ABSTRACT
Platonic philosophy is an inquiry into ideas which are held to be immutable. Spinoza aspires to an eternal life of beatitude. The philosopher seeks some universal truth valid for all times; he aims to rise above all change; and he proceeds, or thinks at least that he does, solely with his powers of reasoning. One would have to pass in review the whole history of philosophy in order to explain what the philosophers of existence are pitting them against. Plato's theory of ideas, according to the philosophers of existence, was formed in the following manner: a sculptor carving a statue, or a carpenter making a table, had first to consult the Ideas in his mind; everything made by man was fashioned after an essence. For according to Karl Jaspers, there are two important philosophical theories which have attempted to take the sciences as foundation for a world view, positivism on the one hand, and idealism on the other.
