KARL JASPERS FORUM.
TA58 (Pivnicki) Commentary 21
KARL JASPERS: EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHER OF
DIALOGICAL COMMUNICATION
by Ronald. D Gordon.
23 September 2003
1 ABSTRACT:
Karl Jaspers has been recognized as one of
the three most prominent existential philosophers
of the 20th century, yet his work has largely
gone unattended to in the interpersonal and
dialogical literatures. This essay suggests
that the most immediate contributions Jasper's
work could make have to do with (a) restoration
of "heart" and "soul"
to interpersonal communication studies, (b)
acceptance of the unfinalizability (the process
nature) of our subject and research, and
(c) expansion of our disciplinary thinking.
2 Karl Jaspers has been recognized as one
of the three most prominent existential philosophers
of the 20th century, yet his work has largely
gone unattended to in the interpersonal and
dialogical literatures. This essay suggests
that the most immediate contributions Jaspers's
work could make have to do with (a) restoration
of "heart" and "soul"
to interpersonal communication studies, (b)
acceptance of the unfinalizability (the process
nature) of our subject and research, and
(c) expansion of our disciplinary thinking.
Four recurring themes in Jaspers's work in
communication are also identified: (a) the
role of communication in forging identity
and humanity, (b) communication as the source
of what comes to be "true"for human
beings, (c) the need for ongoing communication,
and (d) the dialogical possibilities of Existenz-with-Existenz
communication.
3 Overviews of existential philosophy have
referred to Karl Jaspers as one of the three
most prominent existential thinkers of the
twentieth century (e. g., Barrett, 1990,
p. 11; Kaufman, 1989, p. 11; Matson, 1987,
p. 465), yet within the communication discipline
surprisingly little attention has been given
to Jaspers's dialogical conceptions of the
importance of humans communicating.
4 Although the communication-related ideas
of Buber, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Bakhtin,
Gadamer, and other philosophers have received
consideration in our literature, the work
of Karl Jaspers has received scant notice.
Indeed, Jaspers has often been relegated
to footnote status: Friedman (1976, p. 162)
names Jaspers as one of seven scholars "who
have arrived at a dialogical or I-Thou philosophy
independently of Buber," yet this is
done within a footnote, with no treatment
of Jaspers in the body of his book; Littlejohn
(1996, p. 332) includes Jaspers as one of
six of "the most prominent critics of
mass society," yet this too is stated
within a footnote, with no discussion of
Jaspers's ideas or any citation of Jaspers's
publications. Cissna & Anderson (1994,
pp. 10-11), in a footnote, list Jaspers as
first among those whom they might have included
if they were to broaden the scope of their
essay. Johannesen (1971, p. 374), after identifying
Buber as the primary dialogical philosopher,
indicates in the body of his now-classic
early paper that "Two other existentialists
who find dialogue, or its equivalent, fundamental
to our understanding of man [sic] are Karl
Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel," yet there
is no further consideration of the work of
Jaspers within that essay. Stewart (1978,
p. 192) actually quotes a sentence from Jaspers,
but cites a secondary source for the quote.
I have not been able to locate a journal
article in the communication literature that
centers on Jaspers's existential philosophy
and his views of humans communicating. In
a rare and current brief discussion of Jaspers
in a text from our discipline, Smith (1998)
identifies Jaspers as "one of the five
most significant existentialist philosophers"
(p. 270), yet even upon this acknowledgment
less than a page and a half are given to
summarizing an aspect of Jaspers's philosophy
as it relates to human communication (pp.
286-87), and even this coverage is jointly
shared with Buber and Heidegger.
5 It is not too much to say that Karl Jaspers
is one of the Philosophers most thoroughly
ignored by the communication discipline;
the dialogical thinker of the 20th centurv
who, for whatever reasons, has been overlooked
during the recent interest in dialogue.
6 This is unfortunate and ironic, for Jaspers
is a philosopher who is aware not only of
the vital role of human communication in
the enterprise of philosophy, but in matters
of human development. Matson and Montagu
(1973) in their seminal volume on dialogue
over twenty-five years ago claimed that "No
one in our time has given greater emphasis
than has Jaspers to the crucial role of communication
both in thought and existence" (p. 7).
Jaspers often writes of the human being's
"absolute will to communication,"
asserting that the human being's "supreme
achievement in this world is communication
from personality to personality" (Jaspers,
1951 / 1973, p. 71). Jaspers sees communication
as the "universal condition" of
the human being, so much our "comprehensive
essence" that what we are, and what
is for us, are both "bound up with communication"
(Jaspers, 1957b, p. 79).
7 Jaspers was ahead of his time in his recognition
of the epistemological and ontological significance
of humans communicating, as were Martin Buber
and a small number of other early twentieth
century dialogical philosophers and theorists.
8 Jaspers had too much to say about communication
to go unheard and unrecognized by those interested
in the study of interpersonal and dialogical
communication. This essay will serve as a
brief introduction to certain key ideas of
this important existential philosopher so
that others might decide whether to turn
to Jaspers's works.
