KARL JASPERS

From Selfhood to Being

 KARL JASPERS
From Selfhood to Being

Ronny Miron

Amsterdam - New York 2012

 CONTENTS

Forewords xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1
1. Opening 1
2. Periodization of Jaspers’s Works 4
3. Philosophizing Framework 6
4. Philosophical Method 8
5. Philosophical Experience of Boundary 11
6. Methodological Approach 14
7. Structure 18

PART ONE: THE EXPLICATION OF SELFHOOD 21

ONE Selfhood through Mental Illness 23

1. Note on the Framework 23
2. Mental Illness as an Expression of the Individual’s
World 24
3. Criticism of the Science of Psychiatry 27
4. The Primacy and Centrality of Subjectivity 32
5. The Idea of the Person as a Whole 39

TWO Selfhood in World Views 45

1. From Pathology to Normality 45
2. “World View” 46
3. The Method in Psychology 48
4. The Metaphysical Elements in the World View 57

THREE Selfhood and the World 65

1. From Subjectivity to Existenz 65
2. The Reality of the World as a Component in
Elucidating Selfhood 68
3. The World as Real Reality and the Question of
Consciousness 75
vi CONTENTS

FOUR Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 81

1. Back to Existenz 81
2. Separating Existenz from the World 82
3. Returning Existenz to the World 88
4. Freedom as Will 91
5. The Tension between Objectivity and Subjectivity 95

PART TWO: TRANSITION MECHANISMS 101

Introduction to Transition Mechanisms: From the Explication of Selfhood

To the Explication of Being 103

FIVE Communication 109

1. Existenz Facing Another Existenz 109
2. Existential Communication 110
3. Communication as a Means of Constituting the
Selfhood of Existenz 113
4. Communication as a Transition Mechanism 120

SIX Historicity 127

1. From World Orientation and Communication to
Historicity 127
2. Between Historicity and History 127
3. Consciousness of Historicity and History 130
4. Transcendence in Consciousness of Historicity 135

SEVEN Boundary Situations 141

1. Expanding the Boundaries of Existence from
“Situation Being” to “Boundary Situations” 141
2. Boundary Situations in Psychology 142
3. Boundary Situations in Philosophy 149
4. Boundary Situations as a Transition Mechanism in
Comparison with Communication and Historicity 156

Transition Mechanisms: A Concluding Overview 161

1. Three Forms of Otherness 161
2. Absolute Consciousness 163
 CONTENTS vii

PART THREE: THE EXPLICATION OF BEING 169

EIGHT The “Foundering” 171

1. Existenz Toward Transcendence 171
2. Foundering as a Philosophical Concept 175
3. Freedom of Existenz and Foundering 180
4. Foundering as a “Cipher” 183

NINE Being as Encompassing 185

1. The Encompassing Between Two Viewpoints:
Epistemological and Ontological 187
2. The Two Facets of Being as the Encompassing: The
Immanent and the Transcendent 207
3. Periechontology 221

TEN The Ciphers of Transcendence 227

1. From the Foundering and the Encompassing to the
Concept of Cipher 227
2. Foreshadowing Aspects of the Cipher in
Psychology 230
3. Immanence as a Cipher of Transcendence 234
4. The Concept of Cipher and Consciousness 241
5. Metaphysical Consciousness as a Language 247
6. The Concept of Cipher as Mediating between the
Elucidation of Selfhood and the Explication of
Being 257

ELEVEN Between Being and Transcendence 263

1. “Being” and “Transcendence” 263
2. The Concept of Transcendence as Reflected in
Research 265
3. Facing the Contradiction 273

Conclusion 275

Notes 279

Bibliography 319

About the Author 335

Index 337
 INTRODUCTION

1. Opening

In one of his lectures on philosophical intuition, Henri Bergson claimed that every
great philosopher ultimately aimed to express in his writings one simple intuition,
a point where there “is something simple, infinitely simple, so extraordinarily
simple, that the philosopher has never succeeded in saying it. And that is why he
went on talking all his life.”1 That this statement of Bergson’s also appears to be
true of the philosophy of Karl Jaspers. This philosophy, that was formulated
against the background of the fin de siecle, and that dealt with such a wide range
of issues—metaphysics, ethics, politics, education, religion, history, art, and
more—wished to contend with one fundamental problem: the ability of modern
human beings to establish a metaphysical consciousness.2 The heart of this book
will clarify the formation of metaphysical consciousness in Jaspers’s writings
between 1910 and 1947.
The basis of metaphysical consciousness in Jaspers’s thought is the human
search for the meaning of life and existence (Dasein). This search is grounded in
the discontent that accompanies people and in the intuition that there exists some
entity beyond the immediate reality in which people live and act. This intuition
becomes an evident awareness in Jaspers’s thought. On the one hand, it expresses
people’s endeavor to elucidate the discontent they experience within being.
On the other hand, it reflects people’s position in the face of the possibility of
the existence of a transcendental entity whose boundaries exceed the realm in
which human existence operates. Jaspers’s thought is rooted in the Kantian ethos
according to which people act as autonomous entities and create in their
consciousness the reality in which they live, but at the same time it challenges
Immanuel Kant’s approach that human consciousness has no access to “the thing-
in-itself.”
Understanding that metaphysics is embedded in the human condition does not
enable people to escape their basic tasks in existence for another reality, which in
their distress they can envisage as satisfying and [Link] hold of metaphysical
consciousness over immanence entails the possibility in principle that the feeling
of discontent, or more precisely the objective aspects of this feeling, will be
accessible to the instrument of formal consciousness. This datum creates what I
call throughout this study the “epistemological viewpoint,” portraying Jaspers’s
2 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

attempt to encompass what can be known about his topics of discussion, even only
partially. For instance, as part of his perception of the field of psychopathology,
Jaspers attributed great importance to knowing the physical symptoms of a mental
disorder; in his book Psychology of Worldviews he attempted to ground his
arguments on selfhood in the general and structural features of the phenomenon of
multiple worldviews; and in his later philosophical writings he dealt consistently
with illuminating the contribution of the objective worldview of the consciousness
to the clarification of the issues under discussion: Existenz, the world, and Being.
The epistemological viewpoint does not contradict the fundamental intuition
accompanying Jaspers’s searches, and we should not view it as an attempt to
present a substitute for intuition, which as such needs no establishment in the tools
of consciousness. Jaspers’s definition that philosophy “rejects the mythos that
gave it birth” and presents an argued and rational understanding in contrast to the
dreams and deceptions of the history books3 may explain the nature of the
epistemological viewpoint in his thought. It uses rational tools to clarify the
irrational source of philosophy, whether myth or intuition.
However, Jaspers did not view the experience of discontent as a final state of
human existence. His primary aim was to escape this discontent and to formulate,
on the basis of the primary intuition regarding the existence of a transcendental
entity, an explicit philosophical consciousness of this entity. The understanding
that the very experience of discontent indicates the reality of the thing whose
absence a person senses served as a basis for what I call throughout the book “the
ontological viewpoint.” This viewpoint portrays the intention of the consciousness
to explicate the existence of the thing at the center of the discussion. At the same
time, this consciousness is accompanied by the awareness of the limitations of
rational thought in relation to this entity, which Jaspers believed contained
transcendent aspects, such that by their very definition they cannot be accessible
to people’s perception and understanding. For instance, Jaspers argued that the
unique personality of each mental patient is not revealed through the physical
manifestations of his or her condition, and in his philosophical writing he
discussed the limitations of consciousness and its inability to provide complete
understanding of Existenz and of transcendence.
Unlike the epistemological viewpoint, which seeks to expose the general and
objective aspects of the object and to turn them into a conscious element of the
discussion, the ontological viewpoint appeals to its object’s particular aspects, and
has intuitive certainty of its reality. The transcendental aspects of this entity were
perceived as inexplicable using the instruments of consciousness or even those of
philosophy, and this obliges the ontological viewpoint to maintain the inexplicable
element on which metaphysical consciousness is based. While the presence of the
epistemological viewpoint in Jaspers’s thought helped clarify the boundaries of
the accessibility of human consciousness to the “thing-in-itself,” the ontological
viewpoint reflected the philosophical position regarding the gap between the
 Introduction 3

particular nature of a human being’s search for experience and the perfection of
experience as the “thing-in-itself.”
Jasper’s statement that philosophy “also rejects theology” due to its
connection to revelation4 may illuminate a crucial facet of the ontological
viewpoint. Philosophy cannot accept the presence of the transcendental
experience on which theological thought is based as a datum that is taken for
granted. In particular, it cannot accept the attempt to characterize this experience
in a concrete way that could be perceived as formal knowledge about
transcendence. It is true that, like theology, metaphysical philosophical
consciousness recognizes the existence of a transcendental being. However,
metaphysical consciousness is not grounded in an approach according to which
recognition of a transcendental entity is detached from the unique character of the
person establishing a relation toward Being. Jaspers’s philosophical effort to
regard revelation as “a historic form of phenomenal transcendence,”5 grounding it
in the immanent starting point of the person relating to it, may cause the loss of
revelation’s universal character, a character that theology sometimes aims to
prove. The concept of historicity will be discussed in Chapter Six. However, only
in this way may revelation be a significant component in the framework of
philosophical consciousness aimed at explicating the entity of an experience
beyond the boundaries of immanence.
Just as mythology, theology, and philosophy were for Jaspers three spheres
that together form metaphysics and that exist in constant tension, so, too, we must
recognize the inseparability of the two viewpoints, epistemological and
ontological, presented in this book as founding elements of the metaphysical
consciousness that develops in his thinking. As Jasper says:

Philosophical metaphysics tried by pondering transcendence in existence,

by thoughts that reach the ultimate origins and limits of existence, turn
somersaults, and require present fulfillment by a historic Existenz. In
philosophical metaphysics we adopt mythical reality from everywhere
and seek to understand what is alien to us in mythology and revelation
[emphasis mine].6

Metaphysics in Jaspers’s thought is not presented as based on objective

foundations that may enable communications between people (Jaspers’s
perception of communications will be discussed in Chapter Five), but as an
experience where people meets themselves each time while clarifying their
disposition vis-à-vis transcendence.7 This process can serve as a basis for an
illusion, since neither transcendence nor self can be fully philosophically
explicated. However, Jaspers claimed that the effort entailed in fulfilling this
double task and the insights formulated as a result may cause a person to
4 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

“abysmally delude himself, but as a thinker he can also find there his most
profound self-assurance”.8
This process of forming the metaphysical consciousness in Jaspers’s thought
ultimately reflects the human attempt to find meaning in existence primarily by
relying on the intuition about the existence of a transcendental being. At the same
time, the reality of this entity is not perceived in Jaspers’s thought as being limited
to the relations of people toward it, but instead it exists in its own right, as the
“thing-in-itself.”

2. Periodization of Jaspers’s Works

Metaphysical consciousness in Jaspers’s works originates in two basic drives: to

elucidate selfhood and to explicate being. Jaspers’s dealing with these two drives
was expressed in the works published in the two periods of his life discussed in
this book: the medical-psychological period (1910–1919) and the philosophical
period (1932–1947), during which his main philosophical works were written. His
writings from the third period, the socio-political period, not discussed in this
book, include publications written after the Second World War.9 In this period,
Jaspers showed, both in the theoretical issues he discussed and in his participation
in official committees, a public awareness that was not typical of his earlier
periods, and this had a deep impact on the nature and contents of his writings.
The criterion for distinguishing the periods is mainly thematic. It relies on the
continuity or centrality of the topic under discussion. The writings from the first
period, dealing with selfhood, will be discussed in the first part of this book,
Explication of Selfhood. The second period, characterized by philosophical
writing, displayed a displacement of selfhood from the heart of the discussion, in
favor of the explication of Being. This period will be discussed in the third and
final part of the book, Explication of Being. A discussion of the thematic and
methodological aspects of the transition from the first to the second period will
appear in the second part of this book, Transition Mechanisms.

A. The Medical-Psychological Period

During the first period of his writings, Jaspers wrote articles about psychiatry
(1910–1913), and the books General Psychopathology (1913) and Psychology of
World Views (1919). Along with his practice and academic study of medical
issues related to mental illness, and against the background of positivistic
approaches in science in general and in contrast to them, in this period Jaspers
tended to examine different aspects related to the patient’s self and private world.
The book Psychology of World Views, which Jaspers wrote after leaving the
field of psychopathology, expressed his wish to obtain a wider view of human
beings, beyond the boundaries of mental psychopathology. The choice to examine
 Introduction 5

the subjective experience of the individual from a point of view of normality

opened new horizons for Jaspers, enabling him to examine more abstract aspects
of this experience. At the same time, Jaspers consistently avoided exploring
aspects related to the concrete reality in which the subjective entity under
discussion lived and operated. These features of the discussion of selfhood in this
book testify to the development that occurred in Jaspers’s approach compared
with his earlier writings. His turning to the abstract aspects of selfhood indicated
the philosophical direction he was about to adopt in the coming years. Jaspers
himself described this book with hindsight as “my unconscious way to
philosophy.”10 However, the separation of the discussion of selfhood from the
discussion of concrete reality and the absence of additional aspects that Jaspers
saw as essential for philosophical discussion do not enable us to include this book
in the second period, when his philosophical writings were developed.
Relatively little research literature exists about Jaspers’s writings from the
medical-psychological period, and it usually does not deal with the challenge of
linking them to his philosophical thought. We may assume that the research
literature perceived these early writings as irrelevant to understanding Jaspers’s
philosophy. Unlike the common approach, the interpretation I offer in this book to
these writings deals with the challenge of revealing the complex relation between
them and his later thought, and focuses on the perception of selfhood (Selbstsein)
developed in them.

B. The Philosophical Period

The second period of Jaspers’s writings began in the early nineteen thirties, with
the publication of Philosophy (1932), and it includes his main writings up to the
end of the Second World War: Reason and Existenz (1935), Philosophy of
Existence (1938), and Out of Truth (1946). In this period, Jaspers, appointed in
1920 as Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg University, strengthened his
position as a philosopher dealing with classic philosophical issues such as
consciousness, human beings, the world, and Being. In his writings from this
period, Jaspers continued to discuss the issue of selfhood that had interested him
already in his early work, and he even dealt with it in greater depth compared with
the first period. However, the main issue that interested him during the second
period was clarifying Being and transcendence.
Both these periods are at the center of this study, which will show their
continuity and development.

C. The Socio-Political Period

In the third period, encompassing the works written after the Second World
War—mainly essays and political books—Jaspers became a thinker familiar to the
6 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

general public.11 Even when consciously addressing a wide audience of readers,

using a simple and flowing style, and trying to participate in the formation of the
new social and cultural reality, Jaspers never stopped viewing himself as a
philosopher, and in this period he even wrote Philosophical faith in the face of
Revelation. Jaspers redefined his thinking and changed its name from “philosophy
of existence” to “philosophy of reason”—a name he believed expressed the “age
old essence” (uralte Wesen) of philosophy.12 However, this book is the exception
that proves the rule of this period, when Jaspers discussed mainly social issues
that interested Germany after the war: educating the youth; the idea of academia;
the question of German guilt; the conditions and possibilities of humanism in the
new political and social situation; and especially the question of the role and
essence of reason and philosophy in the new reality.13 In this period Jaspers was
prominent among German thinkers seeking to establish a new identity and to
found a “different Germany” on the basis of cosmopolitan values and universal
ideals.14 The new Humanism to whose development he wished to contribute,
presented human freedom and its decisions regarding the truth and necessity of
values as the corner stone supporting everything. In his introduction to the
periodical Die Wandlung, reflecting his personal experiences and value decisions,
Jaspers formulated the principles of this approach:

By no means can we say that we have already lost everything. As long as

we have not wasted in desperate anger everything we could have had as
something that cannot be lost: the element of history—for us [this element
is] first and foremost a thousand years of German history, and then the
history of the West and finally the history of the whole of humanity… We
will gain contact with everything human beings have experienced all over
the world in the most extreme form. A German outcast in his homeland can
find his support in the wide spaces of this humanity [emphasis mine].15

In his work written after the war, Jaspers sought to express the profound political
and cultural changes Germany experienced after the war. Although there exists
significant influence of his early work on the writings of this period, these works
should be examined first and foremost against the background of the challenges of
the period when they were written.16 This sort of study requires a different
methodology and poses different questions than those on which this book focuses,
and this book will concentrate only on the works from the first two periods.

3. Philosophizing Framework

Jaspers opened the three-volume work Philosophy with the question “What is
Being?,” and stated that this question arose from the basic situation of people in
the world.17 This is not just one of many questions people ask about existence, but
 Introduction 7

a fundamental question (Grundfrage) relating to what philosophy has discussed

since its inception.18 Jaspers listed three aims derived from the question of Being:
philosophical world orientation, self-fulfillment and the openness toward
transcendence19, and devoted to each of these aims a separate volume: (1)
Philosophical World Orientation; (2) Existential Elucidation; (3) Metaphysics.
The three volumes, discussing the three classic issues of philosophy—world,
humanity and God—include all the issues Jaspers’s thought discussed in its
different periods. The fact that he chose to present the framework of his discussion
in Philosophy (1932) is no accident. This book, written after Psychology of World
Views (1919), was undoubtedly Jaspers’s “visiting card,” through which he wished
to distance himself from the fields of psychiatry and psychology, and turn to the
professional study of philosophy. Philosophy is in many ways the most mature and
systematic of Jaspers’s works, and he himself defined it as “closest to my heart”.20
Alongside the three areas of philosophy, Jaspers presented three types of
existence that were destined to become the basic distinctions on which his
philosophy was based: “objective Being,” “subjective Being” and “Being-in-
itself.” Objective Being (Objektsein) expressed everything accessible to human
consciousness and everything that can become “known being” (Gewußtsein)
through science. Subjective being (Ichsein) is separate from the object being and
expresses the unmediated layer of individual human existence.
When people think about their existence in the abstract, they see it as an
object, they become in their eyes Being-in-itself (Ansichsein) and see all other
beings as subject to it.21 Just as the three areas of philosophy are not separate from
each other, but constitute one whole, so also the three forms of existence are not
separate from each other, but together portray the complex where human life
occurs. So the question of Being is a sort of organon of Jaspers’s whole
philosophy, meaning that it defines the objects about which he philosophizes, and
their combination forms the whole of his thought.
Jaspers apparently based this basic division of fields of philosophy on Kant’s
division into the three transcendental ideas of pure reason: the idea of the
knowledge of the world, which is the absolute idea of all the conditions of the
phenomena; the idea of the study of the soul, which is the idea of humanity as the
final subject of all philosophy; and the idea for knowing God, which is the total
unity of the conditions of all objects.
The transcendentalism through which Kant defined the three ideas shows that
unlike the categories, they cannot be derived from the mind, and they do not refer
directly to the objects of the mind as such.22 In addition, I argue that the relation
between Kant’s ideas of reason and categories of mind is similar in principle to
that between Jaspers’s three areas of philosophy and the disciplines that deal with
them formally. Just as Kant’s philosophy perceived the ideas as complementing
for reason what was missing in the categories of mind, which apply only to
experience, so Jaspers perceived “philosophical world orientation,” “existential
8 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

elucidation,” and “metaphysics” as complementing the three disciplines of their

background: science, whose object is the world; psychology, whose object is the
spiritual life; and theology, whose object is religion. While Jaspers never
indicated his attitude toward Kant’s distinctions, the use he made of them goes
beyond the adoption of an efficient method of organization, and expresses the
anchor he found in this philosophy that continued to guide him when he wrote his
different works.23

4. Philosophical Method

Alongside the obvious relation of Jaspers’s philosophical framework to Kant’s

basic concepts, we can also observe a certain proximity between these two
thinkers in their philosophical method. According to Kant’s transcendental
method, people cannot achieve knowledge of any state of affairs without revealing
the general and a-priori system of rules on which it relies.24 Like Kant’s
transcendental method, Jaspers’s method of transcending (Transzendieren) also
aims to clarify the fundamental premises or a-priori certain logic on which
philosophizing is based. This method enabled Jaspers not to see the philosophical
framework set out in Philosophy as a starting point, but already as the result or the
implementation of his method of transcending. In this respect, the three areas
included in this framework: (1) Philosophical World Orientation, (2) Existential
Elucidation, and (3) Metaphysics, should be seen as an objective framework
within which the fields of science, psychology, and religion are rooted.
(1) In Philosophical World Orientation, the method of transcending is
applied to everything that can be scientifically objectified. The German word
Wissenschaft, meaning science, has a much wider range of meaning than the
English word “science,” which is usually used to mean the exact sciences. The
German term indicates a process of methodical investigation both of human
existence with all its theoretical and practical aspects, whose results are universal
knowledge that can be phrased using accurate definitions. Sometimes this term
appears as “science in general” (Wissenschaft überhaupt), in contrast to science
whose object is single and more limited (Einzelnwissenschaft).25 The
transcendence from this framework should have applied to specific contents of
human existence in the world. However, Jaspers clarified that it is based on the
understanding that the Kantian perception sees the world as a disintegrating
“phenomenon.”26
The transcendence in philosophical world orientation is primary and limited
in the horizons it aims at, compared with the two following transcendences, but it
serves as an introduction and a condition for them. This transcendence is essential
in philosophy aimed at explicating “Being” and “transcendence,” as is
demonstrated in the following passage:
 Introduction 9

We search for coming to the limits that we expect, for the world, as
appearance, does not rest on its laurels, does not have a self-subsistent
existence… These boundaries, in their concrete form, do not allow us to
ignore them. I do not recognize them from general knowledge but I become
aware of them only through empirical reality itself. The more world
experience [Welterfahrung] is fulfilled in theoretical and practical terms
the more lucid is the manner of transcending the world. Without world
there exists no transcendence [emphasis mine].27

(2) Within Existential Elucidation, the method of transcending is applied to the

perception of the individual as a Being existing in a concrete reality in order to
expose its selfhood in its peculiar specificity.28 Jaspers presented the experience of
Existenz that was shaped in this framework as what exists beyond objectivity but
within the boundaries of immanent reality.29 In this respect, the concept of
Existenz combines the perception of the individual as a unique being that cannot
be generalized, and the understanding that this individual can transcend the level
of objectivity and even consolidate a relation toward transcendence.
Jaspers’s argument that Existenz itself cannot be understood, but instead
reveals to philosophy the incomprehensible (Unverstehbare)30, encompasses the
basic difference separating the two philosophical frameworks. While in
Philosophical World Orientation reality and the action of the individual’s mind
are two sides of the same coin, in Existential Elucidation reality and thought are
separate, so that what is considered universal in Philosophical World Orientation
is no longer perceived as such. In Existential Elucidation, the one-time uniqueness
of individuals is perceived as a basis that enables them to transcend the boundaries
of empirical reality. Existenz, as the name for this uniqueness, becomes possible
only in this boundary, where it is an experience that is not an individual case of
generality. So it is perceived as inaccessible to the tools of objective reason.
(3) In Metaphysics, the method of transcending serves as an instrument to
breach the other philosophical frameworks, Philosophical World Orientation and
Existential Elucidation, in order to achieve a certainty that does not depend on
existence and to form a relation toward transcendence. However, the act of
transcending in Metaphysics is only possible by Existenz that has achieved
philosophical world orientation and whose selfhood is clear to itself.31 The
implementation of the method of transcending in the two philosophical
frameworks presented above should be seen as a basis and a preparation for its
implementation in Metaphysics. The concept of “transcendence” (Transzendenz),
whose elucidation is at the heart of the philosophical framework of Metaphysics,
indicates the existence of a Being that is not existence (Dasein), consciousness
(Bewusstsein), or Existenz. Transcendence, transcending all of these, represents
what will never become an object, the complete contrast to finality and the
expectation and openness to everything that formal consciousness cannot access.32
10 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

The three forms of transcending presented above are anchored in the idea of
the “whole” (Ganze).33 This idea has two faces: the subjective face is based on the
origin of the “whole” being in the individual’s drive to reveal the meaning of
Being, and we must understand it as being beyond all forms of objectivity. The
objective face of the “whole” is based on serving as an object for the person’s
desire. This desire does not enable people to be satisfied with their boundaries and
directs them to things beyond themselves. The “whole” is perceived in Jaspers’s
thought as a substrate in which philosophy is anchored, and that motivates it, and
at the same time as a horizon that it constantly aims to approach in order to
become an explicit element in people’s consciousness.
The anchoring of the method of transcending in the idea of the “whole”
supports the understanding of the three contexts of philosophizing as not only
derivatives of different disciplines but as parts of a comprehensive whole that
exists beyond them. This shows another similarity between Jaspers and Kant, who
deduced from his transcendental dialectic the following:

We easily see that pure reason has no other aim than the absolute totality of
synthesis on the side of conditions, and that reason has nothing to do with
absolute completeness from the side of the conditioned. For it needs only
the former series in order to presuppose the whole series of conditions and
thereby give it to the understanding a priori.
...Finally we also come to be aware that a certain connection and unity
showing itself among the transcendental ideas themselves and that pure
reason by means of it brings all its cognitions into a system. To progress
from the cognition of oneself (of the soul) to cognition of the world, and,
by means of this, to the original being, is so natural that this progression
appears similar to the logical advance of reason from premises to
conclusion [emphasis mine].34

Although Jaspers’s thought reflects the aim to make the “thing-in-itself” explicit,
he avoids presenting his method of transcending as an instrument whose use
guarantees the solution of the question of Being. The definition of the method of
transcending as “only an act, not a result”35 strengthens the understanding that this
method served mainly as an instrument to reveal the three facets of the human
being: the wish to make the world familiar, the drive to consolidate selfhood, and
the search for God.36 The focus on these aspects indicates that Jaspers’s thought
did not concentrate on consolidating the contents to fill metaphysical
consciousness, but with revealing the conditions of consciousness or even the state
of mind (Stimmung) that could facilitate the achieving of this consciousness.
Jaspers aims to explicate the ways a person could imagine (Vergenenwärtingen)
the very possibility of the existence of an absolute being. He also stressed that
even within the act of transcending implemented in the realm of metaphysics, the
 Introduction 11

philosopher remains in dialectic that leaves him in a constant contradiction whose

solution, were it possible, would empty transcendence of meaning.37 In this
respect, the method of transcending serves as a means for marking new targets for
philosophy, which ensures that metaphysical consciousness is subject to a constant
process of development. Because it remains unanswered, the question of Being
serves as a motivation and as an urge for a mode of being where philosophizing
accompanies experience of reality.

