The Feeling of Inadequacy and the Metaphysical Hope

Abstract

The purpose of this brief study is to indicate that humans are distinguished from all other beings, mainly due to their metaphysical nature and because—unlike other beings—they are able to communicate rather than merely associate. More importantly, human communication takes various forms: communication with beings, with peers, with the self as well as with the cause for the self, that is God. Of course, scientists analyse obvious forms of communication or ones that can only be perceived by the senses, similar to the ones that occur within the context of human interactions and social conventions. A different approach was indicated by Karl Jaspers, one of the pioneer scholars who rejected uncritical positivism. This approach showed that there is something more profound than what meets the eye, therefore illuminating new directions for the study of Psychology and expanding its horizons. Beginning with Plato, who characterizes human existence as “binary” and “bilateral”, and ending with the Christian Word of Saint Paul, which suggests that we seek “the future city”—our home, we approach the feeling of human inadequacy in relation to the metaphysical hope. Mankind—with the aim to achieve ideal goals as a creative motive—adopts a series of attitudes and decisions, capable to influence the course of social and historical evolution. This struggle stems from the human longing to exalt and rise above the world of perceived reality and to walk towards an alternative world, that of metaphysical hope.