Søren Kierkegaard
From Geography
The Dane Søren Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a religious author and a philosopher, although he considered himself as a anti-philosopher. But, the truth is that he didn't refuse philosophy, he refused the philosophy of leading figure in philosophy: Georg Wilhelm Hegel (Palmer, 2010, p.240). Where Hegel argued that human beings could only choose for an absolute truth, Kierkegaard posed that human beings where always able to choose otherwise. As long as an individual had faith in himself and in God individuals could always make independent and free decisions. In this you can say that Kierkegaard can be seen as one of the founding fathers of Existentialism. However, Kierkegaard never used the term existentialism or existentialist.
Kierkegaard illustrated the inhuman philosophy of Hegel with sarcastic examples such as: If you marry, you will regret it. And if you don't marry, you will regret it. Whether you marry or not, you'll regret yourself and Hang your self up and you will regret it, don't hang your self up and you will regret it: if you hang up your self or not, in any case you will regret yourself. Inhere Kierkegaard criticized Hegel's choosing inability of human beings. To elaborate his vision he produced an existential philosophy where he divided thinking and existing in two categories: 1. thinking and existing are not the same because, 2. it's impossible to think existence, there is no existence which can be thought of because thinking is a form of abstraction. (Palmer, 2010, p.242) Existence cannot be thought but you have to live existence.
Objective and subjective thinking
The truth is a construction of dis-junctions, which nevertheless are constructed. In this context Kierkegaard divided the objective and subjective way of thinking. In objectively thinking there are mathematical, scientific and historic rules, they are given, determined truths and thus have no binding with human beings. In subjective thinking human beings handle because of meaningful values. Values however, are no objective measures. However, action because of subjective thinking is all based on uncertainty, experiences from the past are the keystone of rationality.
References
- Palmer, D. (2010). Filosofie voor Beginners (p. 240-253). Antwerpen: Uitgeverij Unieboek Spectrum.
- Page created by Peter de Boer 4119711
