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In 1910, Karl Jaspers wrote a seminal essay on morbid jealousy in which he laid the foundation for the psychopathological phenomenology that through his work and the work of Hans Gruhle and Kurt Schneider, among others, would become the hallmark of the Heidelberg school of psychiatry. 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-relations" experienced by human beings (Verstehende Psychologie).

Customer Reviews (8)

General Psychopathology
General Psychopathology

This two volume work by Karl Jaspers,who taught psychiatry and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg and philosophy at the University of Basel,used to be required reading for doctors training in psychiatry.Sadly this is no longer the case in psychiatry and it must be the rare clinical psychologist or other professional in contact with psychopathology who is familiar with these books. John Hopkins University Press is to be congratulated on continuing to make this translation available.In the absence in many instances of demonstrable physical pathology in mental illness or disorderclarity of thinking about such conditions is not achieved easily,and muddle is often evident in the presentation of psychology for the public on television and elsewhere.For example in a recent series on television which addressed the question of normality the basic issue that the concepts of abnormal and normal are not useful or suitable for classifying individuals in psychopathological terms was not addressed. Although quite hard work and requiring a real interest in the subject and a desire to master the difference between understanding and explanation in mental events,and to realise what is known and can be known by enquiry,these books remain largely relevant today.

Intruiging exploration of psychology from an existentialist viewpoint
This work by Jaspers explores psychology, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy from his philosophical viewpoint of Existentialism.While much of what Jaspers says from the medical/scientific view is certainly looks out of date, this work remains a fascinating exploration of human conciousness and being-in the world with a strongly scientific slant.While it does not match the rigor of Freud and his school or the philosophical insight and depth of Sartre and Merlau-Ponty, for the philosopher it retains much of interest and also gives one a good insight into Jasper's later philosophical work.

Great Book
I am SO glad that this was reprinted, it is a monument of what psychiatric thought can produce. Jaspers presents a clear, deep and useful approach (Phenomenological) to the assessment and understanding of psychiatric patients. McHugh, himself an unappreciated giant (cf Perspectives of Psychiatry),writes an introduction that sensitively places the author and the work in the context from which it arose.

Jasper;s Psychopathology
Still the most accurate phenomenological definitions in psychopathology.
Dense, a must for all those in the subject.

I still like this book.
People who learned to diagram sentences and outline thoughts when they were in school might be interested in how this book is organized around, in, and through an outline.Picking any particular topic, it is often surprising how well Karl Jaspers has placed it within a scheme of things.Normally, there wouldn't be much reason to consider how a history of thinking as bombing might find a place in a book like General Psychotherapy, but at the moment, it is interesting that the following ideas in this book can be assigned to a particular place on a thread that runs through it, largely about the "worlds of obsessional patients."On page 390, in Chapter VI, MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS AND THEIR SPECIFIC MECHANISMS, SECTION TWO, ABNORMAL MECHANISMS, 1. Pathological Psychogenic Reactions, ( c ) Classifications of reactive states, 2.According to the type of the reactive states:"(b)There may be an explosion in the form of fits, tantrums, rages, disjointed movements, blind acts of violence, threats and abuse.There is a working up of the self into a state of narrowed consciousness (prison-outbreaks, frenzies, short-circuit reactions, are some of the terms used)." ... Read more

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Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) was one of the greatest European philosophers and humanists of the 20th century. His philosophical ideas and ethical impulses are also highly relevant for reflection upon in the 21st century. Starting his career as a physician and psychiatrist, he came to philosophy late, but made major contributions to many speciality areas. A colleague of martin Heidegger, he had a falling out with the controversial philosopher over his initial support of the Nazi regime. Not only did the Nazis force Jaspers to leave his teaching position at the University of Heidelberg because of his Jewish wife, but they even threatened both their lives. For this reason among others, jaspers left Germany after the war and resumed his academic career at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Surveying the wide-ranging interests of Jaspers' thought, the contributors discuss his work in epistemology, the philosophies of science, history, culture, religion and metaphysics together with Asian thought, politics, ethics and education.The expository and interpretative essays in this volume, each uniquely commissioned, encompass the extraordinary richness of Jaspers' original philosophical thinking. ... Read more

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A part of JaspersÂ’s planned universal history of philosophy, focusing on the four paradigmatic individuals who have exerted a historical influence of incomparable scope and depth. Edited by Hannah Arendt; Index. Translated by Ralph Manheim.Amazon.com Review
Arguably the four most influential individuals in humanhistory, Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius and Jesus have cast shadowson history that are nearly inescapable even today. Who were they, whatwere their doctrines, and what was their influence? These are some ofthe questions that the 20th-century philosopher Karl Jaspers exploresin this short excerpt from his larger volume, GreatPhilosophers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Excellent introduction to world-historical figures of interest
Karl Jaspers was a somewhat unusual and enigmatic thinker.While being an excellent philosopher, he strongly distanced himself from the dominant philosophical schools of his time, both the continental and the analytical and positivist movements which dominated academic discourse.This was somewhat unfortunate and relegated Jaspers to being a lonely and marginalised figure, yet Jaspers published many works which are of enduring interest.

Of these are his four volumes on the history of philosopy and studies of great philosophers.In this volume Jaspers looks at Jesus, the Buddha, Socrates and Confucius as 'paradigmatic' figures who unleashed new visions which changed the world forever.Jaspers also adopts a somewhat unusual hermeneutical approach to these philosophers, taking the facts of scientific history not as starting points which constrain what can be said about these philsophers, but assessing their thought instead from Jasper's own existentialist framework.It is hard sometimes not to see Jaspers reading his own philosophy and philosophical viewpoint into that of these past philosophers, an approach closer to that of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard than that favoured by modern historians of philosophy.

Even so, Jasper's analysis of these philosopher-sages is fascinating and repays careful study.