5. Philosophical Experience of Boundary

Jaspers’s method of transcending relies on the experience of boundary that is one

of the primary insights that characterize his thought throughout the different
periods. This experience has two aspects: first and foremost it expresses the need
of individuals to constantly evaluate the entirety of insights and experiences they
have accumulated so far, and to formulate them as assets at their disposal in the
future. But what is perceived as an asset is not translated into an experience of self
satisfaction or what Jaspers defined as “calmness” (Gelassenheit) regarding
people’s achievements. The basic drive motivating people to appraise their
achievements and to focus on what has not yet been achieved reflects the
condition of philosophizing that aims to create an approach that unifies all the
different philosophical insights.38 Without this drive, what has already been
achieved could become fossilized and lose its creative power. The other aspect of
the boundary experience was aimed at marking new targets for philosophizing and
presenting them to the individual as a demand for perfection, since even if this
perfection cannot be achieved, it drives people and does not let them stand still.
The very search for perfection and the explication of the experience in its absence
are what formulate, in Jaspers’s thought, the way for creating a metaphysical
consciousness.
In addition, philosophical experience of the boundary reflected the target at
which philosophizing was aimed in each of the stages of the development of
Jaspers’s thought: In General Psychopathology this experience served as a basis
for determining the boundaries of the science of psychiatry and for distinguishing
them from what was known as “the person in his individuality and wholeness.”39
In Psychology of World Views this experience was at the basis of the aim “to
determine the boundaries of our mental life.”40 In Philosophical World
Orientation it served as a means for determining the relation between science and
philosophy. In Existential Elucidation it served to redraw the boundaries between
the world and the ways of knowing the particular experience of Existenz. In
Metaphysics this experience helped clarify the awareness of the limitations of the
consciousness grounded in the selfhood of Existenz alone, an awareness that led it
to create a relation toward transcendence that exists beyond it. Finally, in Out of
Truth the boundary experience, which was at the basis of the perception of the
12 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

“encompassing,” helped discern the relation between the immanent and

transcendent aspects of Being.
The duality typical of the different expressions of the boundary experience,
namely between what philosophizing has already achieved and what is perceived
as a perfection not yet achieved, is at the basis of the distinction Jaspers presented
between contextual boundaries (jeweilige Grenzen) and boundaries in principle
(prinzipielle Grenzen). The contextual boundaries can be crossed, and they
present a challenge for scholars and philosophers, even if they cannot serve as
starting points for philosophy. The boundaries in principle, however, dispute the
world view as a phenomenon, and scientific research reaches the limit of its
ability. But although the boundaries in principle denote the end of the area that
can be studied using formal tools of consciousness, they open for people the
option of philosophical transcending. According to Jaspers, “every boundary
immediately raises the question what is beyond it.”41 Following the relation to the
philosophical framework established by Kant, Jaspers’s distinction between
“contextual boundaries” and “boundaries in principle” is apparently parallel to
two boundary concepts in Kant: the barrier or limit (Schranke) and the boundary
(Grenz). Kant states:

Boundaries (Grenzen) (in external things) always presuppose a space that

is found outside a certain fixed location, and that encloses that location;
limits (Schranken) require nothing of that kind, but are mere negations that
affect a magnitude insofar as it does not posses absolute completeness. Our
reason, however, sees around itself as it were a space for the cognition of
things in themselves, although it can never have determined concepts of
those things and is limited to appearance alone.42

The “limit” is a sort of “stop sign” indicating the point up to which a person can
reach, and no further. The “boundary,” in contrast, turns the discussion to what
happens within its framework, perceived as a sign of the end of the realm of
experience at a person’s disposal. Like the concept of “limit,” the concept of
“boundary” also reflects the end of the area of human experience. From an
ontological point of view, we apparently cannot go beyond the “boundary,” just as
we cannot break through the “limit.” However, standing at the edge of the
“boundary” does not indicate the end of our possible experiences, since from that
boundary point are visible the wide horizons surrounding our existence that are
not included within our experiential consciousness. In Kant’s terms, we cannot
cross the boundaries with our reason, but unlike the “limit,” in the “boundary”
people have an idea about the existence of a space beyond us, a space where in
Kant’s opinion human consciousness locates the “thing-in-itself.” Ultimately the
concept of the “limit” is built by elimination, while the positive concept of
 Introduction 13

“boundary” originates in a sort of intuition that sees it as a sign of the area of

internal and external space.43
Jaspers used the idea of the “boundary” in order to determine the limits of
philosophy from which the method of transcending would be implemented was
not alien to the usage Kant made of his two boundary terms. Kant used the
negative “limit” term to distinguish between the borders of mathematical and
natural sciences knowledge and the borders of metaphysics: in the first, the
meaning of the restriction is that the knowledge existing in these areas has not yet
reached completion, although it is in a constant state of accretion. In these borders
there exists movement from one conditioned thing to another. Kant called the
concepts determined in these areas dogmatic, in the sense that they cannot be
transcended by possible experience,44 since he saw their borders as reflecting the
limitations of the phenomenon and the way it is represented in our
consciousness.45 In contrast to the restriction existing in empirical areas of
knowledge, in metaphysics the boundary is mainly positive, and as such it creates
an insurmountable gap between what is known and what is not known, and must
limit itself. In this context the essence of reason is exhausted in the relation to
what is beyond it. This relation reflects the effort of reason to extend its
boundaries in order to approach what is beyond the “boundary”—although this
experience is itself accompanied by the awareness of reason that it cannot cross
the boundary between itself and the experience beyond it.
Kant’s philosophy was for Jaspers not only a great source of inspiration, from
which and against which he philosophized, but it also provided him with
instruments to formulate his own philosophy. Kant’s influence on Jaspers is
significantly greater in depth and breadth to the influences he absorbed from other
philosophers.46 However, Jaspers did not remain committed to the borders set by
Kant’s philosophy, and often Kant’s ideas served as vessels into which he poured
new and even contrasting contents than those where they first appeared. Jaspers
apparently wished to transcend Kant’s philosophy in one step, or alternately to
withdraw from it by one step: unlike Kant, who placed at the center of his work
the discussion of consciousness and revealing its boundaries, Jaspers’s thought
focused on the person bearing this consciousness. This approach helped Jaspers
reveal additional forms of human experience in existence, which he thought
reflected the human tendency to transcend itself.
The boundary experience and the method of transcending it show us that at
the basis of Jaspers’s attempt to form a metaphysical consciousness were the
philosophical goals he set himself but had not yet achieved. The very experience
of the absence of perfection and its role in determining the targets of philosophy
was, for Jaspers, evidence of the reality of perfection itself. In this respect the
method of transcending served not only as a “limit” to remaining in what had
already been achieved, but also as a means that could lead the philosophers each
time to new districts beyond the “boundary” where they were standing.
14 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

6. Methodological Approach

In his retrospective essay “About My Philosophy,” Jaspers described the two

elements to which philosophical practice is directed: the “being” and the “self.”
As he writes:

The philosophical mediation is an execution (Vollzug) where I reach the

experience and myself. This is no calm thought where I deal with an object
without involvement. Philosophizing is the praxis of my own thinking
source in which the full essence of the human is realized in individual
people. The peak of the praxis is the internal action (inneres Handeln)
through which I become what I am. [This action] is making the experience
discoverable (Offerbarwerden), it is the activity of the selfhood (Selbstein)
which is at the same time experienced as passivity in the turning into the
given to yourself (Sichgeschenktwerden) [emphasis mine].47

These two components of philosophical practice appear in this book as central

axes around which Jaspers’s intellectual biography developed, and as establishing
elements of the metaphysical consciousness he expounded. During the earlier
stages, Jaspers dealt with the element of “self” from different points of view. This
element reached its climax in Jaspers’s philosophical writings with the
establishment of the philosophy of existence. The discussion of “Being” took
place alongside the discussion of selfhood. However, difficulties that arose in this
framework pushed aside the selfhood from the center of the philosophical
discussion, and Jaspers formulated a new philosophical framework, at whose
center were the concepts of “Being” and “transcendence.” In truth, the selfhood
never ceased to interest Jaspers. But its philosophical explication showed him that
behind the person’s original drive to reach self-understanding pulsated another
drive, deeper and more basic, leading people to search for meaning and intent
beyond the boundaries of their self-being. This book aims to show that the two
basic philosophical urges—the urge to explicate selfhood and the urge to form a
relation toward Being and transcendence—were interlinked and simultaneously
influenced the development of Jaspers’s thought in its entirety. The division of
Jaspers’s work into periods should be seen mainly as playing a methodical role.
The order of issues discussed in the book’s chapters is determined largely on
a chronological basis. By ordering the material in this way, the development of
Jaspers’s ideas is examined from a genealogical point of view—what preceded
what, which ideas served as a basis for later and more mature ideas, and what the
different contexts added to explicating the philosophical questions under
discussion. This approach, viewing the order of the ideas’ appearance as critical
for their understanding, aims to deal with the difficulty raised by Jaspers’s
thought—a thought that does not present its themes in a complete and systematic
 Introduction 15

way, and necessitates picking out the arguments that appeared in different contexts
while clarifying these contexts. The genealogical point of view aims to reveal the
dynamic of the development of Jaspers’s philosophy from the writings that
appeared in the psychiatric period up to those written in the philosophical period.
This approach is not sufficient, since a purely genealogical study would limit
the research to “the history of Jaspers’s philosophy” without discussing the
original issues developed in his thought. Alongside the genealogical issue,
sometimes in parallel and sometimes using it as a starting point, the different
philosophical issues will be examined from a thematic point of view. One crucial
aspect that the thematic examination will deal with throughout the book is the
dependence of the understanding of ideas that appeared in the early writings on
those that appeared in later writings. However, this dependence is not a
disadvantage in the context of a discussion that conducts an immanent
phenomenological explication of the philosophical text. The understanding that
occurs in this sort of discussion is always “temporary,” and reflects the discussion
at the stage when it appeared, but will later be formulated differently, more
accurately, in the more advanced stages of explication.
The presence of the two viewpoints, genealogical and thematic, inevitably
creates tension not only between the different parts of the book, but also within
each of the chapters. This tension originates in the basic fact of the hermeneutical
circle that for describing the stages of development requires the writer to have
already a thematic understanding of the issues discussed, but this understanding
only becomes clear to the reader after completing the entire move, at the end of
the book. We should aim to understand the study as one whole, like the way
Jaspers wished his book Philosophy to be read:

The meaning of philosophizing is a single thought, ineffable as such: the

consciousness of being [Seinsbewusstsein]. In this work it ought to be
approachable from every chapter; each should be the whole in detail,
though leaving dark what will first illuminate itself through the rest
[emphasis in the original].48

The book focuses then on clarifying Jaspers’s wide-ranging work, first and
foremost from within itself and from studying the complex mutual relations
between its parts. The choice to conduct a critical phenomenological explication
of the philosophical text makes the writings of the philosopher himself the focus
and main sources for the study. The research seeks to illuminate the different
facets of Jaspers’s thought and its dynamic motion through an immanent
penetration of Jaspers’s thought as reflected in his writings, without requiring an
external justification and without proposing a critical judgment of the validity of
his arguments. This understanding of the role of the interpreter is at the basis of
the decision not to deal in this book with questions about the range of influences
16 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

on Jaspers’s thought, and not to try to discover the similarities and differences
between him and other thinkers of the existentialist tradition, or to locate his work
within the historical context of his time.
The scholarly literature about Jaspers focuses mainly on his philosophical
writings, and places special emphasis on the three-part work Philosophy—the first
and most systematic of them. This literature, a large part of which was written
during Jaspers’s lifetime, contains two main trends: one aims at a particular issue
and presents an immanent interpretation of the sources dealing with it directly.
Among the authors belonging to this trend we can list leading scholars of Jaspers’s
work: Richard Wisser, who discussed the concept of truth; Leonard Ehrlich and
Aloys Klein, who dealt with perceptions of faith and religion; Sebastian Samay,
who discussed questions of objectivity and science; Hans Kunz and Alan M.
Olson, who focused on transcendence; and Kurt Salamun, who illuminated the
ethical aspect. The other trend is an attempt to formulate a general impression of
Jaspers’s thought, often without grounding in a systematic explication of his
writings. The second trend can be exemplified by the work of Fritz Heinemann,
Otto Friedrich Bollnow, Heinrich Knittermyer, and others.49 The literature
included in these two trends does not address philosophically Jaspers’s early
works, dealing with psychiatry, and the ideas developed in Psychology of World
Views are hardly mentioned.50 Apart from the clear break with these early works,
characteristic of most interpretations in both trends, they lack an integrative view
of Jaspers’s work grounded in an analysis of his entire corpus.
However, despite the large scope of scholarly literature in the two trends
presented above, indicating the interest and challenge Jaspers presented to those
who dealt with his work, it would be difficult to remain unaware that Jaspers’s
thought remained to a large extent on the margins of the philosophical discourse
of the past few decades. This phenomenon may be explained in several ways. The
first explanation involves the character and great influence of Martin Heidegger.
Jaspers was Heidegger’s contemporary, and they were both perceived as
representing the German existentialist current. The dominance achieved by
Heidegger with the publication of his book Being and Time in 1927, five years
before the appearance of Jaspers’s Philosophy in 1932, made gaining their place
and status quite difficult for Jaspers and other contemporary philosophers. Even
the thought of Husserl, Heidegger’s teacher, was gradually pushed aside from the
philosophical discourse, while Heidegger’s gained a status and importance that
was already indisputable, and even today is at the center of philosophical activity.
While Jaspers had to deal with the ban on publishing his writings in Nazi
Germany, Heidegger, who joined the Nazi party, continued to publish and
establish his status in Germany during the Nazi regime’s years in power. It was
during the nineteen thirties and forties, when Jaspers’s philosophical writing
reached its maturity that his way to the contemporary philosophical discourse was
barred, even before his thought became available for public criticism.
 Introduction 17

Alongside this historical-biographical explanation, we can suggest another

explanation for the relatively marginal status of Jaspers’s philosophy. This
explanation involves his style of writing and the premises on which his thought
was based. Jaspers deliberately avoided coining distinct philosophical terms, and
in practice allowed his ideas and concepts to draw their meaning from the general
context in which they appeared. This approach contributed to the unsystematic
nature of his thought, and made expressing his already complex and vague ideas
difficult, which often left his readers with the impression that they were not
accessible to rational analysis.51 In this respect we can argue that Jaspers’s
philosophy gave its readers a task that he himself did not achieve: exposing the
basic structures and formulating the fundamental concepts in which it was
grounded. Jaspers largely missed one of the central challenges facing any
philosopher: presenting efficient thought patterns or instruments to help deal with
philosophical problems even outside the boundaries of his thought.52 Readers
undertaking the challenge of Jaspers’s complex philosophy are required to follow
the development of Jaspers’s ideas and concepts throughout his writings and
formulate for themselves their overall meaning.
The interpretation I propose in this book attempts to deal with the challenge
of revealing the unity of the world from which Jaspers wrote—from his
beginnings as a young psychiatrist and up to his late maturity as a philosopher
with his own original approach. The analysis wishes to complete what is missing
in existing research literature about Jaspers, to conduct an immanent
phenomenological explication of his writings, and at the same time to crystallize
an integrative interpretation of the range of issues they discuss. Yet, this will not
take place in a vacuum. The different approaches and interpretations in the
secondary literature are perceived in this framework as part of Jaspers’s text. In
the interpretation offered in this book, and in the illumination of the different
facets of Jaspers’s thought, I will not argue with them and where possible will
build upon them in offering an original interpretation of this philosophy. The
current research literature about Jaspers largely focuses on different issues about
his thought and activity in what was earlier called the “third period,” and so it will
not be discussed in this book. As explained, the research literature dealing with
Jaspers’s philosophical thought in the two first periods of his thought, mainly in
the second period, was mostly written during his lifetime and so can be seen as
part of the contemporary discourse. The discussion of the different interpretations
of Jaspers’s thought will be an integral part within the process of developing the
interpretation offered in this study to Jaspers’s thinking. The critique of these
interpretations does not presume to offer the “correct method” of studying
Jaspers’s work, and does not claim exclusivity. 53
18 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

7. Structure

After the Introduction, this book is divided into three parts comprising eleven
chapters: Part One, containing four chapters (One to Four), deals with the
explication of selfhood. This part discusses the writings of the first period and
some of those from the second period that deal with selfhood. The perception of
selfhood presented in this part relies on the concepts “self” (Selbst), “mental”
(Seelische), and “subjectivity” (Subjektivität) that typified Jaspers’s early writings.
From the book Philosophy onwards, these terms made way for the concept of
“Existenz.” This study seeks to illuminate the development of Jaspers’s thought by
following his use of these concepts. It also studies the process of widening the
philosophical framework from the pathological-psychological viewpoint in the
early writings to the philosophical viewpoint typical of his writings in the second
period, when Jaspers established his philosophy of existence. Jaspers, like other
philosophers of the philosophical trend called Existentialism, preferred to remove
this definition from his thought. The term “philosophy of existence”
(Existenzphilosophie) was first coined by Friz Heinemann, considered one of the
important German scholars of this trend already while it was in formation, in his
book New Way of Philosophy (Neu Weg der Philosophie) (1929). In his later,
more mature work, Heinemann discussed the characteristics that could include
Jaspers’s philosophy in this trend, and its uniqueness compared with other
thinkers of this trend.54
My main argument in this part is that the philosophical effort to explicate
selfhood is influenced by its solipsistic image, but at the same time contains
several attempts to deal with this image. The first stages of his work, mainly in the
psychiatric period and to a large degree also in Psychology of World Views, were
characterized by an almost complete dominance of the solipsistic understanding of
selfhood that led largely to a subjugation of the different issues under discussion
to the question of their relevance to the understanding of selfhood. However, the
discussion in Chapter Three and Four suggests a process of the formation of
Jaspers’s critical awareness of his early approaches and an understanding of the
difficulties arising from them. This awareness enabled Jaspers to abandon some of
the insights of his early work and prepared the ground for the inclusion of new
philosophical concepts, through which Jaspers aimed to ground Existenz in a
wider context. This book examines the influence of the new issues discussed in his
philosophical writings on his perception of selfhood.
Part Two includes an introductory methodological chapter, three chapters
(Five to Seven), and a chapter of conclusions. This part discusses three of
Jaspers’s central and most original ideas—“communication,” “historicity,” and
“boundary situations.” These ideas, which I define as “transitional mechanisms,”
are presented as central instruments that helped Jaspers rescue the perception of
 Introduction 19

selfhood from the influence of the solipsistic image that had accompanied its
discussion up to the appearance of these ideas. These three ideas, discussed
mainly in the Existential Elucidation, helped expand and deepen the perception of
selfhood. These ideas also opened new horizons for Jaspers that served as a
foundation for the establishment of a new philosophical axis in his work, aimed at
explicating Being.
Part Three contains four chapters (Eight to Eleven), and deals with the
explication of Being based entirely on writings included in the philosophical
period. Even in this framework Jaspers continued to discuss selfhood, but the
developments typical of it, first and foremost the distancing from solipsism,
diverted it from the center in favor of the concepts of “Being” (Sein) and
“transcendence” (Transzendenz). The primary motive for discussing the question
of Being and for seeking transcendence was presented as belonging to Existenz;
however, it ceased to function as a touchstone of the different issues that arose in
Jaspers’s philosophy.
Finally, a note about the style of writing. The choice of a phenomenological
method conducting an immanent explication of the original texts leads, almost
inevitably, to a style that humanizes the different concepts under discussion,
abstract though they otherwise are.
 Four

SELFHOOD IN ITS OWN EYES

1. Back to Existenz

Elucidation of Existenz was Karl Jaspers’s last setting where selfhood constituted
the main subject of discussion. Unlike the previous contexts, this time Jaspers
examined it without the mediation of other issues (such as: mental illness, world
views, and the world). In this respect, this framework of discussion can be seen as
the climax of the philosophical move directed at the explication of selfhood in
Jaspers’s thought. The fundamental insights achieved regarding selfhood
continued Jaspers’s early perceptions of it, deepened them, and even gave them
new validity. However, Jaspers only achieved this continuity through a dialectical
move where the early perceptions were critically re-examined. The same insights
that in World Orientation diverted selfhood from its central status did not prevent
its restoration to the focus of philosophizing in Elucidation of Existenz. The return
of Existenz to the focus of discussion, and the renewed interest in the implications
of its perception as a worldly Being in Elucidation of Existenz, did not express a
withdrawal from the basic insights achieved in World Orientation, but instead an
attempt to complement them and to determine their importance in his
philosophical perception of selfhood. After Jaspers had discussed, in World
Orientation, the objective aspects that create the Being of Existenz—a discussion
reflecting the epistemological viewpoint of selfhood—in Elucidation of Existenz,
he tried to express the way Existenz views itself. In this context, the ontological
viewpoint became more prominent, seeking to represent the particular aspects of
this Being.
The following passage reflects the clear awareness of the restrictions imposed
by external reality of the world that is independent of Existenz and of its options
for self-actualization, but at the same time reveals Jaspers’s difficulty in
continuing the philosophical move that had diverted Existenz from the center of
philosophizing:

… What satisfies me in knowing the world is ambiguous: either the world

is desired as my realized existence-wish; … [since] it is inevitable for me
to desire the world in which my Being exists; but as an absolute drive this
desire becomes destructive for me; against [this desire] I hear the demand
82 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

from my possible Existenz: to detach myself from the world into which I
am in danger of sinking. Or else I perform [an act of] transcendence within
the world… in which I see, think, and act.1

Jaspers here reveals the two motives that Existenz could have for knowing the
world reality external to it. It can aim to know it because it is the realm where it
finds its existence. In this respect, the knowing of the world is motivated by a
positive motive, and can be seen as part of Existenz’s self-knowledge or as a
complement to its self-knowledge. Existenz’s attempt to know the world can also
result from a negative motive, its wish to identify the differences between itself
and the surrounding reality in order to establish self-awareness as a Being separate
and distinct from the world. These motives lead to the two options facing
Existenz. The first, appearing here implicitly, directs Existenz to see itself as part
of the world and to act on this awareness. This option is derived from the basic
view of Existenz as a worldly Being. The second, more explicit, option faces
Existenz with the extreme possibility of detaching itself from the world, and
should be understood in the context of its uniqueness as revealed through the
discussion of formal knowledge. The discussion of the possibility of detaching
Existenz from the world has consistently made its mark in the interpretations in
the secondary literature about Jaspers’s perception of Existenz, which tend to
present his philosophy as extreme subjectivism.2 These two options portray the
two centers of gravity that were constantly and mutually tempting at this stage of
the explication of selfhood. Considering his awareness of the limitations of
objective knowledge as a tool for elucidating Existenz, Jaspers aimed at
establishing a channel of discussion where Existenz perceived itself as separate
from the world. However, since the perception of Existenz as a worldly Being
became in his thought after World Orientation an undeniable datum, Jaspers tried
to offer his version of the way Existenz is anchored in immanence.

2. Separating Existenz from the World

Against the background of clarifying Existenz’s fundamental difficulty in

expressing its particular uniqueness in the external world reality, Jaspers examined
the possibility of detaching Existenz from the world. However, the perception of
Existenz as a worldly Being, previously formulated in World Orientation, did not
enable him to argue that separation from the world could constitute a real option
for Existenz as a concrete Being. The question under discussion is apparently
related to the nature of the existentialistic consciousness formulated in the face of
reality. The question is whether Existenz can exist in reality, but at the same time
perceive itself as detached from this reality. To what extent can the self-
consciousness of Existenz ignore the necessity forced upon it by external reality?
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 83

The early writings contained no space to discuss this speculative possibility,

and this is not coincidental, since the perception of selfhood formulated there was
not grounded in seeing the external world as a factor in reference to which the
self-consciousness of Existenz is formed. The perception of reality at the
foundation of the different world view types in Psychology largely reflected
fulfilling the self-understanding needs of the subjective Being.3 Jaspers perceived
the world view that served as a framework for the formation of the individual’s
self-awareness as more real than the world it apparently wished to view. However,
the external world’s reality and the restrictions that its formal knowledge imposes
on its representations became founding elements in the philosophy of Existenz,
and as such they could not be seen as barriers that could be removed or overcome
by any particular viewpoint. This implies that the discussion of the possibility of
Existenz perceiving itself as detached from the world, with which Jaspers opened
Elucidation of Existenz, does not deal with its relation to the reality that was
recognized as we learned in World Orientation, but with the reflexive process that
accompanies the formation of Existenz as a self-aware Being. Jaspers’s answer to
the question presented above is therefore negative. Existenz cannot perceive itself
as isolated from the world’s reality.
Even at this stage, despite the deep modifications that had occurred in his
views, Jaspers’s thinking preserved the motivation to find expression for the
individual’s subjective Being. The clarification of the objective aspects relating to
the Being of Existenz did not weaken this motivation, but merely focused the
essential difficulty of realizing it within the boundaries of a philosophical
approach. The method of transcending, which had already become an overt and
conscious element in his philosophical writings, could not enable Jaspers to be
satisfied with achieving transparency regarding the situation of Existenz in the
world. This transparency itself served as a basis from which Jaspers wished to
transcend. Jaspers’s attempt to remain attached to Existenz’s viewpoint is evident
in his frequent usage of the first person to characterize Existenz, as if it were the
one revealing the philosophical insights about itself. The reexamination of
Existenz’s relations to the world’s reality, which at first appears to be an
unnecessary repetition or a regression to the earlier stages of his thinking, was also
aimed at illuminating the attitude of Existenz toward its situation, and in particular
at preventing the possibility that the objective aspects of existential existence
revealed in the discussion would be its bottom line. The return to the viewpoint of
Existenz is demonstrated in the following passage:

The dissatisfaction that I experience … is a negative source that allows me,

while pulling Existenz from the world’s reality, to feel the reality in this
pull…. This dissatisfaction cannot be sufficiently established, it is the
expression of the Being of possible Existenz, which when it expresses its
lack of satisfaction does not understand the other, but itself. 4
84 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

The experience of dissatisfaction described here relies mainly on the interpretation

Jaspers offered to objectivity from the existentialistic viewpoint. His main
argument was that formal knowledge that generalizes about objects existing in the
world could not serve as an instrument for elucidating Existenz, which is a
potential and unique Being. Here Jaspers expressed the Hegelian idea that self-
awareness was formed by elimination and motivated by the experience of
dissatisfaction.5 However, unlike Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jaspers’s
rejection of the objective viewpoint was a positive facet that affirmed the
particular Being of Existenz on the same level where the negation itself appeared:
in the framework of the explication of selfhood.6 The rejection of the possible
contribution of formal knowledge to the explication of Existenz becomes in its
eyes “its thorn of becoming,”7 meaning that the dissatisfaction is a positive
expression of Existenz’s internal truth as a particular Being that perceives itself as
separate from the world.
The dissatisfaction that Existenz experiences when it wishes to express itself
becomes a starting point for understanding its stance vis-à-vis the world. This is
not a surrender of the search for self-understanding of its place in the world, or an
attempt to ignore the way the world and Existenz itself are perceived from the
objective viewpoint of consciousness. Without these, Existenz would cease to be
what it was. However, since the world’s reality does not appear to Existenz as an
arena where it can realize the possibilities it identifies as its own, it is obliged to
form a consciousness that separates the world’s reality and itself. It vacillates
between two insights that both have strong significance for it. First, “the whole
reality of the world is lost before the isolation of the possible.”8 The world’s
reality is not expressed in what Existenz considers the possibility that exists for it,
and so this reality no longer finds a place in Existenz’s consciousness, or is “lost.”
The second insight, which is merely the other facet of the first, is the ultimate
demand Existenz makes of itself, “to be from the source of my selfhood.”9 This
requirement projects Existenz on itself,10 when it experiences isolation,
disappointment, and detachment from the world in which it finds itself existing.
The presence of the formal viewpoint of consciousness within the framework
of the discussion of Existenz did not merely fill a role in the perception of
Existenz as a worldly Being experiencing types of existence that non-Existenzes
also experience. It made more severe the aim to grant expression to the particular
aspects of the self-Being. Those aspects that established the perception of
Existenz as a worldly Being were capable of disputing its very reality. The
philosophical starting point for the discussion of selfhood did not deny the
position typical of Jaspers’s early thought, but confronted it, and created
contradictions and tensions that could not be resolved within the boundaries of the
explication of selfhood. These were expressed in the different interpretations
presenting Jaspers’s perception of Existenz as a Being that was relativistic,
irrational, idealistic, and unknowable by the scientific approach.
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 85

