Abstract
In the post-World War II era, Jaspers attempted to reformulate Western Christianity for an increasingly globalizing world. He was especially focused on overcoming its anti-Semitic legacy. His solution to it was the idea of civilizational continuity. Through it, he tried to reverse the directions of the German debate on civilization which had been dominated by Weimar historicists, especially Oswald Spengler and Ernst Troeltsch. While the latter emphasized the utter uniqueness of each civilization and thus denied any common elements between civilizations, Jaspers rejected their isolationist tendency by pointing to the historical reality of civilizational continuity. He found its best advocates in the Buddha.
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Notes
- 1.
Ernst Troeltsch, book review of volumes I and II of Spengler’s Decline of the West, in Aufsätze zur Geistesgeschichte und Religionssoziologie. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. IV, ed. Hans Baron (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1925), pp. 677–684 and 685–691. [Henceforth cited as AGR]
- 2.
Michael Murrmann-Kahl, Die entzauberte Heilsgeschichte. De Historismus erobert die Theologie 1880–1920 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1992).
- 3.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, an abridged edition, ed. Helmut Werner, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York, NY & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 17. [Henceforth cited as DW]
- 4.
Ernst Troeltsch, “Christianity Among World Religions,” in Christian Thought. Its History and Application, ed. Baron von Hügel (New York, NY: Meridian Books, 1957), p. 53. [Henceforth cited as CWR]
- 5.
Carlo Antoni, From History to Sociology: The Transition in German Historical Thinking, trans. Hayden V. White (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), p. 83.
- 6.
Georg Iggers, The German Conception of History: The National Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present, rev. ed. (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1983), pp. 199, 240.
- 7.
Georg Iggers, New Directions in European Historiography (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984), p. 30.
- 8.
Ernst Schulin, “Einleitung,” in Universalgeschichte, ed. Ernst Schulin (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1974), p. 30. Ernst Schulin, Traditionskritik und Rekonstrucktionsversuch. Studien zur Entwicklung von Geschichteswissenschaft und historischem Denken (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979), p. 183.
- 9.
Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History, trans. Michael Bullock (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953), p. 264. [Henceforth cited as OGH]
- 10.
Karl Jaspers, “World History of Philosophy,” in Karl Jaspers, Philosopher Among Philosophers/ Philosoph unter Philosophen, eds. Richard Wisser and Leonard H. Ehrlich (Würzburg: Könighshausen & Neumann, 1993), p. 19. [Henceforth cited as WHP]
- 11.
Jaspers quoted in Leonard H. Ehrlich, “Philosophy and Its History. The Double Helix of Jaspers’s Thought,” in Karl Jaspers, On Philosophy of History and History of Philosophy, eds. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. and Raymond J. Langley (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2003), p. 21.
- 12.
Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1999), p. 19.
- 13.
Karl Jaspers, Philosophy and the World. Selected Essays and Lectures, trans. E.B. Ashton (Chicago, IL: Regnery, 1963), p. 143. [Henceforth cited as PW]
- 14.
Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East. The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 165.
- 15.
Brockey, p. 165.
- 16.
Karen Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), pp. 274–288.
- 17.
Karl Jaspers, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus. The Paradigmatic individuals [From The Great Philosophers, Volume I], ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Ralph Manheim (San Diego, CA and New York, NY: A Harvest Books, 1962), pp. 34–35. [Henceforth cited as SBC]
- 18.
Jaspers, The Perennial Scope of Philosophy, trans. Ralph Manheim (Hamden, CT: Anchor Books, 1968), p. 105.
- 19.
PW 143–145. Like Jaspers, other Western observers were also impressed by the Buddhist’s great toleration of other religions. For instance, Heinrich Dumoulin observed it in Japanese Buddhists: “The tolerance of Japanese Buddhists is indeed amazing. The warm hospitality which awaits the non-Buddhist, even the Christian priest or monk, in a Japanese Buddhist monastery, and the readiness for religious conversation are of immeasurable help in establishing contact.” Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J., Christianity Meets Buddhism, trans. John C. Maraldo (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1974), pp. 35–36.
- 20.
Schulin, Traditionskritik und Rekonstrucktionsversuch, p. 188.
- 21.
Jaspers, “Die nichtchristlichen Religionen,” in Philosophie und Welt: Reden und Aufsätze (München: R. Pier & Co. Verlag, 1958), p. 161.
- 22.
Paul Ricoeur, “The Relation of Jaspers’ Philosophy to Religion,” in The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1957), p. 611.
- 23.
Leonard H. Ehrlich, “Tolerance and the Prospect of a World Philosophy,” in Karl Jaspers Today. Philosophy at the Threshold of the Future, eds. Leonard H. Ehrlich and Richard Wisser (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), p. 99. [Henceforth cited as TP]
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Cho, J.M. (2012). Karl Jaspers’ Philosophical Faith for the Global Age: The Idea of Civilizational Continuity. 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_33
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