Karl Jaspers

Karl Theodor Jaspers (

Jaspers was born in

In 1921, at the age of 38, Jaspers turned from psychology to philosophy, expanding on themes he had developed in his psychiatric works. He became a well-known philosopher across Germany and Europe.

After the

In 1948 Jaspers moved to the University of Basel in Switzerland.^[1] In 1963 he was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city of Oldenburg in recognition of his outstanding scientific achievements and services to occidental culture.^[9] He remained prominent in the philosophical community and became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland living in Basel until his death on his wife's 90th birthday in 1969.

Contributions to psychiatry

Jaspers's dissatisfaction with the popular understanding of mental illness led him to question both the diagnostic criteria and the methods of clinical psychiatry. He published a paper in 1910 in which he addressed the problem of whether

Jaspers set down his views on mental illness in a book which he published in 1913, General Psychopathology.^[1] This work has become a classic in the psychiatric literature and many modern diagnostic criteria stem from ideas found within it. One of Jaspers's central tenets was that psychiatrists should diagnose symptoms of mental illness (particularly of psychosis) by their form rather than by their content. For example, in diagnosing a hallucination, it is more important to note that a person experiences visual phenomena when no sensory stimuli account for them than to note what the patient sees. What the patient sees is the "content", but the discrepancy between visual perception and objective reality is the "form".^{[citation needed]}

Jaspers thought that psychiatrists could diagnose delusions in the same way. He argued that clinicians should not consider a belief delusional based on the content of the belief, but only based on the way in which a patient holds such a belief. (See delusion for further discussion.) Jaspers also distinguished between primary and secondary delusions. He defined primary delusions as autochthonous, meaning that they arise without apparent cause, appearing incomprehensible in terms of a normal mental process. (This is a slightly different use of the word autochthonous than the ordinary medical or sociological use as a synonym for indigenous.) Secondary delusions, on the other hand, he defined as those influenced by the person's background, current situation or mental state.

Jaspers considered primary delusions to be ultimately "un-understandable" since he believed no coherent reasoning process existed behind their formation. This view has caused some controversy, and the likes of R. D. Laing and Richard Bentall (1999, p. 133–135) have criticised it, stressing that this stance can lead therapists into the complacency of assuming that because they do not understand a patient, the patient is deluded and further investigation on the part of the therapist will have no effect. For instance, Huub Engels (2009) argues that schizophrenic disordered speech may be understandable, just as Emil Kraepelin's dream speech is understandable.

Contributions to philosophy and theology

Most commentators associate Jaspers with the philosophy of existentialism, in part because he draws largely upon the existentialist roots of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, and in part because the theme of individual freedom permeates his work. In Philosophy (3 vols, 1932), Jaspers gave his view of the history of philosophy and introduced his major themes. Beginning with modern science and empiricism, Jaspers points out that as people question reality, they confront borders that an empirical (or scientific) method simply cannot transcend. At this point, the individual faces a choice: sink into despair and resignation, or take a leap of faith toward what Jaspers calls Transcendence. In making this leap, individuals confront their own limitless freedom, which Jaspers calls Existenz, and can finally experience authentic existence.^{[citation needed]}

Transcendence (paired with the term The Encompassing in later works) is, for Jaspers, that which exists beyond the world of

The following quote about the Second World War and its atrocities was used at the end of the sixth episode of the BBC documentary series The Nazis: A Warning from History: "That which has happened is a warning. To forget it is guilt. It must be continually remembered. It was possible for this to happen, and it remains possible for it to happen again at any minute. Only in knowledge can it be prevented."^[12]

Jaspers's major works, lengthy and detailed, can seem daunting in their complexity. His last great attempt at a systematic philosophy of Existenz – Von der Wahrheit (On Truth) – has not yet appeared in English. However, he also wrote shorter works, most notably Philosophy Is for Everyman. The two major proponents of phenomenological hermeneutics, namely Paul Ricœur (a student of Jaspers) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (Jaspers's successor at Heidelberg), both display Jaspers's influence in their works.^[1]

Political views

Jaspers identified with the

Though Jaspers was certainly indebted to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, he also owes much to more traditional philosophers, especially Kant and Plato. Walter Kaufmann argues in From Shakespeare to Existentialism that, though Jaspers was certainly indebted to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, he was closest to Kant's philosophy:

Jaspers is too often seen as the heir of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard to whom he is in many ways less close than to Kant ... the Kantian antinomies and Kant's concern with the realm of decision, freedom, and faith have become exemplary for Jaspers. And even as Kant "had to do away with knowledge to make room for faith," Jaspers values Nietzsche in large measure because he thinks that Nietzsche did away with knowledge, thus making room for Jaspers' "philosophic faith".^[17]

In his essay "On My Philosophy", Jaspers states: "While I was still at school Spinoza was the first. Kant then became the philosopher for me and has remained so ... Nietzsche gained importance for me only late as the magnificent revelation of nihilism and the task of overcoming it."^[18] Jaspers is also indebted to his contemporaries, such as Heinrich Blücher, from whom he borrowed the term, "the anti-political principle" to describe totalitarianism's destruction of a space of resistance.^[19]

Selected bibliography

Original German

• Psychologie der Weltanschauungen
• Nikolaus Cusanus

Translations

See also

• Definitions of philosophy

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Thornhill, Chris; Miron, Ronny (2022), "Karl Jaspers", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 16 July 2022.
2. ^ Ernesto Spinelli (2007). Practising Existential Psychotherapy: The Relational World, Sage, p. 52: "Karl Jaspers can be considered to be among the earliest direct attempts to apply existential phenomenology to psychotherapy".
3. ^ Gertrud Jaspers (Mayer) Geni
4. ^ "Duden | Karl | Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition". Duden (in German). Retrieved 22 October 2018. Kạrl
5. ^ "Duden | Jaspers | Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition". Duden (in German). Archived from the original on 22 October 2018. Retrieved 22 October 2018. Jạspers
6. ^ Lewis, T.T. (2019). "Karl Jaspers". Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
7. ISBN 978-0745683423
   . p. 29.
8. ^ Wolfgang U. Eckart, Volker Sellin, Eike Wolgast: Die Universität Heidelberg im Nationalsozialismus. Springer-Verlag, 2006, p. 339.
9. ^ "1963: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Karl Jaspers". Stadt Oldenburg (in German). Oldenburg. Archived from the original on 23 October 2017.
10. ^ See Myth and Christianity: An Inquiry into the Possibility of Religion without Myth – a debate between Jaspers and Bultmann, The Noonday Press, New York, 1958.
11. ISBN 978-1-4426-1570-0
    .
12. ^ Jones, Ian (26 August 2000). "The Nazis: A Warning from History". Off the Telly. Archived from the original on 23 November 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
13. ^ Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed. (1977). The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers. Open Court Publishing Company. pp. 57–58.
14. ^ Carter, April (2013). The Political Theory of Global Citizenship. Routledge. pp. 147–148.
15. ISBN 0804727597
    .
16. ISBN 9780151369430
    .
17. ISBN 0691013675
    . p. 285.
18. ^ Jaspers, Karl (1941). "On My Philosophy".
19. ^ Hans Mommsen, "Interpretation of the Holocaust as a Challenge to Human Existence", in Arendt in Jerusalem, ed. Ascheim, p. 227.

Further reading

• Claudio Fiorillo, Fragilità della verità e comunicazione. La via ermeneutica di Karl Jaspers,
  ISBN 978-8-87999-463-7
  Rome, Ed. Aracne, 2003.
• ISBN 978-84-9027-007-3
• Engels, Huub (2009). Emil Kraepelins Traumsprache: erklären und verstehen. In Dietrich von Engelhardt und Horst-Jürgen Gerigk (ed.). Karl Jaspers im Schnittpunkt von Zeitgeschichte, Psychopathologie, Literatur und Film. p. 331-43.
  ISBN 978-3-86809-018-5
  Heidelberg: Mattes Verlag.
• Miron, Ronny, Karl Jaspers: From Selfhood to Being. Amsterdam/New York, NY, Rodopi: 2012
• Wallraff, Charles F., Karl Jaspers - An Introduction to His Philosophy.,
  ISBN 0-691-07164-0
  Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press: 1970.
• Xavier Tilliette, Karl Jaspers, Aubier, coll. « Théologie », 1960

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Karl Jaspers.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Karl Jaspers.

• Publications by and about Karl Jaspers in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library
• Existential Primer: Karl Jaspers
• Bibliografia di Karl Jaspers ed. by Claudio Fiorillo in Dialegesthai
• Current scholarly research on Jaspers (in English) is organized by the Karl Jaspers Society of North America and published in Existenz.
• Translation into English of Jaspers's 1958 peace prize acceptance speech Truth, Freedom, and Peace.
• The Philosophy Of Karl Jaspers edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp 1957
• Newspaper clippings about Karl Jaspers in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• Karl Jaspers: Philosopher of Otherness at the New Acropolis Online Library