Karl Jaspers | Library of Living Philosophers | SIU

The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers

(Volume IX, 1957)

Karl Jaspers created a uniquely humanistic existentialism. The depth and breadth of his philosophy is awesome. He was a psychopathologist, a philosophical anthropologist, and a political scientist. During his life he opened new avenues of thought in the philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, and literary criticism.

Hannah Arendt, Walter Kaufmann, Paul Ricoeur, and Jean Wahl are among the 24 scientists and scholars who examine every major aspect of Jaspers' work in this book. It is a tribute to Jaspers that they all address their criticism to him directly--as though he were in the room with them. For the reader this means that Jaspers' thought is transmitted as an animating force.

Death, suffering, chance, guilt, struggle, and the insight that "man is always more than what he knows or can know" are the themes Jaspers handled with scientific dexterity. He transformed philosophy into a systematic exposition of human nature, while creating a viable matrix for future ideas. 

Table of Contents

Karl Jaspers: Philosophical Autobiography

Karl Jaspers

(Replies follow essays)

Kurt Hoffman: The Basic Concepts of Jaspers' Philosophy 
James Collins: Jaspers on Science and Philosophy 
Gerhard Knauss: The Concept of the "Encompassing" in Jaspers' Philosophy 
Edwin Latzel: The Concept of  "Ultimate Situation" in Jaspers' Philosophy 
Fritz Kaufmann: Karl Jaspers and A Philosophy of Communication 
Johannes Thyssen: The Concept of  "Foundering" in Jaspers' Philosophy 
Eduard Baumgarten: The "Radical Evil" in Jaspers' Philosophy 
Ernst Moritz Manasse: Max Weber's Influence on Jaspers 
Jean Wahl: Notes on Some Relations of Jaspers to Kierkegaard and Heidegger 
Walter Kaufmann: Jaspers' Relation to Nietzsche 
Kurt Kolle: Jaspers as Psychopathologist 
Ludwig B. Lefebre: The Psychology of Karl Jaspers 
Hans Kunz: Critique of Jaspers' Concept of "Transcendence"
William Earle: Jaspers' Philosophical Anthropology 
Hannah Arendt: Jaspers As Citizen of the World 
Golo Mann: Freedom and the Social Sciences in Jaspers' Thought 
John Hennig: Karl Jaspers' Attitude Towards History 
Jeanne Hersch: Jaspers' Conception of Tradition 
Paul Ricoeur: The Relation of Jaspers' Philosophy to Religion 
Julius Löwenstein: Judaism in Jaspers' Thought 
Soren Holm: Jaspers' Philosophy of Religion 
A. Lichtigfeld: The God-Concept in Jaspers' Philosophy 
Johannes Pfeiffer: On Karl Jaspers' Interpretation of Art 
Helmut Rehder: Literary Criticism and the Existentialism of Jaspers
Karl Jaspers: Reply to My Critics
Bibliography of the Writings of Karl Jaspers (To Spring 1957)