Otto Friedrich Bollnow interpreted Jaspers’s philosophy of Existenz as an

attempt to reveal the person’s “last internal core.”11 In his opinion, Jaspers’s
opposition to the ontologization of the concept of Existenz through consciousness
and the very possibility that it could be understood as a category capable of
objective knowledge was intended to defend the aspect of freedom, which had
served as the cornerstone of the perception of Existenz.12 In Bollnow’s opinion,
these premises made Jaspers’s perception of Existenz an “extreme radicalization
of the original life philosophy,” which in itself represents an extreme relativistic
position.13 Bollnow eventually argued that Jaspers’s perception of Existenz shows
the nature of human beings as contentless internality.14 He argued that this
perception cannot be understood at all, and is impossible as a philosophical
position.15 Like Bollnow, Joseph Lenz also understood Jaspers’s perception of
Existenz as an extreme form of the philosophy of life based on deep skepticism
and leading to the perception of human Being as relativistic, subjectivisitic, and
irrational. The understanding of existentialist philosophy as an irrational position
appears consistently in William Barrett’s interpretation of the philosophy of
Martin Heidegger, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean Paul Sartre
(whose references to Jaspers were marginal). This interpretation is present in the
secondary literature about Jaspers, to different degrees.16 In Lenz’s opinion, in
human existence’s “escape toward internality,” Jaspers’s perception of Existenz
led to a narrowing of the area of philosophizing.17 Similarly, F. Imle argued that
the selfhood arising from Jaspers’s view of Existenz is “closed contingency
hinting at the absolute.”18 In his opinion, the positivistic statements made by
Jaspers did not exceed the boundaries of the self.19 However, the attempt to search
for God within the boundaries of this subjectivistic thinking divided it between
pantheism and vague theism, and made it and the other subjects derived from it
incomprehensible.20
The interpretation that Jaspers’s perception of Existenz was a sort of idealism
continued the interpretations of Bollnow and Lenz, stressing the subjectivistic and
unknowable aspect of Existenz.21 However, this interpretation is established
mainly by revealing the relations between Jaspers’s thought and classical
philosophical approaches, especially those of Immanuel Kant and Hegel. Leo
Gabriel argues that Jaspers’s perception of Existenz summarizes Kantian idealism
and even extends it by the openness to transcendence.22 On the one hand, this
openness is not structured into a particular religious position such as
Kierkegaard’s, but on the other hand it does not arrive at a rationalistic position
such as Hegel’s.23 Gabriel argues that already in Psychology, Jaspers discovered
the boundaries of objectivistic thinking. Gabriel’s interpretation shows that in
using the different philosophical influences that fed his thinking, Jaspers sought to
express the Being existing beyond the boundaries of the representation of the
consciousness grounded in the dialectic of object-subject relations.24 This attempt,
which does not allow the classification of Jaspers’s thought as merely
86 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

transcendental philosophy, is reflected in the identification of the concept of

Being with the concept of selfhood as a Being existing beyond consciousness, the
concrete I, and reason.25 Gabriel characterized this Being as “pure spontaneity of
self-realization, absolute freedom exhausted… in the realization of the whole of
the world through the I existing as Existenz.”26 According to Wolfgang
Stegmüller, Jaspers presented an extreme version of Kant’s theory of knowledge,
centered on the claim that it was impossible to know the “thing-in-itself.”27 This
attempt results not only in the concept of Existenz, but even in Jaspers’s entire
philosophy becoming incomprehensible and even dangerous.28
A study of Jaspers’s philosophy from the viewpoint of philosophy of science
leads to a conclusion similar to those of the interpretations anchored in the “life
philosophy”, and of the idealistic philosophies. Jürgen von Kempski defined
Jaspers’s philosophy as a “call” aimed at the individual Existence only.29 In his
opinion, this call, sounding beyond any binding scientific understanding, makes
Jaspers’s concept of Existenz unknowable. Werner Schneiders criticized von
Kempski’s interpretation, arguing that it was grounded in a progressive perception
of science, aiming to apply it also to the field of philosophy.30 However, what von
Kempski presented as a criticism of Jaspers’s thought, Jeanne Hersch considered
as the advantage of this thought. She believed that the illusion accompanying
philosophy from its inception regarding its ability to obtain objective knowledge
ended in Jaspers’s philosophy.31 As an alternative to this illusion, she believed this
philosophy offers a clear judgment in favor of the subject that is in a constant
process of becoming self-aware. A similar approach guided the interpretations of
Johannes Reis, Heinrich Knittermeyer, and Hans-Rudolf Müller-Schwefe, who
argued that Jaspers’s Being of Existenz expressed a judgment in favor of the
subject.32
Jaspers’s negative attitude toward the contribution of formal knowledge to the
explication of Existenz, and his discussion of its drive to separate itself from the
world, probably influenced the interpretations presented above. Perhaps the
separation between World Orientation and Elucidation of Existenz was also seen
as expressing a retreat from the perception of Existenz as a worldly Being. In any
case, these interpretations did not usually identify the positive arguments Jaspers
formulated from the discussion of the boundaries of formal knowledge in the
representation of the uniqueness of Existenz. Nor did they express Jaspers’s
consistent effort to reveal the objective aspects of the Being of Existenz. All these
indicate that Jaspers’s discussion of Existenz’s drive to separate itself from the
world expressed for the holders of this interpretative approach a real option that
existed for Existenz.
I believe that the difficulties these interpretations raise are the direct result of
missing the dialectical element in Jaspers’s concept of Existenz, and evidently of
the formative tensions of the whole perception of selfhood. This statement is
especially true of the sweeping conclusion that Jaspers’s philosophy of Existenz
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 87

was relativisitic. This conclusion originates in the lack of distinction between two
types of relativism: as the philosopher’s starting point and as the conclusion
formulated from the philosophical discussion. The first type of relativistic position
seeks to refer in a balanced manner to the different aspects of the issue it
discusses, and overtly avoids determining a hierarchy among the different
components composing the discussion. The certainty regarding the individual’s
unique subjective Being and the central status granted to its particular aspects
already in Jaspers’s early thought do not allow us to attribute to it the motivations
typical of the first type of relativism. With hindsight, we can identify in Jaspers’s
concept of Existenz the second type of relativistic position—a position grounded
in completely different considerations aimed at reaching positive statements about
Existenz. One example of such a positive statement is the argument that human
beings’ formal knowledge cannot serve as a tool for representing the particular
aspects of Existenz. Unlike the first position, the relativism in this position
constitutes a conclusion of the explication. Schneiders phrased this well when he
stated that Jaspers’s presentation of Existenz was the highest authority for its self-
evaluation and for examining what surrounds it in the widest sense of the word
(objects, values, norms, etc.), and does not reflect the arbitrary nature of this
philosophy, but constitutes an expression of what this philosopher saw as an
inescapable necessity.33 These words of Schneiders’s appear as criticism of Reis’s
religious position regarding the role of conscience in Jaspers, but they appear
relevant also to the typical critical position from the viewpoint of philosophy of
science.
The interpretation presented below of the second possibility through which
Existenz is examined, as acting in the world with a clear awareness that it is part
of it, is grounded in the basic insights presented in the previous chapter regarding
World Orientation. At the heart of these insights is the argument that with the
transition to philosophical discourse, Jaspers could no longer hold the perception
of selfhood as a Being closed within its own boundaries. Dealing with the
objective viewpoint of consciousness and its perception of selfhood as a worldly
Being is a formative element of Jaspers’s philosophy of Existenz. This statement
also confirms the interpretation that Jaspers’s handling of the possibility that
Existenz could perceive itself as isolated from the world was part of a dialectical
move aimed at establishing its perception as a worldly Being. This argument can
benefit not only from the detailed discussion of the first possibility that was
rejected, but also from the attempt to trace the roots of the interpretation that
views the second possibility as an exhaustive expression of Jaspers’s
philosophical perception of selfhood.
88 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

3. Returning Existenz to the World

The immanent starting point that anchored Existenz in the world of phenomena, or
as Jaspers put it, in the “situation Being,” served as the background for the
philosophical move that “returned” Existenz to the world after examining the
speculative possibility that it could perceive itself as detached from it. In this
context Jaspers was unambiguous: “possible Existenz differentiates itself from the
world in order to really enter it afterwards.”34 This means that the perception of
Existenz as a worldly Being does not contradict its perception as a unique Being,
but these two coexist. Even when he saw the chasm between Existenz and the
world as perceived through formal knowledge, and even when he needed it to
fortify the unique status of Existenz, the cracks that appeared in the early
solipsistic approach to selfhood forced him to reestablish the status of the two
objective aspects in his perception of Existenz.
We should not be surprised that when he sought to examine the possibility of
returning Existenz to the world, Jaspers presented a positive attitude toward the
possible contribution of objectivity and generality in clarifying Existenz. While
World Orientation stressed the differences between the validity types of
“knowledge in general” and “causal self-understanding,”35 when he wished to
reanchor Existenz in the world, Jaspers viewed positively the possible
contribution of knowledge and generality in elucidating selfhood. Jaspers argued
that since the explication of Existenz was aimed at concrete “situations,” it
required an objective examination of the possibilities existing in the world and
standing before Existenz. Objectivity serves as a basis from which the thinking
transcends in order to achieve explication of Existenz. In Elucidation of Existenz,
Jaspers differentiated between two stages: in the first stage, called “first
transference,”36 objective thinking has a crucial role. It provides the philosophical
thinking on which the elucidation of Existenz is based with the logical clarity
essential for the implementation of the method of transcending, and it also “ignites
the spark of selfhood.”37 Objective thinking is essential not only because it serves
as a central tool for clarifying the immanent aspect of the Being of Existenz, but
also because it eliminates the possibility of seeing Jaspers’s attempt to separate
Existenz from the world as a real option. It affirms the discussion of this
speculative option as part of a dialectical move aimed at establishing the self-
perception of Existenz as a worldly Being. In the second stage, called the “second
transference,” the choice of the concrete possibility happens as a space for
realizing the selfhood of Existenz.38 The same objects that earlier confirmed that
Existenz was a worldly Being undergo at this stage a process of “being raised
while being dismissed” (Aufhebung), they become a tool through which “Existenz
rises.”39 At this stage, Existenz attributes to the objects a wider significance than
that given to them by consciousness. It identifies them with the very possibility in
which it will realize itself. The vagueness accompanying Jaspers’s arguments in
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 89

this context results from the explication of Existenz revealing the very existence of
possibilities for Existenz, but not presenting them concretely or elucidating the
way in which Existenz experiences them. Here we discover the basic difference
between the philosophical viewpoint of the possibilities in existence and the one
Jaspers attributed to objective consciousness. The first examines the nature of
Existenz itself through the existence of different possibilities in existence, while
the second makes a logical evaluation of the possibilities of realizing the options
themselves. Even if Existenz becomes aware of the self-realization options
available in the world through objective consciousness, it alone determines their
meaning for it. As he says:

If I want to know what I am, then my objective existence presents itself, in

the thinking moves I experience, as a scheme of my Being. I perceive
myself inside it, but I experience that I am not completely identical with it:
what thus becomes an object cannot attain absolute identity with me
myself, since in my expansion I must lose myself in this scheme.40

The dialectical discussion of the relations between Existenz and the world finds in
these words one of Jaspers’s most concise formulations. Existenz sees the reality
outside it, or as he puts it “objective existence,” as part of itself. The process of
forming its self-consciousness does not occur in a vacuum, but with reference to
the external reality forced on Existenz, in the presence of the “necessity” aspect
that is an integral part of the “situation Being.” However, Existenz does not
identify itself with this reality, since no identity exists between the access ways for
clarifying this reality, between the objective viewpoint of consciousness and the
explication of Existenz. The objects can help Existenz in the process of self-
clarification only after Existenz has applied to them its typical reflexive process,
thanks to which it can identify them as related to its self-realization.
The perception of Existenz as a worldly Being now receives its precise
meaning. Existenz exists in the world and is formed with conscious relations
aimed at itself and at this world. However, the element of freedom—the other
facet of the “situation Being”—enables Existenz to transcend the “necessity”
involved in the situations where it already finds itself. The same “necessity,” or
objectivity, in which its perception as a worldly Being is grounded may also be
pushed aside in favor of a speculative option that does not yet exist in reality, but
which Existenz aims to realize in its existence. The potential entailed in the
existential freedom to transcend situations thus prevents the identity between
Existenz and the totality of the situations in which it finds itself. So we can
describe existentialist existence as a conscious movement between the reality that
actually exists and a possible reality, or as a movement between two languages—
the particular existentialist language in which it refers to itself and the language of
objective thought in which it refers to the reality external to it.41 Jaspers presents
90 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

this movement as a process spread across an entire lifetime, with the individuals
experiencing it as long as they try to live as an Existenz:

… The separation is always available to be performed again. For existence

as such the purely empirical forces serve merely as a condition, [while] the
existential [forces] reach consciousness and reality only through pressing
and penetrating: the process of separation that in an eye-blink exists in full
clarity to the world can never be fully completed.42

This in-out dynamic typical of Existenz’s relation to the world, or what Jaspers
termed “penetrating” and “pressing,” demonstrates the struggle for supremacy,
and perhaps even for exclusivity, arising in his discussion between the two
representations of Existenz. This dynamic no less expresses the establishment of
the philosophical insight that Existenz itself is anchored in the same world to
which objective consciousness refers, and the relevance of objective conscious-
ness to a more complete understanding of Existenz as a worldly Being. Although
the discussion of the concepts of “consciousness” and “world” within the
explication of Existenz undermined the earlier perception of selfhood that tended
toward solipsism, the functional nature of the discussion of these terms affirmed
this perception, or at least the difficulty in detaching from it. In any case, even if
the detaching from the early perception of selfhood was incomplete, the tendency
toward solipsism that typified it did not remain an innocent or unconscious
position in Jaspers’s philosophy.
Support for the proposed interpretation, according to which the reality of the
external world and the objective viewpoint of consciousness became for Jaspers
data he could not retreat from in his philosophical writings, is expressed not only
in the perception of Existenz, as presented above, but also in Jaspers’s perception
of Being. The “encompassing” and the “cipher”—key concepts in Jaspers’s
perception of Being, to be discussed in detail in Chapter Nine and Chapter Ten—
were grounded in the necessitating of the immanent world’s reality and of the
viewpoint of consciousness accessible to the objective aspects of this reality. But
in the context of the explication of Being, where these concepts were clarified,
Jaspers developed a metaphysical view of immanence, and in this respect
immanence did not exhaust the meaning granted to the world’s reality. In addition,
the positive attitude toward the viewpoint of consciousness did not make it the
main instrument on which the explication of Existenz relied. The immanent
world’s reality and the objective viewpoint of consciousness served for Jaspers as
a basis on which he implemented the method of transcending, and his main object
of philosophizing was beyond them. However, although Jaspers manifested
toward these two components a functional attitude harnessing them to the
purposes of the explication of his main object of philosophizing—first selfhood,
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 91

then Being—they continued to accompany his philosophical writings and became

stable elements therein.

4. Freedom as Will

The two alternatives facing Existenz, separating itself from the world and finding
itself within the world, rely on the premise that it has the freedom to move
between them. Apart from this concept expressing a central element in the Being
of Existenz, discussing it constitutes another layer in the elucidation of Existenz’s
complex relations with the world. For Jaspers, will is the main expression of
freedom.43 Will is perceived as based on freedom, while freedom is embodied in
will. However, the separation between will and its object, or between will and
what is desired in it, did not make the objects of will into an independent subject
of the discussion, but instead served as an additional means of making claims
about Existenz itself and maintaining its dominance in the discussion. As he
phrased it: “will is not the activity that pushes only forwards, but its freedom is
[in] desiring itself simultaneously.”44
Jaspers did not focus on the psychological phenomenon of will, on the
expression of activity people show in a certain state of affairs as a means of
achieving their aims in existence. His interest was directed at a different, more
general, human experience, not necessarily restricted to a concrete situation;
experiencing “will that desires itself,” defined as one of the expressions of
Existenz’s self-consciousness. Jaspers believed that psychology could help
investigate the unconscious and covert motives of will, taking account of the
general urges and the individual conditionings, but stated that it could not help
elucidate Existenz. This reflects Jaspers’s criticism of his earlier position in
Psychology, through which he aimed at expanding the boundaries of psychology
using the method of “understanding psychology” (verstehende Psychologie).45
Even the existentialist will manifests the activity that people conduct regarding
themselves;46 however, this activity is not directed at what is beyond Existenz, but
at formulating its own selfhood. Jaspers referred to Kierkegaard, who argued that
the more individuals want, the more they are themselves.47 Jaspers clarified that
experiencing the “will that desires itself” is possible only where “the deepest
clarification of the mental background succeeds, where through self-reflection the
will achieves clarity and strength from its original contents,”48 where
consciousness turns to elucidate the options Existenz identifies as belonging to it,
but has yet to realize.49 Only then does philosophy replace psychology, and a
philosophical approach to the existential desire is enabled.50
From the viewpoint of the explication of selfhood, we can observe two facets
of the existential desire through which people see themselves: the conscious facet
and the metaphysical facet. The conscious facet of the existential will is revealed
in the argument that will appears “only where there is clarity of the ‘choosing
92 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

I’.”51 The discovery of will depends on the existence of self-consciousness or

conscious reflection of people about themselves. To the same degree that self-
consciousness constitutes a condition for the arousal of the existential will, it also
portrays self-consciousness, since self-consciousness guides it and determines its
nature. The ontological Being represented in this concept of will is Existenz itself,
revealed as a Being that is aimed toward itself. C. D. Rollins identified this
directedness of people toward themselves (self-seeking) with egoism, which he
considered one of the meanings of solipsism.52 The anchor of the perception of
Existenz in the immanent reality of the world does not enable us to see this will as
a reflection of a fantasy in which people sometimes err. However, the statement
“will as thinking consciousness makes the distinction between dream and reality
significant”53 serves as the basis for explaining the nature of the relation of
Existenz toward this reality, a relation anchored in the immanent reality that
serves as an arena for its realization.
However, the concept of reality has a wider significance not exhausted by its
contrast to dream. The reality to which existential will refers is not only the one
realized in practice, but it also includes possibilities not yet realized that Existenz
identifies as belonging to it.

[The will’s energy] is a continuum in the meaning of continuity of sense; it

does not perceive ad hoc aims, but perceives at once [aims] for life, the
latter aims are desired in what is still outside everything that is known. 54

The reality of the possibilities not yet realized by Existenz in existence is no less
than that portrayed by the concrete reality. It seeks them for itself and sees them as
“aims for life,” although their existing outside immanence leaves them on the level
of “what is still outside what is known.” Existential will is grounded in the two
facets of the situation Being that forms the concrete Being that Existenz
experiences: the “necessity” that does not allow the existential will to err in false
dreams, and the “possibility” embodying all that Existenz has yet to achieve but is
entitled to desire. The perception of Existenz as a worldly Being is thus
reconfirmed through the “will” constituting one of the more typical expressions of
the Being of Existenz.
The metaphysical aspect of existential will is expressed in Jaspers’s statement
that will originates in “wholenesses related to each other and serving it as an
inclusive thing in the one-time action of will.”55 Existential will does not rely on
itself alone, but is itself an expression or a realization of an entity or Being more
encompassing than it. While this facet of will also expresses activity, this is not
the activity of Existenz, but as he says, it is “active certainty of Being that it
desires something,”56 of a Being or entity beyond the limits of its immanent
existence. The conscious aspect of the existential will transpires as a partial
revelation, like the tip of an iceberg, of an encompassing Being on which it
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 93

depends. In the context of this discussion, aimed mainly at the explication of

selfhood, this Being is only implied, and while the reality in the background is
perceived as immanent, the infrastructure essential for its full elucidation is
lacking. However, even this covert presence can be seen as a prefiguration of the
metaphysical perception that was to develop later in his thinking, including a far-
reaching understanding of the world of phenomena transcending to the layer of
potentiality embedded therein. This perception, like that of Existenz, was to be
grounded in the immanent reality. Just as this aspect of the perception of Existenz
left a wide field for the realization of the existential will, so in the perception of
Being the anchor in immanence will not serve as a barrier to the development of a
metaphysical perception of Being that will also include transcendent aspects. The
metaphysical perception of Being is presented in Part Three of the book.
The distinction between the two facets of existential will—the conscious and
the metaphysical—reveals a fundamental contradiction regarding the degree of
autonomy Existenz has in the reality it experiences. On the one hand, the
conscious facet of existential will presents Existenz’s ability not to be tied to the
factuality of existence and to form itself in the more open spaces of the possible.
In this framework, Existenz is perceived as a source of will and as an autonomic
Being. On the other hand, the metaphysical facet is where the will is revealed as
an expression of what is beyond it. As Jaspers says: “Only in the idea and from the
idea can I desire.”57 From the point of view of the explication of selfhood, we
cannot resolve this contradiction between the two facets of existential will. Only
in the context of the explication of Being, where Existenz turns away from itself
and directs itself at the more encompassing Being, can the contradiction be
resolved, or, more precisely, it is revealed as only an apparent contradiction. It
transpires that in the transition from the conscious layer of existential will to its
metaphysical layer, the area of the realization of will is expanded, and with it also
the autonomy of Existenz. As a result, existential will discovers not only the
selfhood of Existenz but also the Being beyond it.
The epistemological viewpoint, which revealed the conscious aspects of the
perception of selfhood, transpires against the background of the discussion of the
concept of existential will as having a metaphysical depth that cannot leave the
discussion solely in the realm of the explication of Existenz. Although this insight
relies, for the time being, on the rather vague hints that accompanied Jaspers’s
discussion of will, the doubt that it awakened regarding the degree of autonomy
that should be attributed to Existenz formed another crack in the solipsistic
understanding of selfhood, even though Jaspers’s philosophy had yet to mature
enough to relinquish it. In any case, although the full implications of the discovery
of the metaphysical aspect of will would only be clarified later on, its importance
for the perception of Existenz stems from the tension it created not relating only to
its attitude to the external world. It was revealed as the depth aspect of its most
basic qualities. The separation between the two facets of existential will
94 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

demonstrates a more fundamental tension typifying the Being of Existenz:

between the immanent facet that anchors it in the world and its transcendent facet
that is revealed in its attitude toward an entity that transcends the boundaries of its
real existence as such. This interpretation, strengthening the dialectical
understanding of the consciousness that forms Existenz as a worldly Being from
another angle, indicates the nature of the consciousness that forms Existenz vis-à-
vis existence as a reality independent of it. It perceives itself as part of it, but at
the same time seeks to form a relation toward what is beyond it.58 So the depth of
philosophical clarification of the Being of Existenz stems from the really present
immanent aspect both in World Orientation and in Elucidation of Existenz. This
aspect not only explains the tension in Existenz’s relations with the world and with
consciousness, but also indicates the continued existence of the solipsistic
perception of selfhood even at this advanced stage of Jaspers’s thinking. The
attempt to examine the character of Existenz through its own eyes following the
insights that arose from World Orientation put the solipsistic approach to a
difficult test compared with the challenges it faced when it was discussed with the
mediation of other topics. There Jaspers had been involved in defending his
perception of selfhood from viewpoints that appeared to him likely to lead to its
misunderstanding. Conversely, when Existenz was confronted with itself in
Elucidation of Existenz, its internal vortex was revealed and the meanings it had
been granted might become worthless considering the acquaintance with the
encompassing Being in which it was contained. Only a wider viewpoint than the
one in which Jaspers’s perception of selfhood was grounded could rescue Existenz
from this concern. This point of view, typical of the writings published after
Philosophy, not only reflected another significant distancing from the solipsistic
perception of selfhood, but also enabled Jaspers to develop a new perception of
Existenz.
The philosophizing that led to the perception of Existenz as a worldly Being,
originating in Jaspers’s discussion in World Orientation, and continuing in
Elucidation of Existenz, would later transpire as an immanent infrastructure
essential for Jaspers’s perception of Being, also grounded in immanence. Just as
the existential meaning granted to objects in the context of the explication of
selfhood did not negate their immanent and objective aspect, but instead relied on
it, so Jaspers was to claim in his perception of Being that immanence contained a
metaphysical depth beyond what we are used to identifying with the boundaries of
existence. The anchoring of metaphysics in immanence—as the consciousness of
Existenz and as an expression of an entity existing beyond it—would later
transpire as a depth aspect linking the two main axes of explication in Jaspers’s
thought.
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 95

5. The Tension between Objectivity and Subjectivity

The two viewpoints that examined the relations between Existenz and the world—
the objective, presenting Existenz as part of the world, and the subjective, in
which the world was perceived as the world of Existenz—were clarified as two
sides of the same coin. This understanding was based on the wide genealogical
vision of Jaspers’s thought, hinting at the future directions where the
contradictions that arose in the explication of selfhood would be resolved.
However, this genealogical explanation cannot suffice for the framework of the
explication of selfhood, since it lacks an integrative understanding that could
connect the objective and subjective facets of Existenz. Without such an
understanding, not only is the basis of the contradictions that refer mainly to
Existenz itself undermined, but it is also impossible to defend the very existence
of a real perception of selfhood in Jaspers’s thinking, leaving only a few single
insights that do not add up. This is exactly what happened in the interpretations of
Jaspers’s perception of Existenz presented above. In the absence of a thematic
viewpoint aiming at consolidating the different aspects of the perception of
Existenz, these interpretations were unable to progress beyond exposing the
contradictions it contained. Also, in the absence of the genealogical viewpoint,
they were unable to identify the points where the perception of Existenz pre-
figured his perception of Being, and the possibility of a comprehensive solution of
the basic problems in the perception of Existenz as a whole. Either way, the
sweeping conclusion was that Jaspers’s perception of Existenz was
incomprehensible and impossible as a philosophical position. In the following
passage, Jaspers points to the difficulty in connecting the objective and subjective
aspects of the Being of Existenz, but also indicated their connection:

The result of the possible misunderstanding of the entire elucidation of

Existenz (mistakenly replacing Existenz with the empirical individuality of
the individual’s existence, identifying the existential internality with mere
subjectivity) is the result of seeing this philosophizing [as a perception that
considers] objectivity as dismantled within subjectivity, as losing the world
within the abundance of its existence…
[However] Existenz is always in objectivity and subjectivity. It is revealed
to itself only in the world divided between subject and object, in other
words in the interrelation between them. This existential problem—which
by meaning is dialectical and has no solution—is the source and the target,
the philosophical beginning and the inability of the philosophizing to
stop.59

This clarification that the explication of Existenz takes place within the
boundaries of the split between objectivity and subjectivity leaves no doubt that
96 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

the two alternatives through which Existenz was examined in Elucidation of

Existenz do not represent two different directions to self-realization. These are
two philosophical moves aimed at one target: elucidating the nature of Existenz as
a worldly Being. So the location of Existenz at this stage of the range of
possibilities between objectivity and subjectivity is not a return to the basic
framework of Psychology, also committed to “the range of connections between
subject and object.”60 The reality of the world as an external Being was not
reflected in Jaspers’s perception of selfhood in Psychology. The context of object-
subject relations in which his perception of selfhood was at that time anchored—a
framework that Jaspers defined as “our prison,” from which we cannot escape,
although “we would like to get outside ourselves and move beyond ourselves and
find an Archimedes point outside any subject-object relations…”61—did not
reflect the view of external reality as a significant datum for understanding
selfhood.
For the first time in World Orientation, Jaspers acknowledged the world’s
reality, and in the context of his perception of Existenz he was able to show a
positive attitude toward objectivity, and to view it as relevant to understanding the
individual’s subjective Being. In his words: “a philosophical clarification of
Existenz must preserve… the meaning of objectivity within its truth,”62 both as a
source of stability for Existenz63 and as a means of obtaining knowledge and a
basis for its validity. Sebastian Samay provides an interesting interpretation of the
German term Gegenstand. The word Gegen expresses the contrast in objectivity,
while the word Stand represents the element of validity. Samay relied on Dufrenn
and Ricouer’s distinction between the two forms Jaspers uses to denote the term
“object” throughout his works: Gegenstand and Objekt. I believe the first term
denotes the meaning the object has for the subject, while the second denotes the
meaning the object has for scientific knowledge.64 This change of attitude toward
objectivity did not change the element of contrast it contained just from being a
method of “standing against” Existenz. Maximilian Beck argued that the contrast
exhausts the meaning of objectivity for Jaspers. Ludwig Armbruster’s perception
of the meaning of object in Jaspers stressed mainly the pragmatic and empirical
meaning that Jaspers attributed to objects. My position is closer to Samay’s,
presenting objectivity in Jaspers as multi-faceted and as having many meanings.65
Samay expanded the meanings that Jaspers granted to objects in general. These
were no longer perceived only as a “means of self-knowledge,”66 but had
additional aspects originating in the consciousness directed at the objects
themselves.67
The new attitude toward objectivity did not make its discussion into an
independent element within the explication of selfhood, where the boundaries of
the discussion were still fixed on the issues accompanying selfhood according to
their relevance to its elucidation. Jaspers made the relation toward objects in the
world into part of the process of constituting Existenz’s self-consciousness.68
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 97

