"Authentic Existence" is a technical expression
within existential philosophy and psychology.
An Authentic person is one who has a clear sense
of his or her purpose in life.
These books are organized according to four disciplines:
(1) Philosophy, (2) Psychology, (3) Biography, & (4) Literature.
Within each section, the books are organized by quality,
beginning with the best book in philosophy, psychology, etc.

    You are invited to join a free internet class
based on this bibliography.
For details, click this title: Becoming More Authentic .

1. John Macquarrie 
Existentialism

(Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1972 and later reprints)      252 pages

    The best book in English on existentialism.
Each chapter explores one theme.
The chapter on Authenticity is called "In Quest of Authentic Existence".

2. Søren Kierkegaard 
Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing

(New York: Harper & Row, 1956 and later reprints)      220 pages
translated by Douglas Steere

newer translation in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993)
translated by Howard & Edna Hong
(ISBN: 0691032742)
(Library of Congress call number: BV4505 .K4613 1993)

    A meditative book in the Christian tradition
by the founder of existentialism. To simplify and clarify life.
The Kierkegaard chapter of Becoming More Authentic
{last book in this Philosophy section}
draws deeply from this book, including extensive paraphrases.
The Table of Contents of Becoming More Authentic
contains an 8-point outline of Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.

3. Jean-Paul Sartre
"Existentialism is a Humanism"

    This is actually a lecture explaining the essence of existentialism,
but it also strikes the central themes of Authenticity.

4. Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Stories

(New York: Knopf, 1955 and later reprints)      212 pages
(Library of Congress call number: PQ2605.A3734M93)

    This essay contains the substance of Camus' vision of Authenticity.
The Camus chapter of Becoming More Authentic draws heavily from this book.

5. Jacob Golomb 
In Search of Authenticity:
From Kierkegaard to Camus

(New York: Routledge, 1995)      219 pages
(ISBN: 0-415-11946-4; hardcover)
(ISBN: 0-415-11947-2; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: B105.A8G65 1995)

    Authenticity as found in the thought of:
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, & Camus.
Academic rather than existential,
but an important contribution to the very slim literature on Authenticity.
If these thinkers' versions of Authenticity interest you,
you will want to read this volume.

6. Paul Tillich 
The Courage to Be

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952 and later reprints)

    Existential courage empowers us to take anxiety or "nonbeing" into ourselves.
We can become more Authentic by self-affirmation in the face of death.
Tillich uses the Christian symbols as 'visual aids'
to help us to become more integrated, whole, & resolute.

7. Stuart Zane Charme
Vulgarity and Authenticity:
Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul Sartre

(Amherst, MA: U of Massachusetts Press, 1991)      255 pages
(ISBN: 0-87023-740-3)
(Library of Congress call number: B2430.S34C5248 1991)

    A careful and comprehensive study of one dimension of Sartre's thought.
Vulgarity is rebellion against middle-class conformity.
Sartre appreciates marginalized people
such as women, Jews, Blacks, & homosexuals
because they are already part way to Authenticity.
They have not been completely absorbed by the bourgeois way of life.
Embracing vulgarity is one way of resisting civility.
Charme traces this theme thru all dimensions of Sartre's work and life.

{last} James Park
Becoming More Authentic:
The Positive Side of Existentialism

(Minneapolis, MN: www.existentialbooks.com, 2007—5th edition)       96 pages
(ISBN: 978-0-89231-105-7; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: B105.A8P37 2007)

    This is the first (and so far the only) book
to offer a specific definition of Authenticity
sub-divided into its component parts.
The first two chapters present a multi-part description of Authenticity
coordinated with an Authenticity Test of almost 100 questions
that allows readers to measure their progress toward Authentic Existence.
The middle part explores several possible comprehensive projects-of-being.
And the last part presents Authentic Existence as described by
Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, & Maslow.

    For the complete table of contents, click this blue title:
Becoming More Authentic: The Positive Side of Existentialism .

    For a 3-page summary of this book, click those blue words.

1. Lawrence Haworth 
Autonomy:
An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986)      248 pages
(ISBN: 0300035691)
(Library of Congress call number: BF575.A88H38 1986)

    A psychologist presents his common-sense understanding
of personal autonomy—people being able to do what they decide to do.
He confronts the arguments of those branches of psychology
that attribute little or no autonomy to the human self
—most extremely B.F. Skinner.
And he creates a model that makes good sense of ordinary human experience.
The freedom we have is not total or absolute.
Many factors in human life limit our autonomy.
The author also discusses the political implications
for societies that wish to enhance personal autonomy.