There's scholarship and there's scholarship
The previous reviewer, in reminding us of recent scholarship on Jesus and the Gospel tradition, raises several pertinent considerations.Jaspers' book generally reflects the more modern scholarship that has focused increasingly on certain parallel sayings in Matthew and Luke as "Q Gospel" remnants and on the earliest Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts of the earliest extant Gospel, Mark.Yet recent similarly focused studies on the other three paradigmatic figures covered here don't seem reflected in Jaspers' book to the same extent.Personally, I am not as disturbed as the previous reviewer may be by applying modern scholarship to the Gospels.Rather, what I miss is the same strictness applied to the other three written traditions.Confucius, for example, is eventually described as having held high office only when we get to relatively late texts in the Confucian tradition.Yet Jaspers accepts this description of him without question.In fact, if, as Jaspers does by inference in his Jesus chapter, we are to set some of what we read in the Gospel of John aside, then oughtn't we set aside similar texts describing Confucius as having had conspicuous political success?If the "Q Gospel" passages in Matthew/Luke and the earliest manuscript tradition for Mark are to be highlighted as delineations of the "historical Jesus", then only Chapters 3 through 9 of the Analects of Confucius, generally regarded as the earliest stratum of Confucian text, should be the primary basis for the kind of modern philosophical scrutiny Jaspers purports to offer.Jaspers' Confucius chapter does not confine itself to the kind of wandering, almost homeless, figure found in these seven earliest chapters.To be consistent, shouldn't it?While it's useful for Jaspers, at the outset of his Buddha chapter, to single out the Digha-Nikaya collection as the earliest stratum of Buddha sermons, the rest of the Buddha chapter goes well beyond the Digha-Nikaya collection, even flirting occasionally with Buddha traditions lying outside the Pali tradition, let alone the Digha-Nikaya collection!There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it becomes inconsistent in the light of Jaspers' tacit adoption of certain tenets of modern historical criticism in his Jesus chapter.(To do Jaspers justice, he never explicitly offers quite the detailed textual background on the Gospel tradition that I attempt here.)What, IMO, might prove a more creditable effort -- since I would agree that these four figures indeed emerge as the most strongly verified human beings in history to live an essentially blameless life oriented toward an entirely self-made, and therefore inherently courageous, ethic -- would be a survey based exclusively on those fifteen or so sermons in the Digha-Nikaya regarded by modern scholars as the earliest for Buddha, on Chapters 3 through 9 of the Analects for Confucius, on the earliest, least "spun", Plato dialogues, such as the Charmides, the Hippias Minor, the Euthyphro, the Apology and the Crito, for Socrates, and on the Vaticanus/Sinaiticus Mark tradition plus the "Q" passages in Matthew/Luke for Jesus.It is unfortunate that Jaspers' book, with all its modern trappings (not in itself a bad thing, IMO), fails to do this rigorously.Hence, my three-star rating.Jaspers should be given credit, though, for a worthwhile start at the important task of evaluating perhaps the four finest human beings ever to walk this earth.

Interesting idea, but is it trustworthy scholarship?
Karl Jaspers has undertaken an interesting study in the little book.He looks at the teachings of four men who have had the most far-reaching impact on our world.He claims that the greatness of their influence is measured in centuries as well as globally.The four great men he chose for this book are, as the title suggests, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus.He entertained the thought of including Mohammed but chose not to.He explains that Mohammed "might be comparable in historical importance but not in individual depth (p. 87)."One other interesting insight comes from Jaspers on the same page.We have no writings from any of the four themselves - what we do have comes from their disciples after they died.

So much for the interesting, now for the question of trustworthiness.

Jaspers examined the biblical accounts of Jesus through the lens of higher criticism.In other words, Jaspers did not deal with the biblical text itself when he studied Jesus, he dealt with the text after sifting through what others thought was truly the teaching of Jesus.The reason this poses a problem is important to all readers, not merely to Christians.If he did not take the teachings of Jesus (as recorded by his disciples) at face value, did he take the teachings of Socrates, Buddha and Confucius (as recorded by their disciples) at face value?Is the reader really getting Socrates, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus, or is the reader getting Karl Jaspers?Knowing the aspects of Jesus' teachings that have been ignored in this study, and their importance to understanding Jesus' view of himself and the world around him, makes me wonder what we may have lost, in this study, from the other three great men included here.

This book is a very interesting idea.But, is it trustworthy scholarship?Not in my humble opinion.However, those who do not wish to sift through the original writings will inevitably want to read Jasper's abridgement of those writings.This may be to the readers' benefit, or to their detriment.

Made a big impression on me!
Aside from being an intelligently written book, I gave this book 5 stars because it made a big impression on me.Jaspers explanation of Confucius made the strength of Confucious's teaching clear.Now I'm very interested in Confucious and am reading more books about him. In that respect, this slim volume changed my life: It brought Confucious to life.What's more, by explaining Confucius's feelings about Taoism, this slim book did more to explain classic Taoism than the 2 books on the Tao I've already read.

Be aware that this book is due to the editing of Hannah Arendt. This means that Jaspers did not put this book out and say "Ta Da, the 4 Greatest!"No, Jaspers wrote a 2 volume book on the great philosophers due to his post War interest in increasing tolerance among men (per the Encyclopedia Britanica). This book does not appear to have any noticable Existentialist influence.

Finally, if you are a fundamentalist Christian, be warned that it is clear from his writing that Jaspers does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, nor does he believe the Bible is free of error. He is not disrespectful of Jesus nor of Christianity, but do not think that because Jesus is in this book that the book is strongly pro-Jesus.

Well Written
This book is a joy to read.Jaspers has a real talent for breaking down complex thoughts into detailed, easy to read format.Jaspers presents a broad overview that should be attractive to newcomers.More advanced readers will appreciate his style and his refreshing perspective. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

It's true
I totally agree with the previous reviewer that this is the best intro to kant. The cartoon books and Kant's actual writings are too complicated but this is by far the easiest understand. The author is a famous existentialist philosopher too- so it's like you're killing two philosophers with one stone.

The Best Introduction to the Philosophy of Kant
The one philosopher who discourages more students of philosophy is Immanuel Kant, the hands-down winner. Yet, it is not his ideas that are difficult to understand, but, rather, getting to his ideas, which are cocooned in a maze of needlessly bad technical writing.

Thus, most would-be students of Kant seek a basic introduction to his thought, only to find that the vast majority of these are even denser than that which they seek to explain. Who wants to shell out $19.95 for an introduction to Kant that itself needs an introduction?

Well, you can relax, because there is a highly readable introduction to the great man's philosophy that sells for less than ten dollars. Written by the great 20th Century existential philosopher Karl Jaspers as part of his "Great Philosophers" series, it stands out as an easy to read, easy to understand introduction to one of the giants of philosophy. Armed in such a manner, Kant's actual writings will become less formidible, more appealing to both eye and mind.

Do not waste your time reading an academic's explanation of Kant. Read a major philosopher's introduction instead, for it not only takes a great mind to understand a great mind, but also to make the thought of that great mind accessible to all. ... Read more

Product Description
Throughout his life, German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) recorded his experiences and reflections in diaries and correspondence. This comprehensive biography is the first to explore these extensive and candid private writings that illuminate not only Jaspers’ life and relationships but also the ideas he proposed in Way to Wisdom, The Question of German Guilt, and many other published works.

