The Origin and Goal of History (Routledge Classics) 1st Edition by Karl Jaspers (PDF)

Description

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) was a German psychiatrist and philosopher and one of the most original European thinkers of the twentieth century. As a major exponent of existentialism in Germany, he had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy. He was Hannah Arendt’s supervisor before her emigration to the United States in the 1930s and himself experienced the consequences of Nazi persecution. He was removed from his position at the University of Heidelberg in 1937, due to his wife being Jewish.Published in 1949, the year in which the Federal Republic of Germany was founded, The Origin and Goal of History is a vitally important book. It is renowned for Jaspers’ theory of an ‘Axial Age’, running from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. Jaspers argues that this period witnessed a remarkable flowering of new ways of thinking that appeared in Persia, India, China and the Greco-Roman world, in striking parallel development but without any obvious direct cultural contact between them. Jaspers identifies key thinkers from this age, including Confucius, Buddha, Zarathustra, Homer and Plato, who had a profound influence on the trajectory of future philosophies and religions. For Jaspers, crucially, it is here that we see the flowering of diverse philosophical beliefs such as scepticism, materialism, sophism, nihilism, and debates about good and evil, which taken together demonstrate human beings’ shared ability to engage with universal, humanistic questions as opposed to those mired in nationality or authoritarianism.At a deeper level, The Origin and Goal of History provides a crucial philosophical framework for the liberal renewal of German intellectual life after 1945, and indeed of European intellectual life more widely, as a shattered continent attempted to find answers to what had happened in the preceding years. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Christopher Thornhill.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Karl Jaspers is being re-discovered especially with his thoughtful and thorough description of the Axial Age. History is of great value especially when someone like Mr. Jaspers whose training and interests embark the reader in the analysis of historical events. In this case with global references which describes where the world would be in the future.

⭐Karl Jasper is one of the few German Philosophers that writes to the point in clear normal language. No created fancy words or over the top philosophical terms. I tried to collect or read as much of his writings I can find. Sadly his best works are mostly out of print. I once had a copy of “Man in the Modern Age” custom printed & bounded in the early 1990’s. Written in the 1930’s Karl Jaspers could foresee into the future the plight of mankind.This book, “The Origin & Goal of History” I found a hard back copy at a Roman Catholic monastery, I checked it out & took it home for a few weeks. What a mind opening delight. This time Karl Jaspers turns his eyes to the past & develops a complete thesis of historical theory: Humanity’s origin as ONE giving birth to 4 river civilizations that fragments into many cultures unto the AXIAL AGE from 800 to 200 BC were philosophical & religious thought blossoms & spreads to enlighten mankind through out the world. Then the later raise of vast empires unto the modern age with its 2 World Wars until globalization forces mankind to rethink & rejoin as a whole.When I wrote this review there were 3 books at around $65.00, someone was tempted!

⭐This work describes the concept of the Axial Age and answers some early criticisms of the idea. Then Jaspers proceeds to develop a sweeping overview of human history from pre-history onward.I don’t see, however, that this work “makes mincemeat of Darwinian thinking” as is asserted by a previous reviewer. Rather, the concept that there could be parallel evolutionary developments re-evolving similar responses to similar situations is quite in accord with evolutionary thinking. There are numerous examples of such parallel developments in biological evolution (see Simon Conway-Morris’ “Life’s Solution”). No one to my knowledge is trying to suppress the simultaneous domestication of grains in (as I recall) seven locales around the planet (see Jared Diamond’s “Guns Germs and Steel” for example).Further, the assertion that the axial developments were completely independent (which was Jaspers’ view as well as that of the previous reviewer) is on somewhat shaky ground owing to the work of Thomas McEvilley “The Shape of Ancient Thought”, for example, who traces the continuous interplay of peoples along the axis thereby providing excellent opportunities for cross-fertilization of spiritual and philosophic ideas.There is no disputing several centuries of Euro-centric views of history and Jaspers was one of the few in his era to thoughtfully step outside that box – and there are still only a few who have (Burkert and Hobson come to mind).I do agree with the previous reviewer that this work is certainly worth being reissued or made available via books-on-demand.

⭐This is one of the most significant works of the twentieth century yet it is not even in print. Deep sixed from the word go. Remarkable! Even books detailing the intellectual biography of Jaspers omit mention of it. The various efforts to subject the issues to scholarly study distort the original observations. What’s going on? The reason is not hard to find. It contains the first crystallization of something current science and religion don’t want to face, the phenomenon of synchronous parallel evolution, global in scale, and operating in a fashion that flagrantly contradicts received dogmas of religious, scientific and economic history. Check out the reviewer’s World History and the Eonic Effect for a discussion of this text. Meanwhile it should be reissued and the public deserves to know the existence of this line of historical evidence going back to the nineteenth century. It makes mincemeat of Darwinian thinking. Aha! Now we know why they deep sixed the book.

⭐Windy, vague and pompous argument for some sort of Hegelian teleological reading of history. Mainly waffle.

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