Institutions and Creative Acts of Taking-up in an “Authentic”—Deep and Poetic—Existence

Reality, the world, others, and the inexhaustible source of sense are always ‘present’ even in the imaginary realm, which nevertheless seems to move away quite emphatically from them. Now, the most radical argument showing that human existence is pervaded by inauthenticity was the one claiming that consciousness is always and necessarily mystified: it only attains contingent points of view that are challenged by a host of others. As noted, it is impossible to get out of this dialectical vortex devoid of synthesis. Merleau-Ponty presented this claim in The Adventures of the Dialectic, but he also showed that, even though it is beyond dispute, it nevertheless correlates with a view that allows us to rule out any pessimistic conclusion: he thus made the case that consciousness can find its salvation precisely insofar as it is nothing other than a flow of images.