9 First, who was KARL JASPERS ?
Jaspers was born in Germany in 1883, raised
in an apparently middle-class and supportive
home, his father a bank director (see Jaspers,
1957c). Even though his life's work was as
a philosopher within a university context,
he did not hold a degree in philosophy, but
rather had earned the Doctor of Medicine
degree at the University of Heidelberg in
1909. Jaspers worked in a psychiatric hospital
for several years, held a position in psychology
on the Heidelberg faculty, and authored a
major text on psychopathology, plus significant
works on crime, jealousy, delusional perceptions,
and psychopathological studies of Strindberg
and Van Gogh, efforts for which Jaspers is
still recognized within psychiatry (Mundt,
1993). In spite of this specialized background
in psychopathology. Jaspers received a full
professorship in philosophy at Heidelberg
in 1922 (he had been offered a similar position
in philosophy departments at two other German
universities prior to the Heidelberg position,
and went on to have a highly productive academic
career in philosophy, authoring dozens of
influential philosophical volumes and scores
of philosophical aricles that have been published
in more than twenty languages.
10 Jaspers's marriage to a Jewish woman,
Gertrud Mayer, combined with his refusal
to support Hitler, led in 1933 to the Nazis
forbidding Jaspers to hold any university
administrative positions, then, four years
later, forbidding him to teach, and a year
after that denying him the right to publish.
Eventually Jaspers and his wife were scheduled
to be taken to a Nazi extermination camp.
Two weeks prior to their designated departure
at the hands of the Nazis, American troops
occupied the city of Heidelberg. Jaspers
was invited by representatives of the transitional
government being established by the Americans
to consider accepting the position of Germany's
"Secretary of Culture," but he
declined for reasons of health (Jaspers,
1957c, p. 67), and returned to the University
of Heidelberg. In 1948 Jaspers and his wife
(to whom he was married for sixty years,
and the person whom he saw to be his most
enduring dialogical partner) emigrated to
Switzerland. For the last twenty-one years
of his life Jaspers was professor of philosophy
at the University of Basel (where Nietzsche
had previously professed) until his death
in 1969 at age 86.
11 Philosophers influential in Jaspers's
thinking include Socrates, Plato, Plotinus,
Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzche, and Lao
Tzu. Of particular influence to Jaspers's
professional development was his friend and
mentor for over a decade, Max Weber (Jaspers,
1957c).
12 Although many of Jaspers's works were
not published in the United States until
the 1950s and thereafter, Jaspers published
heavily in book form and in scholarly journals
in Europe and Asia from 1910-23, and then
steadily throughout the 1930-60s, with his
work translated into over twenty languages
and addressing a wide range of topics
(e. g., Jaspers, 1949, 1952, 1957a, 1956,
1962, 1964, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1978,
1993).
13 WHY JASPERS?
Recently, interpersonal and dialogic scholars
have expressed certain concerns that familiarity
with the work of Jaspers could help them
address. The most immediate contributions
that Jaspers could make have to do with (a)
restoration of "heart" and "soul"
to the field, (b) acceptance of the unfinalizability
(the process nature) of our subject and research,
and (c) expansion of our disciplinary thinking.
14 Reclaiming "Heart" and "Soul"
In Trent's (1998) recent important volume
on communication inquiry and pedagogy for
the 21st century, Goodall (1998) charges
that in interpersonal communication studies
we have "lost our soul," that we
have constructed "a partial and partisan"
account of the role of human communication
in the lives of human beings. Goodall suggests
that human communicating is "part of
the reason we are here and the principal
way of understanding our individual and collective
purpose," and that people do in fact
create meaningful "transformative connections"
with others that are rarely captured in our
research. Bochner (1998) claims that we have
become a discipline without "feeling,"
and that the gap between what we study and
how people actually live communication in
daily life is "drastic." Cronen
(1998) notes that many of our interpersonal
texts seem as if they were written for (and
by?) Commander Data of "Star Trek"
(an emotionless android). There is growing
recognition that to the degree that communication
scholars attempt to build a neopositivistic
interpersonal communication "science"
we run the risk of creating a discipline
without "heart" and "spirit."
At a time when "interaction management,"
"face-saving," "strategic
competence," "compliance-gaining,"
"cognitive science," and "communibiology"
exert influence on our intellectual and pedagogical
practices, Jaspers's form of existentialism
is perhaps timely for contributing to pluralistic
dialogue and disciplinary balance.
15 Jaspers understands that "soul"
and "heart" are called and shaped
through existential communication, and within
his philosophizing is that which speaks to
human feeling and spirit. Jaspers's articulate
passion for the necessity and power of humans
communicating is moving; his early commitment
to "communication" and what it
makes possible is heartening (e. g., Jaspers,
1932/1970, pp. 47-103). His restraint and
indirection add to the force of his style,
especially for the academic reader. Gadamer
(1985, pp. 163-167), who knew Jaspers and
assumed his position at Heidelberg when Jaspers
left for Basel, finds that Jaspers's writing
pairs "sobriety" with "celebratory
pathos," and that he used "broadly
streaming and finely nuanced language."
Gadamer (p. 167) continues: "As glittering
fire beams forth from a thousand facets of
pure stone, so the fine-grained brightness
of experience, insight, and existential movement
shines out of the sentences of Jaspers' philosophy."