Suzanne Kirkbright provides a sensitive and intimate portrait of the philosopher whose work on truth, personal integrity, and the capacity for communication contrasted acutely with the erosion of such values in Germany in his lifetime. She describes how Jaspers’ Jewish wife, Gertrud, influenced his thinking, the loss in 1937 of his professorship at Heidelberg University, and his relationship with such celebrated colleagues as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Kirkbright examines the unshakeable ethical content of Jaspers’ philosophy and demonstrates his unique and scrupulous personal adherence to the philosophical principles he espoused.





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Customer Reviews (5)

It is possible to learn much about Jaspers from this work
I am not a real student of the work of Jaspers though I have read some of it especially his work on 'The Axial Age , that age in which Mankind in several different places seemed to simultaneously discover the higher moral life.Much of what I knew about Jasperscame from Hannah Arendt's chapter on him in her book 'Men in Dark Times'. There Arendt paints a picture of Jaspers as a person of highest integrity and fidelity to truth.She highlypraises the humanityof her former teacher and thesis supervisor. They remained lifelong friends and were too connected by their respective relationships to Heidegger.
Kirkbright tells the story of the frail sickly Heidegger and his lifelong search for truth. She tells of the specially good marriage he had, and how wife Gertrude ( nee Mayer) contributed to his thought. Jaspers and his wife survived the war and he afterwards became a kind of moral spokesman to German society. The book does not go deeply into Jaspers' thought, nor does it analyze in depth many of the incidents and events in Jaspers' life. I for instance would have liked to know more about what Gertrude Mayer's marriage meant for her father, who was an Orthodox Jew. Kirkbright tells of how Jaspers after years of struggle achieved a position and recognition as thinker.The booktells the basic story of his life in a convincing and highly readable way.
And I am sure all those interested in Jaspers can learn much from it.

how to live in dignity ...
Already as a child, German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) suffered under bronchiktasis and an accompanying heart insufficiency, which was classified as incurable and life-shortening. the fear to die early pushed him to live concentrated and not to waste any time. Being exhausted very soon, throughout his life he was forced to work lying horizontal on a divan. His daily creative working periods (of reading and writing) had been very short, so he was obliged to budget his targets carefully. "A man will be, what he will be, via the things, he has chosen for his own affair..." was the way, he programmed himself. "The minimum of being self-determinate is associated with the joy to work. without that, everyone will get paralyzed. Therefore to save the joy of working is the main problem in the technical world. Assigned work mostly is a work, which separates being a human and being a worker. But the duties of a physician, teacher, minister etc. cannot not be technically rationalized, because they depend on vital existence ..." Jaspers noted in his tiny but important book "The Mental Situation Of Our Age". Beginning as psychiatrist (among other things with the fundamental work "PSYCHOLOGY of the WORLD VIEWS") he extended his horizon of views to a stable existence-philosophical theory, which at first united him with the academic colleague Martin Heidegger, then however, ethical standardizes taking seriously, had to lead him away from this Nazi-collaborator. Jaspers wrote after the end of WWII to the American Military Government in Germany: "Heidegger's kind of thinking appears to me unfreely, dictatorial, without any sense for communication. Nowadays it would (practiced at universities) have a fatal effect ...". Added to the lifelong illness of Jaspers was the threat by the Third Reich. Jaspers' woman was Jewess. The married couple during the Nazi-era always carried in their pockets cyanide-capsules, to be faster, if Gestapo would try to arrest them. "No longer able to continue the fight, suicide becomes more and more fascinating. It seems to be the last moral effort of autonomous humans. To end voluntary is like coming home to oneself... " Jaspers wrote in those dark days. "The rule of the apparatus favors humans, who live contemplativelessly without any leisure , bedeviled sleeplessly by their wishes of climbing up the social ladders. It is required to be skilful, slippery, oily. You have to become beloved, you must ingratiate on everyone with a clever fuss of persuading and captivating, you have to become zealous, indispensable, you have to be silent, insidious, you have to present a modest gesture, you have to work only to please your chief, you never are allowed to show any independence against a superior ...". Jaspers analyzed the Hitler-Germany and Martin Heidegger, the post war German society and "The Question of German Guilt" - but in the center he defined how to live with dignity - in any time...

how to live in dignity ...
Already as a child, German philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) suffered under bronchiktasis and an accompanying heart insufficiency, which was classified as incurable and life-shortening. the fear to die early pushed him to live concentrated and not to waste any time. Being exhausted very soon, throughout his life he was forced to work lying horizontal on a divan. His daily creative working periods (of reading and writing) had been very short, so he was obliged to budget his targets carefully. "A man will be, what he will be, via the things, he has chosen for his own affair..." was the way, he programmed himself. "The minimum of being self-determinate is associated with the joy to work. without that, everyone will get paralyzed. Therefore to save the joy of working is the main problem in the technical world. Assigned work mostly is a work, which separates being a human and being a worker. But the duties of a physician, teacher, minister etc. cannot not be technically rationalized, because they depend on vital existence ..." Jaspers noted in his tiny but important book "The Mental Situation Of Our Age". Beginning as psychiatrist (among other things with the fundamental work "Psychology of the World Views") he extended his horizon of views to a stable existence-philosophical theory, which at first united him with the academic colleague Martin Heidegger, then however, ethical standardizes taking seriously, had to lead him away from this Nazi-collaborator. Jaspers wrote after the end of WWII to the American Military Government in Germany: "Heidegger's kind of thinking appears to me unfreely, dictatorial, without any sense for communication. Nowadays it would (practiced at universities) have a fatal effect ...". Added to the lifelong illness of Jaspers was the threat by the Third Reich. Jaspers' woman was Jewess. The married couple during the Nazi-era always carried in their pockets cyanide-capsules, to be faster, if Gestapo would try to arrest them. "No longer able to continue the fight, suicide becomes more and more fascinating. It seems to be the last moral effort of autonomous humans. To end voluntary is like coming home to oneself... " Jaspers wrote in those dark days. "The rule of the apparatus favors humans, who live contemplativelessly without any leisure , bedeviled sleeplessly by their wishes of climbing up the social ladders. It is required to be skilful, slippery, oily. You have to become beloved, you must ingratiate on everyone with a clever fuss of persuading and captivating, you have to become zealous, indispensable, you have to be silent, insidious, you have to present a modest gesture, you have to work only to please your chief, you never are allowed to show any independence against a superior ...". Jaspers analyzed the Hitler-Germany and Martin Heidegger, the post war German society and "The Question of German Guilt" - but in the center he defined how to live with dignity - in any time...

Inspirational
I have read every work of the late Karl Jaspers.I believe Ms. Kirkbright summarizes her approach in her introduction.She chooses a difficult path to explore.She must write about Jasper's life without focusing on his specific philosophy.She explains in the introduction that she will write about Jaspers seeking truth without going into detail about his idea of truth.Personally I can not put the book down, but I keep reading and reading.Too many academic snobs keep trying to kill the spirit of philosophy.Why is it wrong to look at Karl Jaspers through the lens of his family correspondence?I recommend this book to anyone who is interesting in learning about the man who wrote so much philosophy and began the long tradition known as existentialism.I do not recommend this book to anyone who is too pretentious to actually read a book!

