History has become a real and urgent problem. It harasses us in a double form, theoretical and practical, corresponding to the double meaning of the term “history” as either “a sequence of events in time” or “our knowledge of past events”. The first concerns our attitude to human history. We somehow suffer from “historical indigestion”. We may have mastered Nature, but we have certainly not yet mastered History. Therefore it threatens to dominate us. The mass of past events is too (...) much for us and for our memory, too many dates, too many facts, too many interesting or indifferent happenings. We cannot even keep pace with, or realize, all the important events which fill our own times, like world-wars, revolutions, counter-revolutions, inflation and deflation, with all the misery they imply. Consciously or unconsciously we feel ashamed of the human record, of the amount of cruelty, destruction, murder, and martyrdom inflicted on innocent beings. In spite of all this we cannot escape History. All the great events affect every human being. Moreover, historical knowledge permeates our education and is disturbingly growing from year to year, more in detail and in specialization than as a co-ordinated whole. We may react to this situation in one of three ways: by filling our brain with this unco-ordinated mass of historical knowledge, and submerging our personality in it, by becoming specialists and disregarding problems other than our own, by ignoring the past altogether, and falling back into the state of nature and barbarism. We have witnessed all these solutions and their disquieting results. (shrink)

Encounter is one of the magical keywords of our time which seems to open up new vistas. Rencontre, Encounter, Begegnung, the Festschrift dedicated to Professor F. J. J. Buytendijk is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the meanings of the three terms are by no means identical. In encounter the negative sense “meet in a hostile manner”, prevails in Begegnung the affirmative sense, whereas rencontre is neutral and can be used in both senses. Secondly, whereas Festschriften tend to become a nuisance, (...) occasionally arranged by the recipients ad majorem auctoris gloriam, this one is well-deserved and well-arranged. Buytendijk is a leading Dutch biologist, physiologist and psychologist of European stature with an excellent resistance record. Since the contributors were asked to refer to his paper, La phénoménologie de la rencontre, the most important papers are contributions to a psychology of rencontre. Thus the volume becomes representative of an important trend in European biology and psychology. The collaboration of biologists, psychologists and psychiatrists with philosophers is exemplary and fruitful. A non-behaviourist and non-materialist experimental psychology, a personalist counterpart to a behaviourist stimulus-response psychology, emerges in outlines. It has transcended the isolated individual and isolated impressions and ideas, and regards man as a being-within-the-world together with other persons. the influence of Husserl's phenomenology and of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit is outstanding. New categories are used, such as “authentic” and “inauthentic” rencontre, and new problems arise, e.g. the smiling of a child interpreted as a primitive mode of rencontre, and that of “Se fermer et s’ouvrir”. It is quite impossible to discuss here single contributions. It must suffice to say that they confirm Buytendijk's central conception that somehow mind is already present within the organism, and that on the other hand, blind necessity penetrates human affairs. (shrink)

The relation of philosophy to science, a problem of paramount importance for the future of philosophy, is reconsidered in this paper. Usually science has been accepted as the indubitable basis and philosophy has been made so dependent on it that it has become chiefly an investigation into the foundations, the results or the language of science. It has been wrongly assumed that science contains all possible material knowledge and that philosophy has but to analyse the language and grammar of science. (...) Even where science has been criticized, as in the French Critique of Science, it has been accepted in its present form and restricted merely to the analysis of matter whereas the access to life has been claimed for philosophy. (shrink)