Gadamer refers to Jaspers's 1932 Philosophy
as a "philosophical masterpiece,"
in the manner of Kant, a work to enlighten
and transform thinking. "There is,"
Gadamer says, "no conclusion to Jaspers'
impact" (p. 167).
16 There are others, of course, who will
read Jaspers as overly metaphysical in his
conceptions, and will cast his thinking (unlike
Nietzsche's nihilistic "God Is dead"
existentialism) as a form of unrealistic
German idealism-romanticism (as, for example,
in his belief that "Love in the communication
amongst people who have become Selves is
the highest possibility within this life,"
as quoted in Kauffman, 1957, p. 224). Yet
it must again be remembered that Jaspers
lived in the most terrible of times and places,
Hitler's Nazi Germany, and his philosophizing
was fired in evil's flames. Jaspers and his
wife were to be taken to the extermination
camp on April 14, 1945, so the time of his
finality, and that of his loved one, had
been set. Jaspers did not live a shielded,
naive existence; he faced, and had to think
his way through, ultimate situations. Of
those who were exterminated in the ovens,
what stood out to Jaspers, through stories
that came to him, was that, as they stood
naked together, there were those who held
hands in acute final earthly bonding with
their loved ones, proclaiming their mutual
love, facing certain death and the unknown
together. Jaspers in no way ignored "evil"
or the "dark side" of human capacity,
yet he also believed in a counter-force,
and that each human individual has put to
them opportunities within their life situation
to make existential choices that have consequences.
Among the horrors in Nazi Germany, Jaspers
witnessed "as never before a guarantee
of the indestructibility of what it really
means to be human. Heroic ventures occurred"
(Jaspers, 1957c, pp. 60-61). If to see from
this perspective is to be romantic idealist,
Jaspers would probably say so be it.
17 It may be fitting as the spiral of history
unfolds that our existential sensibilities
be reawakened by Jaspers's works. In order
to have a resurgence of "heart"
and "soul" in our scholarly studies,
we first need to revive our own "soulful"
engagement with our subject matter, humans
communicating. Jaspers at least offers a
beginning.
17 Unfinalizability
Baxter and Montgomery (1996, pp. 207-231),
in their deconstruction of traditional interpersonal
inquiry, conclude that it has been characterized
by the monological assumptions that "objective
reality" can be "objectively"
observed, that "progress" should
be the outcome (knowledge as cumulative,
hierarchical, pyramidal), and that the object
of study should be general categories of
people ("contained selves") that
are abstracted and examined at the categorical
level. They argue, instead, for a dialogical
inquiry that is marked by disciplinary communication
competence, including fluidity of dialogue
(keeping the conversation going), respect
for multivocality, creativity, and recognition
of and respect for contradiction. If we are
to aspire to this level of disciplinary communication
competence, we would be aided by recourse
to Jaspers's work, for it emerged out of
these very values.
18 Jaspers understood long ago that inquiry
is a process of constructing "realities,"
and re-constructing ever more satisfying
and sophisticated versions that then themselves
give way to yet other evolving constructions.
For Jaspers, points of view taken and held
are often expressions of an individual will
to power (Hoffman, 1957, p. 112). Yet ultimately
each position can be rationally disproved,
and, more than this, shown to be decidedly
unphilosophical as it substitutes subject-object
"knowing" for "existential"
philosophizing (seeking to transcend, as
far as possible, the subject-object dichotomy
to gain some sense of the conjoint groundedness
of both together in the larger "Encompassing,"
a term to be discussed in a later section).
19 Jaspers accepts the truth-core contained
in each of the world's major philosophies,
and their "cipher-status" as existentially
meaningful symbols, while simultaneously
rejecting any claim each might make to universality.
Jaspers opposes world views, theories, and
philosophical systems that absolutize and
finalize (an intellectual opposition no doubt
accentuated by his life under Hitler's regime).
Jaspers concludes that:
20 At the end we have no firm ground under
us, no principle to hold on to, but a suspension
of thought in infinite space-without shelter
in conceptual systems, without refuge in
firm knowledge or faith. And even this suspended,
floating structure of thought is only one
metaphor of Being among others. (As quoted
in Hoffman, 1957, p. 112)
21 Jaspers suggests that "If God is
eternal, still for man truth is as a developing
truth, indeed a truth developing in communication"
(1935/1957b, p. 104). Jaspers appreciates
the metaphorical structure of knowledge,
and is not attached to any rigid conceptual
architecture : "The greatest possible
inclusiveness was my aim" (Jaspers,
1957c, p.
802).
22 Of his own model of the "seven modes"
of the Encompassing, he likened his effort
to sketching seven interconnected rooms in
a house, but with no comprehension of the
overall design of the house in the which
the rooms are located (Jaspers, 1957d). Jaspers
does not pretend that his work is a corpus
of finished thought, but an incentive to
philosophical inquiry and development within
those who engage his thinking.
23 Jaspers believes we must abandon our preference
for comfortable probabilities, for we live
in a world of existential uncertainty. During
this fact of our existence it is humans communicating
that can flash sparks of life each to the
other, neither as constancy nor as strategically
managed episode, but as boundless existential
communication. This, in the world of appearances,
will occur amidst endless contradiction and
dialectical oppositions, as we subsist not
only under "the law of the day"
but "the passion of the night."
