“To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.”
Born 137 years ago on this day, I first came to know Jaspers after having read his cross analysis of Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus. I remember delighting in the fact that he was a sort of existential psychologist, and one who was willing to embrace theological considerations within his philosophical worldview.
Jaspers helped reinforced in me the idea that existentialism was by no means the philosophical endeavor of atheists (a claim latently implied by some of the French existentialists); and that, as Aristotle might say, it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
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