A Flawed Biography
In general, I do not like to post negative reviews to the Amazon Web site. For Suzanne Kirkbright's work, I am making an exception.This is a very poorly written and narrated biography.Very briefly, I would like to itemize its most obvious flaws,

1.Writing.Ms Kirkbright writes in an English that is all but incomprehensible.The book reads like an inept translation. Here are the first two sentences of the book:

"In Oldenburg, where Karl Jaspers was born on 23 February 1883, the changing attitudes that shape the fabric of civilized society were all but sheltered from view. (footnote 1)During these years of Bismark's Germany, political lifewas in flux, for modernizing the regions in a federal, secular and unified nation appeared to exacerbate disagreement among political parties which--apart from the higher authority of Emperor Willhelm I--could have been scrutinizing Bismarck's policies of social and cultural integration. (footnote 2)"

Throughtout her book, Ms Kirkbright has trouble with standard English idioms and the use of prepositions.One has to wonder how this prose slipped passed the editorial staff at YUP.

2. Historical.Ms Kirkbright's rendering of the historical and cultural background of Jasper's place and time is substandard.

3. Narrative.This biography achieves no smooth narrative but skips around and does not build any kind of systematic portrait of anything--not the family, not Karl, not the political events.

4. Ideas.Mr Kirkbright seems to have little understanding of the ideas that circulate in Jaspers work.She seems to be culling them from secondary sources rather than from her own reading and understanding.

5. Research.Ms Kirkbright is working on a fascinating subject with many primary sources.However, she uses these sources in a very unskilled way.She has the tendency to footnote sentence after sentence, often with no serious goal.

6. Bibliographical.Her reference section is not up to contemporary scholarly standards.One rather humorous example is her reference to "The Complete Works of Plato"...in the Jowett translation.Hmmm...?

In conclusion, because of its awkwardness this book is hard to follow for a someone who simply wants to know a bit about Jaspers; for the scholar, it's probably worth a quick glance because of the value of Suzanne Kirkbright's source material.

All in all, this is a poor book that needs revision

rs

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Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A former Heideggerian asseses Jaspers
Jaspers embodies the German propensity for breadth and thoroughness to an exhausting degree, without any real depth. Basically, Jaspers is a methodologist, and sees three main ways, or methods, of living: one is plain being there, then there is the pseudo-objectivity of pure consciousness, and lastly there is animation by an idea. Only in the extremities of life do we ever Exist. It's not a bad book, per se, but compared to his General Psychopathology it is formulaic and shallow. Not that I would recommend Heidegger to anyone for any reason, but Jaspers couldn't understand Heidegger and couldn't read him either. Your call.

The best introduction to Jaspers
I've read a _lot_ of (and about) Jaspers, but this book has proven the most effective resource for my Jaspers studies.

Ehrlich, Ehrlich, and Pepper selected excerpts from throughout Jaspers' career in philosophy (not a lot from his psychology, as the title indicates). They then grouped these texts together in logical and cohesive sections, adding short introductions to each section as well as each individual text. The result: it is possible to sit down and read the collection cover-to-cover and feel the continuity of the work.

E, E, and P have gotten over a major hurdle in making Jaspers' work accessible. Many of the available translations of Jaspers are sub-par. Jaspers' frequent coinage and usage of technical jargon has posed a translation problem (i.e. words that no one knows exactly how to translate) that has resulted in discrepancies between translations. E, E, and P resolve this (to a large degree) by retranslating or correcting many of the passages in this book. Since I happened to have both a German and an English (trans. E. B. Ashton) copy of Jaspers' 3 volume work "Philosophie" -- a text quoted often in this volume -- I compared translations. E, E, and P's revisions to E. B. Ashton's translation were consistently more readible.

In addition to providing a fantastic overview of Jaspers, this volume does have a couple of other highlights:
* Many passages translated from Von Der Wahrheit -- Jaspers' last major work (which remains largely untranslated).

* Great coverage of some of his writings on religion (Buddhism, Christian mysticism, etc.)
* Selected entries from his journals.
* Correspondence with other philosophers (notably Arendt and Heidegger).

In short, I highly recommend this book for those looking for a good Jaspers reader. If you are new to Jaspers, I would also suggest reading Philosophy of Existenz -- a great (and short) overview of Jaspers' project.

fine collection of essential writings....
....Jaspers is difficult reading in places but has a plenitude of existentially worthwhile ideas:historicity, Existenz, the Encompassing... worth the trouble. ... Read more

Product Description
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 M. Owsley provides a brief overview of Jaspers’ life and achievement. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Totally Satisfied
This book arrived in pristine condition and in a very timely manner.Couldn't have had better service from this dealer.

The Way of The Unknown, Using The Known, Yet Never Absolute
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This is a great, practical and user friendly book in the basics of what philosophy is, the history of philosophy which includes the idea of the axial age, the difference between absolute and relative knowledge, the idea of nonknowledge and the connection of philosophy with science.

Jaspers, like Plato, tells us that philosophy is the direction we take, the idea of the whole picture. While science is the measurable analysis and empirical observation, philosophy is the direction behind such, the idea of why we are learning the what. This is very much like Plato's Meno, where Socrates and Meno decide that virtue is beyond knowledge and is instead the direction of opinion, or as Jaspers calls it "nonknowledge."

On page 127, Jaspers writes:

"By technically applying my knowledge I can act outwardly but nonknowledge makes possible an inner action by which I transform myself. This is another and deeper kind of thought; it is not detached from being and oriented toward an object but is a process of my innermost self, in which though and being become identical. Measured by outward, technical power, this thought of inner action is as nothing, it is no applied knowledge that can be possessed, it cannot be fashioned according to plan and purpose; it is an authentic illumination and growth into being."

Philosophy must reside in uncertainty, waywardness towards the unknown, never absolute like science. On page 129,

"Philosophy must even leave the possibility of full communication in uncertainty, though it lives by faith in communication and stakes everything on communication. We can believe in it but not know it. To believe that we possess it is to have lost it."

We must have philosophy to direct our science (virtue) and remove us froe scientific superstition and we must have science to have substance to our philosophy and remove us from philosophical superstition.

Pages 159-160:

"Any philosopher who is not trained in a scientific discipline and who fails to keep his scientific interests constantly alive will inevitably bungle and stumble and mistake uncritical rough drafts for definitive knowledge. Unless an idea is submitted to the coldly dispassionate test of scientific inquiry, it is rapidly consumed in the fire of emotions and passions, or else it withers into a dry and narrow fanaticism . . . rejecting superstitious belief in science as well as contempt of science, philosophy grants its unconditional recognition to modern science."

