The Exploration Of Jaspers’ Concept Of Freedom

Jaspers is a famous existentialist philosopher, the founder of the existentialism.His whole philosophy theory was based on his close concerns and profoundreflections on the spirit crisis and the existential predicament of the people that hadbeen deeply mired in war and modern technological civilization. He regarded"Freedom" as the core concept of the theory and it penetrated into his wholephilosophy from the beginning to the end, it can be said that his whole philosophywas the interpretation of freedom. Actually, no matter it was the initial discussionson the connotation of the existence, or the later explorations on the nature of guilt,communication, belief and truth, or even the questioning of the existence oftranscendence, they all can be regarded as the explanations about the significance offreedom in different levels and angles. As a result, the grasp of Jaspers’ concept of"freedom" will contribute to a more comprehensive and profound understanding ofhis existentialist philosophy.Jaspers’ philosophy was unique in his putting the "freedom" concept in thecenter of human existence reality, and revealed the significance and value ofexistence: the meaning of human existence reality was survival, while the nature andvalue of survival was freedom. Because of freedom, the life course can be expressedand sublimated completely. His concept of freedom was a pure philosophical cry of"Paying attention to people’s survival, calling human freedom", and it was also aconcentrated and true reflection of people’s deepest desires of pursuing freedom.This artical consists four parts. The first part briefly states the maintheoretical origins of the formation of Jaspers’ concept of freedom, including Kant’sconcept of rational freedom, Nietzsche’s libertarianism, Kierkegaard’s theory ofexistent freedom and Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, how did they influenceJaspers’ concept of freedom, and how did Jaspers inherit and develop their theories.The second part dissertates that Jaspers’ concept of freedom is the concept of existent freedom. Through the analysis of the existence concept’s basic connotation and itsclose relationship with the freedom concept, we reveal the core idea, that is "Theessence of existence is freedom, existence is freedom". The third part analyzes theimportant connotations of Jaspers’ concept of freedom, the analyses and statementsare made from the following four aspects, including freedom and transcendence,freedom and guilt, freedom and communication, as well as freedom and belief. Thefourth and last part evaluates objectively on the theoretical contributions andinfluences of Jaspers’ concept of freedom, and rethinks impersonally on the tendencyof his theory. His theory had made tremendous contributions to revealing thesignificance of human existence and rethinking the age’s spiritual crisis, and it alsohad made important theoretical influences on Sartre’s concept of freedom andFromm’s concept of spiritual analysis. But his theory excessively emphasized on theindividuals, which made his concept of freedom had an inevitable tendency topessimism.Nowadays, our human society is facing a lot of more serious problems ofexistence than before, many domestic and overseas philosophers have givenextensive concerns and introspection on the situation, while Jaspers’ concept offreedom is just the unique explanation of the significant and value of humanexistence, as a result, his understanding of freedom undoubtedly can provide ourcontemporary society with a new and useful perspective. The purposes of this articleare that through the analysis of Jaspers’ theory of freedom, can make people have anintensive and comprehensive understanding of the essence of his theory connotation,re-examine the connotation of freedom and the essence of self existent significancein a more novel and unique perspective, and perform better in social practice, whilebenefit from which, our aspirations to find an effective solution for resolving thecrisis of human existence may realize eventually.