Abstract

Karl Jaspers explicitly claims the title of philosophy of ‘existence’, in the special sense of an illumination of the self-conscious being of a unique man facing the problem of transcending his individual, historic situation by real, personal choice even at the risk of teetering on the razor-edge of irrationality. With a wide range of medical and psychological knowledge and a deep philosophical interest he formulates the most systematic analysis of contemporary Existentialism, although paradoxically he denies the possibility of any universal or objective science of being which is radically individual, contingent and ineffable in itself. Though individual human analysis has its limits, it is not a mere psychology but an active engagement of personal choice, which resists all attempt to absorb it in a complete rational scheme or science. The non-rational ‘encompasses’ every category of being, therefore, and philosophy must suffer light from the classic exceptions, particularly Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Of course classic intellectualism has always recognised that reality is never exhausted by any conceptual analysis, but Jaspers pushes this inadequacy almost into an opposition. Hence the methodological difficulty of exposition is multiplied in his case by a doctrinal impossibility of systematic science as opposed to developing self-consciousness.