A Brief Introduction To Jaspers’ Tragedy Theory

As one of the main representatives of existentialist philosophy in the20th century, Jaspers, on the basis of Kierkegaard’s, Nietzsche’s and Husserl’s philosophy, proposes the theoretical framework of existence philosophy. In his existence philosophy, Jaspers reforms the way of thinking of traditional philosophy, raising the survival of people up to the basic position of the philosophy, and constructs a unique philosophical system, proposing a series of unique existence philosophy category, such as "Existence","Limit-situations","Cipher","Transcendence","the Encompassing" and so on. As an important part of Jaspers’philosophy, Jaspers’ tragedy theory is an important constituent element of his Cipher theory.Based on the achievement of traditional tragedy theory from the time of Aristotle, Jaspers putts the tentacles of tragedy thoughts deep into the social reality of modern science and technology division and personal experiences of his life. His theory is a breadth and depth of its theoretical basis in reality and life tension. Generally speaking, Jaspers revisit the tragic phenomenon from a view of Existence philosophy, besides establishes the tragedy theoretical system that "knowledge of the tragic" as the core,"the tragedy in the works","subjectivity of tragedy","the Transcendence of Tragedy" and "Interpretation to Tragedy" as the main contents. This system differs, in the theoretical form, from the text tragedy theory represented by Aristotle and Hegel and the cultural tragedy theory represented by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Jaspers’tragedy theory is an important chain and the logical extension of the Western tragedy theory.Therefore, the full text is divided into three parts:The first part discusses the origin of Jaspers’ tragedy theory from the perspective of genetics. I consider that the two World Wars, the Western philosophical and cultural crisis of the early20th century as well as Jaspers’life experiences, is not only the beginning of Jaspers’philosophical thinking, but also the background tragedy of Jaspers’ theoretical thinking. The second part combs the basic meaning of Jaspers’tragedy theory from the perspective of close reading, and tries to give a more comprehensive reading. I believe that previous studies about Jaspers’tragedy theory are not systematic and comprehensive. Having contrasting different translations of Jaspers’tragedy theory and referring to his philosophical texts, I will correct the current research and have a systematic study on Jaspers’tragedy theory. The third part putts Jaspers’ tragedy theory into the tragic history of Western theories. It tries to make accurate positioning of Jaspers’tragedy theory in the tragedy history and analyzes the value and position of his theory. Jaspers’tragedy theory inherited both the typical achievement of western theory history and the direct tragedy thoughts of Kierkegaard’s and Nietzsche’s. In addition, I will necessarily carry out comparative study with its contemporary thinkers Scheler and Heidegger, and combs the unique meaning of Jaspers’tragedy theory. On the basis of our realities, I explore the significances that Jaspers’tragedy theory saves the vulgar sense of the world and build the domestic tragedy theory of China practically.