The Concept of Transcendental Exiztenphilosophie in Karl Jaspers

Abstract

The main purpose of the present paper is to bring reader’s attention to Karl Jaspers’ interpretation or still better re-interpretation of both the Kantian and Husserlian notion of transcendentalism. This idea – embracing an enormously vast and rich set of connotations – is being reconstructed here on the basis of prolific philosophical output of the German thinker. Although Jaspers is generally acclaimed to have been an existentialist¹ he flatly rejected the very term as well as philosophical movement itself to which he was supposed to have belonged, as represented by the French – Sartre and Camus and his one-time colleague – Heidegger. Time and again on many occassions the author of Philosophie preferred instead to refer to his philosophical output as an unique version of transcendental Existenzphilosophie mainly devoted to the enlightening of Being, unfolding its meaning and sense, finally our existential relation to the world we are in. In his unending and unremitting analyses Jaspers has presented and developed illuminating and decisive ideas well grounded in a conception of the human being (Dasein) existing in a given reality on three, intimately related with each other-levels: an empirical being, a consciousness in general and spirit, and on a conception of a project of humanity itself. The latter expresses the transcendental idea of a human condition in general – to wit – Existenz. This fundamental notion is always treated by Jaspers in terms of our freedom and potentiality, spontaneity and “breaking away from” which the philosopher along with other existential thinkers unequivocally calls our facticity, our “immersion” in the pregiven world.² As Jaspers focusses on describing, then unravelling and evaluating our condition it stands to reason that he inevitably must deal with certain traits displaying – as it were – the very dimension of our being-in-the-world. Put it differently, human beings are always in a particular – historical, economic, intellectual, and spiritual – situation and may be exposed to oft dramatic, even tragic but nevertheless fruitful experiences. The author of Philosophie refers to them as Grenzsituationen (covering the particulary sensitive areas of our existence) such as death, suffering, guilt and strife. One may be fully justified in saying that these not only point to the dimension we have already alluded to but also constitute the indubitable core of being really human. Moreover, these factors informing the existence of each individual Dasein demand the initiation of the most invaluable, precious and truly authentic acts on our part. The philosopher names them the acts of communication (another key term in his version of transcendental existentialism) that is communication of and with Others along with Existenz itself. Jaspers underlines yet another essential fact geared up with the human condition. As we that is, our subjectivity along with the so called reality, (the transcendent world) happen to find ourselves in the world we have not constituted (however for no evident, rational or logical reason we often search for in vain) there emerges a third element, a third party to which we (us and the world) point; namely, Transcendence. According to H. Arendt – a disciple and a friend of both Heidegger and Jaspers the latter may be deemed as the only true Kantian philosophers of many persuasions who unlike academic philosopher has taken a subjective or – more precisely – intersubjective stance. Having chosen such an attitude (discarding a purely uncommitted, objective approach to the transcendent reality (an sich) Jaspers proposed a “reinterpreated conception of modern transcendentalism”.³ Along with such key terms as subjective and intersubjective, there is this significant notion of transcendental. The latter seems to point to one of the main sources of the inspiration which has certainly exerted an influence on the work of this German thinker.