Philosophy is tested and characterised by the way in which it appropriates its history. Karl Jaspers More Quotes by Karl Jaspers More Quotes From Karl Jaspers Conflicts may be the sources of defeat, lost life and a limitation of our potentiality but they may also lead to greater depth of living and the birth of more far-reaching unities, which flourish in the tensions that engender them. Karl Jaspers unitydepthmay The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. ... Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question. Karl Jaspers wisephilosophymean Nietzsche, driven by the absolute demand of his existential truthfulness, could not abide the bourgeois world, even when its representative had human nobility. Karl Jaspers demandexistentialworld At the present moment, the security of coherent philosophy, which existed from Parmenides to Hegel, is lost. Karl Jaspers hegelmomentsphilosophy When in our isolation we see our lives seeping away as a mere succession of moments, tossed meaninglessly about by accidents and overwhelming events; when we contemplate a history that seems to be at an end, leaving only chaos behind it, then we are impelled to raise ourselves above history. Karl Jaspers chaosleavingevents It has become obligatory to fulfil a function which shall in some way be regarded as useful to the masses...Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstition without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants. Karl Jaspers independencegreatnesspeople The community of masses of human beings has produced an order of life in regulated channels which connects individuals in a technically functioning organisation, but not inwardly from the historicity of their souls. Karl Jaspers communitysoulorder When language is used without true significance, it loses its purpose as a means of communication and becomes an end in itself. Karl Jaspers communicationpurposemean Nietzsche's ideas and plans: for example, the idea of giving up the whole wretched academic world to form a secular monastic community. Karl Jaspers giving-upcommunityideas All democracies demand common public education because nothing makes people so much alike as the same education. Karl Jaspers demanddemocracypeople The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life. Karl Jaspers glowinglanguagepast Just as primitive man believed himself to stand face to face with demons and believed that could he but know their names he would become their master, so is contemporary man faced by this incomprehensible, which disorders his calculations. Karl Jaspers primitive-manmenthinking An ideology is a complex of ideas or notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification, obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other to his advantage. Karl Jaspers deceptionselfideas The Socratic teacher turns his students away from himself and back onto themselves; he hides in paradoxes, makes himself inaccessible. The intimate relationship between student and teacher here is not one of submission, but of a contest for truth. Karl Jaspers studentsintimate-relationshipsteacher Philosophic meditation is an accomplishment by which I attain Being and my own self, not impartial thinking which studies a subject with indifference. Karl Jaspers accomplishmentselfthinking My own being can be judged by the depths I reach in making these historical origins my own. Karl Jaspers my-owndepthhistorical Only a development of thought achieved through the self-education of the whole man can prevent any body of thought whatsoever from becoming a poison; can prevent enlightenment from becoming an agent of death. Karl Jaspers becomingselfmen Only as an individual can man become a philosopher. Karl Jaspers philosopherindividualmen The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding. Karl Jaspers essentialsunderstandingphilosophy The history of philosophy is not, like the history of the sciences, to be studied with the intellect alone. That which is receptive in us and that which impinges upon us from history is the reality of man's being, unfolding itself in thought. Karl Jaspers menphilosophyreality
