“A Great Awakener”: The Relevance of Søren Kierkegaard in Karl Jaspers’ Aneignung und Polemik
In three short essays published in 1951 (“Kierkegaard”), 1955 (“Kierkegaard. Zu seinem 100. Todestag”) and 1964 (“Kierkegaard heute”)-later collected in the volume Aneignung und Polemik (1968)-Karl Jaspers summarizes Kierkegaard’s thought in an unusual way. The main goal of the present article is to...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
De Gruyter
2015
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In: |
Kierkegaard studies. Yearbook
Year: 2015, Volume: 20, Issue: 1, Pages: 259-278 |
IxTheo Classification: | TJ Modern history TK Recent history VA Philosophy |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
Summary: | In three short essays published in 1951 (“Kierkegaard”), 1955 (“Kierkegaard. Zu seinem 100. Todestag”) and 1964 (“Kierkegaard heute”)-later collected in the volume Aneignung und Polemik (1968)-Karl Jaspers summarizes Kierkegaard’s thought in an unusual way. The main goal of the present article is to clarify how, in Aneignung und Polemik, Jaspers indicates how Kierkegaard’s philosophy may still echo in the liquid age. In an age in which life is a stage, and seems to succumb increasingly to the power of mass media, Jaspers’ reading of Kierkegaard invites us to be ourselves and to open ourselves to the hidden sense against the despair brought about by the paradoxical combination of homogenization and solipsism. Kierkegaard’s way, he suggests, offers an authentic way to accept our own human limits. But according to Jaspers, Kierkegaard perhaps tells us something more: If in a time of destruction and transitions, philosophy seems to lose its power to illuminate human existence, this is to be laid at the door of the “original thinkers” who do not rise to the challenge of thinking the original philo-ousia, the “love towards essential being.” |
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ISSN: | 1612-9792 |
Contains: | In: Kierkegaard studies. Yearbook
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/kierke-2015-0113 |