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to the homepage of the
Karl Jaspers Society of North America.

Here you have access to KJSNA activities, the upcoming, current, and past conference programs, current calls for papers, and links to all international Jaspers societies.

Est. 1980 Boston, Massachusetts, USA

President: Helmut Wautischer

Vice-President:
Pierre Keller

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Philosophy, the goal of true community among men who are themselves, has been wrought by lonely, distant individuals. In an extravagance of agonies and certainties, they sent us word but did not bid us follow. The experience they show us was singular and unrepeatable. They were sacrificial victims, so to speak, whose visions—translated into thought—convey to us what a less hazardous fate could not have brought to light. In our philosophizing we revere what they proved humanly possible. We want to catch their every word; they have made it impossible for us to take any knowable order for the only true one. But we ourselves philosophize in communication, not in isolation. Our point of departure is man's relation to man, the individual's way of dealing with the individual. In our world, linked fellowship seems like the true reality. Communication leads to our brightest moments and lends weight to our life. My philosophizing owes its every content to people who have come close to me. I consider it true in so far as it aids communication. Man cannot place himself above man; he can approach only those he meets on the same level. He cannot teach them what to do, but together they can find out what they want and what they are. There can be solidarity in what must animate our existence if it is to turn into being. (Philosophy I, 1932, 2)

 

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