Publication Date:
2018
abstract:
Karl Jaspers analysed the figure and the thought of Buddhist monk Nagarjuna, who lived
between the 2nd and 3rd century AD, in the first volume of The Great Philosophers of
1957. This work constitutes the most significant part of a project of “universal history of
philosophy” profoundly different from the traditional ones, to the extent that it abandons chronology as its authoritative principle and first of all looks to that super-historical
reality (the Transcendence) which has always inspired the thought and existence of the
great philosophers, who are simultaneously within and beyond history, forming together
a “realm of reason” from which they talk to us as if they were our contemporaries, so that
we can always communicate with them. Jaspers, in his analysis of Nagarjuna’s thinking,
emphasises the different ways that Eastern man and Western man live their inner freedom towards reality and self. Nagarjuna’s logical-dialectic thinking, however, also has
a deep affinity with the Jaspersian “formal transcending”, leading the thought up to the
extreme limit where it changes into a sort of “non-thought”, “more than thought”, “other
thought”, making it paradoxically possible to think the unthinkable, i.e., to grasp the
Omni-embracing Being (the Transcendence), giving meaning and liberty to existence
between the 2nd and 3rd century AD, in the first volume of The Great Philosophers of
1957. This work constitutes the most significant part of a project of “universal history of
philosophy” profoundly different from the traditional ones, to the extent that it abandons chronology as its authoritative principle and first of all looks to that super-historical
reality (the Transcendence) which has always inspired the thought and existence of the
great philosophers, who are simultaneously within and beyond history, forming together
a “realm of reason” from which they talk to us as if they were our contemporaries, so that
we can always communicate with them. Jaspers, in his analysis of Nagarjuna’s thinking,
emphasises the different ways that Eastern man and Western man live their inner freedom towards reality and self. Nagarjuna’s logical-dialectic thinking, however, also has
a deep affinity with the Jaspersian “formal transcending”, leading the thought up to the
extreme limit where it changes into a sort of “non-thought”, “more than thought”, “other
thought”, making it paradoxically possible to think the unthinkable, i.e., to grasp the
Omni-embracing Being (the Transcendence), giving meaning and liberty to existence
Iris type:
2.1 Contributo in volume (Capitolo o Saggio)
Keywords:
Jaspers, Nagarjuna, interculturalità, philosophia perennis
List of contributors:
Garaventa, Roberto
Book title:
Il dialogo interreligioso, “Studi jaspersiani”, VI (2018)