something that everybody needs? Philosophers think so. They believe that
man cannot live by bread alone. Of course everyone needs food. And
everyone needs love and care. But there is something else—apart from that—
which everyone needs, and that is to figure out who we are and why we are
here.
Being interested in why we are here is not a “casual” interest like
collecting stamps. People who ask such questions are taking part in a debate
that has gone on as long as man has lived on this planet. How the universe,
the earth, and life came into being is a bigger and more important question
than who won the most gold medals in the last Olympics.
The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical
questions:
How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what
happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions?
And most important, how ought we to live? People have been asking these
questions throughout the ages. We know of no culture which has not
concerned itself with what man is and where the world came from.
Basically there are not many philosophical questions to ask. We have
already asked some of the most important ones. But history presents us with
many different answers to each question. So it is easier to ask philosophical
questions than to answer them.
Today as well each individual has to discover his own answer to these
same questions. You cannot find out whether there is a God or whether there
is life after death by looking in an encyclopedia. Nor does the encyclopedia
tell us how we ought to live. However, reading what other people have
believed can help us formulate our own view of life.
Philosophers’ search for the truth resembles a detective story. Some
think Andersen was the murderer, others think it was Nielsen or Jensen. The
police are sometimes able to solve a real crime. But it is equally possible that
they never get to the bottom of it, although there is a solution somewhere. So
even if it is difficult to answer a question, there may be one—and only one—
right answer. Either there is a kind of existence after death—or there is not.
A lot of age-old enigmas have now been explained by science. What the
dark side of the moon looks like was once shrouded in mystery. It was not the
kind of thing that could be solved by discussion, it was left to the imagination
of the individual. But today we know exactly what the dark side of the moon
looks like, and no one can “believe” any longer in the Man in the Moon, or that
the moon is made of green cheese.
A Greek philosopher who lived more than two thousand years ago
believed that philosophy had its origin in man’s sense of wonder. Man thought
it was so astonishing to be alive that philosophical questions arose of their
own accord.
It is like watching a magic trick. We cannot understand how it is done.
So we ask: how can the magician change a couple of white silk scarves into a
live rabbit?
A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a
magician suddenly pulls a rabbit out of a hat which has just been shown to
them empty.
In the case of the rabbit, we know the magician has tricked us. What we
would like to know is just how he did it. But when it comes to the world it’s