HEIDEGGER’S DOCTRINE OF AUTHENTICITY IN NIGERIA POLITICS
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.0    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
While philosophy began in wonder and curiosity about the nature of the universe, it progressed uninterruptedly through the ancient and medieval periods and infact, into the early modern era with its singular object: the search for the ultimate meaning of being. Hence, thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Hegel, e.t.c. Conceived being as the most abstract and universal concept. However, their inability to sustain the question of the meaning of being brought in the initial shortcoming of traditional metaphysics: the forgetfulness of being. More so, the Hegelian shift of the consideration of being to an amazing speculative extreme in the nation of the absolute idealism alienated being from the territory of man and his concrete existential problems.
    Providentially, the Hegelian amazing shift was to be the birth of an existential philosophy, through Soren Kierkegaard who attacked Hegel’s abstract idealism. An existential philosophy is that “which endeavours to analyse the basic structures of human existence and to call individuals to an awareness of their existence in its essential freedom”1. The concern of philosophy was shifted from metaphysical realities to the concrete existence of man, the being of man and the realities of his existence.
    Martin Heidegger was one of the thinkers who contributed greatly to the growth of the existentialist movement, although he emphatically rejected the label “Existentialist”2.
Expounding the contributions of Heidegger to the growth of existentialism, S.E. Stumpf writes:
With one bold stroke, he shifted the attentionof twentieth centurycontinental philosophyaway from traditionalconcerns about theoriesand books and focusedinstead upon the concernsof thinking individuals3.   
    Thus, Heidegger systematically transformed the concept of being from a highly abstract and remote concept into a subject of everybody’s concern. In the introduction to his “magnus opus”, Heidegger makes a vivid declaration of the aim of his inquiry and he says:
so it is fitting that we should raise one the questionof the meaning of being…our aim in the following treatiseis to work out the questionof the meaning of being and todo so correctly.4
    Heidegger is not just interested in any sort of being. Rather, he is concerned with the “Being of being; the ultimate being. But what actually is this being of beings? Omoregbe aptly gives the response:
It is that from which all beings derive their being and it is present in all beings5.
Omoregbe further says:
It is not an existing entity,but all existing entities derive theirbeing from it and it is everywhere.
It is being itself but not a particular being6.
To make way for an easy in-road into the study of being, Heidegger considers the appropriate gateway to the territory of being. He observes:
To work out the questionof being, adequately, we mustmake an entity, the inquirer-transparent in his own being.
The very asking of this question isan entity’s mode of being, and assuch it gets its essential characterfrom what is inquired about – namely: being.7
Obviously, this entity is man for man only can ask question about being. Hence, Heidegger concludes: this entity which each of us is and which includes inquiring as one of the possibilities of its being, we shall denote by the term “Dasein”. As it is, Dasein has various modes of existence, which could be authentic or in authentic. It is from this that we extract the doctrine of authenticity in Heidegger, which forms the basis of this inquiry, let us considerwho Heidegger is.
    Heidegger, was born in Messkirch, Baden in the southern part of Germany on September 26, 1889. Having been brought up a catholic, he wanted to become a priest although his failing health condition incapacitated this desire. However, he remained at the university of Freiburg where he had studied theology for just a semester. At the age of seventeen, Heidegger was introduced to philosophy by the pastor of his church who gave him Franz Brentano’s book titled “On the manifold meaning of being according to Aristotle. This book; though difficult, made such an impression upon him that it launched him on his life-long endeavor to explore the meaning of being. Along the way, Kierkegaard, Dostoevski, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Husserl and a host of others influenced Heidegger. Heidegger published many works, some of which are: “Sein Und zeit”, existence and being (1949), introduction to metaphysics (1959), and the end of philosophy (1973). He died in the year 1976.
    In the light of Heidegger’s thought, Dasein has two basic modes of existence: authentic and inauthentic. Authentic existence is the realization of the self in which case, the Dasein affirms its true being from this concept of authenticity in the being and existence of the Dasein, it is possible that it is what we are supposed to do, to extend the authenticity to the realm of human community and national life. Hence, the Dasein is viewed through the wide spectacle of the society or nation. Thus, we make a gentle swerve from “authentic selfhood” in Dasein to ‘authentic nationhood’ in Nigeria.
Since her political independence in 1960 Nigeria is plagued by many problems- political, economic, cultural, social and otherwise. This sometimes makes people wonder the authenticity and real autonomy of the country. Some are even led to the conclusion that we are not yet independent. The Myriad of instabilities in Nigeria is captured in this study as emanating from the enthronement of an alien political system. The aim is, then, to explore the possibilities of the Dasein for authentic existence and apply it to the situation of the Nigerian nation, solely, to evolve a true Nigeria political system.
1.1    THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
Being conscious of the ugly historical antecedents of the Nigerian nation, especially the monster of colonialism, being aware of the existential facticity of the Dasein exemplified mostly in the throwness and the falleness, juxtaposes the two contents. In so far as the Dasein is able to rise from the state of falleness to authenticity, it is the hope that Nigeria can arise beyond her historical antecedents no matter how ugly and excruciating they were and or are.
Thus, it is the purpose of this work, to make a study of the status quo in Nigeria, identify the basic features of inauthenticity in the national life and then admonish for a return to authenticity through a wholesome consciousness of our situation and the attendant responsible “leap”. The purpose of this study, is therefore, purely existential as it seeks to better the condition of Nigeria and Nigerians.
