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On Ch. 2 “The Honest Soul and the Disintegrated Consciousness” in Sincerity and Authenticity (1972). This chapter focuses on a reading of Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew and what Hegel made of it in the Phenomenology, so it’s essentially for us a second opinion re. what we’ve been talking about on The Partially Examined Life.
Trilling’s purpose is to trace the history of the ideas of sincerity and authenticity. To be sincere involves being somehow in tune with society, even if you’re acting as a critic of that society; you’re challenging the society to fulfill its aspirations. To be authentic means being true to oneself, which will involve breaking away from social norms. Trilling describes Hegel as positively affirming Rameau’s effort to subvert social norms as a step toward authenticity. We think Hegel’s take is more ambivalent than that.
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