Karl Jaspers transitioned from medicine and psychiatry to philosophy, delving into the profound questions of human existence and psychopathology. His early work revolutionized psychiatric diagnosis by emphasizing the biographical method, analyzing symptoms within the patient's life context rather than solely by their content. This approach profoundly shaped modern psychiatric practice. Later, his philosophical inquiries expanded on these themes, exploring existential concerns and establishing him as a significant thinker in European intellectual discourse.
In General Psychopathology, his most important contribution to the Heidelberg school, Jaspers critiques the scientific aspirations of psychotherapy, arguing that in the realm of the human, the explanation of behavior through the observation of regularity and patterns in it (Erklärende Psychologie) must be supplemented by an understanding of the "meaning-relationsexperienced by human beings (Verstehende Psychologie).
Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) is one of the most original and seminal thinkers of the twentieth century. Rich in ideas, vast in scope, far-ranging and complex, his work is distributed over a large corpus of writing. In fact, it is just the very size and the range of his thought that have tended to make Jaspers inaccessible. The editors of this volume set out to provide a guided introduction to Jaspers through a systematic organisation of selections from the whole body of his writing. The volume aims to convey an accurate presentation of the content and movement of Jaspers' philosophising and to provide insights into the wide range of his philosophical achievements. The editors provide comments and information on each of the seventy-four selections to help set each piece within the context of the whole of Jaspers' work. This is an invaluable introduction to Karl Jaspers' work for the student and the critical reader.
An introduction to the understanding of philosophy written for the general reader.
Nietzsche claimed to be a philosopher of the future, but he was appropriated as a philosopher of Nazism. His work inspired a long study by Martin Heidegger and essays by a host of lesser disciples attached to the Third Reich. In 1935, however, Karl Jaspers set out to "marshall against the National Socialists the world of thought of the man they had proclaimed as their own philosopher." The year after Nietzsche was published, Jaspers was discharged from his professorship at Heidelberg University by order of the Nazi leadership. Unlike the ideologues, Jaspers does not selectively cite Nietzsche's work to reinforce already held opinions. Instead, he presents Nietzsche as a complex, wide-ranging philosopher - extraordinary not only because he foresaw all the monstrosities of the twentieth century but also because he saw through them.
From the Great Philosophers Volume 1
A masterful exploration of Kant’s intellectual development, theory of knowledge, politics, and ethics. Edited by Hannah Arendt; Index. Translated by Ralph Manheim.
Karl Jaspers died in 1969, leaving unfinished his universal history of philosophy, a history organized around those philosophers who have influenced the course of human thought. The first two volumes of this work appeared in Jaspers's lifetime; the third and fourth have been culled from the vast material of his posthumous papers. This is the third volume; the fourth is to be published in 1994. In the present volume, which follows his original plan of "promoting the happiness that comes of meeting great men and sharing in their thoughts, " Jaspers discusses the Metaphysicians: Xenophanes, Empedocles, Democritus, Bruno, Epicurus, Boehme, Schelling, and Leibniz. Then he turns to the Creative Orderers: Aristotle and Hegel. His method is personal, one of constant questioning and struggle, as he enters into dialogue with his "eternal contemporaries, " the thinkers of the past. For Jaspers believes that it is only through communication with others that we come to ourselves and to wisdom.
One of the founders of existentialism, the eminent philosopher Karl Jaspers, here presents for the general reader an introduction to philosophy. In doing so, he also offers a lucid summary of his own philosophical thought. In Jaspers' view, the source of philosophy is to be found in wonder, in doubt, in a sense of forsakenness, and the philosophical quest is a process of continual change and self-discovery. In a new foreword to this edition, Richard Owsley provides a brief overview of Jaspers' life and achievement.
This book is part of Jaspers's universal history of philosophy, highlighting four influential figures whose impact is profound and far-reaching. Edited by Hannah Arendt and translated by Ralph Manheim, it offers an insightful exploration of these key historical individuals.
