"Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul"
About this Quote
Jaspers is pushing back against the tidy, self-help version of philosophy: the idea that thinking earns its keep only by making you “better” (more moral) or calmer (more serene). In a century that watched ethics get weaponized by ideology and psychiatry get tempted by mere adjustment, that’s not a minor quibble. It’s a boundary line.
The phrasing is surgical. He grants “philosophy as practice” but refuses the reduction of practice to “utility or applicability,” as if the only respectable outcomes are social virtue or inner peace. That pairing is deliberate: morality speaks to the public demand that thought produce good citizens; serenity speaks to the private demand that it soothe anxiety. Jaspers names both pressures and then declines them. The subtext is that philosophy’s most honest work often does the opposite: it destabilizes, complicates, opens wounds that a culture would prefer to cauterize with rules or coping strategies.
As a psychologist by training, he’s acutely aware of how easily existential questioning gets treated as a symptom to be managed rather than a confrontation to be lived. His existentialist streak makes “practice” less like a toolkit and more like a discipline of lucidity: facing guilt, freedom, death, and meaning without expecting a therapeutic payoff. The intent isn’t to sneer at morality or serenity; it’s to deny them veto power. Philosophy, for Jaspers, is practical precisely when it refuses to behave like a product. It practices truthfulness under conditions where comfort is the first casualty.
The phrasing is surgical. He grants “philosophy as practice” but refuses the reduction of practice to “utility or applicability,” as if the only respectable outcomes are social virtue or inner peace. That pairing is deliberate: morality speaks to the public demand that thought produce good citizens; serenity speaks to the private demand that it soothe anxiety. Jaspers names both pressures and then declines them. The subtext is that philosophy’s most honest work often does the opposite: it destabilizes, complicates, opens wounds that a culture would prefer to cauterize with rules or coping strategies.
As a psychologist by training, he’s acutely aware of how easily existential questioning gets treated as a symptom to be managed rather than a confrontation to be lived. His existentialist streak makes “practice” less like a toolkit and more like a discipline of lucidity: facing guilt, freedom, death, and meaning without expecting a therapeutic payoff. The intent isn’t to sneer at morality or serenity; it’s to deny them veto power. Philosophy, for Jaspers, is practical precisely when it refuses to behave like a product. It practices truthfulness under conditions where comfort is the first casualty.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by Karl
Add to List
