Jean Gebser

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Jean Gebser (1957)

Jean Gebser (born August 20, 1905 in Posen as Hans Karl Rudolf Hermann Gebser , † May 14, 1973 in Bern ) was a German-Swiss philosopher , writer and translator . He is considered to be one of the first consciousness researchers oriented towards cultural studies who established a structural model of the history of human consciousness.

Life

After completing a bank apprenticeship, Gebser trained as a bookseller in Berlin . There he enrolled for a few semesters as a working student at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1924/1925 . He attended lectures with Werner Sombart and Romano Guardini , among others .

In 1931 he left Germany and from 1932 lived for some time in Spain , where he was friends with Federico García Lorca and other Spanish poets. In 1936 his translations of Spanish poems into German appeared under the title New Spanish Poetry in the publishing house Rabenpresse by Victor Otto Stomps . In the same year he began (initially in Spanish) with the development of the font Rilke und Spanien , which appeared in German only in 1940.

From 1937 he lived in Paris, where he met the French poets Eluard , Aragon and Malraux as well as the painter Picasso . In 1939 Gebser left France and settled in Switzerland, which became his adopted home. In 1943 he published his "Abriss der Deutschen Wissenschaft" (Abstract of the Results of Modern Research) under the title Abendländische Wandlung , then The Grammatical Mirror (1944) and Lorca or the Realm of Mothers (1949).

Memorial plaque at Kramgasse 52 in Bern

In the winter of 1947 he began working on his main work, Origin and Present . In 1949 the first volume was finished and published. From 1950 to 1952 he worked on the second volume, which appeared in 1953. At numerous congresses and lecture series, most of which appeared in book form, he spoke to recognized scientists and thinkers about the dawn of an "aperspective" age, as he tried to show it in its origins and the present , and about the new, "aperspective" worldview. His friends included Carl Gustav Jung , Adolf Portmann , Karl Kerényi and the painter Siegward Sprotte . His closest friend was the historian Jean Rodolphe von Salis .

Memorial stele in Wabern

In 1961 he undertook a trip to Asia, which was reflected in the book Asia smiles differently (published 1968). He completed his last work, Decay and Participation (published 1974) shortly before his death.

Jean Gebser died on May 14, 1973 in his apartment in Bern. He was buried in the cemetery next to the reformed church in Wabern, in the municipality of Köniz. His estate is in the Swiss Literary Archives .

Gebser's story of consciousness

Today Gebser is mostly associated with the history of consciousness, to which the first volume of Origin and Present (entitled The Foundations of the Aperspective World. Contribution to a History of Becoming Conscious ) is dedicated.

Gebser's method is the cultural phenomenological consideration of the relics of bygone times (pictures, statues, documents) and the investigation of the words and their roots ( etymology ). He is of the opinion that four structures of consciousness can be demonstrated that constitute today's European man and that appeared one after the other in his cultural history. He calls these structures of consciousness the archaic , the magical , the mythical and the mental . In our time, in his opinion, the "breakthrough of a new, integral level of consciousness is taking place, the basic theme of which is overcoming (de-projecting) the only mental (linear) attachment to space and time through the concretion of time (as a timelessly experienced quality of a holistically realized present) ".

The structures of consciousness are sometimes referred to as "phases of consciousness". This can give the impression that the structures of consciousness have succeeded one another, with one structure replacing the other. But every structure remains effective, even after a new structure has "mutated" out of it. That is why Gebser speaks of structures of consciousness and not of "phases". He also avoids the spatial expression "levels of consciousness", because the structures of consciousness are "not mere spatial structures", but can also be "above all structures of a spatiotemporal, even spatiotemporal type".

Gebser is also of the opinion that consciousness did not “develop” continuously, but that abrupt, discontinuous changes in structures occurred: as soon as a structure becomes “deficient”, as soon as it is exhausted and begins to have a destructive effect, another structure of consciousness occurs to a breakthrough that is not a continuous continuation of the old structure of consciousness, but something completely new. Gebser expresses the erratic, discontinuous character of the shift in consciousness by speaking of "consciousness mutations ".

