Early Heidegger‘s concept of identity

Abstract

We consider the Heideggerian concept of personal identity as relat-ed to Nietzschean and Husserlian concepts of human person and as extending them. He criticizes the notion of already given, immanent, un-changing subject and explains human person as persisting through the changing relations with the world disclosed through our experience. We can note that alongside with later thinkers of the Other, Heideg-ger pointed out that the relation with the other preserving his otherness intact constitutes an important aspect of personal identity. The concept of authentic and inauthentic selfhood presented in “Being and Time” adds up to the interpretations of contemporary authors of inner-directed and other-directed identities. Heidegger thinks of selfhood as differing from our social roles and providing us with possibilities to take our own responsibility for our choices of the ways of living. Another significant aspect of Heideggerian thought on identity is that it discerns spontaneous human being, in other words, the absence of authentic identity, which nowadays spreads around as a dispersion of personality in the society of consumerism. While speaking about tech-nologies which expand the intimate world philosopher as if foresees the danger of inauthenticity and lack of seriousness that preoccupy the theo-ries of multiple identities coming into being due to use of contemporary digital media.