I would like to share with you a reflection on science-spirituality by
Karl Jaspers, a 20th century philosopher. I will present this in two or
three parts because I think it is relevant and maybe a bit long for the
forum.
"Part 1: The problem of our era (as seen fifty years ago)
The course of events has led us from
an era of bourgeois contentment, progress, education, which pointed to
the historical past as proof that it had achieved security, into an age
of devastating wars, mass death and mass murder (accompanied by an
inexhaustible generation of new masses), of the most terrible sense of
menace, an age in which humanity is being extinguished and chaotic
disintegration seems to be the master of all things.
Is all this a spiritual revolution,
or is it an essentially external process, arising from technology and
its consequences? A catastrophe and an immense, as yet unclear
possibility, something which will be merely destructive until man
awakens and becomes able to react to it, until, instead of
unconsciously renouncing, he discovers himself amid the utterly new
conditions of his existence?
The picture of the future is more
uncertain and unclear, but perhaps both more promising and more
hopeless than ever before. If I am aware of the task of humanity, not
with regard to the immediate requirements of existence, but with regard
to eternal truth, I must enquire concerning the state of philosophy.
What should philosophy do in the present world situation?
We venture to assert that philosophy
cannot cease as long as men are living. Philosophy upholds the
aspiration to attain the meaning of life beyond all worldly
purposes, to make manifest the meaning that embraces all these
purposes, cutting in a sense across life to fulfill this meaning by
actual realization, to serve the future by our own actuality, never to debase man or a man to the level of a mere instrument.
Our enduring task in philosophical
endeavor is to become authentic men by becoming aware of being; or, and
this is the same thing: to become ourselves by achieving certainty of
God."
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099 rh. Re: a response to the question why, how - Jaspers, pt.1
by
ronjon
on Thu 28 Jul 2005 01:01 PM PDT | Permanent Link
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