Jaspers defined subjectivity as “consciousness in general” (Bewußtsein über-

haupt), as “individual consciousness” (individuelles Bewußtsein), and as
“consciousness of validity” (Bewußtsein des Gültigen).69 The process of admitting
the existence of a reality external to Existenz, which progressively expanded the
viewpoint from which Jaspers examined Existenz itself, demonstrated the
maturation of his perception of selfhood. Unlike his early perception of
subjectivity, Existenz was no longer presented as a whole and uniform Being
experiencing a divided world, but as a Being whose maturing self-consciousness
enabled it to turn away from its exclusive occupation with itself, and to observe
what was beyond it. This explicit understanding of the Being called Existenz
allowed Jaspers to phrase the two possible forms of “betraying Existenz”: The
first reflects a bias toward subjectivity, expressed in the introspection of Existenz
and the resulting rejection of objectivity from its world. As he says:

The subject as an individual existence is not pleased with the multiplicity of

objects of the world reality, the people who cross his path, and the aims in
which he must participate. Where he wants to separate himself in the world,
he has the urge to alienate himself. He attempts to close himself as
subjectivity. However, a “Being for itself” that is not subject to any
restriction is impossible. In his isolation [the subject] would become unsure,
everything would be rejected from him. He would be unable to be decisive
regarding things and would not be honest with himself. The self wish of
sensory existence would have had to turn against itself and remain a vortex
of the multiplicities of nothing without existence and without freedom.70

The second form of betraying Existenz reflects a bias toward objectivity expressed
by “accepting the thing exclusively.”71 Jaspers described this betrayal as follows:

The certain satisfaction that Existenz experiences in devotion to the

multiplicities of objectivity has boundaries within Existenz itself. This is
because the origin from which objectivity is perceived… remains Existenz.
When the slide into violent objectivity subjects itself to blind obedience,
Existenz is shocked where people surrender themselves to almost
mechanical obedience. The fossilization of objectivity is the annihilation of
Existenz.72

The integrative understanding of the subjective and objective aspects discussed in

the explication of selfhood finds its direct expression in the two forms of betraying
Existenz described in the passages cited above. At the peak of the explication of
selfhood, Jaspers chose to adopt these two aspects, and at the same time to qualify
them from each other. Now objectivity is no longer understood as the contrast of
subjectivity, but instead as including within itself subjectivity that faces it and
98 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

provides it with its meaning as objectivity. However, the recognition matured in

Jaspers’s thought that isolating subjectivity as a means of protecting it was no
longer beneficial, since without the objective aspects accompanying it subjectivity
has no existence as such.
This integrative insight could not remove the basic tension between
subjectivity and objectivity that was no less typical of Jaspers’s thought than
handling the tension itself. The two forms of betraying Existenz contain a double
anxiety. In the first form, the attempt to separate Existenz from its environment
may prevent the discovery of its multifaceted nature that relies on its different
relations with the things beyond it, and lead to a limited perception of Existenz. In
the second form, the betrayal may lead to the identification of the world with the
objects within it, preventing its perception as a whole anchored in the relation of
Existenz toward it as a store of possibilities that exist for it. Jaspers’s definition of
the relation between objectivity and subjectivity as a polarity not only strengthens
the observation of the continuing presence of the tension discussed in this context,
but also demonstrates his commitment to his early intuitions that determined his
solipsistic relation to Existenz and made it difficult for him to assimilate
objectivity into his perception of selfhood.
The idea of polarity between objectivity and subjectivity did not first appear
in Elucidation of Existenz, but already in Psychology.73 Jaspers’s handling of the
solipsistic perception of selfhood, or more precisely the implications of this
perception within the context of the philosophical explication of Existenz,
determines the basic difference in the meaning attributed to the tension in these
two contexts. In Psychology, the framework of object-subject relations was
perceived as a datum existing beyond the boundaries of the philosophical
discussion. Since the possibility of explicating the tension between objectivity and
subjectivity was restricted a-priori, there was no choice but to seek an escape from
this polarity, portrayed as other types of world views or in the “Spirit types.”74 In
contrast, in Elucidation of Existenz, where awareness of the problematic
implications of the solipsistic perception of selfhood already existed, Jaspers was
able to conduct a real discussion of the meaning of objectivity and subjectivity for
Existenz. This enabled the viewing of the tension between objectivity and
subjectivity as an integral part of the complete Being of Existenz. Elucidation of
Existenz expands the ability of Existenz to contain as part of its self-consciousness
things different from it. Objectivity was presented as “pending” within the Being
of Existenz,75 while subjectivity was described as a space where objectivity itself
finds expression and realization.76 This avoided the possibility that the attempt to
examine selfhood through adopting its own viewpoint of itself would lead to
renewed entrenchment in the positions typical of his early thinking—a possibility
that at the early stages of the discussion appeared real, and some of Jaspers’s
scholars have even understood it as such.
 Selfhood in Its Own Eyes 99

The attempt to examine Existenz by adopting its point of view transpired as

problematic and dissatisfying for the Being of Existenz formed by the very
clarification of the relation between subjectivity and objectivity as its two foci of
attention. This insight paved the way for the elucidation of additional aspects
related to human existence (such as “consciousness” and “world”) within the
explication aimed at Existenz. At this stage, Jaspers was able to overcome to some
extent the influence of Kant’s transcendental view of subjectivity that was
apparent in Psychology, which eventually prevented any predication of “the thing-
in-itself.” At this stage of the development of Jaspers’s philosophy, when
alongside the viewpoint of Existenz new insights were added that were not
directly derived from its selfhood, it was no longer possible to continue defining
the split between objectivity and subjectivity as “polarity”. Now Jaspers aimed to
indicate the “unity from subjectivity and objectivity.” As he put it:

Such unity is in no place an asset that can be perceived without misleading.

Only the push from the subjective to the objective and back is real: the
stored internality becomes itself real when it achieves objectivization
through the external.
However, whatever exists as purely objective is known by the subject only
through its assimilation through the translation into the subjective reality:
the truth is for me only if I understand it, the world is only the one where I
act or in which I am contemplative. The idea is only what motivates power
in me.77

These clear words cannot be misinterpreted. They confirm Existenz’s search for
its self-exposure. In this process, subjectivity is not supposed to be denied, or in
Hegel’s terms “placed above” (aufgehoben), since objectivity is once more
translated into the world of subjectivity and assimilated by it. Existenz itself is
responsible for unifying objectivity and subjectivity, so that they have meaning for
it. Recognizing the relevance that objectivity has for Existenz itself did not
provide it with an independent status in the framework of the explication of
Existenz. The union between these two foci of reference continued to be subject to
the continuity of the philosophical praxis that every time would connect these two
components, whose polarity appears not to have been completely blunted. The
philosophical explication of selfhood as Existenz reflects Jaspers’s continual
vacillation between his commitment to his early intuitions regarding subjectivity
and his aim to escape them due to their restrictive solipsistic implications.
However, before the status of Existenz changed and before Being and
transcendence became the foci of Jaspers’s philosophical discussion, he was able
to close already in the explication of selfhood the circle where the discussion in
this chapter started: the same Existenz that was presented as apparently wishing to
100 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

isolate itself from the world found its way back into it on the same path it planned
to escape from it.
 PART TWO

TRANSITION MECHANISMS
 Introduction to Transition Mechanisms

FROM THE EXPLICATION OF SELFHOOD

TO THE EXPLICATION OF BEING

The growing awareness of the problematic nature of an explication focused on a

single object of philosophizing was at the root of Karl Jaspers’s attempt to expand
his framework of philosophizing and to open it to new issues beyond the
boundaries of the explication of selfhood. The introduction of the concepts of
“world” and “consciousness” into the explication of selfhood already challenged
the fundamental trend in the early writings, where the individual’s subjective
Being was examined on the basis of its personal experiences. However, since
these terms were examined mainly from the viewpoint of Existenz, while assessing
their relevance to its self-understanding, they did not lead to a systematic
undermining of the solipsistic premises. These reappeared at different stages of
the dialectic, which continued to be part of the philosophizing aimed at the
explication of selfhood. Even so, along with the constant expansion of the
perception of selfhood and of the boundaries of its discussion, a search for an
anchor for the person’s Being beyond the realms of the world, consciousness, and
even the self-consciousness of Existenz started to emerge. The seeking of Being
and transcendence, which Jaspers attributed to Existenz, served as an
infrastructure for the formation of framework of philosophizing that I will term
the “explication of Being.” When Jaspers dealt with clarifying Being and
transcendence, a large degree of continuity existed with the perceptions he had
developed regarding selfhood, but the new philosophizing framework that began
to form in his writings was designed using new criteria.
This part of the book will examine the philosophical ideas that were part of
the explication of selfhood, but that at the same time helped Jaspers formulate a
new axis of philosophizing, from which he was able to find a direction to solve the
problems that had arisen in his perception of selfhood, and to complete the aspects
that it lacked. I will define these ideas as “transition mechanisms”: the term
“mechanism” denoted their nature as tools of philosophizing, while the term
“transition” indicates the location of these mechanisms as mediating between the
parts of Jaspers’s whole philosophical move. In biographical terms, Jaspers
discussed these ideas, concentrated in Elucidation of Existenz, the second volume
of Philosophy (1932)1 in the middle of his long period of creation (1910–1963).
While these ideas have also been discussed in other contexts and not only in
Elucidation of Existenz, their presentation as “transition mechanisms” in this study
is not based on the meaning they were granted in those contexts, which will serve
104 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

merely for comparison. Regarding the contents, the ideas discussed in this part of
the book embody three types of otherness, through which Existenz transcends its
involvement with itself and forms a relation toward the Being beyond it: in
“communication” Existenz transcends to another Existenz; in “historicity” it
transcends toward existence as the time and place that form its concrete reality;
and in “boundary situations” it becomes acquainted with the boundaries of
existence and reality that are fundamental for its perception as a worldly Being,
and tries to transcend them. “Boundary situations” first appeared in Psychology.2
“Communication” appeared as a central theme throughout Reason and Existenz,3
and was later mentioned in many contexts in Out of Truth.4 “Historicity” was
discussed in Metaphysics, the third volume of Philosophy.5 Although in these
ideas Existenz forms its relation toward what is beyond it, they continue to be
based on Existenz’s viewpoint. The aspects relating to the explication of Being
embodied in the ideas included in the transition mechanisms are not sufficiently
clarified within the context of the transition mechanisms beyond the viewpoint of
selfhood regarding them, so they constitute part of the explication of selfhood.
However, once these ideas are placed at the focus of the philosophizing, they can
no longer be viewed as part of the transition mechanisms, but instead as part of the
explication of Being.
The discussion of the transition mechanisms will be aimed at clarifying the
turning point in Jaspers’s thought when he transferred his focus of interest from
selfhood to Being. Additionally, the explication of these ideas will serve as an
instrument for evaluating the interpretative process up to this point of the research,
and its future relevance. The separation of the methodological discussion of these
ideas from the book’s Introduction and its location after the discussion of
Jaspers’s perception of selfhood has a double significance: the methodological
clarification enables us to distance ourselves from the intensive involvement with
the contents and to reexamine the interpretative process that has accompanied
their discussion. At the same time, the renewed interest in the philosophical moves
already discussed, essential in a study dealing with the development of thought,
sharpens our awareness of the interpretative moves already made and helps
formulate the future interpretative directions. The discussion of the transition
mechanisms is based on one of the most important premises informing the
interpretation of this philosophy, the premise that research methodology does not
precede the research investigation, but develops during its process from the
phenomenological study of the text.
With these things in mind, we can present the philosophical ideas defined as
transition mechanisms as instruments that helped Jaspers exchange the object of
the explication in his discussion and at the same time maintain a dialog with the
previous object of explication. In this respect, the transition mechanisms also
reflect the continuity typical of this philosophy that created from itself the tools
that regulated the relations between its different topics in the different stages of its
 Introduction to Transition Mechanisms 105

development. This understanding is formulated as a criterion determining the

nature of the ideas to be included in this part of the discussion: they have to
continue in some way the philosophical move of elucidation of Existenz, and in
this respect they should be viewed as an integral part of the explication of
selfhood. In addition, the ideas discussed here are required to have new aspects
regarding selfhood that had not yet matured and that left unsolved problems in the
explication of selfhood. This dual requirement is intended so that the ideas
included in the transition mechanisms will help achieve a new integration of
previous aspects, but at the same time serve as a framework for clarifying
Jaspers’s self-criticism of his earlier approaches, which in itself constitutes a basis
for the further explication of his thought. The discussion of the philosophical ideas
included in the transition mechanisms is aimed at clarifying the argument that the
peak of the explication of selfhood and the first formation of the explication of
Being are located at the same point of philosophizing.
The central argument at the basis of the interpretation offered here is that the
transition mechanisms constitute a frame of reference in which Existenz is
presented as being pushed to transcend its boundaries, from its maturing
awareness that it is not exhausted within its own boundaries alone. This awareness
denotes a high stage in the process where Existenz finds itself able to separate
itself from its surroundings and so focus its attention on aspects outside its Being.
The maturation and establishment of this awareness and also of Existenz’s self-
distinguishing and separating skills are expressed in expanding its horizons toward
wider and more absolute aspects of reality: Being and transcendence. The
viewpoint from which these ideas will be discussed is designed in accordance with
their function in the suggested interpretation of Jaspers’s thought as a whole. We
can phrase this in two questions. First, how much did these ideas help rescue
Jaspers’s mature perception of Existenz from the solipsism that characterized it in
its early stage? Second, to what extent did transcendence become a closer and
more tangible horizon for Existenz with the help of these ideas? In this respect,
the discussion of the ideas defined as transition mechanisms is not intended to
offer a complete and extensive discussion of their philosophical aspects, but
instead to reveal their overall role in the formation of the metaphysical
consciousness formulated through them at the stage of exchanging the object of
explication. This discussion will reflect the duality in the particular condition of
Existenz at this stage of Jaspers’s discussion—after it was discussed as the main
object of the philosophizing, and before it was removed from its central position
in favor of the explication of Being. These two facets typifying the condition of
the Being of Existenz are contained in Jaspers’s definition of it as an “origin.” As
he says:

Existenz is not a target, but an origin of the philosophizing within which it

perceives itself. The origin is not the beginning through which I [could]
106 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

always search for additional beginnings… but Being as a freedom I

transcend to when I reach myself in the philosophizing from the unknown.
The helplessness of the philosophizing that is in doubt regarding the origin
is the expression of the helplessness of my selfhood, the reality of the
philosophizing at the beginning of the impetus of this selfhood. The
perception of Existenz is thus a premise of the philosophizing that at first is
only a desire for significance and for a support, which is turned away
empty-handed to the doubt and despair regarding its very possibility and
then appears as unperceived certainty that clarifies itself in the
philosophizing.6

The idea of the origin contains two basic meanings. First, it indicates the self-
stamina of Existenz as a real Being that can be understood from within itself
without the mediation of external factors. Second, this idea expresses Existenz
itself being a starting point for a discussion of something else, still connected to it,
but indicating what is beyond it. In the first meaning, the connection to the
intuitions typical of Jaspers’s early thought is still preserved, but the second
meaning is anchored in insights revealed only in the advanced stages of the
explication—insights that pointed out the limitation of Existenz to continue
creating its self-perception with reference solely to itself. The connection between
Existenz’s self-perception at this stage of Jaspers’s thought and the understanding
achieved regarding the nature of the relations between it and the external reality is
expressed in the following passage:

The world and Existenz are in tension. They cannot turn into one [thing],
nor separate themselves from each other.
This tension is presumed in the philosophizing from a possible Existenz.
The world as what has become knowable, and an Existenz that becomes
clarifying, are distinct from each other in a dialectical way and perceived
again as one.7

Just as the perception of the maturation of Existenz does not enable the separation
between the two facets of the idea of “origin,” so also this understanding cannot
detach Existenz’s self-awareness from its awareness of the real and separate
reality of the world. However, the two facets of the idea of origin and the two
stances of Existenz toward the world—as separate from it and as part of it—are
not identical in content. These stances internalize the presence of the objectivity8
of whose formation the transcending of Existenz is an integral part. In contrast, the
reality of the Being of Existenz is a datum on which the first facet of the Being of
the origin relies, while the second facet already reflects its transcending beyond its
own selfhood. It transpires that the perception of Existenz as an origin expresses
Jaspers’s more cohesive and mature awareness regarding the Being of Existenz
 Introduction to Transition Mechanisms 107

compared with the description of the internal-external dynamic typical of its

relations with the world; this approach, indicating the status of the self-awareness
of Existenz as more crystallized, was enabled only when its recognition of the
objective world reality matured and when it transcended it; only then does
Existenz appear as a unity beyond the sum of its two facets expressed in its
relations with the world. This unity is what enables it to form a relation toward
what exists beyond it. In the following passage, Jaspers described the existential
consciousness typical of stage of the explication of selfhood:

Whatever can be objectivized from within me is valid due to my empirical

individuality, and since it can be a phenomenon of my selfhood as an
Existenz it certainly does not evade a final and defined psychological
analysis; this boundary of the knowledge of myself indirectly indicates
something else without this observation being able to force itself. Thus the
clarification of Existenz is released but not filled with knowledge; it
achieves space for me, but does not shape a substance through the
expressions of a Being capable of objective perception.9

These words show that the placing of Existenz as a target and a goal in his thought
helped Jaspers establish his detachment from the scientific-empirical viewpoint of
human beings and of the world, and largely freed him from being tied to objective
thought patterns in general. However, already at the stage when the achievement
of this target appeared close, from the realm of Existenz another target beyond it
became visible. His description of this goal using the vague words “substance”
and “something else” testifies not only to the vagueness surrounding everything
revealed to Existenz, but especially that this vagueness was perceived from
Existenz’s viewpoint, which at this stage had yet to achieve an explicit
understanding of transcendence and Being.
The perception of Existenz as an origin, entailing the special condition of
Existenz at the transitional stage from the explication of selfhood to the
explication of Being, enable us to state more clearly the status of the explication
of selfhood in the context of Jaspers’s entire philosophy. It shows that selfhood is
the first stage in the philosophizing that would not be completed until the
transcendent Being viewed beyond it underwent explication itself. At the second
stage of the philosophizing, revolving around the explication of Being, Jaspers
dealt with new subjects, different in nature. However, since this axis of discussion
arises from the dealing with the explication of selfhood, it can be seen as
complementing and closing a circle for Existenz itself. Just as the viewpoint that
enabled the formation of the explication of Being was on the one hand dependent
upon the awareness of the basic limitation of the philosophizing aimed at the
explication of selfhood, on the other hand it relied on the insights that were
108 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

formed there. The explication of Being is not exhaustable within its own limits,
but needs the explication of selfhood as “the other” as a foundation for it.
 Five

COMMUNICATION

1. Existenz Facing Another Existenz

Karl Jaspers’s aim to form an approach expressing the individual’s subjective

Being, but not based on general criteria, was at the basis of the explication of
selfhood as presented up to this stage of the discussion. He wished to examine the
human soul through the physical symptoms of mental disease, to track the
founding subjectivity of world views, and to elucidate Existenz, while not being
subject to the objective viewpoint of consciousness. The premise behind these
attempts, each of which represented a stage in the development of Jaspers’s
thought, was that the complete exposure of selfhood as a particular Being
necessitates placing it at the center of the discussion and turning it into a
framework where the other concepts would also be clarified.
However, while in the writings discussed so far Jaspers was mainly interested
in protecting selfhood from approaches that examine it from general viewpoints,
when he discussed communication he started examining Existenz in light of
another reality. The confirmation this gave to the existence of another reality apart
from that of Existenz—in this context, the reality of another Existenz—forced
upon it a new reality that detracted from the totality attributed to it, and
fundamentally changed Jaspers’s perception of selfhood. Some references to the
existence of another reality had already appeared in Jaspers’s thought even before
he turned to communication. In Psychology1 it was the subjectivity that formed
another world view, and in World Orientation2 it was the reality of the existence
where Existenz finds itself as an existing Being.3 The presence of the otherness in
previous contexts, whose status in the discussion was marginal compared with that
of selfhood, did not change the attitude toward selfhood as a singular Being, but
mainly influenced the understanding of other concepts appearing alongside it. For
example, the concepts of “consciousness” and the “world” became an immanent
part of his discussion of selfhood, which determined the boundaries of the
reference to them. Conversely, the perception of communication discussed in this
chapter reflects a real and conscious transcending from the solipsism typical of his
perception of selfhood when this was the center of the explication. Consciously or
unconsciously, Jaspers himself listed the reasons for the change that occurred in
his perception of selfhood, and in his entire thinking, a change that served as an
essential infrastructure for dealing with the very possibility of communication:
110 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

Against the tendency to self-sufficiency, against the satisfaction with the

knowledge of general consciousness, against the individual’s self-will,
against the drive to self-closure in self-contained life, against wandering
aimlessly in an existing tradition as a routine way of life, the
philosophizing wishes to enlighten…. through communication the freedom
that perceives Being in its origin.4

With these words in mind, we can more precisely define the two facets of the
starting point from which Jaspers turned to clarify communication: it is aimed
against the approach Jaspers himself had developed earlier, against the tendency
to “self-sufficiency” or “self-containment” attributed to Existenz, and at the same
time it is a continuation of the opposition to the viewpoint of consciousness
regarding the human being. So this starting point reveals one of the basic qualities
of Jaspers’s thinking, that no less than aiming at what was beyond it and what it
had yet to achieve, it was also aimed at and against itself. The achievement of
goals that were transcendent to it involved a repeat elucidation of what was
included in it immanently, and sometimes even a dispute with it.

2. Existential Communication

The perception of communication in Jaspers’s thought is anchored in the basic

distinction between “communication in existence” and “existential com-
munication.” Jaspers saw communication in existence, which can become an
object for study to clarify its motives and the basic patterns in which it is
expressed, as hiding the individual’s unique selfhood and identifying it with the
selfhood of others.5 However, he defined existential communication, in which the
explicit selfhood of the person is portrayed, as follows:

… The philosophizing wishes to clarify the freedom before which the

threatening solipsism or the universality of existence always [stand]
through communication that perceives Being. This philosophizing applies
to me from myself to hold me open and then to take without condition the
communication connection that was realized. It seeks to preserve the
possibility mercilessly denied in the solipsism and the universality of
general consciousness.6

The location of existential communication between two poles, solipsism on the

one hand and universality on the other, reveals the two greatest threats to selfhood
with which Jaspers wished to deal in his discussion of communication.
Universality reflects an impersonal attitude toward human beings.7 This approach
relies on the premise that the scientific and objective viewpoint aimed at
elucidating the Being of human beings and the world is capable of enabling an
 Communication 111

exhaustive understanding of them. Japsers’ criticism of this approach argues that it

detracts from the particular uniqueness of the individual’s Being by treating it
extremely formally and impersonally. In this respect, we can see it as a
continuation of the fundamental insights formed in World Orientation and even in
his earlier works, where he rejected any attempt to objectify people and developed
an approach that saw individuals as unique and particular Beings.
In contrast, the solipsistic world view perceives human beings—either as an
abstraction or as a reality—as relying on themselves alone. Jaspers’s position
regarding this perception of the individual was clear. He stated categorically that
the very possibility of seeing individuals as isolated essences existing in their own
right is a “boundary image.”8 This means that the perception of a person as
distinct from the surrounding reality is beyond the boundaries of human thought,
and also beyond the boundaries of philosophizing. This criticism of the solipsistic
world view, formulated here for the first time, is a new position in Jaspers’s
writings. Even if we assume that he would not himself have defined the perception
of selfhood created in his writings up to that point as solipsistic, the definition of
communication as existing outside it shows a new awareness of one of the
possible implications of his early view, and perhaps even an explicit criticism of
it.
However, the anti-solipsistic position to which Jaspers committed in his
discussion of existential communications will be shown below as a dialectic
position that sometimes contained explicit contradictions. This anti-solipsistic
position involved several aspects that did not accord with each other and
sometimes even contradicted each other. At one point, this position placed
existential communication at the service of Existenz, understanding that it could
not stand alone. At another point, it directed Existenz to exceed its boundaries and
to form a relation to what transcends its boundaries. The tendency toward these
two directions simultaneously introduced into existential communication the
tension expressed in this context, as it is throughout the entire framework of
explication of selfhood, in an attempt to deal with two contradictory trends
representing two aspects of one subject. In Jaspers’s perception of psychiatry, the
duality was reflected in the presence of two different facets in the discussion of
subjectivity—the expanding and the restricting—(see Chapter One). In
Psychology, the duality was expressed in the two different tendencies of the
explication of world views as part of a phenomenon and as private (see Chapter
Two). In World Orientation, it was portrayed in the tendency to detach selfhood
from the world and in the drive to re-anchor it in the world (see Chapter Three and
Chapter Four). Apart from this basic duality, the dialectic typical of the perception
of existential communication reflects wider processes occurring in Jaspers’s
thought, gradually leading to the replacing of the central axis to which the
philosophizing was aimed. Alongside the continuing tendency to explicate
selfhood, the presence of the “other Existenz” in the discussion precipitated
112 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

changes that resulted in the processes of explication crossing the boundaries of

selfhood and being directed to horizons beyond it. There are two different trends
in Jaspers’s perception of existential communication: while the philosophical
arguments included in the first trend are an integral part of the explication of
selfhood, the second trend shows existential communication to be a transition
mechanism from the explication of selfhood to the explication of Being. In
accordance with the framework of this study delineated in the Introduction, the
discussion will focus on the writings appearing in the second period (in this
context, especially Elucidation of Existenz and Reason and Existenz9,) in which it
is presented as a metaphysical problem. We will not discuss the works dealing
with communication published in the third period, which have received special
attention in research.10
In the first trend, communication is perceived as another means of forming
the selfhood of Existenz. In this framework, Jaspers continued dealing with the
implications of the universal viewpoint of selfhood, but in his discussion the
awareness of the influence of the solipsistic view of selfhood became increasingly
prominent. In a way, the placing of the other Existenz alongside the Existenz
undergoing explication reveals a concrete facet of the reality of its surrounding
world, filling with real contents the perception of selfhood as a worldly Being. In
this respect, we can see communication as a context for dealing with the basic
duality typical of Existenz, between the tendency to isolate itself from the world
and its need to establish its existence therein. The possibilities entailed in the idea
of existential communication in this trend contributed to the development and
deepening of the perception of selfhood typical of Jaspers’s thought up to this
stage. However, the solipsistic substrate, which continued to play a real role in it,
diminished the possibility of breaking through the boundaries of the explication of
selfhood.
Only in the second trend apparent in the perception of existential
communication was its function as a transition mechanism expressed. Compared
with the first trend that contained a noticeable influence of the epistemological
viewpoint, aiming to obtain increasing knowledge regarding Existenz, this trend
emphasized the ontological viewpoint, aiming at elucidating the Being of the
Existenz that intends to form a relation toward transcendence. The innovation in
this trend lies in its confronting the Existenz under explication with another type
of otherness, meaning not only that of the other Existenz, but that of
transcendence. What makes existential communication into a transition
mechanism is the very awareness forming in Existenz’s self-consciousness of the
existence of transcendence—an awareness that would become a central feature of
Existenz in the explication of Being. There is no doubt that dealing with the
possibility of forming communication with another Existenz as a Being that has its
own existence was a starting point for the search for a reality existing beyond the
 Communication 113

boundaries of Existenz—a reality that gradually became an independent object of

philosophizing in Jaspers’s thought.

