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.
Karl JaspersRead
Just as primitive man believed himself to stand face to face with demons and believed that could he but know their names he would become their master, so is contemporary man faced by this incomprehensible, which disorders his calculations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that understanding the unknown is key to mastering our fears and challenges.
In this quote, Karl Jaspers draws a parallel between primitive man, who believed that knowing the names of demons gave him power over them, and contemporary man, who confronts complex and incomprehensible issues that disrupt his understanding. Jaspers implies that in both cases, the quest for knowledge and understanding is vital to exert control and navigate the challenges posed by the unknown, emphasizing the enduring human struggle to make sense of the world around us.
Themes
UnderstandingFearKnowledgeControlWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming fear of failure, one might say, 'Just as primitive man believed himself to stand face to face with demons...'
More from Karl Jaspers
All quotes →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.
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We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.
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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.
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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
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