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Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) |
THEMES ON THIS PAGE:
| 1. BOUNDARY SITUATIONS | 2. THE COMPREHENSIVE | 3. PHILOSOPHICAL FAITH | 4. PHILOSOPHIZING |
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) was a philosopher and psychiatrist, and one of the founders of existentialist philosophy and psychology. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Berlin, he began working at a psychiatric hospital in Heidelberg, but he was disillusioned with the existing approach and decided to work on improving it. At the age of 30 he joined the philosophy department, and soon afterwards turned from psychology to philosophy. Because of his Jewish wife he was forced by the Nazis to retire, and was also banned from publication. Fortunately, they both survived. After the war he moved with his wife to Switzerland, and started working at the University of Basel. He dedicated much energy to the moral and democratic rebirth of Germany. He wrote books and essays about the human condition, and gave public lectures and radio talks. He died at the age of 90.
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TOPIC 1: BOUNDARY SITUATIONS |
One important concept introduced by Jaspers is that of “Boundary situation” (Grenzsituation in German, also translated sometimes as Limit Situation or Limit Condition). These are situations in our life in which we confront our limitedness as human beings and experience a powerful sense of dread, helplessness, or guilt. The experience leads us to abandon our ordinary thoughts and securities, and to enter a higher level of self-questioning and self-awareness.
Boundary situations is the topic of the following text, slightly adopted from Chapter 2 of Jaspers’ book Way to Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy (1950), which is a kind of summary of his main philosophical ideas. This chapter, “Sources of Philosophy,” presents several sources from which philosophy springs: The sense of wonder, of doubt, and the experience of ultimate situations.
And now, let us take a look at our human situation. We are always in situations. Situations change, opportunities arise. If they are missed, they never return. I myself can work to change the situation.
But there are situations which remain essentially the same even if their specific appearance changes and their power is hidden: I must die, I must suffer, I must struggle, I am subject to chance, I involve myself in a guilt that cannot be erased. We call these fundamental situations of our existence: BOUNDARY SITUATIONS. These are situations which we cannot escape or change. Together with wonder and doubt, awareness of these Boundary situations is the most profound source of philosophy.
In our day-to-day life we often evade them, by closing our eyes and living as if they do not exist. We forget that we must die, we forget our guilt, and we forget that we are at the mercy of chance. We look only at concrete situations, and we control them to our profit. We react to them by planning and acting in the world, under the impulse of our practical interest. But to Boundary Situations we react either by confusion, or, if we really understand them, by despair and re-birth. We become ourselves through a change in our consciousness of being.
[…]
The Boundary Situations – death, chance, guilt, and the uncertainty of the world – confront me with the reality of failure. What do I do in the face of this absolute failure which, if I am honest, I cannot fail to recognize?
The advice of the Stoic is to withdraw to our own freedom in the independence of the mind, is not adequate. The Stoic’s perception of human weakness was not radical enough. He failed to see that the mind in itself is empty, dependent on what is put into it, and he failed to consider the possibility of madness. The Stoic leaves us without consolation – his independent mind is sterile, lacking all content. He leaves us without hope, because his doctrine offers us no opportunity of inner transformation, no fulfillment through self-conquest in love, no hopeful expectation of the possible.
And yet, the Stoics strive towards true philosophy. Their thought, because its source is in ultimate situations, expresses the basic drive to find a revelation of true being in human failure.
Crucial for the human being is how he faces failure: Whether the failure remains hidden from him and overwhelms him at the end, or whether he perceives it clearly as the constant limit of his existence; whether he grabs fantastic solutions and consolations, or whether he faces his failure honestly, in silence before the unfathomable. The way in which the human being approaches his failure determines what he will become.
In ultimate situations, the human being either perceives nothingness, or he senses true being despite and beyond all temporary worldly existence. Even despair, precisely because it is possible in the world, points beyond the world.
To put it differently, the human being seeks redemption. Redemption is offered by all the great universal religions. They offer an objective guarantee of the truth and the reality of redemption. Their road leads to an act of individual conversion. This I something that philosophy cannot provide. And yet, all philosophy is a transcending of the world, analogous to redemption. To sum up: The source of philosophy is found in wonder, in doubt, in a sense of forsakenness. In any case it begins with a sense of upheaval, which determines its goal.