A New Philosophy of History for our age of transition from the Christian era to the period of world-unity, combined with a penetrating analysis of our present situation, is offered by Karl Jaspers' Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte. Jaspers is, however, more post-Hegelian than post-Christian, and in fact anti-Hegelian, but pro-Christian. Rejecting Hegel's dictum that the appearance of Christ is the “axis of world history,” i.e. the aim of the preceding, and the origin of the subsequent, centuries, Jaspers tries (...) to discover the real axis of history empirically at about 500 b.c. Eager to find a common historical origin for East and West, he claims the time from 800 to 200 b.c. as axis-time. He believes that in these centuries, man as we know him to-day, with his religion, art, philosophy, and science, emerged in China, India, Iran, Palestine, and Greece. He further believes that a new axis-time is approaching, and the analysis of the three tendencies leading to it, i.e. of socialism, world-unity, and faith, forms one of the most valuable parts of the book. Like Toynbee he believes that a return to a transformed Biblical faith is necessary, if the West is to be saved. Pessimistic about the immediate future, he is optimistic concerning the remote future. History, as the history of single nations, states, or civilizations, is at an end. World History is only just now beginning. This is a book of European importance. It formulates the crucial question, whether Europe has still the spiritual strength to avoid a relapse into its Asiatic background with its despotism, uniformity and loss of personal liberty. In Jaspers' development, it marks a transition from reflecting upon mere possibilities to a consideration of historical reality. His booklet, The Spiritual Situation of our Time concluded with a chapter on “What may become of Man,” but what really did happen to man in the meantime proved that reality is much richer in possibilities than the liveliest imagination could possibly foresee. Does he now actually reach reality, or rather a “possible” History, as the stage on which man reveals himself in all his potentialities, and which moves from one fictitious axis-time to another equally fictitious? Jaspers' Einführung in die Philosophie, most enjoyable and a masterpiece of book-production, is the best introduction to his own philosophy. It emerges here as a possible form of philosophizing in an age of transition; original, sincere, cultivated and stimulating. His method is still the way of reflection, but this now includes meditation and self-examination. Jaspers rightly demands of-a philosopher a thorough knowledge of one special science, an equally penetrating knowledge of at least one great philosopher, and sincerity in his daily conduct and acceptance of responsibility for whatever he is doing. Should he succeed in educating a generation of philosophers on these lines, that would indeed give new hope for the future of European philosophy. Jaspers' Inaugural Lecture, Philosophic und Wissen-schaft, discusses in a clear and competent manner this important problem and clearly exposes the confusion of some contemporary conceptions of science, e.g. in Marxism. His lecture, Unsere Zukunft und Goethe, rejects a Goethe cult, but stresses the new manner in which Goethe could be appreciated by the present generation. All in all, Jaspers represents the best in German tradition, and is now one of the leading European philosophers. (shrink)

Bridging the gulf between East and West, between developed and underdeveloped countries, between white and coloured races, between the six and the seven, has become a cluster of urgent political problems which have to be solved if disaster is to be avoided. All these problems have ideological implications since the antagonisms are based on different beliefs, ideas, prejudices, theories, and philosophies. Bridging the gap between antagonistic philosophies may strike the politician as being of minor importance, but may, nevertheless, in certain (...) cases be a considerable help. (shrink)

Die Atombombe und die Zukunft des Menschen is the topical title of Karl Jaspers's latest book. His intention is excellent, he wants to arouse the conscience of man in face of the deadly danger of atomic warfare. It would be most interesting to compare this book of more than 500 pages with Bertrand Russell's corresponding short publications which concentrate on practical proposals. In order to do justice to Jaspers the English reader should, however, keep in mind that the author had (...) to overcome formidable obstacles. His subtitle, Politisches Bewusstsein in unserer Zeit, indicates that he does not only wish to discuss the present dangerous situation and the means for mastering it, but also to lay the foundation of a Political Philosophy. But here he is faced with two brute facts. First, the Germans are almost by nature un political and falsify by their existence a famous Aristotelian dictum. Their political sense or instinct is, for complex psychological and historical reasons, underdeveloped; a fact which is, paradoxically, of great political importance. Secondly, a German Political Philosophy in the Anglo-American sense does not exist; it forms part of the Rechts-und Staatsphilosopie or of sociological studies. Consequently, Jaspers has to construct his Political Philosophy on the basis of his own Philosophy of Existence, an interesting experiment, beset with formidable difficulties. Here again he remains the gliding philosopher, whose analysis of our political predicament moves in “possible perspectives” so that in the end everything remains in suspense. Indeed, Jaspers holds that rationally atomic warfare cannot be eliminated and that the total destruction of mankind is probable. He therefore appeals to every human being for a radical change of heart which alone could avert the disaster. This change of the “essence of man” remains a Utopian hope. Nevertheless, Jaspers is right in appealing to everybody's conscience. He confirms, moreover, that his existentialism cannot provide the basis for a Political Philosophy. (shrink)

The reputation and influence of an author depends to a large extent on the predilections of a specific society. One and the same person may be esteemed for different aspects of his work in various countries. Edmund Burke is chiefly known for his aesthetics on the continent, and not for his political philosophy as in this country. Georg Simmel, on the other hand, is famous on the continent foremost as a philosopher, but is known in the Anglo–Saxon world only as (...) a sociologist. The Americans even speak of “Simmelism” meaning thereby a sociology analysing the psychological forms of social interaction such as conflict and subordination. The disregard of his philosophical work is a pity, for Simmel was a most stimulating thinker, almost French in his style, a truly European mind belonging with Bergson, Croce and Ortega to a group of philosophical essayists who are the salt of the earth whatever the “scientific” philosophers may say against them. A collection of his essays referring to history, religion, art and society, published under the title Brücke und Tür may be recommended as an introduction. It contains papers, most of them unpublished, of uneven value, but all are characteristic of the most dynamic philosopher I ever met. His thought arose in immediate response to anything which aroused his interest, be it an object, a person or a sociological fact. (shrink)

