Three Stages of the Kierkegaard - Essay Example

Kirkegaard Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts 20 May Julia Watkin (52) emphasized Kierkegaards three stages (aesthetic, ethical, and religious) are very important in a person’s continuing earthly sojourn. The research focuses on the authentic person‘s prioritizing personal goals over societal goals. The research also focuses on the unauthentic person prioritizing societal goals and objectives over personal goals and objectives. The research includes the movie’s philosophical undertones. The individual’s activity is grounded on philosophical influences. How have I experienced Kierkegaards three stages: aesthetic, ethical, and religious? The researcher continues to experience Kierkegaard’s three stages. Kierkegaard emphasized there are three different exclusive spheres of a person’s existence. Kierkegaard believes that life traverses from the aesthetic stage to the ethics stage and finally to religious stage. The last stage is considered to be the highest of the three stages. In terms of aesthetics, the person lives to satisfy one’s personal interests. A womanizer is a person who feels he has the right to have sex with every woman he wants to. The person feels that he can sleep the whole day because he or she wants to enjoy watching television shows for the whole day. A worst case scenario would occur when a person feels he or she has the freedom to literally gun down a group of students inside a classroom under the theory that aesthetics stages allows a person to do what one prefers to do. Under this stage, the person is not interested in what other people are stating. In terms of ethical, the person places the interest of society over one’s own needs, wants, and caprices. In the example above, the person will refrain from implementing one’s plan to kill the students inside a classroom session. The person will prioritize implementing actions and avoiding actions that would not be liked or approved by the other members of society. The person must comply with the ethical standards of society. There is a strong probability that the person will stop the killing of innocent civilians because killing is a violation of society’s ethical standards. The person thinks and acts to please a neighbor, a classroom group, and the company’s ethics- policy. The ethics-based person focuses on serving a bigger cause, complying with the ethics policies of the group where the person is a member. Once a person is married, the person will have to move in such as way as to protect the spouse, make the children’s life more comfortable, and work in order to buy food. Likewise, the married spouse will be able to muster more than enough energy to work an average of eight hours in a day to have money to buy food for the family. The money gained from the person’s long hours of work perseverance will be used to pay for the electricity, water, and telephone charges occurred within one month. In terms of the highest stage, the religious stage, the person catapults into the last stage of the person’s life activity. Here, the person focuses on going to church series. The person dedicates one’s entire life to pleasing God. To please God, the person goes to church every Sunday to listen and implement the church leader’s pulpit-generated instructions. Under this stage, the person is eager to sacrifice one’s ethical and aesthetics advantages. The aesthetic stage and the ethical stages are being superseded by the religious stage. The religious stage person is primarily concerned with living to make God happy. God will be happy if the person complies with all the religious policies set forth within the religious denomination. For example, most religious organizations have their one set of religious policies. The Jews have a different religious teaching when compared to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the fundamental churches as well as the Muslim churches. 2: "What is authenticity?" Clare Carlisle (22) reiterated authenticity is defined as being genuine, or original. In layman’s terms, the complete opposite of the principle of authenticity is fakeness. For example, one person can have a pirated copy of a famous singer’s song on DVD. The person can say that it is okay to buy the illegal version because the pirated (copied). However, doing so would be a violation of the laws on the buying and selling of pirated products. Many persons prefer to buy the original songs of the masters. One of the many benefits of buying the authentic versions of the songs is the quality and the durability of the materials used in creating a record of the recording artists’ original songs. In philosophy, the authentic life is characterized as a life of freedom, value, meaning, joy, and meaning. The person who loves baseball would prefer to pay baseball, his authentic life, instead of playing the unfamiliar soccer game. Clare Carlisle (22) emphasized existentialism philosophers stated the average person lives in an unauthentic life. The philosophers believe that the people have forgotten to focus on eliminating God (religious stage) and morality (ethics stage). To achieve one authentic life, the person has to have a radical reexamination of current cultural contexts, routine lifestyles, as well as how one thinks is proper in any given situation. Kirkegaard emphasizes that the average person has been lost in the complex, saturated, world’s values and policies. The person has lost one’s identity. The person acts as the members of the group or society acts. Failing to implement group norms may have a toll on the person’s life. The person who does not comply with the group norms may be literally kicked out of the group. The person’s uniqueness has been replaced by the group name. One person can be identified “Jew” or “Christian” based on what such person practices in terms of religion. Explain: "Sartre and Heidegger explore the concept of authenticity, which