3. Communication as a Means of Constituting the Selfhood of Existenz

The philosophizing aimed at the elucidation of selfhood, as presented up to this

stage, referred to selfhood as an individual Being. The loneliness separating
Existenzes was assumed implicitly in the processes of individualization aimed at
constituting selfhood. The link between loneliness and the processes of
individualization was characteristic of many thinkers in Jaspers’s period. Erich
Fromm criticizes this approach.11 These positions were in the background of the
development of the socio-political critique of the Frankfurt School.12 Since
communication appeared in Jaspers’s writings after the formation of selfhood as
an explicit Being, it was assumed that the perception of communication itself
should not be based on the individualization processes, but should transcend them.
The explicit condition of Existenz served as a basis for sharpening the distinction
between the “Being of I” and the “Being-with-the-other.”13 In a more detailed
passage:

Communication is present whenever two that are connected but must

remain separate reach each other from loneliness and still know only
loneliness, since it remains in place in communication. I cannot become
myself without entering into communication, and I cannot enter into
communication without being lonely. In any suppression (Aufhebung) of
loneliness through communication, a new loneliness grows that cannot
disappear without me myself ceasing to exist as a condition for
communication. I must want loneliness when I dare to be myself from its
origin, and thus enter a deeper communication.14

Jaspers’s perception of communication reveals an undecided dialectic: the contact

with the other creates the sensation of loneliness, which leads to communication,
and so on. It transpires that the experience of loneliness remains a permanent
element in the experience of communication. The experience of loneliness
influences two different directions: it deepens people’s self-awareness as
individuals, and at the same time it pushes them toward the other out of a deeper,
more established individuality. This dialectic perception of the relations between
loneliness and individuality also appears in Jaspers’s early article “Loneliness,”15
which was more psychological than philosophical. The psychological viewpoint is
especially demonstrated by his use of the term Ego and his reference to the
“understanding” (Verstehen) method16 known from the writings preceding
Philosophy. This article was probably written between 1915 and 1916, but was
only published in 1983 by his student Hans Saner, who edited it, and probably
114 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

chose to include in it ideas originating in Jaspers’s writings from the different

periods, especially regarding the concept of truth and the concept of
communication, which appeared in his philosophical writings published from the
nineteen-thirties onwards. To the best of my knowledge, the article has not
appeared in its original, unedited form in any of Jaspers’s books or the collections
of articles published during his lifetime or following his death, and the discussion
of this article will not be incorporated into the body of this chapter. Perhaps the
difficulty in determining the degree of the article’s authenticity explains why it has
not been mentioned by any of the scholars discussing Jaspers’s idea of
communication, apart from Donatella Di Cesare, whose study dealt mainly with
works of the third period.17 The connection between the sense of loneliness and
the processes of individualization, which encompass a person’s entire lifetime,
appears to be the final element in the Being of the self-aware person.18 Ignoring
the clear link between the necessity of individuality and the solipsistic
infrastructure in which Jaspers’s perception of selfhood was grounded is difficult.
In this respect, we may state that Jaspers located communication between
solipsism and universalism, and this did not indicate his escape from solipsism,
but only a clearer awareness of its existence and influence on his thinking.
The central status of loneliness in Jaspers’s perception of communication
appears in Fritz Kaufmann’s interpretation, stressing also the solipsistic aspects
accompanying Jaspers’s perception of existentialist communication.19 Kaufmann
went further and formulated on the basis of the idea of existential communication
appearing in Elucidation of Existenz an understanding regarding Jaspers’s
perception of communication with nature20 and with God.21 He also linked
Jaspers’s perception of communication with the issues he dealt with during the
third period of his writings. Against this background, Kaufmann presented
communication as one of the expressions of Jaspers’s social criticism. In his
opinion, the anchoring of communication on the basis of individuals, which grants
it an aristocratic flavor, showed an individualistic reaction to the age of the
masses. Kaufmann links this aspect to Jaspers’s attraction to Søren Kierkegaard
and Friedrich Nietzsche.22 Kaufmann’s sweeping interpretation, which did not
distinguish between the different senses of this idea in the contexts in which it
appeared, turned the idea of communication into the central subject of Jaspers’s
thinking, and on this basis presented his version of the possible directions in
which it could have developed, but not an inherent interpretation of the concept of
communication as it appeared in Jaspers’s philosophical writings. This criticism
of Kaufmann’s interpretation is similar to Werner Schneiders’s criticism of it.23
The continued existence of the solipsistic aspects in Jaspers’s perception of
communication was not expressed only in the central role allocated to loneliness
in this framework. The discussion of communication contained more direct
arguments linking it to these aspects and more generally to the framework of the
explication of selfhood. Jaspers defined communication as “an inner struggle for
 Communication 115

the possibility to exist solely in my own right.”24 The “struggle” Jaspers

mentioned in this context should not be understood as directed against an external
entity, but as expressing a struggle with the human tendency not to become an
Existenz and to remain on the level of what Jaspers terms “mere existence.” The
word bloß in German has two meanings: mere and bare. In this context, I believe
both are relevant. See Jaspers’s use of the term bloß Dasein,25 referring to the
“fall” of Existenz from a state of realization. At this point there is similarity with
Martin Heidegger’s approach, seeing Das Man as a main mode of Existenz.26 The
argument that communication does not serve as a means of overcoming loneliness
does not necessarily indicate the failure of communication. The reliance of
Jaspers’s concept of communication on a solipsistic basis does not leave room to
expect that communication would guarantee the end of loneliness, or even make it
a rarer experience. In the absence of real reference to the character of the other
Existenz, communication appears as a speculative possibility whose meaning does
not depend on realization. Communication constitutes one more of the
possibilities through which Existenz can realize itself and deepen its individual
identity, and beyond that we know nothing about it. In any case, the loneliness that
Jean Marie Paul rightly defined as the “hermeneutics of selfhood” is revealed as a
formative element of Existenz, and also of existential communication.27
On the Marxist critique of the dialectic between loneliness and
communication in Jaspers’s philosophy, see Günter Junghänel’s criticism that “the
pseudodialectic between loneliness and communication [reflects] an attempt to
cover the objective social contradictions, and especially the class struggle.” He
says that the loneliness Jaspers described does not constitute a party in the
dialectic existing in human communication, but is a by-product of the socio-
material situation in the capitalist world, which only the social order offered by
Marxism could solve.28 This criticism ignores one of the most basic premises of
existentialist philosophy in general, perhaps the most fundamental of all, that the
different levels of existence do not characterize different social groups, but are
different modes of existence of the same person who alternates between authentic
and inauthentic modes of existence. Compare also Schneiders’s criticism of
Junghänel.29 For further discussion, see Georg Lukàcs’s interpretation, seeing
Jaspers’s philosophy as a reflection of the bourgeois elitist ideal lacking any social
consciousness.30 Jaspers responded to the Marxist criticism directed at his thought
in his article “Reply to my critics.”31 Saner discussed the role of Marxism in the
socio-cultural context during Jaspers’s early period, and on the image Jaspers had
of Lukàcs.32 Manfred Gangl discussed Jaspers’s character as a social critic.33
While clarifying the link between the perception of communication and the
main motifs of the perception of selfhood, we may ask the question: why had
communication not been included from the start in the framework of the
explication of selfhood, appearing only as a transition mechanism? The answer to
116 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

this stems from the basic ambivalence typifying the perception of selfhood that
was behind the concept of communication in Jaspers’s thought. As he put it:

Regarding the question: why is there communication? Why do I not exist

alone? To this an answer is possible that can be understood to the same
small degree as [there is an answer] regarding the question about selfhood.

In his opinion, at this point we encounter “… the paradox of the becoming origin
of selfhood, which was actually from itself but still does not exist from itself and
with itself alone.”34
These questions, which appear rhetorical when they occur in the context of a
discussion of communication, demonstrate Jaspers’s real difficulty in breaking
through the wall of solipsism he had himself constructed around selfhood in the
early stages of his work, but at the same time also his awareness of this aspect in
his concept of selfhood. The hints of disappointment, or even despair, Jaspers
expressed in this context stemmed from the conflict between the discovery that
Existenz requires communication to constitute its selfhood and the original
intuition, whose influence in Jaspers’s thought was still present, that selfhood had
the ability to “stand independently” in the world.35 The awareness that
communication is essential not only relieved the feeling of loneliness, but also
made it more difficult to experience, especially since being aware of it became
part of Existenz’s self-perception. The paradox to which Jaspers was now exposed
in his discussion of communication was not a solution, since individuality was one
of the expressions of the maturation of Existenz’s self-consciousness, but this
maturity was expressed no less by the urge to communication. In this context, Di
Cesare suggested that Jaspers did not achieve a balance between loneliness and
communication.36
The new self-understanding being formed in Existenz’s consciousness in view
of the possibility of communication with another Existenz, that it could not exist
only in itself and through itself, but required the human Being outside it, was
expressed in the following words appearing under the title “the dissatisfaction in
myself alone”:

If I perceive myself in the face of the refusal to communicate and

experience consciousness where I rely on myself alone then the
dissatisfaction… is worsened… I cannot find the real because what is real
is not only what exists as real for me; I cannot love myself if I do not
thereby love the other. I must become dreary if I am only I am.
However, there is in me a real and original drive to stand by myself alone; I
would still like to be able to live as retiring to myself…37
 Communication 117

The refusal to communicate is no longer presented as an expression of the

dominance or power of individuality, but as a lack or fault in selfhood that
damages the freedom that is one of the typical features of Existenz, and eventually
leads to its identification as a closed objective Being.38 In the absence of
communication, Existenz is removed to outside the boundaries of Being and finds
itself as “homeless” in existence.39 In this respect, communication is not perceived
as a means of escaping from selfhood or as evidence of the flimsiness of selfhood.
The maturation of Existenz’s self-consciousness is now presented as “pressing
within the external willingness toward communication.”40 Jaspers, who at no stage
of his philosophy renounced his primordial insights, found it difficult in this
context also to push aside his original urges to grant philosophical representation
to selfhood as an independent and self-sufficient Being, or as he wrote, “I would
still like to be able to live as retiring to myself.”41 However, this urge was
overcome by the awareness that such an approach would diminish the ability to
achieve a complete understanding of selfhood that was at the center of his
philosophical commitment.
The connection between communication and Existenz’s grasp of existence is
not expressed only in the negative, but also in the positive. Just as in the absence
of communication Existenz is removed from existence, so also the presence of
communication strengthens its hold in existence. Jaspers’s argument that
communication helps Existenzes that form it to participate actively in ideas, tasks,
and goals that arise from real existence in the world42 strengthens the observation
that the ability to form a relation toward another Existenz is one of the most
crucial expressions of Existenz’s hold on existence. Existenz’s grasp of the
immanent expressions of the world and its ability to form a relation toward other
Existenzes embody the two main implications of Jaspers’s distancing himself from
solipsism. While the other Existenz is not necessarily part of the immediate reality
of the Existenz examining the possibility of forming a relation of communication
with it, its ability to recognize its existence and to confront the possibility of
communication becomes an inseparable part of its self-consciousness as a worldly
Being.
In a way we can argue that there is a basic similarity between the role allotted
to the other Existenz in communication and the role objects occupy for formal
knowledge. Just as a person’s mind requires objects as a basis for forming its
consciousness, so Existenz requires the existence of the other Existenz in order to
form and develop its self-consciousness.43 We would do well to compare the role
of the “other Existenz” in communication for the Existenz forming its selfhood
with the dialectic of the master and the slave in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s
philosophy. To the best of my knowledge, such a comparison has yet to be made,
although the connection between Jaspers’s thought and Hegel’s philosophy in
other contexts has been examined by Alan M. Olson.44 The very discussion of
communication takes place from the point of view of the Existenz being
118 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

explicated in Jaspers’s thought and not from the viewpoint of the other Existenz,
which is not presented as a real entity with its own existence beyond the role it
may play for the Existenz under discussion. Not only can communication take
place only between Existenzes,45 but the very meeting between the two is defined
as responding to the same possibility of selfhood identified in the other.46
Preserving the link to the viewpoint of the Existenz is achieved by reducing the
difference between the two Existenzes, intended mainly to moderate the otherness
of the other Existenz.
At this point, the instrumental nature of the relation Existenz forms toward the
other Existenz is revealed. Existenz does not require the fullness of the Being of
the other Existenz, or even its concrete existence, which was not even mentioned
in the discussion, dealing mainly with the situation from which the Existenz that is
forming its selfhood is pushed to communication. The presence of this aspect in
Jaspers’s thought probably served as a basis for a variety of interpretations that
understood in some ways the philosophy of Existenz as a rephrasing of the
traditional approach of sui causa regarding human beings. From this point of
view, Jaspers’s philosophy was understood as an expression of the extreme
subjectivism of excessive and dangerous autonomy of the individual, and even of
anti-social elitism.47 The implications of these interpretations for the
understanding of the perception of communication are clear; this interpretation
negates the possibility of understanding Jaspers’s concept of communication as an
option that Existenz can realize in practice in its existence.
Like these interpretations, the interpretation offered here does not see
Jaspers’s perception of communication as expressing a real possibility. Here we
also reject the possibility of seeing the concept of communication as part of a
dialogical approach, as other interpreters of Jaspers’s thought believed. The
scholars who saw Jaspers’s perception of communication as a dialog viewed it as
evidence of a real experience of Existenz, instead of as an expression of Jaspers’s
dealing with a speculative option. Hans Urs Von Balthasar lists Jaspers along with
Martin Buber as two dialogical thinkers of the period.48 Heinz Horst Schrey
included Jaspers’s thought in what he termed “the philosophy of dialog.”49
Similarly, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl includes Jaspers in a list of philosophers, such
as Buber, Gabriel Marcel, Franz Rosenzweig, and Albert Camus, who dealt with
“the issue of communication or dialog”—two concepts she probably considered
identical (she argues that Jaspers was unique in this context in linking
communication with truth).50 Michael Theunissen offers a more moderate
interpretation of Jaspers’s perception of communication, and shows similarities
between Buber and Jaspers that indicate, in his opinion, Jaspers’s proximity to
dialogical thinking, but do not yet enable his philosophy to be included in it.51
Harry Wardlaw claims that Jaspers’s understanding of truth as communication
draws heavily on Immanuel Kant.52
 Communication 119

I still have difficulty accepting the interpretation that sees subjectivism as the
be all and end all of Jaspers’s philosophy, since it lacks a real explanation for the
very presence of the idea of communication in his philosophy of Existenz. It
conspicuously ignores the open discussion of the implications created by the
possibility of communication in Jaspers’s perception of Existenz, and misses even
the viewpoint focused on Existenz in which these approaches were anchored.
Jaspers described the implications of this possibility in the following words:

In communication I become open to myself with the other.

However, this opening is also for the first time the becoming real of the I as
self. If I think that opening is the clarification of an innate character, then I
abandon with this thought the possibility of Existenz, which is still creating
itself in the process of opening where it becomes clarified.53

The “opening,” or the ability to self-transcend that is typical of Existenz, which

enabled it to become acquainted with the possible existence of another Existenz,
revealed to it new horizons so far hidden from it. Even before it was exposed to
what was beyond it—Being and transcendence—it reached better self-
understanding. Now it transpires that the very possibility that Existenz could form
a relation toward what was beyond it reveals the real nature of the infinity that,
already early in his writings, Jaspers had attributed to the individual’s subjective
Being. The infinity does not depend on the absence of boundaries imposed upon
it, but on the possibilities of its self-understanding in light of what is beyond it,
and naturally restricts it. In this respect, we can argue that the very possibility of
forming a relation to a transcendent entity testifies first and foremost to the nature
of the Being called Existenz. The perception of communication as the “openness”
and “opening”54 of individuals toward the other in order to form their selfhood is
rooted in German culture. It refers primarily to two central concepts in Hegel’s
philosophy: Entävßerung, which means rejecting or renouncing the other, and
Vergegenständlichung, which means making the object to which the person refers
more vivid and concrete. These two concepts denote individuals’ ability to use
what is around them, in the widest sense, to form themselves as spiritual and
creative entities.55
We can summarize this stage of our discussion of Jaspers’s concept of
communication by arguing that we can find in it the traces of the solipsistic
infrastructure that has generally accompanied the framework of the explication of
selfhood. In this context, this infrastructure is expressed in the centrality attributed
to loneliness in “communication.” However, the introduction of the other Existenz
into the realm of possibilities through which Existenz can realize itself deepened
the cracks in the solipsistic perception of selfhood beyond the influence of the
discussion of the world’s reality and of objective knowledge. This change made
Jaspers’s perception of Existenz more flexible and opened to it new horizons
120 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

including the possibility of forming a relation toward transcendence—an option

that had not appeared in this thinking while the explication of selfhood had been
the main axis guiding it. The possibility of forming a relation toward
transcendence, which appeared thanks to the changes in the perception of
Existenz, served as a basis for Jaspers’s perception of communication being
located outside the realm of the explication of selfhood, as part of the transition
mechanisms.
The opening of Existenz toward what was beyond it, achieved in the context
of what was called earlier the “first trend” in the perception of communication,
was not realized in the form of relations with the other Existenz, but only in
forming a relation toward transcendence, to be discussed in the framework of what
we have termed the “second trend.” The first trend formed the foundation for what
would be realized only in the second trend, to be discussed below. Only when
communication serves as a transition mechanism can we determine whether, or
more precisely, to what extent, Jaspers’s perception of selfhood was liberated
from its early link to solipsism.

4. Communication as a Transition Mechanism

The entry of the other Existenz into the arena of philosophizing revealed the basic
polarity of the Being of Existenz. On the one hand, it tends toward “excited
devotion”56 to itself, while on the other hand it continues to want to “hold itself
from loyalty to loneliness,” and to find ways to “help itself.”57 Steffen Graefe
discussed the connection between the element of “excitement” in the existentialist
view of communication, the “excited approach” appearing in Psychology,58 and
eros in Plato’s philosophy.59 As long as communication is perceived merely as a
framework of relations between Existenzes, we cannot decide between these two
poles, since to the extent that “love, the substantial source of selfhood in the
communication, can grow from itself the selfhood as a motion of its opening, it
cannot enable the arrival at a perfect conclusion.”60 The processes occurring in the
self-consciousness of Existenz when it faces the possibility of communication
cannot be exhausted within the explication of selfhood, precisely because they
direct Existenz toward what is beyond it, to transcendence. Just as in the other
transition mechanisms, in the discussion of communication Jaspers used
transcendence before explicating it. However, its role in the context of
communication is quite clear. As he puts it:

You and I, who are separate in existence, are one in transcendence. There
we do not meet and do not even miss each other, but here in the becoming
of a struggling communication that is revealed and confirmed in danger.
Where this unity exists, there is a leap from what is already
incomprehensible to what cannot be thought absolutely.61
 Communication 121

The transition, or more precisely the “leap,” from existence to transcendence

skipped the possibility of a meeting between the two Existenzes, which was not
realized at all. More accurately, this possibility could not have been realized in
principle, and we cannot even say it was missed. However, although the deep
individuality that typifies them prevented a real meeting between the two
Existenzes, Jaspers believed that they could share the aim to form a relation to
transcendence as a Being existing beyond them. Jaspers did not clarify what the
phrase “we are one in transcendence” meant, so his words lack an answer to the
question whether referring to transcendence could serve as a basis for real
communication between them, or whether it was merely a shared characteristic of
Existenzes as such. One possible answer to this question is the argument that the
unity of the Existenzes in transcendence is transcendental to both of them, and to
the framework of their existence in the world, and it could even be existence out
of communication. However, such a unity does not leave real traces.
Jaspers himself noted the complexity of his arguments, which directed the
discussion in two directions at once, and even understood the potential for a
contradiction forming from them. On the one hand, he wished to follow the
changes occurring in the self-consciousness of Existenz in light of the possibility
of communication with the other Existenz. On the other hand, he wished to
establish out of these changes an approach toward what was beyond the Existenz
and the other Existenz, toward transcendence. From the viewpoint of the Existenz
being explicated we cannot separate these two channels, since the same opening to
the other is itself the realization of itself as an Existenz. In his words, “This
process of realization as opening does not take place in the isolated Existenz but
only with the other. As an individual I do not exist for myself, not as a revelation
and not as an actual.”62 However, from the objective viewpoint of consciousness
we cannot attribute processes of opening and change to a particular Being even
before it was an actual Being. As he says:

For objective thought, certainly only what existed before can be revealed.
However, the becoming open that brings the Being simultaneously with this
becoming is like originating from the nothingness, thus it does not [remain]
only in the sense of mere existence.63

Jaspers clarified that although the “opening [becoming open] and the reality are in
a relationship that appears to be forming in the contrast between its existing from
nothingness and its being self-bearing,”64 the contradiction that is forming is only
an apparent contradiction,65 a contradiction resulting mainly from the continued
presence of traces from the early perception of selfhood, according to which
selfhood is a “self-bearing” Being. This is because transcendence is perceived as
“resulting from the nothingness” only from the viewpoint of Existenz, or more
precisely as long as the dominance of this viewpoint is preserved in the discussion
122 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

and the possible existence of an otherness separate from Existenz itself is pushed
aside. However, as the self-consciousness of Existenz matures and opens new
horizons to what is beyond it, it transpires that the very acquaintance of Existenz
with the existence of transcendence is based on the changes that occurred in
Existenz’s self-consciousness. Perhaps there is still room to define the transition
from the explication of selfhood to the clarification of the relation Existenz forms
toward transcendence as a “leap,” even if only not to grant this transition a
deterministic meaning where the “openness” of Existenz necessarily leads to the
formation of a relation toward transcendence. In any case, the perspective of
Jaspers’s whole philosophy confirms this process, since eventually Jaspers moved
away from dealing with Existenz and focused on explicating Being and
transcendence.
The openness to the reality of another Existenz transpires as an essential
preparation for the perception of communication as a transition mechanism. It
deepened the cracks in the solipsistic perception of selfhood and opened new
possibilities for Existenz that were an “unknown” for it at this stage of the
explication. The vagueness and lack of clarity typical of Jaspers’s arguments
about transcendence in his discussion of communication demonstrate the
condition of Existenz, at this point facing two new options for it: forming a
relation toward another Existenz and forming a relation toward transcendence. In
the process, it forms a self-consciousness that no longer allows it to maintain its
self-perception as a “self-bearing Being,” but Jaspers’s thought still lacked the
tools to bridge the gap between its early self-perception and the possibilities
revealed by the discussion of communication.
As in other places, here, too, Jaspers apparently spoke in two voices and left
his words undecided. Sometimes he appeared to strive to bring both Existenzes
closer to transcendence, and at other times he appeared to see their existence side
by side as helping each of them to eventually arrive at transcendence while
preserving their individuality and sovereignty. Sometimes he appeared to wish to
create a relation of continuity from the level of existence to transcendence, while
at other times he appeared to distinguish between the different stages of presenting
a Hegelian-natured process where each stage was an escalation compared to its
predecessor, but at the same time also its negation. Either way, the shared
presence of both “trends” revealed in the discussion of communication illuminates
the general direction in which Jaspers’s philosophy was moving. This thought was
at this stage in a process where the status of Existenz as the sole object of
philosophizing was being undermined, against the background and limitations
uncovered in the explication of selfhood. True, in this framework, too, Existenz
continued in its explicit condition to serve as an essential infrastructure for
Jaspers’s arguments. However, his main attention was no longer devoted solely to
the explication of Existenz, but started to be directed to expanding the sphere of
reference of Existenz that served as a basis for forming new axes of philosophy
 Communication 123

not dependent on the self-clarification needs of Existenz. To be more precise, the

metaphysical consciousness, which was the fruit of deep modification processes
occurring in Jaspers’s thought, is not the consciousness of Existenz, but this
consciousness itself was already based on something existing beyond it.
The interpretation of Jaspers’s concept of communication offered here,
according to which it is part of the formation process of metaphysical
consciousness—or more precisely a stage where this consciousness became a
conscious goal of Existenz—stands in contrast with most existing interpretations
in the secondary literature. They understood Jaspers’s idea of communication as
an explication of a real experience of Existenz, or interpreted the possible reality
of this experience as equivalent to the possibility of forming the Existenz itself,
also often defined by Jaspers as “possible Existenz.” The understanding that
Jaspers’s perception of communication reflected a real possibility for the Existenz
has appeared, for instance, in interpretations that tried to derive humanistic norms
and ethical values from it. Salamun, for example, summarizes four norms that
arise from Jaspers’s perception of communication: the daring for mediating-
creating loneliness and self-standing self-consciousness; the requirement to open
to the other; the cry for unqualified and non-egoistical willingness toward the
other; and finally the willingness to recognize in principle the other as a possibility
for self-actualization.66 The fundamental difficulty in accepting the ethical
interpretation of Jaspers’s perception of communication stems from this
interpretation almost completely ignoring the fact that the Existenz as another to
which communication is directed does not appear at any stage as a real personality
with its own world. The criticism is not that we cannot derive from Jaspers’s
approach any ethical meanings or discuss the implications of his thought in this
direction, but instead concerns the understanding of ethics as the central and
comprehensive motive in which his approach is grounded. A total interpretation
like this not only does not present a reasonable explanation for the changes and
developments that occurred in his philosophy, but it also ignores the metaphysical
aspect that entered the ethical aspects themselves. Without referring to this
metaphysical aspect, the ethical aspects are also only partially explicated. If
Jaspers’s approach contains an ethical meaning, I believe that it is anchored in the
metaphysics that is progressively revealed as a basic infrastructure of his thought
in its different periods. Even if we ignore the question of the reality of the other
Existenz, we cannot ignore that in his discussion of the possibility of
communication Jaspers presented an instrumental attitude toward the other
Existenz. It was largely a secondary factor in the change processes experienced by
the self-consciousness of the Existenz that continued to be dominant in the
discussion. Schneiders, too, noted the problems in principle posed by the ethical
interpretations of Jaspers’s philosophy of Existenz. In his opinion, Jaspers’s
negative position in the argument about the very possibility of recognizing moral
norms with the usual instruments of our reason could lead to the “crumbling of
124 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

moral philosophy.” Jaspers’s position, in Schneiders’s opinion, should not be

viewed as the abolishing (Aufhebung) of moral philosophy, since this position
limits in principle the possibilities of forming it in reality. Schneiders argues that it
is no accident that Jaspers’s claim regarding the impossibility of deriving “worthy
actions” was a fruitful basis for studies in the field of legal philosophy dealing
with the special meaning of objectivity and normativity of actions.67 He mentions
three works written in this vein.68 These works are valuable not only in the field of
law, but also in moral philosophy, which is currently considered as part of it.69
The role of the other Existenz was mainly symbolic. The other Existenz
represented for the Existenz undergoing explication a different form of humanity,
but the main meaning of this humanity depends on the possibility that it could help
the Existenz become acquainted with hidden facets of its Being. In any case, the
question remains unanswered how we can conclude from the perception of
relations between people, which is apriori presented as a speculative possibility,
any norms and values requiring realization in the framework of the concrete
reality of human action. Even if the requirement for the realization of the norms
that the ethical interpretation deduced from Jaspers’s general arguments, we could
still not view his perception of communication as anything other than a vague
phrasing of mental positions that Existenz develops in the face of the speculative
possibility of meeting another. We can be almost certain that Jaspers would not
have supported this restricted outcome, if only because of the psychologistic
image arising from it—an image that he consciously and actively wished to cast
off even before publishing Philosophy. Jaspers stated in retrospect that
Psychology was not a psychological book in essence, and that it became his
unconscious path to philosophy.70 The conditions for communication that Jaspers
listed related only to the Existenz under explication and not to the other Existenz
to which the communication relation was supposed to be directed.71 To use
Heidegger’s terminology, communication is an aspect enabling Existenz to reach a
more advanced development of its selfhood, which deepens in view of the idea of
transcendence, functions as an Existenzial, and should not be seen as representing
the layer of the Existenzielle that portrayed for Heidegger the layer of
realization.72 Finally, the other Existenz remains in Jaspers’s perception of
communication a speculative element whose realization is at least not a
consideration in the philosophizing, and perhaps does not exist at all.
As in the ethical interpretation, the interpretative direction characterized by
an anthropological-philosophical orientation also contains an understanding of the
perception of communication as an expression of a real option for Existenz.
William Earle, who in general understood the existential elucidation as a rational
framework, saw the perception of communication as an essential means for
achieving a rational estimate regarding the reality in which we live. While
rationality does not cancel the essential and unbridgeable polarity accompanying
the Being of Existenz in its experience of communication, as a result of which it is
 Communication 125

condemned to live in a paradox, in his opinion reason and objective consciousness

are able to help resolve it.73 Urs Richli did not go as far as Earle in arguing that
Existenz could be understood using the instruments of rational thought. However,
from the same anthropological orientation, Richli, too, tried to deduce from the
perception of communication, and in general from Jaspers’s perception of
Existenz, principles regarding the “correct humanity” that he believed was
embedded in Jaspers’s thought.74 In a way, we could state that the anthropological
position, satisfied with drawing general principles regarding people from the
perception of Existenz, including Jaspers’s perception of communication, without
aiming to phrase from these principles any ethical requirements, does not harm the
principle of freedom that was a founding element of the Being of Existenz.
However, like the ethical interpretation, this interpretation, too, was characterized
by understanding communication as a descriptive condition applying to the
ontological reality in which Existenz is contained. The criticism presented to the
ethical interpretation can equally be applied to the anthropological interpretation.
Taking into account the understanding of the ethical and anthropological
interpretations of the idea of communication as an expression of a real experience
of Existenz, it is no wonder that they did not grant real importance to the role of
transcendence in Jaspers’s perception of communication, and were unable to
explain the metaphysical depth of Jaspers’s perception of communication and his
philosophy as a whole.
The interpretative approach based on understanding communication as a
concrete and realizable idea did not solve real problems arising from Jaspers’s
alternating between the other Existenz and transcendence, each of which
represents a different Being of the “other.” This interpretation was also unable to
offer an explanation for the nature of the connection between Existenz and
transcendence arising from the perception of communication. In contrast,
exposing the two directions of philosophizing within the idea of communication,
defined above as the “first trend” and the “second trend,” has enabled us to follow
Jaspers’s attempts to escape from the perception of Existenz as a solipsistic Being
and to reveal the transitional function entailed in his perception of communication.
The continuation of the tendency to achieve the explication of selfhood within
the discussion of communication and the absence of a real explication of
transcendence testify to the greater proximity of communication to the explication
of selfhood than to the explication of Being. However, as transcendence and
Being become central issues of philosophizing, there will hardly remain any trace
of the idea of communication as a possibility of meeting between two Existenzes.
This will clarify not only the functional status of the other Existenz, also harnessed
to the self-explication of Existenz, but also the functional nature of the entire
perception of communication that serves mainly as a means for the replacing of
the axis of philosophizing—from the one aimed at selfhood to the one that was to
be directed at Being.
 Six

HISTORICITY

1. From World Orientation and Communication to Historicity

The perception of Existenz as a worldly Being, which started to form in World

Orientation,1 reflected Karl Jaspers’s aim to provide his discussion of selfhood
with a philosophical nature. The introduction of the concepts of “world” and
“consciousness” into his discussion undoubtedly created a real change in his
perception of selfhood. It no longer appeared as a Being detached from any
context and link with the reality external to it, but became a worldly Being. While
selfhood was still the main object of the philosophical explication, the discussion
of the implications of this change was restricted to the relevance of the world’s
reality to the self-perception of Existenz. In a way, only in the perception of
communication can we find a more direct handling of the implications of the
perception of selfhood as a worldly Being. When Jaspers was discussing
communication, he was not conducting an independent discussion about the world
as a real context in which the meeting between Existenzes takes place. In the
discussion of the concept of historicity (Geschichtlichkeit), on which this chapter
focuses, Jaspers was able for the first time to consider the concept of the world as
a Being that had independent existence that could be examined beyond the
implications it had for the self-consciousness of Existenz. In this context, too, he
added insights to the framework of the explication of selfhood, and therefore
presented it here as one of the transition mechanisms. However, since historicity
expresses a deeper otherness than that of the other Existenz discussed in
communication, the clarification of this concept created a further distancing from
the solipsistic perception of selfhood and made real progress toward the
explication of Being. Unlike the concepts of communication and of boundary
situations (to be discussed in Chapter Seven below), the concept of historicity has
rarely been studied by scholars.