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2. THE COMPREHENSIVE |
An important idea in Jaspers’ philosophy is that reality, or “being,” is not made of “things.” It is not “something” I can think about. When I think about things – trees, atoms, cities, numbers, concepts, etc. – there is a distinction between me and the thing, the thinking subject and the object of my thought. But this subject-object distinction, Jaspers says, is a structure of our human thinking – not of being (reality). Being is never just an object, because it includes both subject and object, both me and what I think about. It “encompasses” both of us, indeed it encompasses everything. Jaspers calls it the “Encompassing,” also translated as the “Comprehensive” which includes all.
Thus, it is impossible to look at being – the Comprehensive – from the outside, and it is impossible to think and theorize about it without objectifying it and distorting it. Being is never an object of my thoughts. At most I can have a vague awareness of it.
This has important implications in Jaspers philosophy. It means that I, as a human being, am not a thing made of things like molecules and bodily organs, or even spirit and soul. My source is in the Comprehensive, beyond all things, beyond anything that can be defined and described. I am not subject to the laws of nature – I am truly free.
Furthermore, no philosophical theory can capture the Comprehensive (or being), because theories objectify their topic. Philosophical theories throughout history are different expressions of the Comprehensive, but not objective descriptions of it. The history of philosophy is a history of expressions (manifestations) of the Comprehensive. In this sense, philosophical theories serve as “ciphers” (codes or symbols) that hint at the Comprehensive, and take us beyond the level of objective thinking, beyond subject-object thinking.
The following text is adopted from Chapter 3 of Jaspers’ book Way to Wisdom (1930), which is a summary of his main philosophical ideas.
Philosophy began with the question: What is? […] What is the being which holds everything together, that lies at the base of everything, the being from which everything that is emerges?
Through thousands of years, the opposing philosophy schools have been unable to demonstrate the truth of any one view. In each view, some truth is manifested, namely an attitude and a method of inquiry which teach people to see something in the world. But each view becomes false when it claims to be the only truth, and when it strives to explain all existence.
Why is this so? All these views have one thing in common: They understand being as something which confronts me as an object, which stands apart from me as I think about it. This basic phenomenon of our consciousness seems so self-evident to us, that we barely suspect the riddle which it presents, because we do not inquire into it. Anything about which we think or speak is always something other than ourselves, it is the object toward which we, as subjects, are oriented. […]
We call this basic condition of our thinking: the SUBJECT-OBJECT DICHOTOMY. As long as we are awake and conscious, we are always involved in it. We may twist and turn as much as we want, we will always be in this dichotomy, we will always be oriented toward an object, whether it is the object of our sense perception, or abstract objects such as numbers or geometrical figures, or a fantasy, or even an impossible imagining. We are always confronted outwardly or inwardly by objects, which are the content of our consciousness. As Schopenhauer said, there is no object without a subject and no subject without an object. What is the meaning of this always-present subject-object dichotomy? It can only mean that being as a whole is neither subject nor object, but must [include both of them and] be the COMPREHENSIVE, which is manifested in this dichotomy.
Clearly, being itself cannot be an object of my thought. Everything that becomes an object for me is separated from the Comprehensive, while I become separate from the Comprehensive as a subject. […] The Comprehensive itself does not become an object of my thought, but it is manifested in [both sides of] the I-object dichotomy. It remains a background, it illuminates without limits the phenomenon, but it is always the Comprehensive.
[…] Thus, in our thinking we can gain only a hint of the Comprehensive. It is not manifested to us, but everything else is manifested in it. […] Raising ourselves above every object of thought is perhaps not difficult, but it seems strange. Because it does not bring any knowledge of a new object, but aspires to transform our consciousness of being.
[…] Since it shows us no new object, the idea of the Comprehensive is empty, in terms of our ordinary worldly knowledge. But […] it transforms the meaning of the world of objects, by awakening in us a faculty of sensing what is really in the phenomenon.
Let us attempt take a step further toward the clarification of the Comprehensive. To philosophize concerning the Comprehensive means to penetrate into being itself.
[…] On the basis of our philosophical inquiry of the Comprehensive, we shall be better able to understand the great metaphysical theories of history – the theories of fire, of matter, the mind, the world process, etc. Because in reality they were not just objective knowledge as they are often interpreted; and once they are considered as such they are completely false. They were CIPHERS of being, created by the philosophers out of the presence of the Comprehensive, for the clarification of the self and of being — and then immediately mistaken for objectifications of authentic being.
[…] Through metaphysics we obtain a hint of the Comprehensive in transcendence. We understand this metaphysics as a symbol. But we lose its meaning if we surrender to irresponsible aesthetic enjoyment of its ideas. Because its content is manifested to us only if we perceive reality through the symbol. And we perceive it only out of the reality of our existence, and not out of mere thinking, which in this sphere is unable to see any meaning at all.
