Karl Jaspers 1883 – 1969

Karl Jaspers was a 20th-century German philosopher and psychiatrist, one of the founders of existentialism and a major figure of mid-20th century European thought. His early work General Psychopathology established his reputation in psychiatry and developed a phenomenological method for understanding subjective experience that he later extended into philosophy. His three-volume Philosophy and his later The Origin and Goal of History articulated his account of existence, the limit-situations in which authentic existence is at stake, and the Axial Age in which several of the world's major philosophical and religious traditions emerged independently. He was a friend of Martin Heidegger early in their careers and a sharp post-war critic of Heidegger's Nazi associations. His wife was Jewish and he was forced from his university post by the Nazi regime, after which he wrote The Question of German Guilt addressing collective responsibility for Nazi crimes.