Lebensalter und Philosophie

Abstract

Is there a specific or preferred phase of life predestined philosophising? How many years are necessary to start philosophising? Or is it bound to a certain age and ends after that age? It depends on the kind of philosophising. Philosophising can be thinking of the absent things. This happens in conversation with oneself. Children start with this kind of thinking not until they are ten years old. Professional philosophers need a lot of experience in living and thinking. Their main works therefore are rarely written before the age of thirty. However, philosophising can also mean wondering and being amazed while perceiving concrete situations. Children start very early with it. Their permanent questions why or what for are the questions causality and meaning respectively. Children also form early moral judgements. Partly they adopt norms, partly they have emotional insights and partly they develop a feeling justice. A child can conclude from a single death that we all will die. It starts from a concrete death that hurts and turns to a problem. This problem leads to a general question. With this question it discovers a kind of law. Some simple steps of thinking lead to an insight. A general view of the world and human beings will be constructed after a lot of steps. Since the day of birth we have had contact with the social world and the world of things, which influence our views. The arch of life is a common model since the early Middle Ages and is based on the power of life. The more power you have, the less help you need in this model. At the beginning of life you need much help, after some years you are able to work and to help others, but in old age you lose power and you again need help. This arch of life is based on one dimension only. But every phase of life has its own qualities, which are overlooked in this model. There are parallels in the naturalistic models that say that there is a blossom, then a ripe fruit and finally the phase of rotting. In other words, the very young and the very old people are not proper persons. We talk about the many old people and think there are too many old people and we exclude a lot of people from human rights: children. Freeing oneself from a wrong kind of thinking makes it possible to see that in every phase of life there is a mortal and a creative aspect. We are mortal from the beginning and can be creative in the phase of dying.There are children who are more than the mature persons and there are old people who are more energetic than those in the years. The best age is every time - it depends on the quality we are focusing on. Thinking this way, we can give back human dignity to both children and elderly people.