2. Viktor Frankl 
The Doctor and the Soul:
From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy

(New York: Knopf, 1955 and later reprints)      318 pages
(ISBN: 0394743172; paperback)

    An existential psychotherapist explores such subjects as
the meanings of life, love, suffering, & death.

3. Joseph B. Fabry 
The Pursuit of Meaning:
Viktor Frankl, Logotherapy, and Life

(Berkeley, CA: Institute of Logotherapy Press, 1987—3rd edition)
(ISBN: 0-917867-04-1; paperback)       197 pages
(Library of Congress call number: RC489.L6F33 1987)

    Joseph Fabry was a colleague and close friend of Viktor Frankl.
This book does not attempt to add anything to what Frankl himself taught.
But it presents Frankl's thought in a format
that makes it easier for all readers to understand.

    Frankl wanted to put the meaning-seeking dimension
back into psychotherapy.
All human persons seek meaning for their lives.
And each person finds himself in a specific situation,
which provides many possible meanings.
We are free to choose what we will do with our lives.

    In many places in this book Fabry encourages the reader
to take his or her freedom seriously
and to create a unique meaning
for that person's place in the world and in life.
Even tho other forms of psychology do not believe in personal freedom,
Logotherapy definitely does.
This book offers inspiration and encouragement
for us freely to create the new meanings of our lives.

    Altho this book is out of print,
it is worth looking for in a good library.

4. Abraham Maslow 
The Farther Reaches of Human Nature

(New York: Viking, 1971 and later reprints)      407 pages
(ISBN: 0140194703)
(Library of Congress call number: BF637.S4M368 1993)

    A posthumous collection of some of Maslow's writings,
containing many essays about self-actualization.

5. Diana T. Meyers 
Self, Society, and Personal Choice

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1989)    287 pages
(ISBN: 0-231-06418-7; hardback)
(Library of Congress call number: B808.67.M49 1989)

     Diana Meyers approaches the question of autonomy
from the perspective of social psychology.
Her approach is therefore quite independent from the concept of Authenticity
as articulated in existential psychology and philosophy.
But both approaches are aware of these phenomena of human life:
personal growth, making decisions,
resisting social pressures to conform, affirming values, etc.
A quote from page 20: "Personal autonomy is vulnerable to socialization
at three points: self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction."

     The better we understand the social forces that have created us,
the more power we have to resist and transcend these forces.
We are free to criticize and revise even our own past and present desires.
We become more autonomous if we have coherent life-plans,
which we put into effect in our daily lives.

     Meyers is particularly concerned about the differences
between boys and girls with regard to autonomy.
Males are taught to take charge of situations.
Females are taught to be more concerned with the feelings of other people.
Boys are taught to center their interests on their careers.
Girls used to be taught they would grow up to be wives and mothers.
Therefore, women waited to see what their husbands' careers would be
before they could make any long-range plans of their own.
But these traditional sex-roles can change—and are changing.

     Autonomy comes in different degrees: minimal, medial, & full.
It may also be exercised in some periods of our lives but not in others.
However, it is possible to modify the educational system, for instance,
to help people to become more fully autonomous
—able to lay out long-term plans for their lives and carry them forward.

     The fundamental weakness of this book
is its failure to question the concept of the 'true self'.
Meyers merely assumes that each of us has a true self,
which we can either ignore or discover.
To become more autonomous means
to actualize the wishes of this 'true self'
rather than living by the dictates of society.
While this is good thinking as far as it goes,
a deeper analysis would reveal that any current set of values
is itself subject to criticism and revision:
We reinvent ourselves in the process of making life-shaping decisions.

     Perhaps this book goes no further
than the first movement toward greater Authenticity
—bringing our lives into better correlation with our current values.
Nevertheless, focusing our lives better around our life-gaols
is an important step toward greater Authenticity.

6. Avery D. Weisman 
The Vulnerable Self:
Confronting the Ultimate Questions

(New York: Insight Books/Plenum Press, 1993)       253 pages
(ISBN: 0-306-44501-8)
(Library of Congress call number: RC489.E93W45 1993)

    Weisman is a wise and experienced psychotherapist
with definite existential leanings.
Authenticity is an underlying theme thru-out most of this book,
even tho it is not carefully organized to explain what he means by Authenticity.
As suggested in the title, he is concerned with how we can cope
with the existence into which we find ourselves thrust.
Skepticism and courage are the main methods
by which we make our lives meaningful.
Another underlying theme is Weisman's criticism of conventional psychotherapy.

7. James F.T. Bugental
The Search for Authenticity:
An Existential-Analytic Approach to Psychotherapy

(New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1965)     437 pages

     I review this book only to warn readers away from it.
Do not waste your time.
I read it twice—several years apart—but I learned nothing from it.
The existentialism is very thin and poorly-understood.
Bugental seems to have read only
the pop psychology version of existential thinking.