2. Between Historicity and History

The idea of historicity is based on the classic Hegelian distinction between the two
meanings of the German word for history (Geschichte): history and story.2 The
first denotes the objective meaning relating to historical events, on whose basis
the science of history was created. The second denotes the subjective meaning of
128 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

this area, stressing the decisive role of the human factor in forming the past
consciousness of people as a basis for their self-understanding in the present.
Against the background of this distinction, of which Jaspers was aware, he
attempted to differentiate between historical consciousness and consciousness of
historicity. People’s role regarding historical consciousness is limited to their
ability to observe past events and learn about different historical periods from
them. These events do not necessarily have any relation to their personal lives. In
any case, in the mental activity involved in historical consciousness, the person’s
presence is not the individual’s presence, with all the subjective factors
characterizing that selfhood, but the presence of someone gifted with an abstract
reasoning ability, or what Jaspers called “consciousness in general.” Not only is
the individual’s private personality not perceived as a factor influencing the
process of understanding through “consciousness in general,” but there is a
deliberate effort to distance it based on the assumption that it could bias and even
damage the understanding. In contrast, in consciousness of historicity, which is
part of the consciousness of Existenz, it perceives itself as an entity forming in
time. This means that Existenz perceives its existence in the present as a
continuation of previous forms of existence, and as part of a reality that will
continue even after it ceases to exist. At the center of the consciousness of
historicity is an awareness of the temporal aspect of existence in its many
expressions, an awareness that turns the existence of Existenz into one point on
the time axis, and that requires a wider understanding of existence of which
Existenz is only one part.3 The consciousness of historicity naturally acts to
reduce the importance attributed to the existence belonging to Existenz and to
undermine the solipsistic self-understanding.
Jaspers’s concept of historicity contains two main components: first it denotes
the physical aspect of time as a continuity on which the objective examination of
time in science relies. The general meaning of this is that every present point of
time was preceded by another point, and will be succeeded by another point. This
facet is relevant to the discussion of Existenz as a real Being in concrete time. The
term “historicity” also represents the experience of reality through consciousness,
in the process of constructing the individual’s personal identity, which lasts
throughout a person’s life. This aspect relates to Existenz as a Being aiming at
achieving awareness of the facts of its existence and its patterns of dealing with
them. The consciousness of historicity, attributed first and foremost to Existenz,
but present in all human beings conscious of their experiences, reflects the
constant involvement of Existenz with its origins; its life story; the question of the
relation between the life story and its current situation; and the way it perceives it.
The combination of these two meanings of “historicity” enables us to understand
the idea of historicity as expressing a process whereby people understand
themselves as part of a surrounding human Being characterized by the continuity
of concrete existence in time. This understanding is based on reflection aimed at
 Historicity 129

clarifying the data and circumstances of the past on the objective level, but at the
same time granting them subjective meaning relating to the concrete personality.
The consciousness of historicity serves as a framework for a broad, independent
clarification of existence, but also for Exisentz’s dealing with the meaning this
clarification has for its self-perception. The connection between the objective and
the subjective aspects, or between the datum discovered and the reflection
performed upon it to derive meaning from it is expressed in the following words
from Jaspers:

Here [in the consciousness of historicity] are originally connected in an

inseparable way Being and knowledge… Without knowledge, meaning a
clear perception and being inside it, there is no historistic Being, and
without a reality of historicity there is no knowledge.4

The two components of the consciousness of historicity, “knowledge,” and

“Being,” or the objective and subjective aspects of time, illuminate from a new
angle the epistemological and the ontological viewpoints, which have been
revealed as establishing elements in Jaspers’s philosophy. The epistemological
viewpoint, focusing on the question what can be known about selfhood, directs
Existenz in this context to examine its past and to ground its self-perception in a
wider view of the data of existence, understanding that only some of them can
have some expression during its lifetime. In contrast, the ontological viewpoint,
aiming at expressing the entity of selfhood as a Being present in the world, is
reflected in the discussion of historicity in Existenz’s effort to understand itself as
part of the wider entity of existence. To be more precise, the anchoring of the
ontological viewpoint in a wider awareness of the temporal aspect of existence is
not exhausted by the perception of Existenz as a worldly Being that transpired
from the discussion in World Orientation. There Existenz was still discussed as a
Being that forms its existence and examines it according to the possibilities it
entails, while the concept of historicity portrays a more mature self-perception of
Existenz, seeing itself as part of a wider Being whose boundaries extend far
beyond its individual existence.
In a way, only in the discussion of historicity, at least to a greater extent than
in the discussion of communication, does the inability of the two viewpoints, the
epistemological and the ontological, to fully describe the perception of selfhood
start to become apparent. The epistemological viewpoint is required to expand its
horizon and examine the whole of existence, the relevance of historical knowledge
to the discussion of historicity. In contrast, the anchoring of Existenz in an
existence whose boundaries extend beyond the concrete existence of Existenz
requires the ontological viewpoint not only to examine the entity of Existenz, but
also to present a broader entity. Up to this stage of the interpretation of Jaspers’s
thought it was possible to discuss the contribution of each of these viewpoints to
130 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

the analysis of the subject, but we now require a new understanding that identifies
the point where they meet. The knowledge achieved through the ontological
viewpoint will no longer be perceived as external to the reality of the ontological
Being of Existenz, but as inseparable from its reality, which cannot be exhausted
merely by observing the concrete existence to which it is directly linked. The
continuing undermining of the solipsistic intuition did not allow Jaspers to
continue to see Existenz as a Being whose existence and self-consciousness could
rely only on themselves. As we will see below, widening the frame of reference of
the two viewpoints to the existence whose boundaries extend beyond those of
Existenz softens the distinction between historical consciousness and
consciousness of historicity and helps expose the connection between knowledge
about Being and Being itself.

3. Consciousness of Historicity as a Means of Elucidating Existenz

A. Existenz and Historical Knowledge

Jaspers’s handling of the possible contribution of historical knowledge to the

clarification of Existenz raises anew questions that have already been discussed in
previous contexts. In his early writings, Jaspers sought to determine the relation
between the physiological aspects of mental illnesses studied by the science of
psychopathology and the character of the individual mental patient; in
Psychology5 he discussed the question of the possible contribution of general
psychology to understanding the mental life of a person as a subject; while in
World Orientation he discussed the relationship between science and philosophy.
Jaspers’s argument all along was that even if psychopathology, general
psychology, and science could contribute to understanding a person, the
uniqueness of selfhood is not revealed except through the viewpoints that also
contain awareness of the particular dimensions existing in the individual’s Being.
This awareness is apparent in the meanings he gave to the founding terms of the
explication of selfhood: “mental,” “world view,” and “elucidation of Existenz.”
Jaspers not only tried to form a point of view through which the individual’s
subjective Being could be elucidated; he also devoted considerable effort to
distinguishing between it and other viewpoints, which appeared to him to miss the
point. Presumably, this principle would also apply to the distinction between
historical consciousness and consciousness of historicity. Only consciousness of
historicity would be relevant to the elucidation of Existenz. This premise was the
basis for Elisabeth Young-Breuhl’s interpretation, defining historicity as a concept
of the Existenz that as such is outside the object-subject dichotomy, and reflects
an inexpressible certainty of Existenz and of the reason that clarifies it. Along
with historicity, she also listed the concept of freedom and the concept of
communication as concepts of the Existenz. She also argues that there exists a link
 Historicity 131

between Jaspers’s idea of historicity and Immanuel Kant’s perception of time.6

However, the innovation entailed in the concept of historicity, and more generally
in the ideas defined as transition mechanisms, is the change in the pattern that had
accompanied Jaspers’s thought up to this point. Unlike his previous discussions,
in this context Jaspers aimed to make the gap between Existenz and what is
beyond it more flexible. In his attempt to harness as many viewpoints as possible
to the philosophical discussion, he was able to note the partial, limited nature of a
viewpoint as such, and at the same time to move away from the idea that one
exclusive point of view could reveal the fullness of the object of philosophizing to
which his thought was directed. In the concept of historicity, this change became
apparent in the effort to harness the mental skills involved in forming a historical
consciousness, which were mainly aimed at establishing the scientific nature of
history as a realm of knowledge serving the consciousness of historicity, and in
turning it into an integral part of the self-perception of Existenz. As he puts it:

From this historistic (gechichtlichen) source the historical also becomes for
the first time really historistic. Without it, it would only mean a particular
event attributed to the existence of the present evaluated positively or
negatively. However, my theoretical knowledge from history becomes
through the whole science of history a function of the possible Existenz, if
its contents and images aim themselves at me, face me, demand from me,
or push me away from them, not only as distant patterns existing as closed
within themselves, or in other words: if it is assimilated to the function of
the eternal present of the things that exist within the philosophical-
historistic consciousness.7

It transpires that the idea of historicity entails the understanding that the historical
knowledge itself does not reflect a mere generality, but also contains an existential
element, and meeting with it may help the explication of Existenz. Existenz’s
observation of historical knowledge is not characterized by an unmediated,
unbiased view, usually considered as a precondition for knowing things, but
instead it perceives it a-priori as facing it, and it sees it as a fertile source for
elucidating its selfhood. The viewpoint of Existenz regarding historical knowledge
creates a transformation in it that expropriates its general, impersonal aspect,
restructures it, and turns it into a tool through which it organizes its story of
becoming.
On the face of it, these claims of Jaspers’s contain no real innovation. As in
previous contexts, here, too, he tried to harness the issues that arose in his
discussion, in this case, historical knowledge, to the purposes of the self-
elucidation of Existenz. As in his criticism of the science of psychopathology or of
general psychology as formal frameworks of knowledge that could not enable
access to the fullness and uniqueness of human Being, here, too, was implicit the
132 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

assumption that general and formal historical knowledge could not serve as a
source for the self-understanding of Existenz. We could even say that historicity
granted historical knowledge the same role that the other Existenz had in
communication—another means for establishing the selfhood of the Existenz
being explicated. Just like in communication, so in historicity the specific features
of the “other” were denied and assimilated into the press of the self-elucidation of
Existenz, which apparently did not lose its dominance in the philosophizing.
Jaspers discussed the consciousness of historicity after presenting his
perception of communication, and this could be crucial in revealing the motivation
for this consciousness. Jaspers described in this context the mutual fertilization
between Existenz and historical knowledge. On the one hand, the viewpoint of
Existenz regarding historical knowledge shows new, unfamiliar facets of it,
enriches it, and reveals its dynamic aspects; rescues the historical knowledge from
the generality that typifies it as a framework of formal thought and encourages the
creative forces it contains, which without Existenz would have remained silent and
dormant. In this respect, we should not understand the argument that Existenz
removes from historical knowledge its general element as an expression of its
distorting influences, but of its ability to produce from it what is sometimes
missing in the historian’s view. Jaspers noted that through Existenz, “[historical
knowledge] proves its power in the ability of its results, to be replaced by real
historistic consciousness of the self existing in the present.”8 On the other hand,
historical knowledge serves Existenz as a source for meaning and a broader self-
understanding in existence; thanks to it Existenz does not perceive itself as an
autonomic Being existing outside any context, but as a Being existing in a place
and time and as part of a Being that existed before it and will continue to exist
after it.
Clarifying the mutual relationship between historical knowledge and the
existence of which Existenz is part served as a basis for Jaspers’s claim that
people’s handling ofthe element of historicity in their Being requires them to
become acquainted with other forms of objectivization through knowledge.9 The
meeting with these forms opens for Existenz a window on complete entities of
realities beyond itself, through which it learns that its concrete existence takes
place alongside other forms of existence, not necessarily existential ones, and is
subject to the same conditions as the rest of them. This understanding does not
make the general, objective viewpoint the main instrument for elucidating
Existenz’s experience of historicity. However, since historical knowledge
becomes for it a criterion by which it examines everything around it, it is
encouraged to identify the existence of general aspects applying to it as a Being
existing in time, aspects that can also find expression in other Existenzes, but also
in other entities that are not Existenzes at all. Contrary to the tendency to
emphasize the otherness of Existenz compared with other objects in the world, in
the process of becoming acquainted with its historicity, it learns that general,
 Historicity 133

objective knowledge also relates to crucial aspects of its existence, which

undermines the thought that Existenz is opposed to any form of generality and
objectivity.
It is hard to ignore Jaspers’s vacillation between the effort to grant expression
to the particular element in the story of self-formation and the urge to make a
general claim regarding the temporal nature of human existence as such. True, the
historicity of a person does not express any more than the story of the birth and
establishment of this person’s selfhood as an Existenz—a Being that is not
considered by Jaspers as identical to the sum of phenomena accompanying its
existence in time. However, the dialog Existenz conducts with the possibility that
this story could itself become knowledge, with all the implications of this, serves
as a basis for the understanding of historicity as a “framework story”—the “story”
being the sum of all the private experiences, and the “framework” also containing
general aspects whose relevance exceeds the boundaries of the individual story of
the concrete Existenz.
Against the background of this interpretation, I argue that the mutual
relationship formed between historical knowledge and Existenz in the framework
of historicity constitutes an innovation and development in the shape of Jaspers’s
philosophizing. In the explication of selfhood, the boundaries of the discussion of
the different subjects were fixed according to their degree of relevance to the
character of Existenz, and even in the perception of communication the element of
mutuality in the relations between Existenzes was hardly discussed. In contrast, in
the clarification of the influence of Existenz on historical knowledge, we find a
clearer recognition of the reality of an otherness separate from the Existenz. Since
the otherness of existence in time, which transcends the concrete existence of
Existenz itself, is deeper than that of the other Existenz, which has the same
structure as the Existenz being explicated, I argue that in the discussion of
historicity, Jaspers’s thought moved another step further away from the solipsistic
perception of selfhood, beyond that enabled by the perception of communication.

B. Existenz and Existence

The pair of terms in the title above may appear tautological, but this title refers to
the examination of the attitude of Existenz (Existenz) toward existence (Dasein).
The argument discussed in consciousness of historicity, according to which
Existenz is in concrete existence in time, appears to have no innovation compared
with the insights Jaspers has reached so far. Already in World Orientation, Jaspers
dealt with the meaning of determining the reality of the world for Existenz, and in
Elucidation of Existenz this discussion was deepened. However, when it became
apparent to Jaspers that separating Existenz and the world was impossible, the
recognition of the reality of the world still posed a threat to the self-perception of
Existenz. This demonstrated Jaspers’s difficulty in abandoning the solipsistic
134 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

image of selfhood that was fundamental to his early thought, leading to his
inability to conduct an independent discussion of the world that was not
subjugated to the purposes of the self-elucidation of Existenz. In the discussion of
historicity, for the first time Existenz was presented as having relations of unity
with existence:

Being as detached [absolute] Being, whether transcendence or selfhood, is

inaccessible to me. When I want to realize it by distinguishing it from
existence, I lose it…
I become certain of my own selfhood, and thus of transcendence, only in
existence. The given, the situation and the tasks receive their meaning in
their fixity and particularity to become for me myself… The contents of my
essence are real only in a phenomenon and not outside it, in imaginary
selfhood separated by abstract transcendence. This unity of myself with my
existence as a phenomenon is my historicity, and awareness of it is
historistic consciousness.10

The definition of Existenz as being in unity with existence should not be

understood as evidence of Jaspers’s moving away from understanding Existenz as
a particular Being that he worked throughout his writings to establish. The
consciousness of historicity as existential consciousness reflects the freedom of
Existenz to form a conscious relation toward existence. In any case, its being
subject to this existence does not contradict its typical uniqueness and particularity
within it. Similarly, the recognition of Existenz being “subject to existence,”
which is an integral part of the consciousness of historicity,11 does not express the
perception of existence as a necessity forced upon it as expressed in the other
contexts already discussed in previous chapters. See especially the discussion in
Chapter Four, in the section “Detaching Existenz from the World.”
The explicitness typical of Existenz’s consciousness at this stage is revealed
as having two facets. On the one hand, it is reflected in the self-understanding of
Existenz as subject to the factuality of existence that places borders and
boundaries around it, while on the other hand it knows that it is not exhausted
merely by the boundaries of existence, and “… in this understanding Existenz
realizes its essence through its fate.”12 In this respect, being part of existence, and
even the access to historical knowledge and the uniqueness of the Being of
Existenz, do not appear at this stage of Jaspers’s philosophy as excluding each
other.
Existenz’s recognition of its reality in existence and the connection between
this perception of existence and its self-perception establishes and deepens the
activity and sovereignty Existenz shows toward itself in the ongoing process of
self-explication. Compare with Alan M. Olson’s interpretation, according to
which transcending to transcendence occurring in historicity is based on the
 Historicity 135

individual’s life-practice (Lebenspraxis), determining the dialectical nature of

freedom and will.13 These expressions reflect the understanding that the existence
to which Existenz is referring is not laid out before it as an absolute and complete
element that it could accept or reject as a whole. Quite the opposite, the freedom
typifying it as an Existenz encourages it to see those incomplete aspects of
existence as an opening that enables it to perceive existence itself as a space where
it might realize itself. As in the other contexts discussed in the explication of
selfhood, the discussion of historicity also shows that Existenz is able to design
existence to suit its character and needs. However, the innovation in the
consciousness of historicity compared with the consciousness of Existenz formed
up to the transition mechanisms is that at this stage Existenz recognizes that the
elucidation of the basic data of existence is a necessary condition for determining
the boundaries in principle in which its selfhood can be formed—a recognition
that arises as a positivistic consciousness of Existenz regarding its dependence on
factors beyond its control. Historicity as a framework where the attitude of
Existenz to existence and the boundaries of the freedom it has within it is revealed
as inseparable from the basic processes that were typical of the discussions in
World Orientation and Elucidation of Existenz.
The maturation of Existenz’s attitude toward existence that arises from the
discussion of historicity reflects not only that it is not required to leave its
selfhood in order to create the consciousness of historicity. From the point of view
of this study, the importance of the idea of historicity is first and foremost in that it
expresses Jaspers’s deepening awareness of the problems in the solipsistic
understanding of selfhood; in this way the perception of Existenz as a worldly
Being is filled with real contents. However, the main importance of this idea is
that it represents the stage of Existenz’s reconciliation with, and acceptance of,
itself and the world. Historicity, which assumes Existenz’s awareness of its
characteristic particularity against the background of the existence in which it
finds itself, and also its ability to establish a consciousness of distinctness from it,
does not negate the previous stages. The inclusion of the idea of historicity in the
transition mechanisms creates integration between different insights discussed
separately in previous contexts; on the one hand it enables maintaining Existenz’s
central position in the philosophizing, and on the other hand it opens the wide
horizons of transcendence.

4. Transcendence in Consciousness of Historicity

The consciousness that started forming already in the explication of selfhood,

according to which Existenz is not free of limitations and preconditions created
outside it, has been fundamental to Jaspers’s discussion of the perception of
communication and the idea of historicity. In communication this consciousness
was reflected in the confrontation with the possible reality of the other, while in
136 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

historicity it was expressed in the attempt to become acquainted with existence

from a viewpoint transcending the boundaries of existential existence. Existenz’s
awareness of its dependence on factors external to it, and as a result to the
problems typical of the solipsistic approach, became more penetrating in the
context of consciousness of historicity. While the isolated existence of Existenz
was revealed in communication only through the other Existenz, whose perception
was largely derived from the way Existenz perceived itself, in consciousness of
historicity the dependence of Existenz on what is beyond it is clarified as having
wide dimensions transcending the boundaries of its personal existence. As the
awareness of the Existenz’s dependence deepens, and as it achieves a clearer self-
understanding, new horizons are opened to it, which Jaspers’s early perception of
selfhood had blocked due to its total nature. Recognizing the other Existenz that is
close by and the boundaries of existence that extend even beyond it becomes a
corner stone in the process of the formation of existential consciousness regarding
transcendence.
As in the other transition mechanisms, in the discussion of historicity
Jaspers’s usage of the term transcendence did not rely on a real explication, which
demonstrates that the ideas discussed in this framework were an intermediate
stage prefiguring aspects that only later would become the focus of his
philosophizing. While the consciousness of the dependence of Existenz on
external factors reflects Jaspers’s continued effort to leave the solipsistic
viewpoint, the absence of any real elucidation of the concept of transcendence
indicates that the consciousness of transcendence had yet to mature into a central
object to which the philosophizing was aimed. Unlike the perception of
communication, the discussion of historicity already shows some progress in
clarifying the concept of transcendence. For instance, the description of
transcendence as the world’s Being of nothingness14 indicated its location outside
the world of phenomena and stated as fact the essential gap between it and
existential existence, and existence in general. In any case, transcendence was
presented as relevant to Existenz. As he said: “Any betrayal of transcendence
exists for me in the pattern of betrayal of the phenomenon of existence, whose
price is the loss of the Existenz.”15 Although as part of the world of phenomena
Existenz is distant from transcendence, its uniqueness as a particular Being is
expressed in its typical effort not to be limited to the boundaries of this world and
to form a relation toward the transcendence beyond it. The argument that
“historicity as existence in time is for me the only way in which the absolute Being
is accessible to me”16 grants the concept of consciousness of historicity its
accurate meaning: being a consciousness forming in and directed at existence, it
aims to understand people as a phenomenon of existence in general, including the
existence that preceded it; consciousness of historicity establishes the perception
of Existenz as part of existence. Since the consciousness of existence and of itself
exposes Existenz to the horizons beyond it, consciousness of historicity becomes a
 Historicity 137

viewpoint that bridges, first, between Existenz and transcendence as an absolute

experience and, second, beyond existential existence and existence in general.
Jaspers expressed these two aspects of consciousness of historicity in the
following passage:

Thus in historicity the duality of my consciousness of Being becomes clear

to me, which first in the agreed unity is true: I exist only as existence in
time, and I myself am not temporal. I know myself only as existence in
time, but in a way that this existence becomes for me a phenomenon of my
non-temporal selfhood.
… I and my phenomenon separate themselves and identify themselves the
more I reflect about the ways or immediately exist with myself. 17

Although the references to transcendence in the discussion of historicity did not

exceed the granting of preliminary meaning to this concept, they were sufficient to
clarify that historicity constituted an integral part of Existenz’s self-consciousness.
Jaspers went further, arguing that without the existence of a relation of Existenz
toward transcendence, it would be risking the loss of its selfhood.18 The dialog
between existence and transcendence and the formation of both through each
other in the discussion of historicity became crystallized in the concept of
eternality, which Jaspers defined as an endless duration of time. The fixing of
Existenz’s grasp in eternality that remains connected to the world of phenomena
of the present19 compressed the consciousness of historicity into an eye blink.20
Compare this with Jaspers’s historical discussion of the eye blink (Augenblick).21
Individuals as Existenz became aware that they were no more than a passing
phenomenon in existence. Through this phenomenon itself, which has depth in the
past and horizons in the future, the eternal was revealed to them. The eternality of
human Being is not the sort of religious claim referring to the person’s survival in
life after death. Nor does eternality appear in this context as an expression of the
realization of values. In my opinion, the main point of eternality is that it indicates
people’s ability not only to direct their future but also to design the past of
existence, which has apparently already been decided, in such a way as to allow
them to claim from it the story of Existenz’s formation. Jaspers described the two
temporal directions on which consciousness of historicity acts simultaneously as a
paradox:

The paradoxes of Existenz’s consciousness of historicity, that the

disappearing time contains the Being of eternality, does not mean that
eternality is supposed to be somewhere outside the place where it appears
temporally. In contrast [it means that] in existence, Being does not simply
exist, but it appears as that which is already decided, and indeed what has
been decided is eternal.22
138 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

In many ways, the meaning granted to existence in the consciousness of historicity

may be compared to the meaning of “situation Being” in World Orientation.23 See
the discussion of the term “situation” in Chapter Three. In Chapter Seven below
this term will be discussed from an additional angle. In these two contexts,
existence was presented as a blend of necessity, meaning of data whose origin is
external to Existenz, and of freedom or possibility that reflect Existenz’s ability to
act and to form itself. While for Existenz the wide consciousness of the world
entails becoming aware of its dependence on factors beyond its control, its ability
to achieve orientation within this world is revealed as a lever for self-realization.
The perception of Existenz that appears for the first time in the discussion of
historicity as being in unity with existence now receives its full meaning. The
consciousness of existence and of formation in time does not lead it to view itself
as confined to the boundaries of existence forced upon it as a worldly Being.
Jaspers’s interpretation of the concept of eternality enabled expanding the
meaning of the idea of possibility beyond its appearance in World Orientation.
While before it had been perceived mainly as having a meaning regarding the
future of Existenz, in the discussion of historicity it refers also to its past, and not
only the future but also the past appears here as an incomplete element for it. This
means that the consciousness of historicity provides Existenz with a new meaning
for events in its past, and it is not only subject to them but they appear as data that
can be formed and acquired.24
In the absence of a real explication of the concept of transcendence, Jaspers
found it difficult to separate this concept and its implications for the perception of
Existenz. This difficulty is apparent in the argument that the unification of
existence and Existenz in the consciousness of historicity is a personal perception
Existenz reaches.25 The perception of Existenz still finds it difficult to contain
simultaneously both the particular elements and the new awareness of extra-
existential, independent dimensions revealed in the discussion of historicity. Also,
the insights achieved regarding transcendence in the discussion of historicity had
not been independently conceptually formulated, and transcendence could be
significant only for the Existenz that had experienced it.26 Even if historicity as
existential consciousness contained a degree of awareness of transcendence and
exposed Existenz’s ability to refer to what was beyond the boundaries of its
concrete existence, the deviations did not breach the boundaries of existentialist
consciousness, based first and foremost on its selfhood.

