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
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
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reason is accessible to all and can be discovered through individual thought.
Karl Jaspers suggests that reason is a fundamental aspect of human understanding that is universally available. It is an 'open secret' that requires personal reflection and thought for one to achieve understanding, as it invites everyone to engage with it on their own terms.
Themes
ReasonThoughtUnderstandingPhilosophySelf-Reflection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a classroom setting to illustrate the importance of critical thinking.
More from Karl Jaspers
All quotes βThe 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.
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We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.
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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.
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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.
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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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