People

Karl Theodor Jaspers 1883-1969 - Germany

German physician, psychiatrist, and philosopher educated at Heidelberg and Göttingen. In Philosophie (1931), Von der Wahrheit (On Truth) (1947), and Einführung in die Philosophie (Way to Wisdom) (1950) Jaspers developed a version of existentialism in which the effort to understand our concrete existence leads from careful self-analysis to a personal quest for authenticity in relation to the transcendent "Encompassing." Jaspers also wrote on topics in the history of philosophy in Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (On the Origin and Goal of History) (1949) and Die großen Philosophen (The Great Philosophers) (1957). He also commented on the national emotions associated with the aftermath of World War II in Die Schuldfrage (The Question of German Guilt) (1946). A basic statement of his philosophical development may be found in On My Philosophy (1941).

Encyclopedia Entries

Jaspers, Karl	Encyclopedia Britannica
Jaspers, Karl	Encarta
Jaspers, Karl	Columbia Encyclopedia

 

Questions of 

Reading

Basic Philosophical Writings: Selections (Humanity, 1994); 

Philosophy of Existence, tr. by Richard F. Grabau (Pennsylvania, 1971); 

Reason and Existenz: Five Lectures (Marquette, 1997); 

Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers Correspondence 1926-1969, ed. by Lotte Kohler and Hans Saner (Harcourt Brace, 1993);

Writing available on the net

On My Philosophy, from Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, edited by Walter Kaufman. Half of article reproduced here.

Commentaries

Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, ed. by Lewis Edwin Hahn (Open Court, 1981); 

Chris Thornhill, Karl Jaspers: Politics and Metaphysics (Routledge, 2002); 

Richard Wisser, Karl Jaspers: Philosoph unter Philosophen, ed. by Leonard H. Ehrlich (Rodopi, 1993);

Karl Jaspers Today, ed. by Leonard H. Ehrlich and Richard Wisser (UPA, 1988).

Quotations