24 Jaspers's keen understanding of "process,"
dialectical tensions, metaphor, dialogical
fluidity and creativity can educate interpersonal
and dialogical scholars in these and related
areas.
25 Expansion of Thinking
Pearce (1998) has suggested that we cultivate
expansion of consciousness as we pursue our
communication theorizing:
Be open to the possibility of transformations
of our consciousness in ways that expand
our horizons so that what we had thought
of as "wholes" in themselves are
seen as parts of larger "wholes."
This not only expands our view of the world,
it expands that with which we view the world.
(pp. 329-330)
26 Jaspers can contribute significantly to
interpersonal theorists in this area. Jaspers
believes that each human being is meant to
do his or her own philosophizing, rather
than introject any intact thought system,
and Jaspers seeks to awaken the reader, through
subtle practices and actions, to enlarged
and enlarging conceptions that are flexible,
permeable, in-process.
27 In discussing dialogical scholarship,
Baxter and Montgomery (1996, p. 225) refer
to Feyerabend (1981, p. 73), who maintained
that when we remain stable at a given level
of theoretical operation for a prolonged
period we should see that "we have failed
to transcend an accidental stage of research
and that we have failed to rise to a higher
state of consciousness and of understanding."
Jaspers was aware of the futility of only
increasing the range of stored information,
and sought a different form of knowledge
growth, one in which:
28 . . . we can rise in the ways of thinking
itself. if this succeeds, then we do not
merely add to the endless information about
things but, by our ability to engage in a
new type of thinking, increase our insight
into the whole, and thereby gain greater
consciousness of being. (Jaspers, 1957c,
p. 795)
29 In the words of Hoffman (1957, p. 112),
Jaspers pursues philosophizing that engenders
in those who accompany him an existential
assimilation of Being through its appearances,
resulting in an inner change, a turning-about
in the sense of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
The aim of philosophy, for Jaspers, is not
to arrive at a self-consistent closed system,
but is rather an incessant drive to set free,
to prepare for new modes of knowledge, to
make felt the boundless space in which free
thought can move.
30 Jaspers's philosophizing is not intended
as doctrine to be mastered or intellectualized
about, but as goad to expansion. Jaspers
widens thinking, and sees the aim of philosophy
as no less. Jaspers coaxes the reader to
"Jump over their own shadow," to
entertain notions that are paradoxical in
the world of appearances, to use the intellect
to transcend the intellect "without
losing one's head."
31 Jaspers's philosophizing can be of assistance
if communication scholars are to take seriously
the matter raised by Shepard (1994), who
maintains that each discipline promotes a
unique ontological view of existence and
its artifacts (e. g., physics looks at a
chair differently than would economics or
literature or art). Shepard's position is
that we in communication have failed to offer
a communication-based view of existence or
Being, and that for over 300 years this has
kept us in academic illegitimacy, because
a field achieves disciplinary, status by
promoting a unique foundational ontology.
We have for-warded no "eye on existence";
we have not shown that communication is materially
essential to Being.
32 Although Jaspers's philosophy of communication
will not lead us to any specific "view
of Being" that we can claim as our own,
Jaspers would have us see that existential
communicating is the manner by which we construe
more of Being. He offers no direct or final
visions, but existential communication in
particular can bring us to the level where
we are less trapped in the subject-object
dichotomy, permitting partners in existential
communication to come into a greater sense
of Being:
33 The Encompassing which we are is, in every
form, communication; the Encompassing which
is Being exists for us only insofar as it
achieves communicability by becoming speech
or becoming utterable. (Jaspers, 1935/1957b,
p. 79)
34 Jaspers exhorts his reader to understand
that the Encompassing manifests in the subject-object
split as subject, as object, as the two combined,
and as the horizonless space within which
all horizons exist. Jaspers gives substance
to Shepard's curiosity, suggesting that Being
comes into greater being through significant
existential acts of humans communicating.
The contribution to Being of humans communicating
is central for Jaspers.
35 Jaspers has stimulated my own thinking
in a way that has finally dislodged a long-held
primary attachment to thinking of communication
microscopically as the sending and receiving
of messages to construing communication more
largely as "foundational transformational
process" (Gordon, 1997). Much as respiration
in the human body could be said to be "foundational"
("Is s/he breathing?"), within
the social body it is human communication
that is "foundational." Communication
is "transformational" in that it
acts-out the core creational act of birthing
formlessness into symbolic and material form.
In this way communication not only participates
in Being, it exemplifies the transformation
of nonbeing into being. In this sense communication
could be said to be synchronous with the
creative force of Being.
36 Krippendorff (1989) advises that, when
possible, scholarly inquiry expand the range
of available perspectival choices. Jaspers
can productively contribute to this expansion,
as he, in turn, expands our own thinking
about humans communicating.
37 JASPERS ON COMMUNICATION
In Communication We Begin
This section discusses four basic, central,
and recurring themes in Jaspers's work in
communication: (a) the role of communication
in forging our identity and humanity, (b)
communication as the source of what comes
to be "true" for us, (c) the need
for ongoing communication, and (d) the dialogical
possibilities of Existenz-with-Existenz communication.
Jaspers deserves recognition in the history
of ideas for his early original thinking
in these areas.
