ONLINE FIRST
published on August 6, 2021
Thaddeus Martin
https://doi.org/10.5840/ajs20218573
Jaspers On Communicology: The Scission Point Boundary Condition of Existence and Existenz
A semiotic phenomenology of the scission point boundary condition between Karl Jaspers¡¯s concepts of existence and Existenz reveal them as fundamental distinctions that can manifest in healthy or pathological forms of communication, including the ¡°inner action¡± of the competing ¡°voices¡± ¡°heard¡± by the patient undergoing treatment. My analysis illustrates that the mind, for Jaspers, represents how communicability as truth involves us in a natural rhetorical (tropic) relationship with a society. In this analysis, I frame the problematic boundary between existence and Existenz in the language of Husserl. To provide context, I introduce Jaspers¡¯s semiotics and explicate his theory of communication. Lastly, I connect what we have learned from the scission boundary condition between existence and Existenz to the competing voices of the patient. We discover that for Jaspers, our ¡°selves¡± are cyphers, striving for communicability in a world of others.