Some Brief Biographical Remarks

Jaspers is one of the influential German thinkers of the twentieth century. His influence is found in the works of Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jürgen Habermas, Helmut Plessner and Paul Tillich among other thinkers. Jaspers' contribution to the medical, psychiatric and philosophical fields is extensive; his General Psychopathology, for example, is still used in psychiatry. It is none the less unfortunate that, as a philosopher, he has not been fully appreciated or fully explored in the English-speaking world. In his outlook and mode of inquiry, Jaspers' primary focus was the concrete individual. He believed that personal experience is one's fundamental source of truth about reality. His interest in humanity, the individual, freedom and communication remained throughout his life.

One of the crucial factors which affected his philosophical thinking profoundly was an incurable disease, which forced him to live constantly in the face of death. His frailty may have made him acutely aware of his ‘limiting situation’ and its significance in life. Reflections on limiting situations such as suffering, struggle, guilt and, in particular, death, which are important features of human existence, shaped his existential thoughts. He expresses his suffering as a young boy in his Philosophical Autobiography: