Abstract
In Jaspers’ philosophy as philosophical faith, knowledge has a noteworthy feature that inward action of subject is reflected in it. So, his philosophy supplies ethics, whose knowledge presupposes an inward action of the ethical subject, with justification as a unique field of learning. Furthermore, Jaspers’ periechontology (ontology of encompassing) as the framework of infinitely manifold heterogeneous belief offers us the methodological foundation for the construction of a comprehensive ethics, which is a systematic unification of many heterogeneous ethics. Jaspers’ philosophy accomplished by the correlation of philosophical faith and encompassing-thought has tremendous significance for the philosophical ethics.
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I treated the “Correlation of Philosophical Faith and Encompassing in Jaspers’ Later Philosophy” in detail in Karl Jaspers: Historic Actuality in View of Fundamental Problems of Mankind, eds. Andreas Cesana and Gregory J. Walters (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008), pp. 47 f. [Henceforth cited as A]
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Karl Jaspers, The Perennial Scope of Philosophy, trans. R. Manheim (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968), p. 11. [Henceforth cited as PSP]
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Karl Jaspers, Philosophische Autobiographie (Munich: Piper & Co., 1968), p. 119.
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Karl Jaspers, Philosophical Faith and Revelation, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York, NY: Collins, 1967), p. 61. [Henceforth cited as PFR]
- 5.
Karl Jaspers, Philosophy Vol. 2, trans. by E.B. Ashton (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 243. [Henceforth cited as P with Volume number]
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Karl Jaspers, “Über meine Philosophie,” in Rechenschaft und Ausblick (Munich: Piper & Co., 1951), pp. 401 f. [Henceforth cited as ÜMP]
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Kierkegaard says, for example, “But if the task of becoming subject is the highest that is proposed to a human being, everything is beautifully arranged… For even if the individuals were as numberless as the sand of the sea, the task of becoming subjective is given to each… First then the ethical, the task of becoming subjective, and afterwards the world-historical.” Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D.F. Swenson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941), p. 142.
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Conclusive understandings about such problems, omitting the consideration in detail, are as follows: Ethics, defined as the comprehensive, is comprised by two inseparable moments, namely, man as ethical subject, and the ethical object-world as the object of inward action of the ethical subject. The substantial content of ethics is defined as the matter concerning good and evil of man as man. The fundamental problem of ethics is the problem of ethical man. The main problems of ethics are (a) problems of quality that the ethical subject intends to realize, namely, problems of value in a wide sense, good and evil, etc. (b) Problems of occasion where subjective action is concerned with the outer object-world, such as problems of duty and human relation, etc. (c) Problems of occasion where subjective action is concerned with the self, namely, problems of conscience and moral sense, etc. And (d) Problems in the specific situation where subjective action is actually realized, namely problems about conduct.
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Japers’ description as to the classification of the modes of encompassing: “Die von uns unterschiedenen Weisen des Umgreifenden sind in ihrem Gedachtsein geschichtlich, das Resultat unseres abendländischen Bildungsprozesses. In ihrem Räumen haben unsere Ahnen gelebt und gedacht.” Von der Wahrheit (Munich: Piper & Co., 1947), p. 125.
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Jaspers’ description: “We are drafting a pattern that must always be provisional… Insight into the modes of encompassing remains in suspension and brings us into a state of suspension” (PFR 89).
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Hayashida, S. (2012). Philosophical Faith, Periechontology, and Philosophical Ethics. 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_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2223-1_20
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