Jasper ends his book with a short outline on the major thinkers and writers in philosophy and our personal decision of who to study to build up our knowledge. But can virtue be taught? He endorses what an old counsel to study Plato and Kant since they cover all the essentials. An overall good read, a substantial subject in a modern society devoid of substance and profound meaning.

"Today independence seems to be silently disappearing beneath the inundation of all life by the typical, the habitual, the unquestioned commonplace." - 1954, KARL JASPERS, Way to Wisdom, An Introduction to Philosophy, p. 110

An introduction to philosophising by Karl Jaspers
This book originated from 12 radio talks given by Karl Jaspers, right after World War II. It is written in an extremely lucid and direct manner, and it is more of an introduction to the art, or process, of philosophisingrather than to philosophy itself as a discipline. In this book existentialphilosophy, the brand of philosophy so successfuly cultivated by Jaspers,is described, so to speak, "from inside". There is hardly anyanalysis of philosophical terms, but rather a presentation of the innerprocess of approach to the metaphysical questions confronting theindividual person. Jaspers belongs to the great idealist tradition,initiated by Plato, developed further by the medieval schoolmen, and lastlyby Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, Soeren Kirekegaard and others.According to Jaspers the core-meaning of man's identity is his sense offreedom. Freedom is presented as an immediate datum of consciousness, asthat part of man's personality which "evades all object knowledge butis always present in him as a potentiality". Irrespective of what isomitted, this book offers a subject-matter of impeccable honesty andundiluted spirituality. This is a great book superbly well written. Also,the translation by Ralph Manheim is quite masterly. It is an out and outexample of what every translation should actually be: a representation inanother language of the meaning and style of the original text. ... Read more

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This groundbreaking volume offers for the first timemuch-needed English-language translations of texts by Karl Jaspers onThomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Georg W.F. Hegel, and SorenKierkegaard.In addition, interpretive and critical essays by suchrenowned scholars as Leonard H. Ehrlich, Graham Parkes, and MeroldWestphal assess Jaspers's contributions to the history of philosophyand the philosophy of history.

Coming to philosophy from psychiatry, Jaspers was an inspired observerof the human psyche.He devised a unique set of categories forclassifying history's great philosophers, including the term"paradigmatic individuals" for those whose singular humanity forceditself into historical consciousness to inspire world religions andphilosophies.In this special category he placed Socrates, Buddha,Confucius, and Jesus.Among the giants of "systematic philosophicalthinking" he grouped Plato, Augustine, and Kant as the "greatfounders" of Western thought.

To the philosophy of history Jaspers contributed the provocative ideaof an "axial age."This singular era, extending from 800 B.C.E. to200 C.E., witnessed the simultaneous but independent unfolding ofvirtually all the major religious, philosophical, and culturaltraditions.Several essays illuminate his understanding of thistremendously active period in human history.

This stimulating collection of new translations and in-depth essays bynoted experts on one of the twentieth century's great minds is a mustread for anyone interested in Eastern and Western philosophy, thehistory of ideas, and the interrelatedness of biography and history. ... Read more

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Philosophy and the Axial Age
Most works on Jaspers fail to even mention his seminal work on the Axial Age in his _Origin and Goal of History_. This work explores Jaspers' philosophy of history (& history of philosophy) and in the process corrects the neglected side of his oeuvre. Jaspers in many ways, perhaps unconsciously, provides a correction on the Eurocentric philosophy of history in the Hegelian vein, and explores the fuller dimension of world philosophy from Confucius, Lao Tse, to Nagarjuna, and others. This fuller view is latent in the implications of the Axial period's mysterious globalizing integration of transculture.
The work on the Axial Age brings together the observations of a whole century of historians and is one of the most important historical discoveries of modern times--yet one passed over in silence in a scientific culture that can't handle the obvious suggestions about the universal history of man.
Interesting book, filling a gap in the record. ... Read more

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Shortly after the Nazi government fell, a philosophy professor at Heidelberg University lectured on a subject that burned the consciousness and conscience of thinking Germans. "Are the German people guilty?" These lectures by Karl Jaspers, an outstanding European philosopher, attracted wide attention among German intellectuals and students; they seemed to offer a path to sanity and morality in a disordered world. Jaspers, a life-long liberal, attempted in this book to discuss rationally a problem that had thus far evoked only heat and fury. Neither an evasive apology nor a wholesome condemnation, his book distinguished between types of guilt and degrees of responsibility. He listed four categories of guilt: criminal guilt (the commitment of overt acts), political guilt (the degree of political acquiescence in the Nazi regime), moral guilt (a matter of private judgment among one's friends), and metaphysical guilt (a universally shared responsibility of those who chose to remain alive rather than die in protest against Nazi atrocities). Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) took his degree in medicine but soon became interested in psychiatry. He is the author of a standard work of psychopathology, as well as special studies on Strindberg, Van Gogh and Nietsche. After World War I he became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, where he achieved fame as a brilliant teacher and an early exponent of existentialism. He was among the first to acquaint German readers with the works of Kierkegaard. Jaspers had to resign from his post in 1935. From the total isolation into which the Hitler regime forced him, Jaspers returned in 1945 to a position of central intellectual leadership of the younger liberal elements of Germany. In his first lecture in 1945, he forcefully reminded his audience of the fate of the German Jews. Jaspers's unblemished record as an anti-Nazi, as well as his sentient mind, have made him a rallying point center for those of his compatriots who wish to reconstruct a free and democratic Germany. ... Read more

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Collective Liability but No Collective Guilt, According to Jaspers
The following review is based on the original (1947) English-language edition. What Karl Jaspers means by guilt, in all of its types (see pp. 31-32), has already been discussed by another reviewer, and will not be repeated here.

Jaspers has, correctly or incorrectly, been considered an existentialist. In either case, his work includes a considerable emphasis on personal moral reflection.

