Karl Jaspers

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), German philosopher, influenced modern theology and psychiatry as well as philosophy.

Although he rejected explicit religious doctrines, Jaspers influenced contemporary theology through his preoccupation with transcendence and the limits of human experience.

In his first major work, General Psychopathology (1913), Jaspers criticized the scientific pretensions of psychotherapy as misleading and deterministic.

In Philosophy (3 vols.1932), Jaspers gave his view of the history of philosophy and introduced his major themes.

He viewed philosophy as an effort to explore and describe the margins and limits of experience, and he used the term "the encompassing" to refer to the ultimate limits of being.

Jaspers also wrote extensively on the threat to human freedom posed by modern science and modern economic and political institutions.

Another important work was Philosophy and Existence (1938). For Jaspers, the term "existence" designates the indefinable experience of freedom and possibility; an experience which constitutes the authentic being of individuals who become aware of "the encompassing" by confronting suffering, conflict, guilt, chance, and death.

"Transcendence" is the term Jaspers used to identify God in the intense emotional experience of human beings.