Happy birthday, Søren Kierkegaard

It is the birthday of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813), whose writings on existence and man’s relationship to life substantially influenced psychology, theology, and Western culture in the mid-20th century after they were translated from the original Danish into major European languages. Kierkegaard argued that although objective facts in existence are important how one relates to those facts are more important. He focused on Christian ethics and how man could become more like God if he would forget distractions like money and focus on belief. He frequently wrote under pseudonymns and took opposing sides of the same question. Among his best known works are Either/Or (1843) and several Upbuilding Discourses (beginning in 1843).

Happy birthday, philosopher Robert Pirsig

It is the birthday of writer Robert M. Pirsig (1928), who is remembered for his remarkable bestseller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974). The book is based on an 18-day motorcycle trip Pirsig took with his 11-year-old son from St. Paul, Minnesota, to San Francisco in 1968. Pirsig wrote that the book is neither a study of Zen Buddhism nor very factual about motorcycle maintenance. It is, rather, a philosophical examination of western culture. It sold five million copies. Pirsig's son was later fatally stabbed in front of the San Francisco Zen Center.

David Hume: philosopher, historian

David Hume

It is the birthday of Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711), whose A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1777) are landmark works in the development of Western philosophy. Hume believed that all ideas come from man's impressions and memories of impressions. Passions, he wrote, rule over reason in determining human actions. Morality, he believed, is based on self interest, including the pleasure humans feel in pleasing others. These science of man theories influenced others, such as economist-philosopher Adam Smith and philosopher Immanuel Kant. In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, he presents a conversation between three fictional characters who debate the nature of God's existence. His work influenced philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Reid and theologian Joseph Butler, among others.