The unity of Existenz and existence, as a phenomenon in its historicity, is

as such only by the standing of selfhood in existence before its
transcendence, whose absoluteness I cannot know outside the ciphers of its
historicity.27
 Historicity 139

The difficulty in starting the clarification centered on transcendence, typical of

Jaspers’s perception of communication, remains largely in his discussion of
historicity. It transpires that the gradual distancing from the solipsistic perception
of selfhood—as expressed in becoming aware of the existence in which Existenz
is anchored, its relation to the possible existence of another Existenz, and even in
awareness of wider aspects of existence—was still insufficient to direct the path of
philosophizing toward transcendence. As the clearer consciousness of the
boundaries within which Existenz moves becomes formed, so does a more vivid
awareness of their rigidity and the difficulty in breaching them without
undermining the importance of Existenz in the philosophical discussion. The
tendency to expand the philosophizing typical of Jaspers’s thought as explicated
up to this stage becomes a real threat to Existenz, which was already on the verge
of being deposed from the center of the discussion.
The consciousness of historicity is formed in light of this situation of Existenz
and designed by Jaspers as a controlled instrument aimed at providing a solution
for this stage of the philosophizing. On the one hand, it demonstrates for Existenz
the isolation and detachment imposed upon it by the attempt to form its selfhood
only on the basis of introspection, and reveals to it the barren closedness of the
solipsistic selfhood. The appearance of new horizons of philosophizing, emerging
from this consciousness, opens for Existenz room to refer to the Being beyond the
boundaries of the world of phenomena. On the other hand, because it has yet to
achieve explication of these horizons, it is required to remain constantly alert for
the possibilities at its disposal as an Existenz, so that expanding the boundaries of
the existence in which its life is conducted would not lead to its uprooting from
existence.
 Seven

BOUNDARY SITUATIONS

1. Expanding the Boundaries of Existence from “Situation Being” to

“Boundary Situations”

The attempt to expand the framework of the discussion of selfhood, whether by

new points of view or by clarifying the connection between it and additional
topics accompanying it, was typical of Karl Jaspers’s approach to the issues of
communication and historicity. The concept “boundary situations” is undoubtedly
one of Jaspers’s most original and fruitful, and we will see that not for nothing did
different scholars and philosophers argue that even this term alone could have
established Jaspers’s status as a philosopher.1 On the face of it, we should not
expect the discussion of boundary situations to indicate the continuation of the
tendency to expand Existenz’s boundaries of existence, since in them people are
exposed uncompromisingly to their finality and to their inadequacy in the face of
the factuality to which they are subject in existence. These are not situations that a
person can initiate, plan, or avoid, only “encounter.”2 Experiencing boundary
situations, which shakes the foundations of a person’s existence, is not part of
daily life or of what Jaspers termed the “situation Being” shared by all people;
even Existenz does not experience boundary situations continuously. However,
the interpretation I will present below shows that the attempt to expand the
framework of philosophizing is expressed also in the discussion of boundary
situations, although in a different way to those we have seen so far. In
communication and in historicity, and more generally in the explication of
selfhood, the expansion was “horizontal,” meaning that it exposed Existenz to new
horizons that enabled it to refer to aspects of existence that had previously been
hidden from it. In contrast, in boundary situations, the expansion of the limits of
philosophizing is “vertical,” meaning that it deepens people’s ability to experience
their familiar existence, which they have already identified as belonging to them,
and enables them to become acquainted with some aspects that, Jaspers believed,
contained the meaning of human existence.
As in the discussion of the concepts of communication and historicity, the
interpretation presented here will also aim to express the role of the boundary
situations in assisting the transition from the explication of selfhood to the
explication of Being, and therefore the discussion will not detail the concrete
contents of each of the individual boundary situations. In Psychology, Jaspers
listed four boundary situations: struggle, death, chance, and guilt. In Elucidation
142 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

of Existenz, he proposed a different division and added a boundary situation of

suffering. “Struggle” and “guilt” were presented in greater detail, and for the first
time two more general boundary situations that exist in the background of all
human experience appeared: “chance” and “particularity” (Bestimmtheit). For a
detailed discussion of the specific boundary conditions, see Edwin Latzel.3
However, while communication and historicity were discussed mainly in
Elucidation of Existenz, the boundary situations also appeared earlier, in
Psychology. This not only provides us with a special opportunity to examine the
development of Jaspers’s philosophical insights in the period between the two
appearances of this concept in two different periods of his writing—the medical-
psychological and the philosophical—but also enables a wider examination of the
general conception of transition mechanisms that located them in Elucidation of
Existenz.

2. Boundary Situations in Psychology

The starting point for the explication of selfhood, on which Jaspers’s discussion in
Psychology was based, was anchored in observing world views as a phenomenon
and especially as a framework for processing the subjective experiences of the
individual. The world view the individual constituted served as a framework for
the processing of these experiences, but at the same time also as a major tool
through which the subjective Being is revealed in its uniqueness and fullness.4 In
this context, Jaspers presented boundary situations as follows:

These situations, where we feel, experience, and think at the boundaries of

our existences in general, we thus term “boundary situations.” What they
have in common is that in the tangible world, always divided into subject-
object, there is nothing stable and absolute that cannot be doubted, and
there is no grasp point that could withstand every thought and every
experience… These boundary situations, as such, are unbearable for life,
and thus they almost never appear in complete clarity in our experiences of
life, but indeed we almost always have a grasp point when facing boundary
situations. Without it life would cease.5

As the experience of boundary situations sharpens people’s awareness of being, as

a finite entity, bound to the split between objectivity and subjectivity, so the
boundaries of the world view as a framework for elucidating their experiences and
constituting themselves become more tangible to them. Indicating the permanent
presence of the infinite aspect of human experience exposes the person to
contradictions, or more precisely antonyms, which world views cannot solve. This
discovery was capable of undermining the evidence of the wholeness of world
 Boundary Situations 143

views in general, and could even have created a crisis in the perception of
subjectivity relying on it. As he put it:

As long as man is motivated by the forces of world views, he can never

remain [only] in the concrete, since every concrete thing has
simultaneously both a finite nature and an infinite nature. To deal with
what is essential for him, he always encounters paths to the infinite or the
whole. He can find, in his escape from the infinite to the mystical
experience, a temporal limited satisfaction and peace. However, if he stays
alert, if he remains in the split of object and subject, then all the infinity
leads him to abysses of the contradictions called antonyms.6

The antonymous and contradictory nature of the experience of boundary

conditions on the one hand, and people’s difficulty in containing them and dealing
with them using the tools at their disposal from normal existence situations on the
other hand, make it difficult to see it as a source for explicating the individual’s
subjective Being as a whole. The meaning of “boundary” in these situations is
expressed in the argument that the contradictions in world views are real and
constitute “something absolute.”7 This means that there can never be any solution
to the contradiction between the experience of these situations and the other
experiences in a person’s life. The antonymous nature typical of the experience of
boundary situations and the accompanying dead-end experience are presented as
evidence of the basic limitations of human beings in providing a more
encompassing meaning and significance to their experiences in reality. The
antonyms arising from the boundary situations indicate not only the edge of the
boundary of the world view, but also of human experience at all.
Latzel argued that the explanation for the antonyms created by the boundary
situations originated in Jaspers’s decision to adopt the method of “descriptive
psychology,” for which the antonymous structure of existence serves as a
convenient starting point for discussion.8 It is difficult to accept this explanation
not only because the descriptive method is marginal in Psychology, serving at that
time as only one of the viewpoints through which Jaspers examined the
individual’s subjective experiences. In light of the experiences occurring in
boundary situations this interpretation is difficult to accept, since these
demonstrate not only the limitations of this method, but also the limitations of any
possible explanation of a person’s experiences at all. The boundary situations
reveal the undecipherable element of human experiences as such. In his words:

This doubt appears with the awareness that there may still be other life
forms. The conscious experience of boundary situations, which were
previously covered by solid patterns of taken-for-granted objective life
forms, in world pictures and images of faith… led to the disintegration of
144 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

these patterns. These patterns were previously unconscious, and now it

transpires more or less what is a pattern and this has been experienced as a
binding, as a restriction and as a doubtful thing that does not have the
power to give a grasp point.9

These words show that in addition to the experiencing of boundary situations

facing people with the real possibility of their annihilation, it also exposes them to
the helplessness of world views to give them meaning within the range of their
other experiences. Experiencing boundary situations apparently throws individuals
outside the protected boundaries of the private world view, which they achieved
through hard work, and demonstrates for them the partial and unconscious nature
of a world view forming within the imaginary reality they created for themselves.
Experiencing boundary situations may remove the cover that the private world
view spread over the actual reality that is full of opposites and contradictions, and
over people’s expected demise. In the absence of the security that their world view
was supposed to provide them, those who experience a boundary situation stand
exposed and freezing at the edge of the abyss, filled with the keen awareness that
no world view exists that could fill the abyss that has opened between their self-
perception in existence and the possibilities implied by these situations. The
increasing doubt regarding the reality of the self Being that the world view aimed
to represent threatens to turn the world view itself into an empty vessel.
The connection between boundary situations and the processes of self-
constitution and rational criticism that Jaspers presents in Psychology is central to
Kurt Salamun’s interpretation of boundary situations in their early appearance. In
his opinion, these situations lead to the loss of the sovereignty and confidence
people have in their life routine, and to the denial of the value of all the rational
solutions and knowledge they possess about the reality in which they live. As a
result of experiencing them, these situations throw the person into what Kurt
Salamun terms “the unobjectivizable core of his internality.” However, in his
opinion, the boundary situations are also granted a positive meaning in
Psychology, since they are perceived as directing people to become acquainted
with the depth aspect of their Being—an aspect where their decisions are not
determined by an objective perception of a systematic world view claiming
general validity. Against this background, he notes that boundary situations reflect
the freedom and independence of selfhood in its decisions, and also the
individual’s very possibility of finding the strength for life’s actions without
turning them into an objective and compulsory thing.10
The centrality of antonyms in the presentation of boundary situations in
Psychology receives an interesting illumination in the interpretation of J. Rudolf
Gerber, who argued that the contradiction between reason and intelligence,
appearing in Immanuel Kant, contains a sort of depth aspect on which Jaspers’s
terms in general, and also the boundary situations, rely. He claims that these
 Boundary Situations 145

situations bring the antonymous elements in life to a climax, and in order to

produce the desired insights from them, people must “renounce the effort to
escape the tension between the limiting Verstand and the aspiring Vernunft.”11 I
find that these words of Gerber’s explicate mainly the early version of the
boundary situations, apart from his argument that through these situations the
individual becomes aware not only of the boundaries of existence itself, but also
through elimination, of transcendence that is perceived as “an existing
‘Unknowable’.”12 Since consciousness of transcendence forms from Philosophy
onwards and is not mentioned at all in Psychology, I believe that Gerber’s
interpretation does not enable us to understand the later version of boundary
situations. My interpretation of this version appears later in the discussion. Erich
P. Grünert presented another comparison between Kant’s basic principles and
those of Jaspers.13
In my interpretation, I will argue that the connection between the concept of
boundary situations and Kant’s concept of antonyms is prominent in their early
form, while in their later appearance in Philosophy there is a noticeable influence
of Kant’s term of border (Grenze). As we recall, Kant’s concept of antonyms
indicated a logical contradiction between two premises, each of which was
capable of being proved by disproving its opposite, and the law of contradiction
could not decide regarding the validity or invalidity of either of them.14 Kant
understood this contradiction as expressing a stage where although a person’s
reason has achieved sophistication and maturity, it is not capable of formulating a
consciousness regarding its selfhood. Similarly, in the idea of boundary situations
Jaspers also expressed people’s difficulty in containing the gap between the
infinite aspect of existence to which these situations hint and the finite reality as a
source for constituting their world view. Under Kant’s influence, Jaspers
described antonyms as contradictions that cannot pass the boundary of
consciousness,15 and the antonyms are also revealed as a boundary situation
portraying the problematic nature of the objective aspects of the world views that
do not accord with the reality to which they refer. We can also indicate a general
similarity between the role of reason for Kant and the role of the world view in
Jaspers’s thought. Both are intended to help people obtain a more complete self-
understanding aimed at overcoming the division between objectivity and
subjectivity: for Kant it is reason that achieves a critical awareness of itself, while
for Jaspers it is the world view that has to express what people perceive as the
boundaries of their experience of the world.
The link between Kant’s concepts of antonym and reason, and the
contradiction in world views, revealed in the discussion of boundary situations,
testifies that their main meaning in Psychology did not depend on criticism of
rationality as Salamun believed.16 This criticism accompanied Jaspers’s thinking
from its inception, and is not especially stressed in the discussion of boundary
situations. The epistemological viewpoint, expressed mainly in Jaspers’s
146 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

discussion of the phenomenon of multiplicity of world views and its general

aspects, guided Jaspers in formulating the concept of boundary situations in
Psychology. This viewpoint emphasized the conscious aspect of boundary
situations, and in a way its very presence in the discussion can be seen as an
attempt to use rational tools to deal with situations in which the absence of
rationality is central.
Assuming that the experience of boundary situations reveals sides of the
human experience that nobody can avoid, Jaspers used them to classify people on
the basis of the different behavior patterns they show when encountering them.17
He presented three types: people who when becoming acquainted with antonyms
experience an extreme destabilizing and lack of confidence that could end in
paralysis of the ability to act and of their consciousness;18 others try in any way to
avoid such experiences using different forms of compromise and denial of the
contradictions appearing in existence;19 while in contrast to these two types there
are those who harness the antonyms to their search for the infinite in life and apply
the different contradictions as means of affirming life.20 The parallel between the
three patterns of reaction and the move whereby Jaspers’s thought developed from
his study of psychiatry up to becoming a philosopher in his own right is quite
clear: Jaspers presents first the pathological reaction pattern, which cannot
integrate the different experiences. Then he turns to the reaction pattern of denial
and avoidance, a pattern we may assume to be most common. Even if this pattern
is undesirable, it appears not to disrupt the normal life routine of people who
choose it. The psychological viewpoint that sees world views as a framework
anchoring the contrasts and contradictions in “something whole”21 may be
effective for understanding the people who have chosen this reaction pattern.
Finally, the third pattern reflects the viewpoint of spirit types, to be clarified
below, where the contrasts arising from the boundary situations serve as a positive
element of experience itself, which regains the support for its existence. This
classification also shows that boundary situations, just like world views, provide
an opportunity for meeting the basis of the human Being.
We cannot conclude from the statement that the very constitution of the
concept of boundary situations reflects an attempt to deal with these situations
using rational tools, that different people show a uniform coping pattern with these
situations or that the particular component in their handling of it is marginal. The
presence of the ontological viewpoint in Psychology, aimed at elucidating the
processes of the individual’s self-constitution within the context of the private
world view, also stresses Jaspers’s attempts to express the particular aspects
typical of the process of forming a world view. Even if some components implied
by Salamun’s criticism are expressed in the concept of boundary situations as
appearing in Psychology, they do not reveal their main meaning, which is people’s
difficulty in constituting a coherent world view that can help them deal with the
range of their experiences in existence and especially with those that contain an
 Boundary Situations 147

irreconcilable antonym. So, in the boundary situations in Psychology we

encounter the boundaries of the world view as a tool for constituting selfhood.
Perhaps we can see the early appearance of this concept as the first inklings of the
limitations of the perception of selfhood or even of the self-perception that relies
only on elucidating the individual’s subjective experiences. In this respect, the
boundary situations in their early appearance in Psychology prefigure the
development that was about to occur in Jaspers’s thinking, when its center of
gravity was shifted from selfhood to the explication of the metaphysical
infrastructure on which this selfhood relies.
I believe that when he wrote Psychology, Jaspers, who was endeavoring to
write a book that would describe the human soul from the viewpoint of normality,
was unable, or perhaps could not allow himself, to face the destructive potential of
experiencing boundary situations in relation to the philosophical process that took
place in Psychology.22 The attempt to find mental patterns and frameworks that
could contain his perception of selfhood, apparent already in the adoption of the
world view as a framework for explicating the individual’s subjective Being,
continued to guide him, as we will see below, even when he wished to resolve the
crisis that boundary situations created in his thinking at that time. 23

We ask what the condition is for them [boundary situations]… not being
expressed at all. Thus we encounter the center of the spirit types. What
grasp point (Halt) does man have, how does he have it, how does he
search for it and find it, and how does he maintain it—this is the typical
expression of the forces living inside him. When we ask about the spirit
types we are [actually] asking where a person has his grasp point.24

The assimilation of the boundary situations as a positive element in the “spirit

types” (Geistestypen) transpires as a substitute for the support granted by the
world view, which was destabilized following the experience of the boundary
situations. The definition of spirit types as “forces” in which the infinite
perfections granted to human beings intuitively are represented25 accords with the
need to anchor the individual’s experiences in a wider infrastructure—one where
each single component will find its place in a more encompassing perfection than
that granted by the individual’s particular world view.26 Jaspers presented several
spirit types: nihilism, skepticism, rationalism, liberalism, authoritarianism, and
others. The intuitive element in the spirit types makes it difficult to elucidate them
using language, which in this context was described as “freezing” and “fixating,”27
but at this point the world view can complement them as a more structured and
conscious setting. The anchor world views have in the spirit types enables them to
continue to serve as a framework that provides meaning to most of people’s
experiences. The advantage of the spirit types in comparison with the world views
is that they contain the boundary situations within them, as a horizon viewed from
148 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

the range of human experiences as such, although these situations reflect the
coming annihilation of the person. The complexity and flexibility typical of the
spirit types enables dealing with a wider range of experiences and prevents a
single experience or an experience of a boundary situation from turning into a
total experience on which a person’s self-perception will exclusively rely. Unlike
the world view where the antonyms in boundary situations became an absolute
experience, entailing the possibility of denying the existence of the selfhood that
had experienced them, in the spirit types the antonym is surrounded by what
Jaspers called “life forces” that moderate it and harness it to the purpose of
constituting a more conscious and stable self-perception.
In a way, the influence of the spirit types over the boundary situations
expresses the success of the world view to expand the capability of human
experience, so that people manage to observe beyond the boundaries of their
world views the boundaries of existence itself. The maturity of the processes of
self-constitution, reflected in the experiencing of boundary situations, does not
enable the person to be satisfied with the world view without clarifying the general
and perhaps hidden elements on which it is based, which Jaspers called “spirit
types.” The understanding of the boundary situations from the perspective of the
explication of selfhood contrasts with other interpretations of this concept in
secondary literature. William D. Blattner’s interpretation, according to which the
boundary situations in Psychology, reflects an ontological interest.28 The boundary
situations are portrayed against this background as a sign of the metaphysical
aspect present in the processes of self-constitution, which is hidden from whoever
is still undergoing this process. Experiencing boundary situations spurs people on
to investigate the intuitive and metaphysical aspects on which their world view is
based, a process whereby they become aware of the boundaries of the world view
itself or of the type of experience with which it can help them deal. The spirit
types aim at the same original purpose that was the basis for the constitution of the
world view, elucidating the subjective Being of the individual. However, the
advantage of the spirit types in relation to this purpose is that through them the
person is able to deal with the boundary situations without completely abandoning
the world view or undermining the basic insights achieved in Psychology. In this
respect, the perspective of spirit types allows a more efficient coping with the
crisis instigated by the boundary situations in people’s confidence in their world
view. Just before the entire conception on which the perception of selfhood
formed in Psychology collapsed into the abyss created by the boundary situations,
the spirit types helped reaffirm this conception. However, from the perspective of
Jaspers’s entire philosophy we can state that the spirit types only postponed the
crisis the boundary situations created in the perception of selfhood to a later stage
in his work; until it could contain the tools to face the disruptive element in them
and from this formulate a wider understanding of the individual and of the reality
that could contain them as a positive element.
 Boundary Situations 149

3. Boundary Situations in Philosophy

The new discussion of boundary situations in the philosophical period of Jaspers’s

writings raises the need to examine the differences between the meanings
bestowed upon them in the two contexts and to present an explanation for his
reexamination of this issue. The central argument in which my interpretation of
the boundary situations in Psychology was anchored also applies in the
interpretation presented for their appearance in Elucidation of Existenz, namely,
that there is a clear link between the meaning of boundary situations and the more
general context in which they appear. In this respect, the two versions of boundary
situations serve as a mirror to the wider perception of selfhood in the context in
which each of them appeared: while the appearance of boundary situations in
Psychology showed the main motifs of the perception of selfhood that was
anchored in observing the world views, the concept of boundary situations as
appearing in Elucidation of Existenz portrayed the dialectic typical of the
relationship of Existenz toward consciousness and the reality of the world. As
Jaspers said:

These situations, like those I always exist within, that I cannot live without
struggle and sorrow, that I accept upon myself inevitable guilt, that I must
die, I call boundary situations. They do not change, but only their
appearance; in their reference to our existence they are totally valid. We
cannot see beyond them; in our existence, we do not see [anything] behind
them. They are like a wall that we push and walk into. They cannot be
changed through us, but we can only bring them into clarity without being
able to deduce them or explain them from something else. They exist with
existence itself.29

The understanding that sees boundary situations as referring to existence and as

given along with it affirms the argument in principle at the basis of my
interpretation of the boundary situations in Elucidation of Existenz. According to
this interpretation, the concept is anchored in the general insights Jaspers held
during that period, centering on the perception of Existenz as a worldly Being.
Like the discussion of boundary situations that appeared in Psychology, Jaspers’s
handling of this issue in Elucidation of Existenz also brought about a crisis in the
perception of selfhood. However, in this context it led to significant changes in the
basic concepts on which the philosophy of Existenz relied. The most significant
change is apparent in the status of Existenz within the experience, or more
precisely, the weight it was granted in the formulation of its existence. This
change was an outcome of the basic difference between the ordinary situations
Existenz deals with and the boundary situations. The first, as presented in World
Orientation, have two characteristics that define Existenz’s framework of
150 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

experience in the world: the necessity enforced upon it by circumstances beyond

its control, and the freedom it still has in this context, thanks to which it can
choose from among the possibilities it identifies in existence the one that appears
as a source for fuller self-realization. See the discussion of “situation Being” in
Chapter Three. The freedom component, so central in Existenz’s “situation
Being,” is completely absent from the boundary situations, which appear to it as
absolutely valid, with it having no influence on them whatsoever. Jaspers stressed
the absence of existential freedom in the boundary situations when he described
the feeling of Existenz in them as a “game ball.”30 This term demonstrates the
arbitrariness accompanying the experience of these situations, and to some extent
also the replacing of the activity typical of Existenz in existence with impotence.
Neither Existenz nor human consciousness as such has access to these
situations or influence over them. In Jaspers’s words: “A boundary situation is not
another situation for general consciousness, since consciousness as knowing and
as purposeful deals with them only objectively, or else avoids them, ignores them,
and forgets them.”31 This description is aimed, in my opinion, not only at
emphasizing the limitations of formal knowledge or of human reason in general,
which was not Jaspers’s concern in this context; it expressed the way that Existenz
experiences its existence in the boundary situations. In the following passage,
Jaspers clarified the main implication the experience of boundary situations has on
Existenz’s perception of existence in general:

Boundary situations bring in their wake… a perspective in existence

where it is doubted as a whole thing and is considered a possible,
impossible, or differently possible [thing]. Existence in general is
perceived as a boundary, and this Being experiences within the
boundary situation that reveal that the world Being and my own Being
within it are doubtful.32

In Existenz’s experience of boundary situations, it is drawn into the particular

form of experience portrayed, for example, in suffering, guilt, chance, and
recognition of the necessity of death. Unlike people’s general experience of
different situations, usually occurring alongside other experiences, the boundary
situation is unique in the extreme intensity typifying it, turning it into a total
representation of existence for Existenz. The particularity of each boundary
situation and the way it is experienced by Existenz destabilize the possibility of
seeing the everyday existence experienced by Existenz through ordinary situations
as a complete thing. Paradoxically, the routine situations that serve as a basis for a
person’s orientation in the world are perceived as partial, as hiding the total and
infinite aspects of existence, and everything they show about the worldly Being
becomes doubtful. In contrast, it is the boundary situations, in their extreme
particularity, and in the absence of the person’s ability to maneuver in them,33 that
 Boundary Situations 151

are perceived as expressions of infinity. The inability to understand the boundary

situations and the resulting helplessness Existenz experiences in the face of the
abyss before it become fundamental data of its self-perception. The totality typical
of the experience of these situations is responsible for the irrelevance of
existential freedom when facing boundary situations not being attributed only to
the experience of the boundary situations, but also percolating into Existenz’s self-
perception and perception of existence in general.
The vague definition given to the concept of boundary situations earlier on,
whereby these situations “have [something] else but at the same time: this… does
not [exist] for the consciousness in existence,”34 now receives its precise meaning.
The boundary situations illuminate the limitations of human beings in existence
and at the same time they hint, from the boundary point where Existenz stands
when experiencing them, to another Being beyond them. The experience of
boundary situations projects in two opposite directions: on people’s existence in
general situations, now perceived as limited, and on the Being beyond them,
regarding which they mark the boundary from which it spreads out. See the
distinction between Kant’s two concepts of boundary in the Introduction. Jaspers
expressed the two facets of this experience by stating that “the boundaries appear
in their real function, to be immanent and already to indicate transcendence.” 35
The argument that boundary situations influence another understanding of
people’s existence in situations in general does not, according to the interpretation
offered here, make boundary situations into the sole test of Existenz, since just
like existence, so boundary situations, too, have many facets. Interpretations
viewing boundary situations as Existenz’s constituting situations, such as that of
Gabriel Marcel, were probably based on a misunderstanding of Jaspers’s
statement that “experiencing boundary situations and existing are the same
thing,”36 as if only in them can the leap from Existenz to existence take place.37
This is because the ability to re-examine itself and its place in existence is one of
Existenz’s qualities par excellence. Most people may experience during their
lifetime some aspect of some boundary situation, but they will usually return to
the forgetfulness-inducing routine of existence, without this experience leaving
any real traces in their self-consciousness. So, Existenz is unique not because it
experiences these situations with greater force, but because this experience creates
a fundamental transformation in the way it perceives itself and its surrounding.
This means that the consciousness of self-constitution, its uniqueness, and
particularity is pushed aside in favor of a new consciousness where it appears to
itself as one of the phenomena of existence and everything that applies to them
applies to it; this consciousness, percolating into the self-consciousness of
Existenz in the different boundary situations, does not lead it to doubt its
existence, or even its existence as an Existenz, although this does not appear to it
to protect it from the abyss these situations has opened before it. Against this
background, common to all boundary situations, we can characterize the
152 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

consciousness Existenz has as a result, and present it as follows: Existenz becomes

aware of the unavoidable factuality of the struggle and suffering in human
existence; it knows that every day it approaches its inevitable death, which may be
the result of an arbitrary accident, although this is insufficient to excuse it from the
inevitable sense of guilt in these situations.
It is difficult to overestimate the power Jaspers attributed to the experiencing
of boundary situations as appearing in Elucidation of Existenz. This is not the
discovery of experiences that reveal to Existenz particular aspects that could have
been assimilated into his philosophy of Existenz without undermining its basic
insights. While in Psychology he was able to overcome the difficulties that the
boundary situations raised regarding his perception of subjectivity and to leave it
standing, in Elucidation of Existenz they undermined the most fundamental
infrastructure on which the philosophy of Existenz relied. The question was not
whether the contradictions between the way Existenz perceives itself and what it
becomes acquainted with when facing the suffering, death, guilt, and chance in
human experience could be reconciled, but whether Existenz could exist at all in
these situations. The doubt naturally arises regarding the value of the self-
constitution processes, in face of the cessation and end heralded by the boundary
situations. As with the other ideas included in the transition mechanisms, so also
in the discussion of boundary situations the emphasis was on the implications of
Existenz’s self-consciousness instead of on explicating the metaphysical horizons
reflected by these experiences or those of transcendence, which were discussed
only in the explication of Being. However, the uniqueness of the boundary
situations as a transition mechanism was in their discussion bringing closer the
end of the dialectic between the solipsism typical of Jaspers’s early thought and
the perception of selfhood as a worldly Being. This dialectic appeared as useless
casuistry that changed nothing regarding the absolute and uncompromising finality
emerging from the boundary situations. This is perhaps the greatest antonym
people can experience as conscious Beings: they want to continue living forever,
but when they become aware of this, they realize that they are approaching death
with every passing moment.
Compared with Psychology, the awareness that the boundary situations
constitute an inseparable part of the experiences occurring to a person as a
conscious Being penetrated Jaspers’s perception of selfhood more deeply in
Elucidation of Existenz. However, it is probably the awareness of the deep
undermining of the basic insights on which this consciousness relied that
motivated Jaspers to try to moderate as much as possible the threat and negation
of the very relevance of the philosophy of Existenz entailed in them. Such an
attempt is also apparent in Jaspers’s handling of the boundary situations in
Psychology, where he wished to assimilate them into a more complex, flexible
framework that enabled him to maintain the perception of selfhood anchored in
world views. The difference is that in Elucidation of Existenz this attempt was
 Boundary Situations 153

imbued with the awareness that the changes brought about by the exposure of the
boundary situations as a given element of the Being of Existenz were irreversible.
Jaspers’s effort at this stage was not aimed at overcoming the challenge to the
basic insights of the philosophy of Existenz arising from them, but at searching for
ways to help him handle them. His aim was to show that although the experience
of boundary situations instigates essential changes in Existenz, it does not turn its
characteristics into an empty vessel. He indicated the particular nature of the
existentialist experience of boundary situations. He also stressed that the freedom
of Existenz was responsible for the experience of the necessity in boundary
situations not being perceived as absolute, but as opening a window to the
horizons beyond the boundaries of existence in which it was contained.38 The
boundary situations deepen for Existenz the awareness of the limitations typical of
its existence in the context of different situations, and so it is pushed to search for
a more encompassing metaphysical Being, beyond the boundaries of existence.
Existenz harnesses the very drives that motivated it in the process of its self-
constitution to the search for a metaphysical Being, which the experience of
boundary situations has made tangible, and whose elucidation had become
essential for Existenz’s self-understanding.
In my opinion, this approach of Jaspers’s shows that the changes regarding
the status of Existenz within the boundary situations do not lead to relocating it
outside the boundaries of the philosophical discussion—not at this stage, and as
we will see later, not in the framework of the explication of Being. What Existenz
is denied is the very possibility of changing or avoiding meeting the boundary
situations, but what remains open to it is the possibility of expanding the
boundaries of its awareness in such a way as to allow it in its existence to give
meaning to what is revealed to it following the boundary situations, or more
precisely the Being perceived as spreading onwards from the boundary situations.
The question “Why is there existence at all?,”39 demonstrating the agitation
the acquaintance with boundary situations in Elucidation of Existenz caused, was
not fully answered at this stage of Jaspers’s philosophy. However, in his
statement, “The Being exists only when there is existence, but existence as such is
not the Being itself,”40 he gave a partial reply, or perhaps just a direction for the
answer to this question that would be the focus of his philosophical interest later
on. Already now Jaspers could testify that the existence in which Existenz found
itself was not the be all and end all, although it was clear to him that it was
pointless to search for meaning in isolation from the individual’s experiences in
existence.
The discussion of boundary situations in Elucidation of Existenz created deep
changes in Jaspers’s perception of Existenz. However, this discussion continued to
rely largely upon it, and perhaps was even meaningless without it. Not only the
ability to withstand these situations, but the very acquaintance with them, depends
on the existence of an explicit self-consciousness from Existenz’s point of view.
154 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