Oddly enough, Jaspers has been accused of advocating collective German guilt. This is manifestly incorrect. He writes: "It is nonsensical, however, to charge a whole people with a crime. The criminal is always only an individual. It is nonsensical, too, to lay moral guilt to a people as a whole. There is no such thing as a national character extending to every single member of a nation...Morally one can judge the individual only, never a group...A people cannot perish heroically, cannot be a criminal, cannot act morally or immorally; only its individuals can do so. A people as a whole can be neither guilty nor innocent..." (pp. 40-41)

Going further, Jaspers comments: "Lastly, the phrase [You are the guilty] may mean: `You are inferior as a nation, ignoble, criminal, the scum of the earth, different from all other nations.' This is the collective type of thought and appraisal, classifying every individual under these generalizations. It is radically false and itself inhuman, whether done for good or evil ends." (p. 50)

Valid "collective guilt", according to Jaspers, is actually collective liability: "Every German is made to share in the blame for the crimes committed in the name of the Reich. We are collectively liable. The question is in what sense each of us must feel co-responsible." (p. 61) Notions of collective liability also originate from within: "We feel something like a co-responsibility for the acts of members of our family...because of our consanguinity we are inclined to feel concerned whenever something wrong is done by someone in the family...Thus the German--that is, the German speaking individual--feels concerned by everything growing from German roots." (p. 79)

Karl Jaspers Returns to his Homeland
Most philosophy books deal with trying to find the axiom of uniting reality & thought. To Plato the axiom was the "Good" or "Ideal", to Descartes the "Thinking Self", to Kant the "Categories of Thought" etc...this book is completely different. Karl Jaspers started out with a psychiatry degree but after World War I became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, but during the mid 1930's with the raise of Hitler & Nazi Germany, he had to leave his post due to his Jewish wife & anti-Nazi stand. After World war II, he returned to Heidelberg to give a series of lectures dealing with "The Question of German Guilt", this book being a written version of those lectures. Karl Jaspers writes very clean & precise while not using the difficult words like Kant's "Transcendental Manifold" or Heideger's "Dasein" etc...therefore sit back, get a cup of coffee & enjoy another very well written, easy to read philosophy book. Within these lectures Karl Jaspers tries to help his fellow German people to struggle through their current defeat & the Nuremberg trials by giving the reasons behind the raise of Nazi Germany, the dates when certain people either left or were trapped within the new social system, & the defeat & current responsibility of certain individuals or the German people as a whole. Karl Jaspers then lists 4 categories of guilt & degrees of responsibility: Criminal guilt (the commitment of certain acts & judgment by trial), Political guilt (how involved one is within one's government), moral guilt (your own private or circle of friends consciences), & metaphysical guilt (an universally shared responsibility to choose to live rather than protest evil). Each category is then explain in great detail of its pros & cons of legality, & which categories have more of a proof of guilt. I enjoyed the book, I hope you will too. ... Read more

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Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)—"founder of German existentialism" (Martin Heidegger) and "a lucid and flexible intelligence in the service of a genuine and passionate concern for human life" (William Barrett)—is one of the great thinkers of our time. In this compact discussion of Being, Truth, and Reality he presents what for him is the complete philosophy: "the concentration whereby man becomes himself by sharing in reality."

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Fantastic overview of Jaspers' thought
Written between "Philosophie" and "Von der Wahrheit," this slim volume provides a fantastic and surprisingly readable overview of Jaspers' metaphysics. Based on a series of lectures, the text is less technical than Philosophie; however, Jaspers manages to explain the Encompassing, Transcendence, Existenz and Ciphers in moderate detail.

I found Grabau's translation much more lucid than the texts included (for instance) within Walter Kaufmann's "Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre." Since Grabau's translation of key terms is similar to E. B. Ashton's translation of Philosophie, I have had no trouble going from one to the other.

Overall, I recommend this book for those interested in delving into Jaspers' metaphysics. ... Read more

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Two of the most brilliant German thinkers of the twentieth century were Karl Jaspers and Rudolf Bultmann. Jaspers, the philosopher, and Bultmann, the theologian, were both influenced by the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the rise of the existentialist movement. Late in their careers they interacted on the subject of Bultmann’s attempt to divest Christianity of its mythical components and make sense of it in more modern terms. This work is a compilation of articles by Jaspers and Bultmann that formed a running debate originally published in various scholarly journals. The first half of the book is Jaspers’ lengthy and critical analysis of Bultmann’s interpretation of Christianity, in which Jaspers essentially rejects the premise that Christianity or any other religion can or should be understood without its mythical framework. Jaspers charges that Bultmann has radically misunderstood the nature of myth and that myth is an irreplaceable form of symbolic communication. In the second part, Bultmann defends his approach, suggesting that Jaspers has not really understood his intent or meaning. Contemporary people today, schooled in the scientific tradition, are likely to reject the biblical texts because of their miraculous claims and supernatural content. Bultmann insists that the scholarly, scientific study of the Bible is a legitimate way to reveal its true message, apart from all the supernatural trappings.Finally, in response, Jaspers accepts some of Bultmann’s clarifications but takes him to task on the subject of "justification by faith," which he feels Bultmann defines too narrowly and too exclusively. This stimulating work by two penetrating minds will give anyone interested in perennial philosophical and theological questions much to ponder. ... Read more

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First published in English in 1933, this detailed philosophical examination of the contemporary state and nature of mankind is a seminal work by influential German philosopher Karl Jaspers. Elucidating his theories on a variety of topics pertaining to contemporary and future human existence, Man in the Modern Age is an ambitious and wide-ranging work, which meditates upon such diverse subjects as the tension between mass-order and individual human life, our present conception of human life and the potential for mankind’s future existence. Written shortly before the accession to power of Hitler and National Socialism, this is not only an important philosophical work, but also an insightful and intriguing historical document.

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Scarry insights
If you, by any chance, stumble upon this book, most probably it will be in a library of some sort, you'll be looking to a small masterpiece. I am well aware of the fact that calling something 'masterpiece' in these days doesn' mean a lot. Everything is a masterpiece for some person or another, and in these days of hiperproduction one is constantly on a verge of loosing any notion of critical ability that existed somewhere. But enoguh of that. Considering what has been said, one should expect of me to say why something, precisely this book, is a maasterpiece.

As with all masterpieces it is really hard to say. It depends on a perspective you are taking. For instance, Mona Lisa. Looked upon with ordinary eyes, it is just a painting of some lady that is smiling with some arcadian background. What's so special about that? To answer that question one has to have special kind of glasses. Ones that will give him the insight in entire history of art, of all things that precedded Leonardos painting. Eventually, one would find the answer that he seeks. It is slightly different with this book.

Here, it is not the past that matters, it is the future. Consider this book being written in 1931., few years away from massive slaughter and dawnfall of humankind and entire humanities (as viewed by some intellectuals). It is surprising, and somewhat scarry, reading about the events that happened after the book was written. Certain insights, feelings of depression that is present in entire body of text, when looked upon from some historical distance, seems like a work of sad, mad, genius that looked upon the heart of humanity and found only destruction and despair there.

Maybe it is not masterpiece, maybe it is just a classic. No matter what, it is a book that should be read by any one who is interested in history, in development of modern thought, by anyone who is in trouble with the course modern world is taking today.

