Territory: Through the developments especially within recent years, the identity card has become a prominent part of modern life. The territory under examination is the identity card. The debate of protection over control and the amount of information that is held about each individual has become evermore important. The identity card suggests the ability to allow people to be recognised as the individual they are through the information contained on and within the card. The identity card therefore appears to present implications to the idea of identity presenting it as a fixed material idea which seems to do against the modern understanding of the self and the individual identity.
Aims: The primary aim of this project was to explore the extent to which identity cards impact the creation and development of the individual identity. Through the development in technology, particularly those within the area of the identity card it is possible to recognise a decline within the understanding of the individual and unique identity. The secondary aim of this project was to examine the effect that the restriction on the ability of the individual in the creation of the identity would have on the idea of existence that the self would have within the world. It is possible to suggest that existence is affirmed within the world through authentic experience and the projection of the identity in its individual being. Therefore if we are unable to create the self as we wish and perpetuate the individual identity this would seem to have a detrimental effect on projecting our existence.
Philosophers: Through the work of Sartre I have explored the way in which we strive to live an authentic life and the importance that Sartre places on this. I have explored the manner in which the identity card restricts the possibility for the individual to live this authentic life and create the self as they wish. The writings of Sartre were also used in the exploration of the idea of affirming our existence within the world, in that we are only an identity within our action, and through our action we are able to have existence within the world. The work of Heidegger was also important to this idea and his understanding of being. If we identify ourselves as a certain idea we are conforming and reducing the self to something that is less than the existence that we have. The idea that we are much more than we understand ourselves as being was important for Heidegger. We must not reduce our identities and our ability to exist by taking the identity card to be all that we are.