JASPERS, KARL (1883–1969), was one of the most influential German thinkers of the twentieth century and a founder of modern existential philosophy. Born in Oldenburg, Jaspers studied law and medicine. After writing several works on psychopathology, he turned to philosophy, and in 1920 he became a professor at Heidelberg. He was dismissed from that position by Nazi authorities in 1937; after 1948 he taught at Basel, where he died.

For Jaspers, philosophizing is an effort to understand and to express the authentic experience of realities that can never be conceptually explained and are not objectifiable; therefore it cannot pretend to be knowledge in the same sense as scientific knowledge. Jaspers accepts the Augustinian maxim "Deum et animam scire cupio" (I want to know God and the soul), but neither God nor the soul are possible positive objects of metaphysical speculation. Their place is taken respectively by "the all-encompassing" (das Allumgreifende...