Karl Jaspers at his best!
In a letter to Hannah Arendt, Jaspers complained about the English translation of this work - we need a new translation!The contents of this work are as relevant today as they were in 1933.What I found most fascinating, though, was that many of his ideas mirror the existentialism (authenticity, etc) of Heidegger's Being in Time, even though Jaspers claimed he couldn't make it through his former friend's work.His concerns with technology (technique as it is translated) and nihilism (nullity) also mirror Heidegger's concern in the 30's.
Sometimes Jaspers is difficult to read, possibly because he presents arguments in the form of antinomies - these difficulties are absent in this passionate work from the heart.It is accessible for any reader and should be used in existentialism courses in philosophy departments.

Hard to Find, but What a Find
Most of Karl Jaspers better books are out of print or are very hard to get. This is one of them, I had the book custom made from a computer print out & then hard bound. Written between World War One & World War Two, in 1933, I am surprised on how well Karl Jaspers understands humanity trapped within modern technology with its so-called promises yet in the end traps. The book explains the origin of modern techonolgy & how it developed into the present state of existence that humanity now finds itself. The middle secion deals with the Limits of the Life Order (Humanity as a Mass), the Will in the Whole (the State & Education), & the Decay & Possibilities of the Mind (Culture & Mental Creation: Art, Science, & Philosophy) and then the book ends with our Present existence in the fields of Sociology, Psychology, & Anthropology, & what humanity can become. A great find & here it is in Amazon.com as a special order. ... Read more

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An approach to transcendental method
The philosophers whom I usually consider important hardly show up in this book, KARL JASPERS:PHILOSOPHY AS FAITH by Leonard Ehrlich, but Kant is a major topic, and gets credit for picturing philosophy as an activity that adopts individual views about what is essential while merely thinking.Jaspers died in 1969.Leonard Ehrlich produced his own translations for KARL JASPERS:BASIC PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, now available from the Humanities Paperback Library (1986, 1994), with an emphasis on many of the same topics.Both books have Bibliographies, but only KARL JASPERS:PHILOSOPHY AS FAITH has an index.Nietzsche is not a major topic in this book, appearing mainly in conjunction with other great philosophers.Only early in the book is there recognition that`Nietzsche's radical movements of doubt and extreme formulations, such as the well-known dictum, "nothing is true, all is permitted," are, accordingly, designed to force us to find the fulfillment of truth "in our own historicly present existence." '(p. 28).A note on page 241 explains that `historically' is not being used because Ehrlich associates that term with history as "the course, the account and the interpretation of events; it corresponds to the German `Geschichte'.`Historic', on the other hand, is correlative with the noun `historicity', in German `Geschichlichkeit', meaning the circumstance that realities transcending the temporality of events--such as ideas, purposes, selfhood--become actual only in time and by virtue of deliberate human activity."(n. 50).

By the end of the book, Ehrlich has sorted out the distinctions which Jaspers makes about the nature of philosophers in a manner that only philosophers are likely to understand.

Philosophizing that proceeds with such regard is, for Jaspers, communicative rather than doctrinal, periechontologic rather than ontologic.It is thinking understood as faith in search of understanding rather than a disclosure of, or derivation from, absolute transsubjective insights, a way of thinking that is prepared to recover from the objectifications of formulated assurances.It is also a thinking that remains steadfastly itinerant lest the historicity of its vision usurp the place of truth beyond the finitude of its own vision.These are features of the kind of thinking for which the `seminal founders of philosophizing' are historically most significant:

In reading the works of Plato, Augustine, Kant, we experience the productivity of thinking itself, of the truth of Kant's remark that one cannot learn philosophy but only how to philosophize. . . . In them nothing is finished, and yet everything is at all times finished in the possible presence of the essential. . . . There was something inexhaustible in their manner of thinking.They open up worlds whose extent they themselves seem unable to fathom.They are as wide as reality and as the soul of man. . . .(pp. 220-221).

There are only nine chapters in KARL JASPERS:PHILOSOPHY AS FAITH.Faith is the main topic in the first four chapters, in which it is considered in comparison with knowledge, doubt, ignorance, unfaith, superstition, mysticism, intuition, mediation, mystery, and truth.Martin Buber and Karl Barth interact with Jaspers over philosophy's emphasis on what Barth mockingly calls "The somewhat arid commandment of tolerance," (p. 73).Jaspers has a faith that specifies, "The voice of conscience is not God's voice.It is precisely when conscience speaks that the deity is silent, that it remains hidden, here as elsewhere. . . . An identification of the voice of conscience with God's voice confuses me about myself and the deity if it puts me into the position of being addressed by God, confronted by him as by a `thou'.The self-communication of conscience is put into objective form, then, as a supposedly direct communication with God."(p. 97).

Chapter Five, Authority and Tradition, including `The Tension Between Freedom and Authority,' seeks `The Transcendent Ground of Authority,' which is, "like the personal directedness and realization of truth, historic."(p. 106).Chapter Six, The Idea of Philosophical Faith, seeks a basis in the source of fundamental knowledge.What it has to accept is "the lack of general acceptability of any fundamental knowledge."(p. 120).Catholicity is the term used for a system in which "Spiritual authority of this kind bases itself on a total knowledge, at least in principle, under which all that may come to man's awareness is subsumed according to its proper category.Moral authority of this kind reserves for itself the right to be the ultimate arbiter in questions of human action.Political authority of this kind potentially or actually seeks mastery over human affairs in its broad areas and in detail; catholicity in the form of political authority is, potentially and ultimately, totalitarianism.In the light of the possibility and actuality of political catholicity, intellectual and spiritual catholicity may seem harmless and trivial.Not so for Jaspers."(p. 129).

Chapter Seven, The Philosophy of Ciphers, reflects Ehrlich's interest in the topics covered by Jaspers in KARL JASPERS:BASIC PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS, Part Four, II.Metaphysical Truth:The Reading of Ciphers.`In this connection Jaspers speaks of "three languages" in which ciphers are read.Myth is the form of the "second language," where the "language of transcendence" "reverberates" in the form of "communicable" "images and notions."Here actuality itself can be mythical, where objects and events are pervaded by meaning beyond their apparent factuality.'(p. 147).`Different from these possibilities is the "third" or "speculative" language.'(p. 147).`Experience functions as the first language.'(p. 148).

