Jaspers on German Guilt Karl Jaspers: History and German Guilt This pap

This paper will discuss the historical philosophy of German historian Karl Jaspers and its relationship to his views concerning the "German guilt" surrounding the Second World War. These latter ideas were presented in his book, The Question of German Guilt, published in 1947 and discussed in some of his other books published in the 1950s and 1960s.

In Jaspers' view, history, as commonly understood, is inextricably linked with mankind; the history of mankind is the manifestation of self-awareness on the part of human beings. Nature's history is "devoid of consciousness, constantly repeating the same thing through aeons of time;" In contrast, human beings produce historical phenomena which never repeat; instead, human history constantly proceeds forward. Thus, Jaspers implicitly rejects the theories which hold that human history tends to follow cycles, repeating major themes.

Jaspers' scheme of world history contains three phases. The first phase is that of prehistory. This is the longest phase, so far, encompassing the entire period prior to any written record. During this phase, mankind evolved from a state similar to that of the primate species (to which he is related) to a state which eventually saw his becoming a self-conscious being with the power to verbally communicate ideas. Prior to this evolution, however, man was no different from the other animal species which inhabited the planet; his actions repeated themselves, as with

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g to Jaspers; individuals seek the truth on their own terms through the intellectual process, and disagreement between individuals concerning the subject is a necessary ingredient. Such argument only serves to advance the quest for the truth. Religion, on the other hand, embodies man's practical relation to the transcendent, in the shape of something holy in the world. Religion has always been a part of life in the history of mankind. It emphasizes tangible symbols, as opposed to the intangibles of philosophy. Religion also embodies what is the "truth," based upon, however, revelations from God. These revelations usually take the form of utterances made by God to humans. This process, however, must naturally break down as the revelations are transmitted from one human to another; what was a holy revelation becomes a mundane and even trivial rationality which is no longer the word of God, but the word of man. Because the utterance is supposed to have originated with God, though, it takes on a protective cloak of divine truth. Argument with, and intellectual discussion of, this "truth" is forbidden, for it came from God; therefore, it must be the "truth," no matter how many holes can be poked in it by intellectual argument. One ma
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Approximate Word count = 2242
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)