38 Jaspers sees human beings as relational
beings whose existence, identity, and humanity
derive from interpersonal communicating:
"Every new human being begins in communication"
(Jaspers, 1935/1957b, p. 79). In his chapter
titled "Communication" from the
second of his three-volume Philosophy, Jaspers
(1932/1970) repeatedly stresses the primacy
of human communication to human becoming:
39 I am only in communication with another.
(p. 47)
Just as I am not conscious without an object,
I am not self-conscious without the self-consciousness
of others. (p. 51)
An isolated human being exists only as a
boundary concept, not in fact ... I go to
waste when I am nothing but I .... My existence
grows dark. (p. 52)
My self-being is always decided in communication,
by its tie to communication. (p. 52)
It is only in communication that I come to
myself. (p. 53)
With self-being thus a product of communication,
neither I nor the other have a solid substance
of being previous to our communication. It
is precisely when I think of myself and of
the other in this fashion, as solidly extant,
that true communication will seem to end.
(p. 64)
To communicate is to become oneself with
another. (p. 73)
When everything that is said to be valuable
and true collapses before my eyes, those
with whom I communicate or might communicate
remain, and with them remains what to me
is authentic being. (p. 117)
40 By 1931, Jaspers had developed his conception
of the social construction of self through
communication. Baxter (1998) notes that the
prevailing hegemonic monological assumption
in the study of interpersonal communication
has been that "communication originates
within the sovereign individual. When we
turn this assumption on it's head and focus
instead on how the person originates in communication,
a different intelligibility is brought into
the scholarly conversation" (pp. 61-62).
Jaspers had made this inversion nearly seven
decades ago. As far as we know, Jaspers's
thinking proceeded independently of the dialogical
works of Buber (Friedman, 1976,1). 162),
was uninfluenced by the work of Bakhtin who
wrote approximately contemporaneously and
whose work was only later published in translation
(Todorov, 1984), and was prior to dissemination
of the ideas of Mead (1934) and subsequent
symbolic interactionism. Today, of course,
social constructionism permeates the dialogical
(Anderson, Cissna, & Arnett, 1994; Arnett,
1992; Stewart, 1978; Poulakos, 1974; Johannesen,
1971) and social theory approaches (Leeds-Hurwitz,
1992) to interpersonal communication studies.
41 The Truth Begins With Two
Philosophy concerns itself with the wonder
of existence: it questions meanings of life
and death, meanings of being human, of person
with person, of the nature of Being. Philosophy
is ubiquitous, implicitly and explicitly:
"There is no escape from philosophy"
(Jaspers, 1951/1973, p. 12). Jaspers relies
on the Greek notion of the philosopher as
lover and seeker of wisdom, rather than one
who possesses absolute knowledge, and to
philosophize is "to be on the way."
42 As Jaspers views it, communication is
crucial to philosophy, and to philosophical
truth. "Truth" for Jaspers is founded
upon relationality:
I should not suffer so deeply from lack of
communication or find such unique pleasure
in authentic communication if I for myself,
in absolute solitude, could be certain of
the truth. But I am only in conjunction with
the other, alone I am nothing. Jaspers, 1973,
p. 80)
43 Philosophical truth in particular arises
through human dialogue, it grows from authentic
communication between selves struggling toward
understanding of self and other, life and
meaning, and is not simply passed from one
to the other:
It would be a truth which would arise for
the first time in communication, which would
become actual only in and through it; it
would be a truth which is neither already
here to be transmitted to another, nor which
presents us with a methodically attainable
end in which it could be valid without communication.
(Jaspers, 1935/1957b, pp. 96-97)
44 Jaspers had early grasp of what today
is the popular dialogical notion that completed
ideas and knowledge and truths are not simply
traded across individuals, but emergent through
communication process (Cissna & Anderson,
1994, pp. 9-10, 14; Stewart & Thomas,
1990; Friedman, 1976, pp. 161-175).3 Jaspers
values independent self-reflection, but asserts
that "the truth begins with two":
What I gain for myself alone in reflection
would-if it were all-be as nothing gained.
What is not realized in communication is
not yet, what is not ultimately grounded
in it is without adequate foundation. The
truth begins with two. Jaspers, 1951/1973,
p. 124)
45 The serious communicator "strives
to become capable of playing his part in
the dialogue of ever-deepening communication,
which is the prerequisite for truth and without
which there is no truth" (Jaspers, 1951/1973,
p. 166). "Truth" reveals itself
through communication, "thinking"
is a practice that transpires between persons
rather than transpiring only as solitudinous
performance within a single person, and truth
can be "recovered from its dispersion
by communication" (Jaspers, 1957b, p.
104).
46 Truth is inextricably tied to communication,
and its pursuit should not be dogmatic but
communicative. Dogmatic truth breaks-off
communication, and presumes too much: "For
the most devastating threat to truth in the
world is the overwhelming claim to the absolutely
true. In the certainty of the moment the
humility of the enduring question is indispensable"
(Jaspers, 1951/1973, p. 99). It is communicative
truth to which the wise communicator aspires,
knowing that there are a plurality of truths,
a multiplicity of truths, and that we produce
truth as much as discover it. Our truths
must contain the possibilities of communication,
for "truth, in its movement, is never
complete, but in every factual completion
also remains continuously open" (Jaspers,
1957b, p. 97). This does not mean that people
should not communicate their own personal
truths, but must also recognize that "every
standpoint can also absorb him who thinks
it" (1957b, p. 103), and "every
standpoint, no matter how right it seems,
can also be refuted through the very fact
of process. Accordingly, for the sake of
a living community the art of conversation
must be developed" (Jaspers, 1932/1970,
p. 82).