Chapter Eight, The Problem of Evil, includes a discussion of the Biblical book of Job with ciphers of evil, endurance, and "Job is for Jaspers the cipher for the circumstance that man's assurance of the ultimate ground of his being in freedom is a matter of reading ciphers. . . . Moreover ciphers are actual as ciphers only historicly, i.e., as the testimony of assurance on the part of the self who in his interpretation becomes himself . . . "(p. 204). ... Read more

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Nice considerations of when these people should sound off
I have found CORRESPONDENCE 1926 - 1969 of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers to be enormously entertaining, easy to read, and surprisingly foreboding about problems in the book trade caused by foreign indebtedness.Politically, each date brings chilling summaries.For Hannah Arendt in America, on June 3, 1949, "At the moment, the general political atmosphere is dismal here, particularly at the universities and colleges (with the exception of the very eminent ones)."(pp. 136-137).This letter 90 has several notes on pages 714-715 which give details that are sure to be humorous now for anyone who has ever heard of Aspen, where the leaves all turn at the same time because the roots are interconnected, as perjury suspect Libby Scooter informed New York Times reporter Judy Miller in a letter urging her to end her days in prison and testify in 2005 so an investigation of White House activities relating to the identity of CIA WMD analyst Plame could be resolved quickly.According to this book, Hutchins, the president of Chicago University, was the nominal organizer of a two-week conference and Goethe celebration in July 1949 in Aspen, Colorado, attended by José Ortega y Gasset, Albert Schweitzer, Ernst Simon, Stephen Spender, and Thornton Wilder.Letter 90 was a response to articles that had been written by the "Bonn Romanticist Ernst Robert Curtius, 1886-1956," (p. 714) who would also be at the conference:

"The real power behind it is a German-American, a real-estate dealer, who recently bought up a ghost town and then had the commercially brilliant idea of tying Goethe into his business.His sole motive is to exploit Goethe to make this town world famous, so he can then make a bundle of money from tourists.The whole thing is really quite marvelous.The second backer, however, is a less amusing figure:Do you remember Bergstrasser from Heidelberg?After he had successfully accommodated himself to the regime, it was shown that he had a whole string of Jewish ancestors.He is the real moving force behind this program."(p. 136).

Curtius had published a polemic in Germany on April 2, 1949 which accused Jaspers of making "our collective guilt so plain to us that we can continue to live only with a guilty conscience.A Wilhelm von Humboldt of our time, he laid out guidelines for German universities, until he turned his back on them. ... He is crowning these national pedagogical efforts with a `campaign in Switzerland' that is directed against Goethe.Habemus Papam!"(pp. 714-715).In response to the comments of some Heidelberg professors, Curtius replied on May 17, 1949, and finally on July 2, 1949, with a title, "Goethe, Jaspers, Curtius."(p. 715).`Die Zeit' might be to blame for that title, which reeks of arrogance.

In any event, books in those days were considered significant enough that the move by Jaspers to Switzerland, as advised by Hannah Arendt on June 30, 1947, (when Jaspers was giving guest lectures in Basel), "we would do best not to settle down too permanently anywhere, not really to depend on any nation, for it can change overnight into a mob and a blind instrument of ruin" (p. 91), which made publication of books by Jaspers much easier, was resented by Germans who had already spent the money those books would earn.America was a great place for books by Jaspers to make money, and Hannah Arendt did her part to make sure that the translators selected by the publishers were able to express what Jaspers was saying in some form of English that readers could understand.Sounding like an American, Jaspers wrote on July 20, 1947:

"We are living in paradise here.My wife is already cutting back at table for fear of putting on weight."(p. 93)

Heartwarming and Intellectually Engaging
Jaspers and Arendt cover everything and everyone: Sartre, Heidegger, Marx, Goethe, Camus; post-WWII Germany, "the infinitely complex red-tape existence of stateless persons," the Cold War, the "senile" Eisenhower administration, Eichmann, totalitarianism, the atom bomb, local democracy--it's all there. So too is a life-long, extremely close friendship between people who weathered a war from different sides of the globe, who faced cold war terror in radically different ways, who loved their spouses intensely but felt somehow separated by differences in world-view tracable to ethnicity(Gertrude was ethnically Jewish and Heinrich was ethnically Christian). Her admiration of him, her intellectual debt to him, her love for him; his seeming amazement at her vivacity, his admiration of her intellect, his cold, German form of love--and the walls cracking, and his sentiment sometimes pouring through.

It's a warm book up until the very last entry, Arendt's address at Jaspers' funeral. That's enough to send a shiver up your spine--but only if you read it in the context of everything else.

More Than a Correspondence - A Dialogue
In 1926 Hannah Arendt was a student of Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg University. What began as the questions of a student to her teacher in 1926 blossomed into a friendly correspondence that ended with Arendt's forced emigration from Nazi Germany to the United States, with a stopover in France in the 30s, and then resumed in the Postwar years completely transformed into a rich, detailed dialogue between colleagues and friends, taking on a father-daughter feeling in many of the letters.

It was during the years after 1945 that the two examined everything about their world and themselves. Of particular importance were the dual issues of German guilt for the war and, for Jaspers, what it meant to be a Jew, for not only was Arendt and her husband Jewish, but also Jaspers's wife. This issue becomes intertwined in their conversations about the future of West Germany, the Suez War of 1956, and Arendt's trip to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann. When they shift the political into the personal, Martin Heidegger, a colleague of Jaspers and a teacher of Arendt, is there for taking. The passages concerning Heidegger are quite gossipy at times and lend the reader a voyeuristic look into the private worlds of Arendt and Jaspers. It's almost as if when things get dull and weighty, a little dirt about Heidegger adds just the spice to make the letter memorable.

The other strong point of this book is the portrait Arendt paints of politics in 1950s America, succinctly analyzing the Eisenhower (and later Kennedy) Administrations, describing the collapse of the cities in the 60s, and the "pointless" war in Vietnam. It's almost as if a mirror were held up to history, as insights about those turbelent times pour forth from every letter dispatched.

An invaluable book, not only for those interested in the scholarly events of the times, but for anyone interested in the history of the times. ... Read more

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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 Jasper's lifetime; the third and fourth have been gathered from the vast material of his posthumous papers. This is the fourth volume. Following his original plan of "promoting the happiness that comes of meeting great men and sharing in their thoughts," Jaspers discusses Descartes, a pious Catholic who vacillated between rational philosophy and obedience to authority. Lessing, whose thought was clear, open-ended, experimental, hones. Pascal. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Weber, who posed most penetratingly and urgently the "radical questionability of human Existenz." Marx was a dogmatic dreamer, and Einstein a great scientist, but limited in his insight into human existence. Jasper's method is personal, one of constant questioning and struggle, as he enters into dialogue iwth his "eternal contemporaries," the thinkers of the past. For he believes that it is only through communication with others that we come to ourselves and to wisdom.
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Customer Reviews (1)

a splendid and wonderful book
What a magnificient analysis full of profound and original insights.This book was done with such exemplary clarity that one need not be a student of philosophy in order to comprehend the ideas that are discussed.I wouldhighly recommend this book to anyone interested in discovering theimportant pathway into the lives and thoughts of the great minds. ... Read more