Възход на автентичността, криза на доверието
Risе оf Authenticity, Crisis of Trust

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the modern idea of authenticity in its constitutive relation to trust, understood both as trust in one’s own identity and as trust between interacting subjects. Through a cultural-historical reconstruction, it traces the emergence of authenticity from early modern individualism and Romantic expressivism to its liberal articulation as a right to individuality. The analysis then contrasts competing models of intersubjectivity: one in which recognition by others supports moral orientation and self-formation, and another in which the social gaze undermines freedom by fixing the self into rigid identities or compelling it to adopt inauthentic roles. Against this background, the article argues that authenticity is neither a purely inward achievement nor a straightforward product of recognition, but a precarious mode of existence that depends on trust as a practical attitude – above all, trust in one’s capacity to choose, to act, and to endure the uncertainty of social exposure. Authentic living thus emerges as an ongoing negotiation between self-creation, recognition, trust, and the persistent risk of self-alienation.

• Details
• Contents