Jaspers, Karl (1883–1969)

Karl Jaspers is generally known as an existentialist, but he also developed interesting conceptions in other fields of philosophy: in philosophy of religion, the concepts of Transcendence, cipher and philosophical faith; in philosophy of history, the thesis of an Axial Period in history; in political philosophy, the idea of a new, reasonable politics. His existentialism deals mainly with personal moral attitudes and private aspects of individual self-realization in boundary situations and intimate interpersonal communication. His political philosophy concentrates on controversial political affairs and some of the urgent problems of his age (for example, the possibility of extinguishing all life on earth by the atom bomb, or of establishing a world-wide totalitarian regime).