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Single Idea 7578

[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / d. Philosophy as puzzles ]

Full Idea

I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere.

Gist of Idea

I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere

Source

Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], 'Author')

Book Ref

Kierkegaard,Søren: 'A Kierkegaard Anthology', ed/tr. Bretall,Robert [Princeton 1946], p.194


A Reaction

Nice. It is like Socrates's image of himself as the 'gadfly' of Athens. The interesting question is always to see what the rest of society makes of having someone in their midst who sees it as their social role to 'create difficulties'.


The 12 ideas with the same theme [philosophy deals with a set of basic puzzles]:

Translate as 'humans all desire by nature to understand' (not as 'to know') [Aristotle, by Annas]
Inquiry is the cause of philosophy [Aristotle]
Philosophers feed on problems, hoping they are digestible, and spiced with paradox [Novalis]
I conceived it my task to create difficulties everywhere [Kierkegaard]
In philosophy the truth can only be reached via the ruins of the false [Prichard]
Perhaps the aim of philosophy is to abolish sham problems [Heidegger]
Philosophy tries to be rid of certain intellectual puzzles, irrelevant to daily life [Wittgenstein]
Philosophers are marked by a joint love of evidence and ambiguity [Merleau-Ponty]
Philosophy must keep returning to the beginning [Murdoch]
The problems are the monuments of philosophy [Hart,WD]
Philosophy begins in disappointment, notably in religion and politics [Critchley]
Philosophy tries to explain how the actual is possible, given that it seems impossible [Macdonald,C]