Ridestare il pensiero filosofico. nella storia della filosofia di Jaspers

I grandi ridestatori del pensiero (Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Lessing) nell'interpretazione jaspersiana. Within his unique “history of philosophy”, which Jaspers was able to complete only partially (The great philosophers from 1957 and the Nachlass published in I981), Pascal, Lessing, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche play an important role as the so-called “great awakeners”. These thinkers did not build a “doctrine” (Lehre) in the strictest sense, and they did not lead the movement of ideas in a single decisive direction. Rather; they caused only “unrest” (Unruhe). They were all critical and polemical thinkers, driven by a clear desire for cultural struggle and by a strong fighting spirit. Far from procuring that “security” (Geborgenheit) usually provided by a knowledge or a faith, these thinkers “awake” what “lies ready in the darkness of the possible Existence of man”. They grew from the soil of Christianity and they painfully experienced the “upheaval” (Erschütterung) caused by the breakthrough of modern science and the modern experience of the world - a epochal cultural change that shocked and overwhelmed Europe: everything that up to that point had made and supported men (in terms of both faith and knowledge) was being radically put into question. The “great awakeners", however; retained, albeit in different ways, an essential relationship with Christianity. Christianity continued to influence their thinking: Pascal and Kierkegaard make constant reference to it, because they wanted themselves to be true Christians, despite the presence and the influence of all spiritual counterforces; Nietzsche, however, makes constant reference to Christianity, because he engaged in a vigorous fight against it; Lessing makes constant reference to Christianity, in striving to do it justice with a view to its future transformation.