AUTHENTIC SELF-EXPRESSION: EXISTENTIALIST FOUNDATIONS OF INNOVATION by Henry Bright

AUTHENTIC SELF-EXPRESSION: EXISTENTIALIST FOUNDATIONS OF INNOVATION 

Abstract
This essay depicts innovation in philosophising as it is offered in the existential philosophy while maintaining faithfulness to speculation which is the traditional character of philosophy. The philosophers until the time of existentialism concentrated on the essential nature of man. The existentialist thinkers for the first time laid emphasis on human existence and for them man first exists and then becomes what he wants. This is certainly an innovation in the field of philosophising since Greek antiquity. The existential philosophy just did not focus on existence alone, rather highlighted the spirit of existing authentically. Certainly, the authentic existence is a doggy struggle, for any one aspiring to be authentic has to make genuine choices in a world that represents a misplaced value system.

Henry Bright, “Authentic Self-Expression: Existentialist Foundations of Innovation” in Tradition and Innovation: Philosophy of Rootedness and Openness, ed. Saju Chackalackal, 201-223, Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2011.