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“A Great Awakener”: The Relevance of Søren Kierkegaard in Karl Jaspers’ Aneignung und Polemik

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Published/Copyright: August 1, 2015
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Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
From the journal Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Volume 20 Issue 1

Abstract

In three short essays published in 1951 (“Kierkegaard”), 1955 (“Kierkegaard. Zu seinem 100. Todestag”) and 1964 (“Kierkegaard heute”)-later collected in the volume Aneignung und Polemik (1968)-Karl Jaspers summarizes Kierkegaard’s thought in an unusual way. The main goal of the present article is to clarify how, in Aneignung und Polemik, Jaspers indicates how Kierkegaard’s philosophy may still echo in the liquid age. In an age in which life is a stage, and seems to succumb increasingly to the power of mass media, Jaspers’ reading of Kierkegaard invites us to be ourselves and to open ourselves to the hidden sense against the despair brought about by the paradoxical combination of homogenization and solipsism. Kierkegaard’s way, he suggests, offers an authentic way to accept our own human limits. But according to Jaspers, Kierkegaard perhaps tells us something more: If in a time of destruction and transitions, philosophy seems to lose its power to illuminate human existence, this is to be laid at the door of the “original thinkers” who do not rise to the challenge of thinking the original philo-ousia, the “love towards essential being.”

Published Online: 2015-8-1
Published in Print: 2015-7-1

© 2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Preface
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Section 1: Kierkegaard as a Philosopher
  5. “The Philosophical Thesis of the Identity of Thinking and Being is Just the Opposite of What it seems to be.” Kierkegaard on the Relations between Being and Thought
  6. The Posited Self: The Non-Theistic Foundation in Kierkegaard’s Writings
  7. Climacus and the Arguments for God’s Existence
  8. The Middle Term: Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Debate about Explanatory Theism
  9. O2 can do? Kierkegaard and the Debate on Divine Omnipotence
  10. Section 2: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Some Problems and Contemporary Perspectives
  11. Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing: In Defense of “Magister Kierkegaard”
  12. Is Either/Or a Religious Work or Not?
  13. Kierkegaard and the Self-Conscious Literary Tradition: An Interpretation of the Ludic Aspects of Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship from a Literary-Historical Perspective
  14. “Marvel at Nothing”: Reconsidering Kierkegaard’s Category of Recollection through Social Networking Services
  15. Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception: Responses and Reflections in the 20th Century
  16. The Truth Behind the Text: Rachel Bespaloff as a Reader of Kierkegaard from “the Most Torn-Apart Backdrop of History”
  17. “A Great Awakener”: The Relevance of Søren Kierkegaard in Karl Jaspers’ Aneignung und Polemik
  18. Der Schatten der Kierkegaard-Renaissance. Eine rezeptionsgeschichtliche Studie über die dezisionistisch-irrationalistischen Kierkegaard-Interpretationen zwischen den Weltkriegen in Deutschland
  19. Kierkegaard Reception in Modern Theology: A Review and Assessment
  20. A Matter of Mimesis: Kierkegaard and Ricoeur on Narrative Identity
  21. Section 4: Editing Kierkegaard
  22. An Overview of Kierkegaard’s Nachlass. Part One: the Materials
  23. An Overview of Kierkegaard’s Nachlass. Part Two: the Editions
  24. Section 5: Appendix
  25. Index to Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1996–2014
  26. Abbreviations
  27. List of Contributors
https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2015-0113

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Preface
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Section 1: Kierkegaard as a Philosopher
  5. “The Philosophical Thesis of the Identity of Thinking and Being is Just the Opposite of What it seems to be.” Kierkegaard on the Relations between Being and Thought
  6. The Posited Self: The Non-Theistic Foundation in Kierkegaard’s Writings
  7. Climacus and the Arguments for God’s Existence
  8. The Middle Term: Kierkegaard and the Contemporary Debate about Explanatory Theism
  9. O2 can do? Kierkegaard and the Debate on Divine Omnipotence
  10. Section 2: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Some Problems and Contemporary Perspectives
  11. Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing: In Defense of “Magister Kierkegaard”
  12. Is Either/Or a Religious Work or Not?
  13. Kierkegaard and the Self-Conscious Literary Tradition: An Interpretation of the Ludic Aspects of Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship from a Literary-Historical Perspective
  14. “Marvel at Nothing”: Reconsidering Kierkegaard’s Category of Recollection through Social Networking Services
  15. Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception: Responses and Reflections in the 20th Century
  16. The Truth Behind the Text: Rachel Bespaloff as a Reader of Kierkegaard from “the Most Torn-Apart Backdrop of History”
  17. “A Great Awakener”: The Relevance of Søren Kierkegaard in Karl Jaspers’ Aneignung und Polemik
  18. Der Schatten der Kierkegaard-Renaissance. Eine rezeptionsgeschichtliche Studie über die dezisionistisch-irrationalistischen Kierkegaard-Interpretationen zwischen den Weltkriegen in Deutschland
  19. Kierkegaard Reception in Modern Theology: A Review and Assessment
  20. A Matter of Mimesis: Kierkegaard and Ricoeur on Narrative Identity
  21. Section 4: Editing Kierkegaard
  22. An Overview of Kierkegaard’s Nachlass. Part One: the Materials
  23. An Overview of Kierkegaard’s Nachlass. Part Two: the Editions
  24. Section 5: Appendix
  25. Index to Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 1996–2014
  26. Abbreviations
  27. List of Contributors
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