47 Limitless Communication
Jaspers identifies three sources of philosophy:
wonder, doubt, and "ultimate" situations
(e. g., suffering, struggle, dying). Yet
wonder, doubt, and grappling with ultimate
situations are not enough: "They can
operate only if there is communication among
people" (Jaspers, 1951/1973, pp. 24-25).
Hannah Arendt identifies Jaspers as the first
philosopher she knows who "protested
against solitude," who dared to question
all thoughts under this one standard: "'What
do they signify for communication? Are they
such that they may help or such that they
will prevent communication? Do they seduce
to solitude or arouse to communication?"'
(Arendt, 1957, p. 543). Limitless communication
is at the core of Jaspers' dialogical philosophy,
for "Communication liquefies all things,
to let new solidities emerge" (Jaspers,
1932/1970, p. 69). The contemporary communication
ethic that holds that it is a "good"
to "keep the conversation going"
echoes Jaspers.
48 The concept of "losing struggle"
is used throughout Jaspers's writings to
signify a wrestling with the other to press
other and self further than either has been
able to go alone: a loving contest in which
each person surrenders their weapons to the
other. The certainty of authentic being resides
only in unreserved communication between
persons who live together and vie with one
another in a free community, who regard their
association with one another as but a preliminary
stage, who take nothing for granted and question
everything. Only in communication is all
the other truth fulfilled, only in communication
am I myself not merely living but fulfilling
life. Jaspers,
1951/1973, pp. 25-26)
49 There are several "defective"
modes of human communication, including affectation,
insincerity, deceit and lying, and "pseudo-communication"
arising from shyness, fear, suspicion, prejudice,
self-centeredness, presumed superiority,
callousness, combativeness, bad will, and
continually idle talk (Kaufmann, 1957, pp.
214-216). The deficient modes of communicative
life will not suffice:
50 I insist unconditionally upon the road
of communication. But I renounce the presupposition
of predetermined success. I am convinced
that the chances for success are greater
if one is conscious of the dangers which
could destroy communication. (Jaspers, 1957d,
p. 760)
51 Authentic existential communication requires
equality, mutual recognition, affirmation,
solidarity, questioning, abandonment of ego
protection, no quest for victory, unlimited
clarification, and no sophistry, for "Sophisms
are like the heads of Hydra; it takes an
effort to destroy even one, and for each
one destroyed there arises a number of new
ones" (Jaspers, 1957b, p. 89). Jaspers
views such communication not simply as another
activity in which wisdom-seekers engage,
but as the bedrock of philosophical endeavor:
52 Consequently, philosophy demands: seek
constant communication, risk it without reserve,
renounce the defiant self-assertion which
forces itself upon you in ever new disguises,
live in the hope that in your very renunciation
you will in some incalculable way be given
back to yourself (Jaspers, 1951/1973, p.
124)
The ultimate source and striving of philosophy
is "the will to authentic communication."
The seeker of wisdom pursues unreserved communication,
including deep and profound listening, "staking
everything on communication" in order
to progress in illumination of self, other,
and Being: "Communication then is the
aim of philosophy, and in communication all
its other aims are ultimately rooted: awareness
of being, illumination through love, attainment
of peace" Jaspers, 1951/1973, p. 27).
Rarely has human communication been granted
a more pivotal position and been spoken of
more robustly by those in disciplines outside
our own.
53 Eternity by Way of the Moment
Jaspers sees the "detached I" as
likely to treat the other as "matter,"
as a controllable object, as an impersonal
entity whose existence is not entirely equal
to one's own Jaspers, 1932/1970, p. 49).
In contrast to this form of relating stands
"existential communication":
The other is this one only. Uniqueness is
the phenomenon of the substantiality of his
being. Existential communication is not to
be modeled and is not to be copied; each
time it is flatly singular. It occurs between
two selves which are nothing else, are not
representative, and are therefore not interchangeable.
(Jaspers, 1932/1970, p. 54)
54 In the "loving struggle" of
those who will to become themselves, the
existential communicator strives to avoid
assuming that the other is just like oneself,
and therefore a replaceable point of consciousness.
Although understanding that there is an anchoring
in our common ground of humanity, diversity
is savored (Jaspers, 1935/1957b, p.
91). Fritz Kaufmann says that:
For Jaspers, the truest, most intimate communication
has this paradoxical feature about it: that
it respects, emphasizes, and intensifies
the differences between one existence and
the other, instead of dwarfing, slurring
and hiding them, as is the rule in the anonymity
of average life. (1957, pp. 212-213)
55 Jaspers, in the first part of the twentieth
century, saw that human diversity becomes
the opportunity out of which dialogue can
begin.
