Learning to Swim with Hegel and Kierkegaard.

An essay is presented which focuses on the works of philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Soren Kierkegaard which both seek philosophical instruction in the example of learning to swim. The author compares the works and philosophies of Hegel and Kierkegaard. He shows how the same example used by Hegel and Kierkegaard reached diametrically opposed conclusions. He asserts the role of examples in philosophy.