Karl Jaspers

Karl Theodor Jaspers (Oldenburg, February 23, 1883 – Basel, February 26, 1969) was a German philosopher and psychiatrist.

He studied medicine and, after working at the psychiatric hospital of the University of Heidelberg, became a professor of psychology at the Faculty of Arts of that institution. Dismissed from his post by the Nazi regime in 1937, he was reinstated in 1945 and, three years later, began teaching philosophy at the University of Basel.
Jaspers' thought was influenced by his knowledge of psychopathology and, in part, by the thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Max Weber. He always had an interest in integrating science with philosophical thought insofar as, for Jaspers, the sciences are insufficient on their own and need the critical examination that only philosophy can provide. This, in turn, must be based on an elucidation, as complete as possible, of the existence of real man, and not of abstract humanity. The result of Jaspers' reflections on the subject was the first formulation of his existential philosophy. Author of the two-volume book: "General Psychopathology," a major milestone in his career and in the evolution of psychopathology.

According to Jaspers, existentialism (or philosophy of existence) constitutes the realm in which all knowledge and all possible discovery occur. Therefore, the philosophy of existence comes to be constituted as a metaphysics. Existence, in any of its aspects, is precisely the opposite of an "object," since it can be defined as "that which is directed towards itself." The central problem is how to think about existence without making it an object.

Human existence is understood as intimately linked to historicity and the notion of situation: to exist is to transcend in freedom, opening a path amidst a set of concrete historical situations.

Jaspers was concerned with establishing the relationship between existence and reason, which led him to investigate the concept of truth in depth. For him, truth is not understood as a characteristic of any particular statement: it is rather a kind of environment that surrounds all knowledge.