In
honor of the birthdays of two famous philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard
and Karl Marx, today we turn to the study of deep ideas and big
questions.
What is truth?
What is beauty?
How should people live
their lives?
The
study of fundamental ideas is called philosophy, which means
“love of wisdom.”
Born
in 1813 in Denmark, Soren
Kierkegaard is considered the first existentialist philosopher. That
is the idea that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be
the individual and his or her experiences. Kierkegaard thought that
it is the individual person who must give meaning to his or her own
life, and that we should all live passionately and sincerely—that
is, with great spirit, and always being true to oneself.
Born
on the same date just five years later, in Prussia (Germany), Karl
Marx is linked with ideas of socialism and communism. He was
concerned with the relationship between the people who owned
resources and factories and land and the people who labored in those
factories and on that land—in other words, the relationship between
upper and lower classes. He thought that capitalist societies—those
that feature private ownership and in which people create products
and provide services in order to earn profits—were unstable and
would break down. He said that they would be replaced by socialist
societies that planned production according to people's real needs
and distributed income according to people's contributions.
Eventually, Marx believed, socialist societies would be replaced by
communism—a human society without national divisions, without central
governments, and without upper and lower classes. (By the way, you probably know that many of the people who have
tried to create societies along Marxist lines ended up with some very
miserable societies—and, viewing history, we might wonder if Marx
was just too idealistic to develop good philosophical ideas.)
Think
big. Think hard. Think deep.
At
Philosophy for Children, people have posted “big questions”
asked by various children's books.
- Philosophy for Kids provides online stories with philosophical questions.
- The Northwest Center for Philosophy for Children has a variety of questions you can ask yourself, think about, and discuss.
Also
on this date:
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