Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus: The paradigmatic individuals

The four paradigmatic individuals have exerted a historical influence of incomparable scope and depth. Other men of great stature may have been equally important for smaller groups. But when it comes to broad, enduring influence over many hundreds of years, they are so far above all others that they must be singled out if we are to form a clear view of the world’s history. No single type can account for these four men. Their historicity and consequent uniqueness can be perceived only within the all-embracing historicity of humanity, which in each of them expresses itself in a wholly different way. To discover this common root has been possible only since mankind has achieved a unity of communication and the different cultures have learned of each other’s crucial individuals. In an earlier day, each one was the only crucial individual for large parts of mankind, and as a matter of fact has remained so even since the others became known. Professor Karl Jaspers, one of the leading existentialist philosophers of modern times, is preparing a universal history of philosophy, of which this book is a part, organized around those philosophers whose thinking has influenced and shaped the history of mankind. Their personalities and ideas form the substance of his work. Hence, he is not writing a history of philosophy in the traditional sense but a presentation of great philosophical ideas that have helped form our concepts of truth and reason, freedom and justice, our beliefs about God and the universe, good and evil, and right and wrong. This approach necessarily includes and emphasizes the religious thinkers also. Professor Jaspers aims to lead the reader into proximity with the truly great and seminal thinkers and to expose him to the particular truth for which each one stands.