is a central theme in existentialism. What is your understanding of this topic? Steve Martinot (8) theorized Sartre emphasizes that authenticity is to live without an ego. The person should eliminate both transcendental as well as empirical (scientific) egos to be authentic. The transcendence version states that the person cannot do anything to alleviate a given situation. The person accepts whatever happens as an unavoidable fate. Likewise, Richard Lehan (188) introduced Heidegger’s concept of authenticity that people are born into a world of conformity. People have to do what the other members of society do in order to survive. For example, the person must go to college in order to have the academic requirements needed to pass the nursing board exams, engineering board exams, and lawyer bar exams. However, the person must come to realized that he or she is a unique person with unique talents and abilities. To be authentic, the person must break out of such conformity and bring out one’s best in everything. By doing so, the person purifies oneself from the taint of the societal influences. In what ways am I, or have I been, authentic or inauthentic? There are several ways that I have been authentic and inauthentic. By complying with the instructions or policies of the group where I belong, I am an unauthentic person. By voicing my displeasure in some of the current policies of the group, I have become an authentic person. However, the authentic person may have to prepare for the day when he or she has to finally declare independence from the group. What masks do I wear? The masks I wear are the mask of the group where I belong. As this researcher travels through life, the researcher changes groups. The researcher replaces ones’ current group mask with the mask of another new group. This is a necessary act in order for the new group to accept the new member applicant. Question 3: "Go With the Flow." Under the Go with the Flow concept, Taoism mandates that the person should go with the flow of life. An aged person must not resist the side effects of growing old. The old person drops the game that children play (baseball, soccer, or basketball). The old person must accept that his or her life on earth is nearing an end. The old person should not pretend and refuse to accept that one is already 65 years old. Taoism places importance on including play, fun, and laughter in a person’s life. Taoism states that the person should go with the flow of life from childhood, adolescence, and dying with a whole heart in order to reduce the stress and anxiety of growing old. The Taoism belief is grounded on the theory that a person’s life is but a dream. All persons must accept the yin and yang of life (opposites or dichotomies). The Yin represents the dark, negative, feminine, or cold side of life. The Yang represents the bright, positive, masculine, or hot side of life. Movie “Fourth Wise Man” In terms of movie summary, the movie entitled the fourth wise man showed the fourth wise man on a mission to find Jesus. The three wise men were able to find Jesus Christ in the manger. The fourth wise man accepted his fate the may not be able to find Jesus. The meeting took place on an Easter Sunday. Along the way towards his unending path to find Jesus, the fourth wise man helped the needy in their times of need. The movie ended when the fourth wise men met Jesus when he was more than thirty year old. Part 2: Relation to philosophical theme or issue. The philosophical angle of the story focuses on authenticity. The fourth wise man did not succumb to the pressures of society. The average person would have given up looking for Jesus. The people would have discouraged the fourth wise man from continuing his search for Jesus because the average person is not trained to wander in unfamiliar territory to find something that is hard to locate for so many years. Succumbing to society’s hurdles to find Jesus would be tantamount to being an unauthentic person. However, the fourth wise man’s happy finding of Jesus shows that the fourth wise man broke out of societal norms and decided to do what he wants to do, finding Jesus (authenticity) , and not give up (unauthenticated). Part 3: conclusion about personal development and / or philosophical issue. Personal development and philosophical issues can be graded based on two standards. The aesthetic standard uses the person’s own standard in determining if he is successful or not. The story of the fourth wise man is an example of an aesthetic standard. Under this standard, the fourth wise man has a high passing grade because he was able to break out of society’s standards and generate one’s own standard (finding Jesus generates a passing grade). On the other hand, using the unauthentic standard, the fourth wise man can be classified as failure. The fourth wise man did not comply with the society’s prodding to stop finding Jesus because the fourth wise man did not find Jesus for more than 20 years. Based on the above discussion, Kierkegaards three stages (aesthetic, ethical, and religious) are very important in a person’s earthly sojourn. The authentic person prioritizes personal goals over societal goals. The unauthentic person prioritizes societal goals and objectives over personal goals and objectives. The movie shows philosophical undertones. Indeed, the individual’s activity is grounded on philosophical influences. Works Cited Carlisle, Clare. Kierkegaard: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Continuum Press, 2006. Lehan, Richard. A Dangerous Crossing: French Literary Existentialism and the Modern American Novel. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973. Martinot, Steve. Forms in the Abyss: A Philosophical Bridge between Sartre and Derrida. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. Watkin, Julia. Outstanding Christian Thinkers. New York: Continuum Press, 2000. The Fourth Wise Man (1985 movie) Read More