Autenticità. Un abbozzo di definizione

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to circumscribe the nature of the ideal of authenticity, so wide- spread in our culture and our contemporary societies. First of all, does not authenticity play a similar role, by its amplitude and its tendency to be applied to life as a whole, of the ideal of wisdom for Antiquity? On the other hand, is it possible to define authenti- city only as a complete sincerity? Is it not closer to the virtue of integrity ? This article attempts to show the insuffi- ciency of the two major approaches to that notion : the expressivist conceptions of authenticity, issued from Romanticism, and the volunta- rist conceptions that take shape in the wake of Existentialism : neither of these appro- aches is really able to answer to what we called « the hard problem » of authenticity.