The demands of existential communication
are great. Both dialogical partners must
be ready to meet, must care about the other,
must establish mutuality, must rise to the
occasion, must be vulnerable. If either is
unwilling or unable to sustain the inherent
risks involved, a breach or rupture of interdependent
existential communication will occur:
56 For I do not reach the point of my communication
by my action alone; the other's must match
it. An agonizingly, eternally inadequate
relationship becomes inevitable at the moment
when the other, instead of coming to meet
me, turns himself into my object. If his
actions do not establish his self-being,
my actions will not establish mine. Jaspers,
1932/1970, p. 53)
57 Both persons will need to see themselves
as decisive for self, other, and dialogue,
in a free flow of communication that Proceeds
from "a limitless mobility - of standpoints."
The defective modes of communication will
not enable existential communication, for
"closed monads" cannot enter the
"existential circle" where "the
tie of being to being" is created that
leads to Existenz-with-Existenz communication.
58 In what is often called Jaspers's "Existenz
philosophy" (Schrag, 1971), at the immanent
level we are each "empirical existence"
(we exist in space and time), "consciousness-as-such"
(we think and talk), and "spirit"
(we aspire to wholeness and unity). At another
level of our being we are also what Jaspers
calls "potential Existenz," which
emerges out of possibility, freedom, task,
and communication. Although Jaspers argues
that no precise objective definition of "Existenz"
can be offered, as that would treat it as
an object of thought (which is exactly what
it can never onlv be), it can be pointed
to as the innermost ground of our readiness
to go beyond "empirical existence,"
"consciousness-as-such," and raw
"spirit" (Jaspers, 1932/1970, pp.
3-22). As we "manifest" ourselves
in interpersonal communication of the highest
quality, we can open to the recognition of
our "potential Existenz," and "This
is the road to fulfillment and the condition
of everything else" Jaspers, 1932/1970,
p. 97). Although we cannot force this degree
of existential communication, the necessary
condition is the existential solidarity of
person-to-person communication, in which
Existenz can then come to life: "Existenz,
then, only becomes apparent and thereby real
if it comes to itself through, and thereby
with, another Existenz" (1935/1957b,
p. 92). Existenz is the dimension of our
being that has the capacity to stand between
the world and "Transcendence,"
and we are at times graced with a glimpse:
"The event of existential communication
opens a view into Transcendence" (Jaspers,
1935/1957b, p. 108). It has been suggested
that Jaspers's idea of "Transcendence"
is not so much "vertical" as "horizontal,"
not a movement upwards, above it all, but
a moving more penetratingly with "gliding
awareness" into and through that which
is around us as the world of appearances
(Holm, 1957, p. 670).
59 Humans reach from their roots as they
watch developing in the highest quality interpersonal
communication "the boundary where what
the Whole is beyond all division can momentarily
flash out" (Jaspers, 1935/1957b, pp.
105-106). Dialogical partners might then
touch upon what Jaspers refers to as the
"Encompassing" (also translated
from the German as the "Comprehensive,"
or the "Enveloping"). While the
meanings of this term and its translations
are not to be captured by reductive objective
definition, Jaspers uses it as a shorthand
expression for the larger context within
which we exist that is outside objective
thought alone (Jaspers, 1957b, pp. 51-76;
1951/1973, pp.
28-38; Knauss, 1957). Past each horizon of
thought and experience and matter is another
horizon, and past that another, and another,
ad infinitum, and it is the horizonless Encompassing
which subsumes and transcends all such horizons,
and out of which subject and object and being
and nonbeing are seemingly "pulled"
or "broken away"
(Jaspers, 1957d, pp. 790791). To expand consciousness
into wider horizons where we neither "slide
off' into only subjectivity or objectivity,
to go past the "division" and at
the same time push into it, is to sense the
Encompassing (Jaspers, 1957d, p. 729). This
allows extended awareness and illumination.
It is not the content of thought that produces
such illumination, but passing through such
thought to what lies beyond in "deep
silence."'
60 Although nature and works of art and literature
can inspire and reach us, for Jaspers it
is human communication of high quality, especially
on metaphysical matters, that most solidly
takes us toward the Encompassing and makes
possible Transcendence. Realization, becoming,
awareness, these are created through existential
"bonds of communication," bringing
the communicative impulse to fruition as
the previously "isolated I" participates
with another in "communicative self-being"
(Jaspers, 1932/1970, p.
52). From such manifestation we might return
with visibly no more than a mutual glance
and handshake, vet this "articulate
silence" speaks of our tie in existential
communication, for "Being is being together,
not only in existence but as Existenz"
(p. 68). To manifest Existenz through existential
communication, risk is central:
61 If I want to be manifest, I will risk
myself completely in communication, which
is my only way of self-realization. I will
put "the way I am" completely at
stake, because I know that in it my own Existenz
has yet to come to itself (Jaspers, 1932/1970,
p. 59)
62 We are often most moved to "the will
to total communication" when we have
become dissatisfied with our mundane communication
from "empirical existence." Having
confused "the way we are" with
"what we eternally are" as Existenz,
we choose to save and be "the way we
are" until there arises, if one is fortunate,
the sense of "shortcoming" in communication,
since "I am so profoundly affected by
what I get and fail to get from communication,
since " This can then become "the
sting that will arouse me for the deeper
existential communication." (Jaspers,
1932/1970, p. 53). We step out of our solitude
and together come to ourselves in communication:
63 In this immaterial realm of mind there
are, at any moment, a few indwellers who,
entering into close proximity, strike flame
out of one another by the intimacy of their
communication. They are the origin of the
loftiest soaring movement which is as yet
possible in the world. Jaspers, 1931/1957a,
pp. 210-211)
64 But we are not yet destined to remain
in the state of expanded insight that such
communication provides, and "the illumination
is transitory" (Jaspers, 1935/1957b,
pp.