The old guard still dominates the German scene. Jaspers leads with three publications, the monumental new volume of P. A. Schilpp's Library of Living Philosophers which appears first in German as Karl Jaspers ; the third edition of his Philosophie in three volumes with an important “Postscript 1956” ; and the second edition of his Existenzphilosophie also with a new postscript explaining the situation in which these lectures arose. These volumes offer an opportunity for re-examining his philosophy, and are indeed (...) used by himself for this purpose and therefore indispensable to any serious student of his thought. The Schilpp volume naturally offers the greatest amount of new material with its twenty-four contributors who have more or less succeeded in discussing a philosophy of pure reflexion without specific doctrines. They allow Jaspers to clarify his thought, especially concerning the problems of existential communication, of psychology, history and politics. (shrink)

Operative Logic and Mathematics would appear to be a new venture. Only a few weeks before his premature death Hermann Weyl, one of the most original mathematicians of our time, the author of a Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science and also of a stimulating book on Symmetry, drew my attention to Paul Lorenzen's Einführung in die operative Logik und Mathematik. This book had given him new hope, since GÖdel had discouraged his endeavour to find the foundations of mathematics. “Perhaps,” (...) he added, “Lorenzen's approach promises a way of arriving at reliable foundations.”. (shrink)

A New Philosophy of History for our age of transition from the Christian era to the period of world-unity, combined with a penetrating analysis of our present situation, is offered by Karl Jaspers' Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte . Jaspers is, however, more post-Hegelian than post-Christian, and in fact anti-Hegelian, but pro-Christian. Rejecting Hegel's dictum that the appearance of Christ is the “axis of world history,” i.e. the aim of the preceding, and the origin of the subsequent, centuries, Jaspers (...) tries to discover the real axis of history empirically at about 500 b.c. Eager to find a common historical origin for East and West, he claims the time from 800 to 200 b.c. as axis-time . He believes that in these centuries, man as we know him to-day, with his religion, art, philosophy, and science, emerged in China, India, Iran, Palestine, and Greece. He further believes that a new axis-time is approaching, and the analysis of the three tendencies leading to it, i.e. of socialism, world-unity, and faith, forms one of the most valuable parts of the book. Like Toynbee he believes that a return to a transformed Biblical faith is necessary, if the West is to be saved. Pessimistic about the immediate future, he is optimistic concerning the remote future. History, as the history of single nations, states, or civilizations, is at an end. World History is only just now beginning. This is a book of European importance. It formulates the crucial question, whether Europe has still the spiritual strength to avoid a relapse into its Asiatic background with its despotism, uniformity and loss of personal liberty. In Jaspers' development, it marks a transition from reflecting upon mere possibilities to a consideration of historical reality. His booklet, The Spiritual Situation of our Time concluded with a chapter on “What may become of Man,” but what really did happen to man in the meantime proved that reality is much richer in possibilities than the liveliest imagination could possibly foresee. Does he now actually reach reality, or rather a “possible” History, as the stage on which man reveals himself in all his potentialities, and which moves from one fictitious axis-time to another equally fictitious? Jaspers' Einführung in die Philosophie , most enjoyable and a masterpiece of book-production, is the best introduction to his own philosophy. It emerges here as a possible form of philosophizing in an age of transition; original, sincere, cultivated and stimulating. His method is still the way of reflection, but this now includes meditation and self-examination. Jaspers rightly demands of-a philosopher a thorough knowledge of one special science, an equally penetrating knowledge of at least one great philosopher, and sincerity in his daily conduct and acceptance of responsibility for whatever he is doing. Should he succeed in educating a generation of philosophers on these lines, that would indeed give new hope for the future of European philosophy. Jaspers' Inaugural Lecture, Philosophic und Wissen-schaft , discusses in a clear and competent manner this important problem and clearly exposes the confusion of some contemporary conceptions of science, e.g. in Marxism. His lecture, Unsere Zukunft und Goethe , rejects a Goethe cult, but stresses the new manner in which Goethe could be appreciated by the present generation. All in all, Jaspers represents the best in German tradition, and is now one of the leading European philosophers. (shrink)