1.2    THE SCOPE OF STUDY
Given the specification for the volume of the work, an elaborate exposition of Heidegger’s thought may not possibly be realized, justice will be done to the expositions and treatment of the Heideggarian doctrine of authenticity, which is easily seen in the discussion of the modes of the existence of the Dasein.
As it pertains to Nigeria, it is known that no new work of art comes into existence without an organic link to what was created earlier. It is a popular saying that belief and history makes man. And more so, in a wider scope, man is also a maker of history. In this light, we engage in unmasking the historical facts of Nigeria. Only very little references will be made to the events of the present days, since the solution to the problems, he believes, revolves around the curing of the wounds of the past.
1.3    THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Heidegger’s doctrine of authenticity, there is the use of being, that being in itself, as authentic being human is understood as being best achieved through unique and distinctive, even when these collide with certain social norms. At the same time, there is an increasing awareness of what Charles Taylor (1989) calls “inwardness” or “internal space”. The result is a distinction between one’s private and unique individuality and one’s public self. This study makes it easy to identify the possible problem with the Nigerian political system, how it affects the whole. It also reconciles Heidegger’s oneness in his authenticity with that of the political system in Nigeria.
Heidegger never claimed that his philosophy was concerned with politics. Nevertheless, there are some political implications in his thoughts. The idea of authenticity belongs to a cluster of ethical and psychological conceptions of individuality that stand in an uneasy relation to traditional norms of justice and the demands of morality. The concept of authenticity refers to somehow, being true to one’s self. One way of being true to oneself is to be honest with oneself, which is to say inwardly sincere. This is neither easy nor common in our modern society. The inability to be true to oneself and society, creates problem for one and others. This study tries to describe and identify where the problem in the Nigeria political system starts from, “self”. It means that for a political system to be unique or “sincere” it has to come from the authenticity of being, individual oneness and sincerity. Before sincerity can come into play, it has to be inward, that is from within.
1.4    METHODOLOGY
Broadly speaking, the recurrent methods in this study are exposition, narration and analytic approach. From the onset, the doctrine of authenticity according to the study and the truths of the Nigerian political system are exposed thoroughly. The facts elicited are carefully blended with narrative and analytic approaches.
On the other hand, there will be evaluation and criticism where the need arises. In exposing Heidegger, “Dasein” and “man” shall be made use of interchangeably at desired points. Direct description of Nigerian situation will be used, but to enhance clarity of thought,other languages such as Igbo and German, will be made use of where necessary. Nigeria as a nation is considered as a single entity in the manner of Heidegger’s Dasein. There will be a conscious study of the Nigerian political history from past to the present. The doctrine of authenticity is conceptualized not in politics objectively but subjectively in Nigerian politics. The evaluation of the doctrine of authenticity attempts to fix the limits of its application in politics.
1.5    LITERATURE REVIEW
The concept of authenticity is one of the most important and fruitful ideas to emerge from the existential tradition in philosophy, especially in the works of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre.
In the literary and philosophical writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the idea of authenticity belongs to a cluster of ethical and psychological conceptions of individuality that stand in an uneasy relation to traditional norms of justice and demands of morality.
The term “authentic” is used either in the strong sense of being “of undisputed origin or authorship”, or in a weaker sense of being “faithful to an original” or a “reliable, accurate representation”. To say that something is authentic, is to say that it is what it professes to be, or what it is reputed to be, in origin or authorship.
Bernard Williams  specifies authenticity as “the idea that some things are in some sense really you, or express what you are, and other aren’t” (quoted in guignon 2004: viii). Besides being a topic in philosophical debates authenticity is also a pervasive ideal that impacts social and political thinking. In fact, one distinctive feature of recent western intellectual developments has been a shift to what is called the “age of authenticity” (Taylor 2007; Ferrarra 1998). Therefore, understanding the concept also involves investigating its historical and philosophical sources and on the way it impacts the socio-political outlook of contemporary societies.
Kierkegaard’s work on authenticity and his suggestion that each of us is to “become what one is”, is best linked to his critical stance towards a certain social reality and a certain essentialist trend in philosophical and scientific thought.
Kierkegaard provides a criticism of modern society as causing “inauthenticity” living in a society characterized by such “massification” lead to what he prefers to as wider spread “despair” that comes to the fore as spiritlessness, denial, and defiance. He rejected the view that a human being should be regarded as an object, as a substance with certain essential attributes. Rather than being an item among others, Kierkegaard proposes to understand the self in relational terms: “the self is a relation that relates itself to itself…” (Kierkegaard 1980 {1849} :13). This relation consists in the unfolding project of taking what we find ourselves with as being in the world imparting some meaning or concrete identity to our own life course. Thus, the self is defined by concrete expressions through which one manifests oneself in the world and thereby constitutes one’s identity over time.
ENDNOTES
1.    F. Molina, Existentialismas philosophy (Englewood cliffs: prentice – Hall, 1962), p.2.
2.    F. J. Lescoe, Existentialism: with or without God (New York: Alba House, 1994), p.2.
3.    S. E. Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, 5th edition (USA: Mcgraw – Hill Inc, 1994), p. 503.
4.    Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (Britain: Basil Blackwell Publ. 1962, rep 1967), p.1
5.    J. Omoregbe, A simplified History of Western Philosophy, vol. iii (Lagos: Joja Press Ltd. 1991. reprinted. 1999), p. 71
6.    Ibid
7.    Martin Heidegger, Op, cit., p.27

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