Even before Hamlet, people have wondered "To be, or not to be" and searched for the essence of our existence. Many thinkers have heretofore offered what they have considered to be "the point" of our existence. Karl Marx stated that, "Philosophers have always tried to interpret the world, the point is to change it". Three important assumptions in this statement are worth further thought. The first question is about the pursuit of philosophers; the second, about the idea of the world, and the final and third question is the "point", or "the task at hand" as Heidegger might rephrase it, which in Marx's opinion is to change the world.

Gandhi also makes a statement regarding change in the world: "We have to be the change we want to see in this world". Both Gandhi's and Marx's statements assume that we do want to see a change, that the world can be changed, and that we can bring about this change. The questions that arise are: What have philosophers, and other thinkers, tried to do? What is the nature of this world, of our existence? And finally, what then is the task at hand?

The philosophical pursuit is not necessarily that of interpreting the world. Philosophy so far has attempted to know. Of this pursuit Plato said, "All men by nature desire to know." Hence, philosophy is undertaking the task of all mankind. Yet, the question arises, "To know what?" An answer to this is inscribed on the inscription at Delphi: "Know thyself." Socrates, the father of philosophy, expresses, "All I know is that I do not know anything." Nevertheless, even this knowledge is self-knowledge; Socrates knows himself when he knows that he does not know. The self could be the "world" that, according to Gandhi, we must change.

Hannah Arendt gives an alternative description of the world as an "appearance". Where all things appear, the world we perceive is dependent upon us, just as our appearance is dependent upon another spectator. We are thus one of the things that appear, and also a spectator. Since Being and Appearing coincide in this world — we appear when we are born, and disappear when we die — then the way we appear must be our existence. We can thus change at least some of the world, by changing the way we appear to the world. In the same vein, Gandhi's quote regarding seeing change would imply "We are the world that we have to change", by making ourselves the site/sight of change.

Heidegger offers another insight into the world and philosophical pursuit. He describes the world as manipulable and technological. Philosophy in this world has turned in to "the empirical sciences of man", i.e. the experiential object of technology through which man establishes himself in the world, by making and shaping. Philosophy has so far attempted to be a science and thereby has attempted to change the world, by making and shaping it.

Yet, in establishing itself as a science in the aforementioned manner, philosophy leaves something "unthought". Does philosophy then achieve the point? Heidegger calls thinking a handicraft. It is, therefore, an obsolete thing in a techno-scientific world. In contrast, the modern day world can even shape our thoughts; the media tells us what to think. Heidegger argues, however, that we have not been thinking, and that the task left is one of thinking. Arendt would agree, too, that the modern day world is afflicted with "thoughtlessness." Man has always attempted to change the world. We can trace many changes in technology, history, and revolutions. The "point" or "the task at hand", as Heidegger puts it, would be to learn to think. Man is the pointer towards thought. Heidegger quotes Holderlin saying, "We are a sign that is not read." Our signification has not achieved its meaning. We are unable to achieve thought; rather, it is thought that provokes us, which is felt when we say that something is "thought-provoking".

Thus, Socrates' recognition that "I do not know anything" implies several things. It is not "I" that knows anything, but perhaps this knowledge is revealed to me. "All I know' is the limit of my knowledge, after which any further knowledge is not mine, but something an other gives to me. Hence, all that remains for me to know is that I do not know, that it is "unknowable' to me. "I do not know" is the self-knowledge that is a pointer, since it points to what there is to know. How can one achieve this self-knowledge? How does one know that there is something "unknowable" to us? Perhaps I, too, cannot know the answers, and must wait for this knowledge to be revealed to me.

Philosophers, then, have not tried to interpret the world, they have always attempted to know the unknowable. Man has always tried to change the world, and that does not appear to be the point at hand. Perhaps man cannot change the nature of this world. For example, man has always fought disease and poverty, even death, yet these continue to exist. Man cannot change the phenomenal nature of the world; it is the world that was given to him. It is possible perhaps to change ourselves by the way we appear, to ourselves, to thought, to the unknowable. Author Doris Lessing, in her thought-provoking introduction to The Golden Notebook, describes Marxism as "the first attempt for our time, outside the formal religions, at a world mind". Lessing argues that, "A person who has been influenced by Marxism takes it for granted that an event in Siberia will affect one in Botswana". If a remote event can affect our daily lives, then our daily actions, too, perhaps shape world events.

By changing things in our sphere of action, we may as Gandhi says, be the change in the world. Philosophers have so far attempted to know the unknowable and Marx ascribed them the task of changing the world; the point, however, to rephrase him, is to change ourselves. A better world starts with a better person, a better family, and a better neighbour.