Thinkers like Hegel , Comte and Herbert Spencer believed to recognize a progressive higher development in the history of human consciousness, in the course of which earlier forms of consciousness are recognized as "errors" and replaced by new, "better" forms of consciousness; no new structure is “better” than the old one from which it mutates. Every awareness is at the same time gain and loss. It is a loss insofar as it detaches people from the whole. It is, however, a gain insofar as it harbors the chance of growing distance from space and time and thus of overcoming space and time, of gaining space-time freedom, which again touches on Gebser's basic idea.

literature

Primary texts

  • Complete edition In 8 volumes (+ register volume). Edited by Rudolf Hämmerli. Novalis, Schaffhausen 1975-1981. New edition 1986, 2nd edition 1999, 3rd edition 2011.
  • Origin and present. DVA, Stuttgart 1949–1953, 2nd edition 1966. Dtv, Munich 1973, 2nd edition 1986, ISBN 3-423-05921-4 . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-0340-1301-7 .
  • The Ever-Present Origin. Authorized translation by Noel K. Barstadt with Algis Mickunas. Athens / Ohio, London: University Press 1985. (American translation of "Origin and Present". 2nd edition 1991)
  • Origen y presente. Traducción José Rafael Hernández Arias. Vilaür: Ediciones Atalanta 2011. (Spanish translation of "Origin and Present".)
  • Jean Gebser: The Trend Towards Integration in Modern Science and its Counterpart in the Ancient Wisdom of the East. Foreword to PJ Saher: Eastern Wisdom and Western Thought. A Comparative Study in the Modern Philosophy of Religion. London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1969. (Not included in the complete edition, but available on the Internet)
  • Hämmerli, Rudolf (editor): Jean Gebser: Einbruch der Zeit , Novalis, Schaffhausen 1995, ISBN 3-7214-0662-1 (text collection with excerpts from Gebser's works)
  • Anxiety, a condition of modern man , Heiri Steiner with Jean Gebser. New York: Dell 1962.

Festschriften and anthologies with contributions to Gebser

  • Transparent world. Festschrift for the sixtieth birthday of Jean Gebser. Edited by Günter Schulz. Bern, Stuttgart: Huber 1965.
  • Paths to Integral Consciousness. A ceremony for Jean Gebser on August 20, 1965. Bremen 1965.
  • The New World Show. International discussion about the dawn of a new aperspectival age organized by the St. Gallen University of Commerce. Two volumes. Stuttgart: DVA 1952/53.
  • The world in a new perspective. Munich-Planegg: OW Barth 1957.
  • Paths to the New Reality. Bern: Hallwag 1960.
  • Origin and Presence of Integral Consciousness. Edited by Herbert Kessler . Mannheim 1976.
  • Contributions to the integral worldview. Edited by Novalis Verlag Schaffhausen.

Secondary literature on Jean Gebser

  • Assing-Grosch, Ursula: The difficult child: Jean Gebser's phenomenology of consciousness in child and adolescent psychiatric practice. Centaurus Verlagsges., Pfaffenweiler 1993
  • Feuerstein, Georg : Structures of Consciousness: The Genius of Jean Gebser: An Introduction and Critique. Integral Publ., Lower Lake 1987
  • Feuerstein, Georg: Jean Gebser: What Color Is Your Consciousness? Robert Briggs Ass., San Francisco 1989
  • Fitzner, Inga: Integral consciousness - a search for traces Lit Verlag, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3643116963
  • Friedrich, Heinz: New Horizons. Encounter with the thoughts of Jean Gebser. Europa-Vg., Zurich 1967
  • Hellbusch, Kai: The integral consciousness. Jean Gebser's conception of the development of consciousness as the prima philosophia of our time. Tenea, Berlin 2003, ISBN 978-3936582581
  • Illies, Joachim : Adolf Portmann, Jean Gebser, Johann Jakob Bachofen: Three cultural researchers, three images of people. Edition Interfrom, Zurich 1975 (texts, theses 67)
  • Kramer, Eric Mark (Ed.): Consciousness and Culture: An Introduction to the Thought of Jean Gebser. Greenwood Press, Westport & London 1992 (Contributions in Sociology 101) ISBN 0-313-27860-1
  • Leopold, Heinrich: Globalization and Integral Consciousness. Jean Gebser's contribution to a new worldview. Novalis, Schaffhausen 2008.
  • Mastnak, Wolfgang: Popper, Gebser and music education. Integral structures of musical education. Writings of the "Mozarteum" University, Munich a. Salzburg 1990
  • Meidinger-Geise, Inge: Jean Gebser - a thinker of our time. Dortmund 1965 (Dortmund Lectures, Issue 67)
  • Schübl, Elmar: Jean Gebser (1905-1973). A seeker and researcher in the border and transition areas of human knowledge and philosophizing. Chronos, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-0340-0590-3
  • Schübl, Elmar: Jean Gebser and the question of astrology. A philosophical-anthropological study based on the astrological conception of Thomas Ring. Novalis, Schaffhausen 2003, ISBN 3-907160-27-4
  • Schwarz, Wolfgang: Hope in nowhere. Radhakrishnan, Gebser and the West Eastern Spirit. Müller, Krailling near Munich 1961
  • Wehr, Gerhard: Jean Gebser. Individual transformation before the horizon of a new consciousness. Via Nova, Petersberg 1996, ISBN 3-928632-26-4
  • Zollinger, Christoph: The debate is ongoing - holistic theses for society, economy and politics, the unheard of topicality of Jean Gebser's integral vision . Via Nova, Petersberg 2005, ISBN 3-86616-006-2

