The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history of philosophy ultimately serves their better understanding.
Karl JaspersRead
The community of masses of human beings has produced an order of life in regulated channels which connects individuals in a technically functioning organisation, but not inwardly from the historicity of their souls.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Jaspers reflects on how society organizes individuals functionally while lacking deeper spiritual connections.
In this quote, Karl Jaspers emphasizes the contrast between the external structure of society, which organizes individuals into a functional community, and the inward, spiritual disconnection experienced by these individuals. He critiques the modern organizational systems for prioritizing efficiency and technical functioning over genuine human connections and the rich historical and spiritual dimensions of human existence.
Themes
CommunityConnectionOrganizationSpiritualityHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on community dynamics in sociology, this quote can illustrate the difference between structural and emotional connections among individuals.
More from Karl Jaspers
All quotes →We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.
Karl JaspersRead
The study of law left me unsatisfied, because I did not know the aspects of life which it serves. I perceived only the intricate mental juggling with fictions that did not interest me.
Karl JaspersRead
If philosophy is practice, a demand to know the manner in which its history is to be studied is entailed: a theoretical attitude toward it becomes real only in the living appropriation of its contents from the texts.
Karl JaspersRead
Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought
Karl JaspersRead
Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.
Karl JaspersRead
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