    His clients spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours
to talk about the ordinary problems of living:
family and marriage problems; sex problems—masturbation, homosexuality;
problems of career choice, employment, colleagues, bosses;
self-concepts and self-esteem; alcohol; criminal behavior; suicide.
In short, a simple-minded book
about conventional therapy in existential dress.

    Reading any other book on this bibliography
would be a better use of your time.

{last} James Park 
Growing in Love:
21 Ways to Become Less Dependent & More Authentic

(Minneapolis, MN: www.existentialbooks.com, 1998)      24 pages
(ISBN: 0-89231-521-0; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: BD436.P37 1998)

    This small book contrasts dependent relationships (D)
with relationships based in Authenticity (A).
Each of the 21 sections of the book
describes a major feature of dependent relationships
—and its opposite extreme, loving from Authenticity.
For example, Section 21 contrasts:
D21. "I try to control my beloved." with
A21. "We have replaced power-plays by loving in freedom."

    For a complete list of the 21 areas for interpersonal growth,
click this title: Growing in Love .

1. Henri Troyat 
Tolstoy

(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967)
(New York: Crown, 1980; paperback)       762 pages
(ISBN: 0374980101)

    A biography of Leo Tolstoy, exploring the many passionate causes
he espoused during his long life:
the quest for religious truth,
the education of the peasants on his estate,
love and hate for those closest to him.
Tolstoy clearly poured himself into his writings.
Whether or not we agree with his conclusions,
we can admire him as a man who sought his own Authenticity
even when this led him to go decisively against
the expectations of his peers and his culture.

2. Simone Petrement 
Simone Weil: A Life

translated by Raymond Rosenthal
(New York: Pantheon, 1977)
(New York: Pantheon, 1978; paperback)       577 pages
(New York : Schocken Books, 1988)
(ISBN: 0805208623)

    A biography of Simone Weil—philosopher, teacher, writer, activist.
Her life was a political and religious search:
She supported the trade-union movement in France,
even working for awhile in factories.
She tried to fight against fascism in Spain and France.
And she starved herself to death in an English sanitarium,
in exile from Nazi-occupied France. She was 34.
Whatever may be said about her purposes and her methods,
she was clearly an engaged person in quest of Authenticity.

3. Lynn Gilbert & Gaylen Moore
Particular Passions:
Talks with Women Who Have Shaped Our Times

(New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981)      340 pages

    46 successful women talk about their lives and their philosophies.
Some pursued conventional purposes,
but many directed their lives in creative and innovative ways.
Good models for other women, who can accomplish even better things.
This book also gives a good glimpse of life in 20th-century America.
A photograph of each woman is included.
In the estimate of this reviewer, the most Authentic women are:
Margaret Mead, Margaret Kuhn,
Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, & Betty Friedan.

4. Dora Russell 
The Tamarisk Tree:
My Quest for Liberty and Love

(New York: Putnam, 1973)

    Dora Russell was a liberated woman
during the first phase of feminism in the 20th century.
She spoke against the bonds of traditional marriage
and practiced what she preached by having two children by another man
while she was still married to Bertrand Russell.
Most of the book deals with the unusual life she shared with "Bertie",
who was the best-known and most popular philosopher of his time.

    She worked for birth control and liberal politics,
traveled to Soviet Russia soon after the Revolution,
and lived for awhile in China.
After her return to England,
she maintained a progressive school for her children
and other youngsters for a number of years.
Dora Russell certainly exemplifies someone who resisted
the strong enculturation of her time and of her class.
She devoted herself passionately to the causes she believed in.

1. Albert Camus
The Plague

Translated by Gilbert Stuart
(New York: Knopf, 1948 and later reprints)       278 pages

    A novel about responses to death in a North African city.
Dr. Rieux and other characters exemplify various forms of Authenticity.

2. Leo Tolstoy
"The Death of Ivan Illych"
in The Death of Ivan Illych & Other Stories

translated by Maude Aylmer
(New York: New American Library, 1960)

    A short story illustrating inauthenticity in upper-class Czarist Russia.
The anti-hero attempts to discover meaning as he approaches death.

3. Jean-Paul Sartre
"The Flies" in No Exit and Three Other Plays

(New York: Vintage, 1955 and later reprints)

    A play retelling the classical story of Orestes' destiny
to revenge his father's murder by killing the new king and his own mother.
Orestes is completely 'free' at the beginning,
but he becomes engaged in his Authentic project-of-being: "guilt stealer".

Additional suggestions requested for all sections of this bibliography.

Send all comments by e-mail to: James Park

PARKx032@tc.umn.edu .

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author.
The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.