Abstract
Philosophy begins where science ends. Philosophy has ceased to be a science. It is a source of its own. The limits of science make obvious that faith belongs to being human. Faith is either religious or philosophical. Faith is a main phenomenon of being human. It consists in the simple fact that persons have ultimate convictions. Philosophical faith is existential faith. Its certainty is tied to the individual. Philosophical faith cannot be achieved without personal effort, without acts of actual freedom, and without realizations of Existenz. Jaspers’ concept of philosophical faith turns out to be a new synthesis of historical conditions and philosophical requirements.
I regard my thinking as the natural and necessary conclusion of Western thought until now, the unprejudiced synthesis by means of a principle that in its wideness is able to integrate all that is true in any sense whatever.1
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Notes
- 1.
Von der Wahrheit. Philosophische Logik, Erster Band, München: Piper, 1947, p. 192. Cf. Leonard H. Ehrlich, Karl Jaspers. Philosophy as Faith, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1975, p. 219.
- 2.
Weltgeschichte der Philosophie. Einleitung, from the probate, ed. Hans Saner (München and Zurich: Piper, 1982), p. 33.
- 3.
Karl Jaspers, Philosophie, 2. Band: Existenzerhellung (Berlin: Springer, 1932), p. 120. [Henceforth cited as PH2]; Philosophy, Volume 2: Existential Elucidation, trans. E.B. Ashton (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 105. [Henceforth cited as P2]
- 4.
Karl Jaspers, Der Philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung (Munich: Piper, 1962), p. 170. [Henceforth cited as PGO]; Philosophical Faith and Revelation, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 105. [Henceforth cited as PFR]
- 5.
Karl Jaspers, Die geistige Situation der Zeit (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1931), p. 131. [Henceforth cited as GSZ]; Man in the Modern Age, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1933), p. 140. [Henceforth cited as MMA]
- 6.
Karl Jaspers, Philosophie, 1. Band: Philosophische Weltorientierung (Berlin: Springer, 1932), p. viii. [Henceforth cited as PH1]; Philosophy, Volume 1: Philosophical World Orientation, 1969, trans. E.B. Ashton (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 2. [Henceforth cited as P1]
- 7.
Immanuel Kant, “Kritik der reinen Vernunft,” in Gesammelte Schriften, Akademie-Ausgabe, Volume 4, Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1903), p. 8 (KrV, A X).
- 8.
Immanuel Kant, “Was heißt: Sich im Denken orientiren?” in Gesammelte Schriften, Akademie-Ausgabe, Volume 8, Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1912), p. 141. Cf. KrV, A 829, B 857. [Henceforth cited as WSD]
- 9.
Karl Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz. Fünf Vorlesungen (Groningen: J.B. Wolters, 1935; Bremen: Johs. Storm, 1947; München: Piper, 1960), p. 11. [Henceforth cited as VE]
- 10.
See Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche. Einführung in das Verständnis seines Philosophierens (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1936), p. 440 f. [Henceforth cited as N]
- 11.
See Karl Jaspers, Aneignung und Polemik. Gesammelte Reden und Aufsätze zur Geschichte der Philosophie, ed. Hans Saner (Munich: Piper, 1968), p. 389.
- 12.
See Karl Jaspers, Rechenschaft und Ausblick. Reden und Aufsätze (Munich: Piper, 1951), p. 400 f. [Henceforth cited RA]
- 13.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1963), § 6.52.
- 14.
Karl Jaspers and Rudolf Bultmann, Die Frage der Entmythologisierung (Munich: Piper, 1954), p. 36. Karl Jaspers and Rudolf Bultmann, Myth and Christianity. An Inquiry into the Possibility of Religion without Myth, trans. Norbert Gutermann (New York, NY: Noonday Press, 1958), p. 26.
- 15.
Karl Jaspers, Provokationen. Gespräche und Interviews, ed. Hans Saner (Munich: Piper, 1969), p. 72. [Henceforth cited as PRO]
- 16.
Karl Jaspers, Der philosophische Glaube (Zurich: Artemis, 1948; München: Piper, 1948), p. 60. Karl Jaspers, The Perennial Scope of Philosophy, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York, NY: Philosophical Library, 1949; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), p. 76.
- 17.
Karl Jaspers, Existenzphilosophie. Drei Vorlesungen, gehalten am Freien Deutschen Hochstift in Frankfurt a.M., September 1937 (Berlin and Leipzig: de Gruyter, 1938), p. 46. [Henceforth cited as E]
- 18.
Karl Jaspers, Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (Berlin: Springer, 1919), p. viii. [Henceforth cited as PW]
- 19.
Karl Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie, revised ed. (München: Piper, 1977), p. 33.
- 20.
See Karl Jaspers, Chiffren der Transzendenz, ed. Hans Saner (Munich: Piper, 1970), p. 99.
- 21.
Karl Jaspers, Nachlaß zur Philosophischen Logik, eds. Hans Saner und Marc Hänggi (Munich and Zurich: Piper, 1991), p. 387.
- 22.
See Plato, Gorgias 469 c, 479 e; also Crito, 49 b–e.
- 23.
Albert Camus, “La Peste,” in Théâtre, récits, nouvelles (Paris: Gallimard, 1963); (Bibl. de la Pléiade, 161), p. 1397: “Et je refuserai jusqu’à la mort d’aimer cette création où des enfants sont torturés.”
- 24.
Karl Jaspers, Schicksal und Wille. Autobiographische Schriften, ed. Hans Saner (Munich: Piper, 1967), pp. 143–163.
- 25.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Die Lektion des Jahrhunderts. Ein Interview von Riccardo Dottori (Münster: Lit, 2001), pp. 138 f. [Henceforth cited as LJ]
- 26.
Jürgen Habermas, Glauben und Wissen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001), pp. 12 ff.
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Cesana, A. (2012). Jaspers’ Concept of Philosophical Faith: A New Synthesis?. In: Wautischer, H., Olson, A., Walters, G. (eds) Philosophical Faith and the Future of Humanity. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2223-1_9
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