The community of masses of human beings has produced an order of life in regulated channels which connects individuals in a technically functioning organisation, but not inwardly from the historicity of their souls.
Karl JaspersRead
The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of studying great philosophers and their works to understand essential philosophical ideas.
Karl Jaspers highlights that the significant thinkers and their contributions are benchmarks that guide us in discerning the core aspects of philosophy. He suggests that engaging with the history of philosophy is not just an academic exercise, but a means to deepen our understanding of these foundational ideas, ultimately enriching our own intellectual pursuits and perspectives.
Themes
PhilosophyUnderstandingHistoryEssentialKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on philosophy, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of canonical texts.
More from Karl Jaspers
All quotes →We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.
Karl JaspersRead
The study of law left me unsatisfied, because I did not know the aspects of life which it serves. I perceived only the intricate mental juggling with fictions that did not interest me.
Karl JaspersRead
If philosophy is practice, a demand to know the manner in which its history is to be studied is entailed: a theoretical attitude toward it becomes real only in the living appropriation of its contents from the texts.
Karl JaspersRead
Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought
Karl JaspersRead
Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.
Karl JaspersRead
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