5-6), for, as Jaspers puts it, "in time
the order always is: move on. We lose ourselves
and win ourselves again. I philosophize on
the road" Jaspers, 1957d, pp. 828-829).
Even so, after significant encounters with
existential communication we are never quite
the same, especially as such communication
experiences cumulate and Existenz
(the internal eternal) is repeatedly aroused.
Further, our appreciation of our existential
communication partner and our relationship
has been enriched, as we have touched upon
an awareness of irreplaceability and unrepeatability.
At such times we have experienced "eternity
by way of the moment" (Jaspers, 1957d,
pp. 828-829)."
65 CONCLUSION
Stewart (1978) performed valuable service
in attempting to trace our dialogical roots
back to Husserlian phenomenology, existentialism
(Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
Jaspers, Merleau-Ponty), and philosophical
anthropology (Marx, Feuerbach, Kant, de Chardin,
Buber and others). Of these, it is Buber's
work that has received the most attention
from those in interpersonal and dialogical
studies, and that has carried us the greatest
distance. Yet Buber has been burdened with
much of the dialogical load, and the contemporary
dialogical school now needs a wider panoply
of thinkers to draw upon and reference. Buber's
voice must be further supplemented with other
contemporary and historical voices, among
them the other seven scholars whom Friedman
identified as having independently arrived
at dialogical perspectives, including Jaspers.
As the new century and millennium begin,
a more dialogical orientation is being advanced
within interpersonal communication studies
by those who argue that we need a fresh paradigm
to guide our theory, research, and practice,
highlighting the dynamics of relationality,
co-construction, the dialectical, and the
spiritual (e. g., Anderson, Cissna, &
Arnett, 1994; Arnett, 1992; Baxter &
Montgomery, 1996; Bochner, 1998; Foss &
Griffin, 1995; Goodall, Jr., 1998; Putnam,
1998; Sampson, 1993; Sprague, 1998; Stewart,
1994). Jaspers's key term "communication"
(kommunication) was employed at the center
of his work seven decades before it became
the umbrella identifier of our discipline,
as he was even then deeply thinking and writing
of the necessity of communication to humans
selving each other, to arriving at the truths
by which humans live, to approaching Being.
We in interpersonal communication studies
have not vet begun to discover the gold-mine
that is Jaspers's life work. It is my conviction
that the Existenz philosophizing of Karl
Jaspers must be included in our scholarly
conversation to further open our dialogue,
broaden our intellectual base, and extend
our thinking in important ways.
66 NOTES
Gergen (1991 ) calls the "romantic"
and "modernist" views "totalizing,"
insulated from self-criticism and limiting
to human action, yet "cultural life-forms
that possess internal coherence and local
validity," and that can be "revitalized"
in the presence of an "openness to mulfiplicity,"
a continuous "free play of being"
moving through a "pluralistic universe"
with dialogue as its mode of discourse (p.
247). Jaspers's Existenz philosophy seems
more attuned to this "protean"
and pluralistic possibility that Gergen sketches
than to a Lightly totalized system of belief
Having lived under the totalizing system
of the Nazis, Jaspers felt no fondness for
insulated structures, and is keenly aware
of the necessity of the free play of thought
and being, and if his philosophy Lakes on
"romantic" strains it is probably
owing to whatever "romance" can
be associated with such core existential
concepts as freedom, authenticity' existential
communication, and transcendence.
"Bakhtin (Todorov, 1984: Emerson, 1994),
the Russian dialogist, writes of the fusion
with and separation from the other that gives
rise to a sense of self, part of the centripetal-centrifugal
dialogue. Baxter and Montgomery (1996, p.
43) say that "Perhaps Bakhtin's greatest
contribution to our thinking about personal
relationships is his celebration of this
assumption." Jaspers too writes of this
relational dialectic, e. g., I cannot come
to myself without entering into communication,
and I cannot enter into communication without
being lonely" 1(1932/1970, p. 59).
'Again there is similarity with the conceptualizations
of Bakhtin (Todorov, 1984), here regarding
the social bases of cognition. We are also
reminded of Buber's (1966) distinction between
monological contact that "imposes,"
and dialogue, out of which meanings "unfold."
The dialectical nature of the process is
fundamental: "Infinite reflection, therefore,
is precisely through its endlessly active
dialectic, the condition of freedom. It breaks
out of every prison of the finite" (Jaspers,
1935/19576, p. 32).
Buber (1965, pp. 3-4) reaches a similar position,
as does Heidegger (Smith, 1985, p. 266).
Jaspers recognized the "momentary"
aspect of dialogical meeting that Buber and
Rogers repeatedly called attention to in
their prominent dialogue of 1957 (Cissna
and Anderson, 1998).
-----
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