The Psychology of Worldviews: Jaspers / Heidegger Steven Goldman, Ph.D. Abstract This essay examines some of the arguments raised in the encounter between two thinkers – Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers – focused on their contrasting ideas about “worldviews” from 1919-1920. Jaspers’ conception of philosophy as a summons – to oneself and to every other searcher – and Heidegger’s conception of philosophy as a questioning of Being – a question largely forgotten in the history of philosophy – are articulated via the two thinkers’ notes regarding “worldviews” from this early period. This serves as the platform from which to ask fundamental questions about philosophy and its falling apart into distinct philosophies. In Socratic terms, philosophy is about examining oneself and trying to escape from ignorance; the encounter between Jaspers and Heidegger uncovers two very different approaches to self-examination and ignorance; I argue that examining this encounter helps to clarify the nature of philosophy and the relationship between philosophy and action.
Karl Jaspers’ 1919 work Psychologie Der Weltanschauungen (Psychology of Worldviews) begins with the idea that life confronts human beings with inexorable givens, most particularly the prospect of one’s own death, and argues that human beings win a measure of integrity through honestly facing basic “limit situations,” thinking them through and coming to terms with them. Jaspers took a new step in philosophy with this self-described “experimental and searching” work, which his younger contemporary Martin Heidegger realized immediately. Heidegger paid Jaspers’ work the great compliment of attacking it aggressively – as he wrote to his teacher, Heinrich Rickert, just after finishing a lengthy review of Jaspers’ work: “This book must, in my opinion, be fought in the severest possible manner, precisely because it has so much to offer, which Jaspers has learned from everywhere, and because it appropriates an important trace of our times.” As it happened, Heidegger’s review was accepted for publication by a learned journal in Göttingen, but only on the condition that he make considerable changes. He never did, and the piece was forgotten. The review appeared half a century later, in 1973, as part of Heidegger’s literary estate. Many themes in Heidegger’s 1927 masterwork Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) first appear in his argument with Jaspers – for example, the question of being, forgetfulness, everydayness and falling into inauthenticity, the necessary rethinking and “destruction” of the history of philosophy, and ideas about “self world, “with world” and “environing world” – also the political dispute that these two names call up – and most strikingly these two thinkers’ contrasting ideas about philosophy. The present essay makes a study of Jaspers’ work, Heidegger’s review and the dispute between them; it concludes by carrying their conversation several steps forward. 1. Some background on Jaspers Jaspers was born in North Germany – in Saxony – near the border with the Netherlands. He grew up and was educated in the political culture of North German liberalism. He initially studied law – his father was