Losing oneself kierkegaard biography

ACADEMIC PAPER

In this paper, I examine Kierkegaard’s notion of the self as a synthesis, focusing particularly on his division of the self into its finite and infinite aspects.

Introduction

The matter of selfhood is one that has divided philosophy since ancient times. Questions such as, “What is the self?”, “How does one come to be a self?”, and “Is the self inborn or acquired?” have fascinated thinkers for over two thousand years, and continue to animate contemporary philosophy.

For Plato, the self was eternal, as was the soul in which it resided.

Losing oneself kierkegaard biography wikipedia

The qualities inhabiting it were there inborn, deposited during past lives and simply waiting to be retrieved by the individual possessing the skills to do so. For Aristotle, the self was similarly bound up with the concept of the soul, but could perhaps be encapsulated as the sum total of concepts, ideas and impressions that reside in the soul as “objects either of perception or thought”[1].

Similarly for Descartes and Locke, t