Psychiatrist turned philosopher of existence who read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard as its sources and raised the question of German guilt
Beginning as a psychiatrist with General Psychopathology (1913), he became full professor of philosophy at Heidelberg in 1921 and, with Psychology of Worldviews and Philosophy (1932), stood beside Heidegger as the leading German philosopher of existence. He held Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to be the most important thinkers after Kant, read Nietzsche as the revealer of nihilism who left its overcoming as a task, and published his introduction to Nietzsche in 1936. Forced out of teaching in 1937 because his wife was Jewish, he was reinstated in 1945 and examined Germans' responsibility for Nazi crimes in The Question of German Guilt. He moved to Basel in 1948, took Swiss citizenship late in life, and strictly distinguished his philosophy of existence from Sartre's existentialism.
Also known as: Karl Theodor Jaspers
Activities and affiliations
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1908–1915
Germany state institutionsPhysician at the Heidelberg psychiatric clinic
Science and technology -
1921–1948
Germany state institutionsProfessor of philosophy, Heidelberg UniversityMain
Scholarship and theory -
1948–1961
Switzerland state institutionsProfessor of philosophy, University of Basel
Scholarship and theory
Career Timeline
- 1908Medical doctorate at Heidelberg; psychiatric hospital
- 1913General Psychopathology; habilitation in psychology
- 1919Psychology of Worldviews
- 1921Full professor of philosophy at Heidelberg
- 1932Philosophy (3 vols)
- 1936Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity
- 1937Forced out of teaching because of his Jewish wife
- 1945Reinstated at Heidelberg
- 1946The Question of German Guilt
- 1948–1961Professor of philosophy at Basel