The Question of German Guilt (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (Paperback))

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Summary: Karl Jaspers Returns to his Homeland
Review: Most philosophy books deal with trying to find the axiom of uniting reality & thought. To Plato the axiom was the "Good" or "Ideal", to Descartes the "Thinking Self", to Kant the "Categories of Thought" etc...this book is completely different. Karl Jaspers started out with a psychiatry degree but after World War I became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, but during the mid 1930's with the raise of Hitler & Nazi Germany, he had to leave his post due to his Jewish wife & anti-Nazi stand. After World war II, he returned to Heidelberg to give a series of lectures dealing with "The Question of German Guilt", this book being a written version of those lectures. Karl Jaspers writes very clean & precise while not using the difficult words like Kant's "Transcendental Manifold" or Heideger's "Dasein" etc...therefore sit back, get a cup of coffee & enjoy another very well written, easy to read philosophy book. Within these lectures Karl Jaspers tries to help his fellow German people to struggle through their current defeat & the Nuremberg trials by giving the reasons behind the raise of Nazi Germany, the dates when certain people either left or were trapped within the new social system, & the defeat & current responsibility of certain individuals or the German people as a whole. Karl Jaspers then lists 4 categories of guilt & degrees of responsibility: Criminal guilt (the commitment of certain acts & judgment by trial), Political guilt (how involved one is within one's government), moral guilt (your own private or circle of friends consciences), & metaphysical guilt (an universally shared responsibility to choose to live rather than protest evil). Each category is then explain in great detail of its pros & cons of legality, & which categories have more of a proof of guilt. I enjoyed the book, I hope you will too.