Further and supplementary secondary literature

  • Atmanspacher, Harald: Die Vernunft der Metis , Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart 1993: ISBN 3-476-00884-3
  • Sri Aurobindo : The Life Divine. 2 vols. Pondicherry 2005 (Aurobindo's most important work; Gebser read it after completing his main work and was impressed by the agreement.)
  • Brunner-Traut, Emma : Early forms of cognition using the example of Egypt. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1990 (A contribution to the "non-perspective" world of magical-mythical structures of consciousness. The author also refers to Gebser.)
  • Gendolla, Peter: time. On the history of the experience of time. From myth to “point time”. DuMont, Cologne 1992 (A "history of the experience of time", which not only congruates with Gebser's remarks, but also provides some very important and interesting additions to it. With a selection bibliography on the subject of "time".)
  • Gloy, Karen : Time. A morphology. Alber, Freiburg 2006 (In this “morphology”, the author also uses Gebser's main work “Origin and Present”. With an extensive bibliography on the subject of “Time”.)
  • Guardini, Romano : The end of modern times. An attempt at orientation. Hess, Basel 1950 (Gebser on this: Guardini “leads with all the desirable clarity that the mental-rational age, the last bloom of which was the so-called 'modern age', is once and for all and finally exhausted and we are facing a fundamental one Reorientation stand. "V / I, 202)
  • Jaynes, Julian : The origin of consciousness through the breakdown of the bicameral psyche. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1986, TB edition. with shortened title 1993 (non-fiction book 9529)
  • Neumann, Erich : History of the origin of consciousness. (Based on the depth psychology CG Jung , who wrote a foreword to it, the book tries to work out "archetypal stages of the development of consciousness".)
  • Reinhardt, Christian: The polar paradox. From the end of philosophy and the transition to another story. Novalis, Schaffhausen 2004 (The book enables Gebser's history of philosophy to be categorized against the background of the "self-conquering of philosophy" heralded by Nietzsche , Wittgenstein and Heidegger and against the background of Eastern philosophies such as Zen Buddhism . Gebser's work is one of the most important sources of this book. )
  • Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre : Man in the cosmos. Beck, Munich 1959 (Teilhard de Chardin's conception also considered Gebser to be related to his own.)
  • Tiedemann, Paul: About the meaning of life. The perspective way of life. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1993 (Can be used for a closer study of the mental structure, although the author does not seem to know Gebser.)
  • Wilber, Ken : Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. The spirit of evolution. Shambala, Boston & London 1995 (The American philosopher Wilber utilizes Gebser's history of consciousness within a comprehensive evolutionary worldview.)

Web links

Sources and Notes

  1. ↑ His last residential address, Sandrainstrasse 109, is assigned to 3084 Wabern by post, but is on Stadtberner Boden. See: Fredi Lerch: When the mind loses reason
  2. ↑ See Origin and Presence , p. 83
  3. ↑ Gebser adopted the term mutation from biological terminology ( De Vries : “Mutation Theory”), but it has a spiritual meaning in connection with human consciousness. It denotes a sudden, discontinuous breakthrough of the new.
personal data
SURNAME Gebser, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Swiss consciousness researcher
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1973
Place of death Bern