Jaspers, Husserl, Kant: boundary situations as a " turning point"

Abstract: The essay addresses the meaning of boundary situations in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, as a turning point drawing on Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy, and as a key for the comprehension of some of the differences in Karl Jaspers' philosophy regarding the thought of Husserl and Kant, respectively. For Jaspers, the meaning of boundary situations as a structure of Existenz underlines the possibility of risk in the individual historicity. Taking risks breaks the flow of reflection and, at the same time, appeals to an opening of ethics—without sacrificing the universality of Kant's categorical imperative. From Jaspers' point of view, Husserl's phenomenology does not open the possibility of self-transformation of the self, nor contributes it to the unfolding of the "inner action" of the transcending thinking, and since the boundary situations break the flow of the selfreflective consciousness, tensions arising between consciousness and Existenz remain beyond the scope of Husserl's phenomenology. Similarly, as seen from Jaspers' position the meaning of Kant's transcendental method has become different after the clarification by the Existenz, which not only shows that thought is at stake in boundary situations, but also that Existenz at the same time puts its potentiality and its fate at stake

Jaspers, Husserl, Kant: boundary situations as a " turning point"

Abstract: The article summarizes some comments -as discussed in my book La existencia en busca de la razón. Apuntes sobre la filosofía de Karl Jaspers (Existence in search of Reason. Notes on Karl Jaspers' Philosophy), Editorial Académica Española, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH&Co. KG, Alemania, 2012- about the meaning of the boundary situations in the philosophy of Karl Jaspers, as a turning point regarding Husserl's phenomenology and Kant's transcendental philosophy. For Jaspers, the meaning of the boundary situations as a structure of Existenz underlines the possibility of risk in the individual historicity, which breaks the "flow" of the reflection and, at the same time, appeals to an opening of ethics -without sacrificing the universality of the categorical imperative

Agnosticism: Kant

This chapter identifies the results of Kant\u27s philosophical system on the contemporary discussion concerning an inerrant revelation. Knowledge, for Kant, is possible only as the forms and categories of the mind organize the raw data of the senses. Beyond this phenomenal world, the mind can only postulate what must or ought to be. It cannot know what is. The first postulate of this practical reasoning is freedom. The individual is autonomous, knows the good, and is capable of willing and doing as he ought. Within such an epistemological framework, revelation becomes unnecessary, useless, and unverifiable. Inerrancy is not only false but incomprehensible in such a system. Since Kant\u27s theory of knowledge largely dominates contemporary theology, it is inevitable that inerrancy cannot be seen as an option

Book Review: India and Europe. An Essay in Understanding

A review of India and Europe. An Essay in Understanding by Wilhelm Halbfass

Knowledge and Belief according to Lanza del Vasto

In past millennia religious traditions suggested a kind of wisdom from which science divorced since its beginning, belief being then considered as a backwards attitude with respect to the triumphant scientific reason. Apparently, no sacred text suggested an adequate analysis on both the admirable intellectual construction built by scientific reason and modern way of life, essentially advantaging progress with respect to all traditions. Since one century a new attitude on scientific knowledge was proposed by a particular renewal of religious belief, the non-violent philosophy of life suggested by Tolstoy (Tolstoy 1880), Gandhi (Gandhi 1908) and Lanza del Vasto (Lanza del Vasto 1959). All they criticized Western science inasmuch as it is severed from both ethics and common life of mankind. The criticism was qualified by Lanza del Vasto (= LdV, 1901-1981, graduated in Philosophy at Pisa University in 1928) through an analysis of two Christian texts, i.e. Genesis 3 and Apocalypse 13, in the same years Catholic Council Vatican 2 instead accepted modern science as an ineluctable modernity (incarnationist thesis vs. apocalyptic thesis)

Menorah Review (No. 45, Winter, 1999)

The Timeless Value of Heschel -- Religion and Politics -- Picks and Pans from the Feminist\u27s Corner -- What We Are, What We Have, What We Are Able To Do -- Mendelssohn, Reason and Religion -- Mordecai Kaplan and American Jewish Orthodoxy -- Noteworthy Book