of laws, customs, social pressure and tax law. The stereotypical nature of the expression is an indication that it is fundamentally impersonal! The subject saying " I do" is not a person, it is a social function."

I did not answer it, please look at my answer to andrewk

You made good points about what is "context"! Yet, if I take a risk to develop them farther, you argue that each situation of each speech act is unique and singular.
If so, it is impossable to theorize and philosophize about language! Yet, individuation and singularization of
each speech act are realized through the set of pre-personal affective forces and post- personal ethico- political forces external to language. It looks like Austinian speech acts theory does not consider all of them.

Thank you for taking part in discussion with me!:smile:
Probably we belong to different linguistic communities.:lol: