Karl Theodor Jaspers (/ˈjɑːspərz/;[3]German:[kaʁlˈjaspɐs]ⓘ;[4][5] 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swisspsychiatrist andphilosopher who had a strong influence on moderntheology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 workGeneral Psychopathology influenced many later diagnostic criteria, and argued for a distinction between "primary" and "secondary" delusions.
After being trained in and practising psychiatry, Jaspers turned to philosophical inquiry and attempted to develop an innovativephilosophical system. He was often viewed as a major exponent ofexistentialism in Germany, though he did not accept the label.
Jaspers was born inOldenburg in 1883 to a mother from a local farming community and ajurist father. He showed an early interest in philosophy, but his father's experience with the legal system influenced his decision to study law atHeidelberg University. Jaspers first studied law in Heidelberg and later inMunich for three semesters. It soon became clear that Jaspers did not particularly enjoy law, and he switched to studyingmedicine in 1902 with a thesis about criminology. In 1910, he married Gertrud Mayer (1879–1974), the sister of his close friendsGustav Mayer and Ernst Mayer.[6][citation needed]
Jaspers earned hismedical doctorate from the Heidelberg Universitymedical school in 1908 and began work at apsychiatric hospital inHeidelberg underFranz Nissl, the successor ofEmil Kraepelin andKarl Bonhoeffer, and Karl Wilmans. Jaspers became dissatisfied with the way the medical community of the time approached the study ofmental illness and gave himself the task of improving the psychiatric approach. In 1913 Jaspers habilitated at the philosophical faculty of Heidelberg University and gained a post there in 1914 as apsychology teacher. The post later became a permanent philosophical one, and Jaspers never returned to clinical practice. During this time, Jaspers was a close friend of the Weber family (Max Weber also having held a professorship at Heidelberg).[7]
In 1921, at the age of 38, Jaspers turned from psychology tophilosophy, expanding on themes he had developed in his psychiatric works. He became a well-known philosopher across Germany andEurope.
After theNazi seizure of power in 1933, Jaspers was considered to have a "Jewish taint" (jüdische Versippung, in the jargon of the time) due to his Jewish wife, Gertrude Mayer, and was forced to retire from teaching in 1937. In 1938, he fell under a publication ban as well. Many of his long-time friends stood by him, however, and he was able to continue his studies and research without being totally isolated. But he and his wife were under constant threat of removal to aconcentration camp until 30 March 1945, when Heidelberg was occupied by American troops.[8]
In 1948, Jaspers moved to theUniversity of Basel inSwitzerland.[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.
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 whetherparanoia was an aspect of personality or the result of biological changes. Although it did not broach new ideas, this article introduced a rather unusual method of study, at least according to the norms then prevalent. Not unlikeFreud, Jaspers studied patients in detail, giving biographical information about the patients as well as notes on how the patients themselves felt about their symptoms. This has become known as thebiographical method and now forms a mainstay of psychiatric and, above all, psychotherapeutic practice.[citation needed]
Karl Jaspers:Allgemeine Psychopathologie, first print 1913
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 ofpsychosis) by theirform rather than by theircontent. For example, in diagnosing ahallucination, 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 diagnosedelusions 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. (Seedelusion for further discussion.) Jaspers also distinguished betweenprimary andsecondary delusions. He defined primary delusions asautochthonous, meaning that they arise without apparent cause, appearing incomprehensible in terms of a normal mental process. (This is a slightly different use of the wordautochthonous 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 ofR. D. Laing andRichard 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 asEmil Kraepelin'sdream speech is understandable.
Most commentators associate Jaspers with the philosophy ofexistentialism, in part because he draws largely upon the existentialist roots ofNietzsche andKierkegaard, and in part because the theme of individual freedom permeates his work. InPhilosophy (3 vols, 1932), Jaspers gave his view of the history of philosophy and introduced his major themes. Beginning with modern science andempiricism, Jaspers points out that as people questionreality, 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 aleap of faith toward what Jaspers callsTranscendence. In making this leap, individuals confront their own limitlessfreedom, which Jaspers callsExistenz, and can finally experienceauthentic existence.[citation needed]
Transcendence (paired with the termThe Encompassing in later works) is, for Jaspers, that which exists beyond the world oftime and space. Jaspers's formulation of Transcendence as ultimate non-objectivity (or no-thing-ness) has led many philosophers to argue that ultimately, Jaspers became amonist, though Jaspers himself continually stressed the necessity of recognizing the validity of the concepts both ofsubjectivity and ofobjectivity.[citation needed]
Although he rejected explicit religious doctrines,[1] including the notion of a personal God, Jaspers influenced contemporary theology through his philosophy of transcendence and the limits of human experience.Mystic Christian traditions influenced Jaspers himself tremendously, particularly those ofMeister Eckhart and ofNicholas of Cusa. He also took an active interest inEastern philosophies, particularlyBuddhism, and developed the theory of anAxial Age, a period of substantial philosophical and religious development. Jaspers also entered public debates withRudolf Bultmann, wherein Jaspers roundly criticized Bultmann's "demythologizing" of Christianity.[10]
Jaspers wrote extensively on the threat to human freedom posed by modern science and moderneconomic andpolitical institutions. During World War II, he had to abandon his teaching post because his wife was Jewish. After the war, he resumed his teaching position, and in his workThe Question of German Guilt he unabashedly examined the culpability of Germany as a whole in the atrocities ofHitler'sThird Reich.[11] In that work, Jaspers defines metaphysical guilt as each German's citizen's innate responsibility for the acts of Nazi Germany, contrasting this idea of metaphysical guilt with the concepts of legal, political, and moral guilt.[12]: 69
The following quote about the Second World War and its atrocities was used at the end of the sixth episode of the BBC documentary seriesThe 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."[13]
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 notablyPhilosophy Is for Everyman. The two major proponents ofphenomenologicalhermeneutics, namelyPaul Ricœur (a student of Jaspers) andHans-Georg Gadamer (Jaspers's successor at Heidelberg), both display Jaspers's influence in their works.[1]
Jaspers held Kierkegaard andNietzsche to be two of the most important figures inpost-Kantian philosophy. In his compilation,The Great Philosophers (Die großen Philosophen), he wrote: "I approach the presentation of Kierkegaard with some trepidation. Next to Nietzsche, or rather, prior to Nietzsche, I consider him to be the most important thinker of our post-Kantian age. WithGoethe andHegel, an epoch had reached its conclusion, and our prevalent way of thinking – that is, thepositivistic, natural-scientific one – cannot really be considered as philosophy."[17] Jaspers also questions whether the two philosophers could be taught. For Kierkegaard, at least, Jaspers felt that Kierkegaard's whole method of indirect communication precludes any attempts to properly expound his thought into any sort of systematic teaching.
Though Jaspers was certainly indebted to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, he also owes much to Kant andPlato.Walter Kaufmann argues inFrom 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".[18]
In his essay "On My Philosophy", Jaspers states: "While I was still at schoolSpinoza 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."[19] Jaspers is also indebted to his contemporaries, such asHeinrich Blücher, from whom he borrowed the term, "the anti-political principle" to describe totalitarianism's destruction of a space of resistance.[20]
Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity –ISBN0-8018-5779-1, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 (University of Arizona Press, 1965)
Jaspers, Karl (1953).The Origin and Goal of History. translated byMichael Bullock. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Jaspers, Karl (1955).Reason and Existenz. translated byWilliam Earle. New York: Noonday Press.
Jaspers, Karl (1958).The Future of Mankind. translated by E. B. Ashton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jaspers, Karl (1997).General Psychopathology – Volumes 1 & 2. translated by J. Hoenig and Marian W. Hamilton. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
^abcdefghiThornhill, Chris; Miron, Ronny (2022),"Karl Jaspers", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved16 July 2022.
^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".
^SeeMyth and Christianity: An Inquiry into the Possibility of Religion without Myth – a debate between Jaspers and Bultmann, The Noonday Press, New York, 1958.
^Celinscak, Mark (2015).Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Concentration Camp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.ISBN978-1-4426-1570-0.
^Schilpp, Paul Arthur, ed. (1977).The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers. Open Court Publishing Company. pp. 57–58.
^Carter, April (2013).The Political Theory of Global Citizenship. Routledge. pp. 147–148.
^Blanchot, Maurice (1997) [1964]."Apocalypse is disappointing." Friendship. Translated by Rottenberg. Stanford University Press. pp. 101–108.ISBN0804727597.
^Jaspers, Karl (1962).The Great Philosophers, Volume 4: The Disturbers: Descartes, Lessing, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche. Philosophers in Other Realms: Einstein, Weber, Marx. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World. p. 191.ISBN9780151369430.
^Kaufmann, Walter A. (1980)From Shakespeare to Existentialism: An Original Study, Princeton University Press.ISBN0691013675. p. 285.
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.ISBN978-3-86809-018-5 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.,ISBN0-691-07164-0 Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press: 1970.
