Philosopher and Time: Eternity and Modernity in the Karl Jaspers’ Thought

Abstract

The paper analyzes the problem of the meaning and status of philosophy in the context of modernity in Karl Jaspers’ project. The author pays special atten­tion to the discourse of greatness and philosophy of great philosophers and clari­fies what significance the connection of oneself with the figures of great thinkers of the past has for Jaspers’ philosophical project. It is shown that the great are re­garded as thinkers who transcend the boundaries of the historical situation, open the horizon of History in transcendence and clearly see the image of the pre­sent epoch. They are a condition for overcoming the crisis, because they show the image of those who have gone “beyond the boundaries” of time. The prob­lems of time, history and historicity are posed in the context of the boundaries of knowledge and existence. It is demonstrated that he thinks the turn to History as an awareness of the origins of self-consciousness, the foundations of thinking and the perspectives for further movement. The role of philosophy in the dia­gnostics of modernity is discussed and its content as an existential practice is analyzed. It is emphasized that the diagnosis of modernity unfolds in a specific situation. Jaspers thinks of philosophy not as theoretical knowledge, but as a way to truth in certain life and historical conditions. It is shown that consciousness of the foundations of the thought and definition of the meaning of philosophy as a philosophical life in the present (as a philosophical modernity) is central to the philosopher. The dialectic of eternity and temporality, eternity and modernity, history and historicity, the boundaries of thought and the infinity of thinking, characteristic of Jaspers’ thought, is revealed. It is emphasized that these mo­ments mark the structure of his philosophical project, which is revealed simul­taneously in his history of philosophy, philosophy of history and philosophy of existence.