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3. PHILOSOPHICAL FAITH |
Jaspers’ idea of “philosophical faith” was developed in several of his books and lectures. With this concept, he tells us that philosophy can be a kind of faith, because through philosophizing we can turn towards the foundation of our being. Yet, it is very different from traditional religious faiths, because it has no religious dogmas or scriptures. On the contrary, philosophy can never have final truths – by its very nature it is a free, open, never-ending search. But although the writings of great philosophers cannot serve us as authorities to follow, they can help to turn us towards the foundation. The following is adapted from the chapter “What is philosophical faith?” from Jaspers’ book The Perennial Scope of Philosophy (1948).
Philosophical faith must elucidate itself. When I philosophize, I accept nothing without seeking to penetrate it. Philosophical faith cannot become universally valid knowledge, but it should become clearly present to me. It should keep becoming clearer and more conscious, and by becoming conscious it reveals its inner meaning more and more.
What, then, is faith?
In faith, the conviction I have, and the content of my faith – the subjective ACT of believing and WHAT I believe through this act – are inseparable. The subjective and the objective sides of faith are one whole. If I take only the subjective side, I am left with a faith that is merely a state of mind, a faith without object, without content. If I take only the objective side, the content of faith becomes an object, a statement, a dogma, something dead.
Thus, faith is always believing-in-something. I cannot say that my faith is an objective truth that produced my conviction, nor can I say that it is a subjective conviction that produced its content. Faith is one, which we then separate into subjective and objective.
Accordingly, when we speak about [philosophical] faith, we should remember that it is the faith that encompasses subject and object. And here lies the whole difficulty of defining faith.
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If philosophical faith is neither only objective content [=WHAT I believe], nor only the act of a subject [=my subjective believing], then it must include what is neither subject nor object but both together. It must be the reality that manifests itself in the duality of subject and object.
We call the reality that is neither only subject nor only object, but is on both sides of the subject-object division, the COMPREHENSIVE. Although the comprehensive cannot be an object to think about, it is what we have in mind when we philosophize.
[… ]
As Kierkegaard saw, an essential attribute of faith is that it relates to a unique historical event [=the believer believing at a specific period], and it is itself historical. Faith is not something that is simply given in to me. It is, rather, the primal awareness of Being through the mediation of history and thought. Philosophical faith realizes this. It regards all verbalized and written philosophy only as preparation or recollection, only as inspiration or confirmation. Hence, no meaningful philosophy can be a self-contained conceptual system. The conceptual structure of a philosophy is never more than half, and it reaches truth only if, in addition to being conceived in the thinker’s mind, it is also embodied in the thinker’s own existence.
Hence, the philosopher freely confronts his own thoughts. Philosophical faith must be characterized negatively: It cannot be a credo. Its thought does not become a dogma. Philosophical faith is not firmly grounded in anything objective and finite in the world, because it merely USES propositions, concepts and methods, and does not SUBORDINATE itself to them. Its substance is purely historical [=belongs to time] and cannot be anchored in the universal – although it can express itself only in [the language of] the universal. Accordingly, philosophical faith must continually relate to the primal source within each historical situation. It achieves no rest in a doctrine. It remains an endeavor of radical openness. It cannot present itself as an ultimate authority, but must manifest itself through thought and reasoning.
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Does philosophy [=philosophical faith] help a person in distress? This question is asked by those who seek an objective, concrete support. But philosophy offers no such support. The support offered by philosophy is reflection, where you gather spiritual nourishment by giving actuality to the Comprehensive, so that you become present to yourself and thus gain yourself. Philosophical faith sees itself as exposed, without protection or shelter.
And yet, the tradition of philosophy resembles a support. The reality of past philosophical thought, of the great philosophers, of the works of philosophy, stands before our eyes. Despite our love for particular philosophers, we can never see in a thinker anything more than a person; we must always notice errors and limitations and failures. Even the highest tradition is bound to time, and it gives no security. It cannot become a collection of sacred books, and it can offer no work which is valid under all circumstances. Truth is never ready-made; it is an inexhaustible stream that flows from the history of philosophy as a whole, everywhere from China to the West, yet it flows only when thinkers tap the primal source so that it reaches new realizations in the present.
The word “Philosophy” has become a symbol of our gratitude for the possibility of continued dialogue with this historical tradition. Indeed, it is common to personalize “philosophy” as if it is a person (as in the writings of Cicero and Boethius). Philosophical faith venerates traditional philosophy – not as an authority, but as one continuous spiritual struggle.
