Philosophy: Stages on Life's way - Essay Example

ple works for awhile but eventually the individual gets to a place of angst which he suggested was created because the individual was feeling a sense of emptiness and because their lives lack meaning. Kierkegaard believed that an individuals way of dealing with this stage was to understand they should choose an interesting life because otherwise, they would become bored and this boredom led to angst. He further believed that the individual would need to make a leap to move into the next stage if they were to attain it.

In a sense, as Karen Perkins suggests, they are losing their self in this first stage without knowing what their future will look like. Kierkegaard saw life stages as a choice because the self was always moving in some direction. Scott OLeary points out that when an individual is in despair, despair must be considered in a "category of consciousness" (40). Consciousness is what implies the choice and also sets the self for freedom. This freedom leads into more consciousness and then into will.

As OLeary states, "A person who has no will at all is not a self" (41). Consciousness also implies that choice happens internally and the individual may not be conscious that they have this choice. Kierkegaard explains that when someone is living in the Aesthetic Stage their choices are more governed by their senses rather than their rational or ethical thinking. In order to find the next step, they will need to go within themselves in order to find what they are seeking a sense of inwardness.

In some respects, this means that the individual is seeking God. Not in a religious sense necessarily. but they are looking for what will eventually lead the individual to faith. It is in this second stage that the individual begins to become cognizant of the fact that they need to make specific choices about their life based on ethical principles. They begin to develop a sense of morals that become their personal ethics. The idea of reason is more important than