Perhaps this observation was in the background of different interpretations that

saw the “boundary situations” in Elucidation of Existenz as a framework where
Existenz could realize itself. Salamun, for instance, argues that the descriptions of
the types of human existence in the face of boundary situations, ranging from
“nihilistic despair” to “internal appropriation” to “composure with the knowledge
of death,” are aimed at creating an autonomous picture of human beings whereby
individuals can develop life patterns that will accompany their existence and turn
them into the people they are.41
Another interpretation with an ethical orientation is that of Latzel, who argues
that the boundary situations are a sign indicating an inconceivable depth, but
containing the possibility of the self-realization of Existenz in transcendence. In
this respect, Existenz, as a Being aiming at realizing itself, should be interested, in
his opinion, in experiencing boundary situations.42 Latzel argues that the boundary
situations bring Existenz into an unresolved paradox. It has to want the
impossible—self-realization in transcendence—and only by this can it achieve the
possible—self-realization in existence—which it cannot want and cannot find
satisfactory. In his opinion, only if Existenz does not try to escape the boundary
situations and does all it can to avoid failure to realize itself, which is in any case
an inseparable part of its existence as such, can this failure serve as an authentic
Being for its self-realization.43 Jaspers’s concept of “foundering” will be discussed
in Chapter Eight.
Beyond the difficulties that are raised more generally by the ethical
interpretation of Jaspers’s perception of Existenz, there is a particular difficulty in
accepting it regarding boundary situations, as presented in both Psychology and
Elucidation of Existenz. First, the question of self-realization is relevant mainly to
the perception of the boundary situations in Psychology, when Jaspers’s thought
was focused on the processes of constituting selfhood; but the ethical
interpretation is based mainly on the discussion in Elucidation of Existenz. As we
have seen, in Elucidation of Existenz Jaspers’s effort to constitute a philosophical
approach is apparent especially regarding what was beyond the boundaries of
Existenz’s self-realization—an attempt that involved dealing with new aspects of
his thinking that significantly threatened the basic insights on which his
philosophy of Existenz was based. Against this background, it is clear why it is
difficult to accept the central argument in the ethical interpretation, whereby it is
in the boundary situations that Existenz can realize itself. The long journey the
perception of selfhood had undergone in the period between the publication of
Psychology and that of Elucidation of Existenz, expressed in the profound changes
that occurred in Jaspers’s perception of selfhood, could not apparently be
expressed in the majority of the existing interpretations of boundary situations.
These did not attribute any real significance to the very discussion of boundary
situations in two different contexts, or to the contribution of the context to the
meaning given them each time. Latzel argues that the meaning granted to
 Boundary Situations 155

boundary situations in Philosophy is a continuation without any real addition of

the young Jaspers’s original philosophical intuition from the period of
Psychology.44 However, the interpretation offered here regarding the boundary
situations is anchored in the understanding that the Existenz, having been formed
as a Being that constitutes a more complex relation to what exists beyond itself
(existence, the other Existenz, historical time, and so on), is significantly different
from the character of the subjective Being as portrayed in Psychology. This
development, apparent also in the gradual release from the need to anchor the
discussion of selfhood in the defined mental patterns that had served as its anchor
(such as world views), enabled the introduction of new concepts and aspects to the
arena of philosophizing, including the integration of new aspects, such as
existence and transcendence, which had a decisive influence on the formulation of
the concept of boundary situations in Elucidation of Existenz.
Against the background of the fundamental differences between the meaning
granted to the boundary situations in Psychology and the meaning they received in
Elucidation of Existenz, I wish to argue that Jaspers’s writings contain two
different versions of this concept, and that each one reflected the more general
insights characteristic of Jaspers’s thinking at that period. The first version shows
the solipsistic version of selfhood, while the second version expresses the effort to
escape from this approach due to the limitations it imposes upon the wider
understanding of selfhood and the attempt to constitute a metaphysical relation to
what was beyond the boundaries of Existenz’s self-consciousness. In this respect,
this interpretation reflects the division of Jaspers’s work into periods presented in
the Introduction. The metaphysical aspect revealed in the discussion of selfhood
does not appear exclusively in the later version of the boundary situations. As we
have seen, it was apparent already in his early writings dealing with psychiatry.
However, in Philosophy, when transcendence already appeared as a significant
component in Jaspers’s discussion, the metaphysical aspect was not limited to the
relevance to the process of constituting Existenz. Jaspers’s repeated reference to
the issue of boundary situations in the same context where he makes his first steps
in forming a philosophical relation toward transcendence serves as the very basis
for understanding the later version of the boundary situations as part of the
transition mechanisms.
Just as the early perception of the boundary situations was an outcome of the
perception of subjectivity typical of Jaspers’s thinking at that time, so also their
later version in Philosophy reflected the perception of Existenz, which at that time
was imbued with awareness of the boundaries of its existence and focused on the
effort to grant them a more comprehensive metaphysical meaning. The gap that is
so noticeable between the perception of Existenz as an autonomous Being that
constitutes itself and determines its relation toward existence and its helplessness
in the face of the boundary situations led to a reshuffle in Jaspers’s perception of
selfhood. One of the clearest expressions of this development in his philosophy is
156 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

demonstrated in the later version of the boundary situations where Jaspers tried to
reverse the perception of existential freedom, arguing that these situations that
reveal the boundaries of Existenz’s experience and existence are the very ones that
open a window for it to continue experiencing, and also a future space for self-
realization in freedom. While it is possible in principle that the relation toward
transcendence could later be translated into accepting an ethical or even religious
value system, this would reflect a positive position existing beyond the boundaries
of Existenz’s consciousness in the boundary situations. The boundary situations in
their later version place Existenz on the zero line: between becoming aware of the
individual’s expected demise and becoming aware of the existence of
transcendence. The first erodes the difference between Existenzes and non-
Existenzes, while the second distances Existenz from the center of the
philosophizing arena.

4. Boundary Situations as a Transition Mechanism in Comparison with

Communication and Historicity

The location of boundary situations as the final link in the transition mechanisms
raises the need to compare them with the other two ideas in Jaspers’s thought that
helped transfer the center of gravity of the philosophizing to the explication of
Being: communications and historicity.

A. Boundary Situations and Communication

On the face of it, we could assume that in light of the difficult experience of
boundary situations—the struggle, suffering, sorrow, guilt, and death—
communication might be a sort of relief to the person experiencing them. Jaspers’s
discussion of boundary situations includes no mention of communication at all.
But this is not surprising considering the proposed interpretation. As we have
seen, this interpretation did not view communication as a real possibility for
Existenz, and stressed the influence of the solipsistic viewpoint on the relation
Existenz forms toward the other Existenz, which was just one of the means
Jaspers’s thought placed at its disposal in order to deepen its consciousness as an
individual Being. So, the disadvantage of communication in the boundary
situations where a person especially needs it supports the offered interpretation of
Jaspers’s perception of communication, which was not dependent on the
constitution of real relations with the other, but largely on its contribution to the
broader self-understanding of Existenz and its preparation for forming its relation
toward transcendence. Existenz stands alone in face of the boundary situations,
and this is not only an expression of the essence of these situations where a person
has no support or escape, but it indirectly implies that the perception of
 Boundary Situations 157

communication in Jaspers’s thought did not deal mainly with relationships

between people, but was a metaphysical category.
Understanding communication as an idea that could be realized by Existenzes
also projected upon the interpretation of boundary situations. Salamun believed
that communication and boundary situations represented different forms of self-
realization that are interlinked in some complex way. Against this background he
suggested a few alternatives for understanding the relations between them: first,
that boundary situations and communication portray two basic situations in which
people can realize themselves; second, that loneliness in the boundary situation
implies the possibility of being in communication with people; and third, that it is
the very lack of satisfaction Existenz experiences in communication that shows the
possibility of self-realization from the loneliness in the boundary situation.45
However, considering that Jaspers himself did not refer to the issue of
communication during the discussion of boundary situations, it is difficult to
accept Salamun’s interpretation, which appears as structured into his ethical
viewpoint. The experience of dissatisfaction by the Existenz—the experience that
served as the starting point for the discussion of the ideas included in the
transition mechanisms—leaves no doubt regarding the centrality of loneliness in
the experience of communication, in the constitution of consciousness of
historicity, and in boundary situations. Each of these experiences helped
significantly expand the philosophizing framework beyond the one typical of the
explication of selfhood, where Existenz was presented as a Being closed within its
boundaries. However, the person standing as an individual in face of the different
experiences remained unchanged. Even so, the advantage of the boundary
situations compared with communications and historicity is that it sharpens
Existenz’s awareness that the loneliness it experiences is way beyond the absence
of another human being to complement it. This is the harshest loneliness a person
can experience: loneliness from transcendence. At this stage it is not possible to
establish this statement, since transcendence has not yet been elucidated within the
transition mechanisms, but has been experienced mainly as a Being other than that
of Existenz, which proved false as an enduring source of meaning and significance
for existence in the world. The transition mechanisms are presented in the
interpretation offered here as an integral part of the elucidation of transcendence
included only in the explication of Being, based on the functionality typical of
them as a means of rescuing the philosophizing from the explication of selfhood.
Finally, we can state that the boundary situations are unique in comparison with
the other transition mechanisms in that they indicate more clearly that the self-
realization horizons of Existenz are anchored in a metaphysical Being whose
boundaries cross immanence.
The question of the relation between communication and boundary situations
has also been discussed in the interpretation of Latzel, who stressed, unlike
Salamun, the role of transcendence as a factor in the experience of boundary
158 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

situations. In his opinion, the boundary situations constitute a sign indicating an

inconceivable depth that contains the possibility for Existenz’s self-realization in
transcendence, and this raises the problem of the “announcing” or communication
and turns the boundary situations into a medium in which it is clarified.46 Latzel
does not clarify whether in this context this is the problem of communication
between transcendence and Existenz, or whether it means the inability of Existenz
to report to another Existenz the nature of that “inconceivable depth” revealed to
it by the boundary situations. The first problem relates to the nature of
transcendence as such, while the second to the relations between Existenzes.
However, the clarification of these two problems implicit in Latzel’s interpretation
does not contribute to the understanding of the boundary situations in their later
version. First, Existenz’s handling of the transcendence in boundary situations is
not primarily related to its difficulty in establishing an explicit consciousness of it,
and the awareness of its control cannot accompany the experience of these
situations, which involve an extreme experience of helplessness. Second, the
burning difficulty Existenz experiences in the boundary situations relates mainly
to the inability to contain in itself what it becomes acquainted with, meaning the
reality of its expected annihilation, an end that it as an Existenz cannot ignore.
The power of the experience of the annihilation transpiring as a real horizon from
the boundary situations relies largely on the Existenz knowing that the death is its
personal death, while any discussion of death with another person could turn it
into an event that is objective and external to the Existenz—removing it from
being a boundary situation at all.47 The necessarily subjective nature of the
experience of boundary situations makes clear that communication is not a means
of handling them. It is highly likely that the development of an interpersonal
discourse about these experiences would distance Existenz from their real
meaning that is accessible to the individual in loneliness. Even if dealing with
communication in the context of boundary situations contributes to their
explication, this contribution is not achieved thanks to the function of knowledge
transfer constituting part of the experience of communication. But beyond the
contribution of the criticism of Salamun’s and Latzel’s interpretations to further
sharpening the interpretation of communication and boundary situations presented
above, it also helped understand that these two original ideas of Jaspers’s are part
of one philosophical process: the perception of communication does not rescue
Existenz from its loneliness, but reflects the seeing of the other Existenz as a
means of transcending existence. The boundary situations, experienced by that
Existenz that already knows that the possibility of communication would not
rescue it from its loneliness, help it transcend existence once more and distance it
another step from the rigidity of the solipsistic perception of selfhood.
 Boundary Situations 159

B. Boundary Situations and Historicity

A connection exists between historicity, meaning the process whereby Existenz

becomes acquainted with the roots and the wider boundaries of the existence to
which it is subject, and the awareness forming in boundary situations whereby
beyond its existence, which is expected to end, another, different Being exists. As
Jaspers put it:

Existence is historistic because it cannot be complemented in time; it

causes itself restlessly since there is no agreement in any situation. The
antonymous view is the one that in time-reality (Zeitdasein) [raises the
requirement] to become (Anderswerden) another.48

Against this background we can state that although the explication of Existenz
deepened in the boundary situations and was exposed to more significant threats
than those it encountered during the discussion of historicity, Jaspers perceived
these two ideas as part of one philosophical move. However, this statement does
not accord with other expressions of Jaspers’s, such as the argument that a person
is destined to live with an irreconcilable split between the existence in different
situations and existence in boundary situations,49 and that “the power of this
contradiction, if it does not weaken any side, is the truth of Existenz.”50 These
sentences may indicate that boundary situations bring Existenz closer to
constituting a metaphysical consciousness transcending existence more
significantly than that enabled by consciousness of historicity, which is anchored
in a deeper connection to concrete existence. In this respect, the contradiction
reflects the great distance separating historicity from the philosophizing typical of
the explication of Being to be presented later, compared with the boundary
situations that are closer to this framework. But in another respect we can
understand Jaspers’s dealing with the link between the idea of historicity and the
boundary situations as evidence that the connection of these ideas to the
explication of selfhood was still significant, also showing the boundaries of the
experience that still did not enable Existenz to constitute a relation toward Being.
The limitations that required Jaspers to withdraw to the familiar thought patterns
of the explication of selfhood were present also in his discussion of boundary
situations in Philosophy. Either way, we cannot see the proposed options for
understanding as an expression of Jaspers’s contradiction or inconsistency, but as
a demonstration of the special condition of the philosophizing during the
transition mechanisms stage—a framework where on the one hand there is an
expression of the distancing from and maturation of the early perceptions, while
on the other hand there is an attempt to set the path where the new insights will be
clarified. Jaspers’s definition of boundary situations as amounting to their
“immanent function”51 clarifies the complex condition of his thought at this stage:
160 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

communication and historicity, and especially boundary situations, implied the

inability to continue discussing Existenz within the boundaries dictated by the
explication of selfhood. The discussion of these issues brought the philosophizing
closer to the explication of Being. However, the distancing from the explication of
selfhood, characteristic of the ideas in the transition mechanisms, transpired as
insufficient to constitute a real link to Being and to transcendence.
 TRANSITION MECHANISMS:
A CONCLUDING OVERVIEW

1. Three Forms of Otherness

The maturation of the awareness of the limitations of the self-perception

constituted only out of the elucidation of its personal experiences led Existenz to
recognize its need for the “other,” not only as a means of constituting a broader
self-perception, but also as a Being without which its continued existence as an
Existenz was threatened.1 This is reminiscent of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s
statements of principle regarding the spirit’s self-awareness.2 Hegel connects the
spirit’s ability to achieve self-consciousness with its becoming aware of another
self-consciousness and placing itself opposite it. The discussion of the three
transition mechanisms shows that the aim to expand the boundaries of Existenz’s
Being through the other was accompanied by the fear of its annihilation and the
fear of the collapse of the explication of selfhood. The discussion of the ideas
included in the transition mechanisms was based on the fundamental insights
achieved during the explication of selfhood, and it largely revealed the same
points that had accompanied the study from its inception. However, the
uniqueness of the discussion of these ideas lies in the integration between the
different aspects that had appeared in earlier contexts and the criticism of these
earlier ideas that it contained. The difficulty in detaching the expressions of the
epistemological viewpoint from those of the ontological viewpoint was reflected
at different levels in the discussion of these ideas. The distinction between the new
facets revealed in Existenz and its reality as an existing Being now became almost
impossible. The more we learned about Existenz and especially about its
limitations, the more real a Being it became.
A comparative look at communication, historicity, and boundary situations
from the perspective of transition mechanisms—in light of the question of the
extent to which they helped transfer the focus of the philosophizing from selfhood
to Being—shows that they represent three stages of distancing from the solipsistic
selfhood typical of Karl Jaspers’s early thought. This process was apparent in the
dependence of Existenz on factors external to it and perhaps more powerful than
it, and in its exposure as a Being in a process of constant formation anchored in its
drive to transcend itself. The deeper the degree of otherness of the other with
which Existenz had to deal, the more Jaspers was able to expand the framework of
philosophizing and base it on concepts whose meaning was not limited to their
relevance to the explication of selfhood. The interpretation behind the viewing of
162 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

the three philosophical ideas as linked to the same developmental stage in

Jaspers’s thought did not rely only on exposing the functional facet they shared as
a means of helping Existenz transcend itself, but was also anchored in clarifying
the links of contents between them. My proposed interpretation of the
philosophical ideas I included in the transition mechanisms did not grant them an
independent status, and they were examined from the perspective of the two
opposite horizons seen from either side: the explication of selfhood on the one
hand, and the explication of Being on the other.
In communication, Existenz’s perception of otherness was largely sculpted in
accordance with the boundaries of Existenz’s self-understanding, which was
already in advanced stages of philosophical explication. In a way, the other
Existenz can be seen as a sort of mirror Existenz placed before itself, to enable it
to examine its character from another angle. But it was predictable that the
explication of the idea of communication would reveal that what the Existenz saw
was merely its reflection as elucidated in the clarification of Existenz. The idea of
communication presents a minimal model of the other, a character largely
reflecting the role Existenz had intended it for. In the end, the transcending to the
other Existenz remained purely formal, and as such it preserved the obligation to
the original Existenz at which the framework of the explication of selfhood was
aimed.
In historicity, the otherness with which the Existenz was required to deal was
deepened. This was no longer the formation of a relation toward a similar Being,
but an attempt of Existenz to form a relation toward existence in the widest sense,
and not just to adapt it to the needs of its self-understanding as we saw in World
Orientation. In existence, as a whole reality spreading over the past and the future,
there are constraints and forces that have their own dynamics that do not influence
Existenzes differently from not-Existenzes. The consciousness of historicity
expanded Existenz’s viewpoint only regarding the boundaries of the time and
space where it existed anyway, while Existenz itself remained the focus to which
the wide boundaries of existence as historicity referred. The confrontation with
existences as other was an encounter with a real and different thing, but in the
negotiation that developed around the awareness of this existence, Existenz’s
familiar effort to understand itself was still expressed in many ways.
In boundary situations, as in the discussion of communication and historicity,
Existenz confronted the reality of the other, but the contents of the otherness
arising from these situations related tangibly to the possibility of Existenz’s own
annihilation. No doubt exists that through the boundary situations Jaspers marked
the upper limits of Existenz’s ability to experience, limits that also denoted the
borders of its explications. Jaspers did not cease searching for the existential
meaning of these situations, and sought to translate the experiences Existenz had
in its encounter with the boundary situations in a way that would moderate or at
least distance the annihilating possibility arising from them. The philosophical
 Transition Mechanisms: A Concluding Overview 163

effort aimed at harnessing the boundary situations to the life forces for Existenz
greatly softened their absoluteness and made their boundary into one with which
Existenz could live. In this way, Jaspers continued the trend of existential
elucidation typical of his discussion of the other two mechanisms, which enabled,
from the methodological viewpoint of this study, the inclusion of the boundary
situations within the explication of Existenz. However, it was precisely the total
nature accompanying the meeting with the other in the boundary situations that
brought Jaspers’s discussion at this point closer to the philosophizing whose
boundaries were no longer limited to the elucidation of selfhood. True, both in
communication and in historicity we can identify elements that prefigured the
explication of Being, but only in boundary situations did their more significant
presence not enable them to be assimilated relatively easily into the Being of
Existenz, and in any case the need arose to grant them a status separate from it.
Finally, the boundary situations faced Existenz with two choices: to annihilate
itself as an existing Being at all, or to move aside from the focus of the
philosophizing and to turn to explicate the horizons revealed to it by the boundary
situations. Either way, in light of the boundary situations the perception of
Existenz as the focus of the philosophizing became impossible.

2. Absolute Consciousness

The maturation of Jaspers’s perception of selfhood typical of this stage of his

thought—after the explication of selfhood was completed and the transition
mechanisms had been discussed—well demonstrated the insights achieved, but no
less also stressed its limitations. Paradoxically, precisely at the peak of the
explication of selfhood, Existenz was revealed as an incomplete Being facing
targets it could not achieve using the instruments of consciousness at its disposal.
From the perspective of Jaspers’s entire philosophy we can state that the condition
of Existenz, as formulated in the transition mechanisms, did not remove Jaspers’s
drive to make contact with totality—a drive accompanying his thought from its
inception. He realized that the desired totality would not be found within the
boundaries of the explication of selfhood, but rather in the horizons viewed from
it but unable to be clarified within the boundaries of the philosophizing typical of
it. It is no coincidence that at this stage the term “existential consciousness” was
replaced with the concept “absolute consciousness,” which Jaspers defined as
follows:

Absolute consciousness, this certainty in Being existing from the tension it

has toward the uncertain source of all philosophizing, becomes an object
for philosophizing. Instead of philosophizing only from within it, it seems
as a leap beyond yourself following which there is no longer anything…
The absolute consciousness cannot be thought objectively, it cannot be
164 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

investigated like existence, it cannot be described like an experience, it is

like nothing…. Absolute consciousness… can exist only from self
arrival… [it] realizes itself knowing the danger: achieve yourself or lose
[yourself], become yourself or fall apart.3

These words, demonstrating the complexity of Existenz’s self-consciousness after

the modifications achieved in the transition mechanisms had been assimilated into
it, serve to describe the state of Jaspers’s thought at this stage of its development,
when it was on the verge of changing the central object of explication.4 The
disputing of the insights behind the constitution of Existenz made “knowing the
danger” they entailed relevant to Jaspers’s thought, so that the danger could be
overcome and the Existenz could continue existing. The explication of selfhood,
considered at this stage as a philosophical move that had achieved its objective, is
repositioned by the exhortations aimed at it: “achieve yourself” and “become
yourself.” It seems that the desired selfhood, to which Jaspers had aimed already
at the beginning, now transpired as a target that had yet to be achieved.
The concept of absolute consciousness enfolds the two facets of the situation
of Existenz at this stage: first it experiences a sense of security and is even
saturated by the continuing effort to constitute its selfhood. On the level of
consciousness, the sense of security is reflected in Existenz’s self-perception as
not wanting to know more; on the existentialist level the security is reflected in its
self-certainty that is no longer searching for reasons and that knows that it can
continue existing even in the boundary situations, despite having no solution for
the difficulties or the threat they entail;5 on the psychological-mental level the
security is expressed in what Jaspers called “composure” indicating a situation
where people feel they can control the fear of annihilation arising from the
boundary situations and achieve certainty in Being.6 The second facet of the
condition of Existenz in absolute consciousness is reflected in its ability to face
the possibility of its annihilation. In this context, Jaspers described Existenz as
trembling and dizzy without any grasp or support, in the destruction of all forms
of objectivity,7 feeling that the finality is sinking and that the person is becoming a
“vacuum of Being.”8
These two facets in the condition of Existenz reflected in the concept of
absolute consciousness, the relative certainty and complacency on the one hand,
and the feeling of standing on the edge of an abyss on the other, are merely two
sides of the same coin. They do not constitute another of the contrasts with which
Existenz had to deal throughout its journey of self-clarification, nor one of the
antonyms revealed at different stages of the explication of selfhood and in the
transition mechanisms. The presence of these two sides together creates a split in
the Being of Existenz, which now seems as aiming itself to a new path of
existence. In following this path, Existenz has experienced in different ways that
not everything is judged by its relation toward itself. Paradoxically, at this stage
 Transition Mechanisms: A Concluding Overview 165

Existenz appears as standing securely and stably on both feet, enabling it to move
away from its selfhood and cease seeing itself as the source and criterion for
everything. Unlike the existential consciousness, which was a constituting factor
for some other subjects discussed in the explication of selfhood (such as
“existence,” “the world,” and “consciousness”), absolute consciousness itself
constituted a subject for philosophizing.9 The Existenz bearing this consciousness
appears at this stage to have become capable of placing itself for discussion as if it
were standing aside, distant from itself in processes it was undergoing. Even the
absolute consciousness serves as a mirror for the state of the Existenz when it
becomes aware of the possible existence of a Being more encompassing than the
existence it is in.10 However, the innovation is that what is reflected in this mirror
is no longer the image of Existenz alone.
Let us examine three of the expressions of absolute consciousness that
demonstrate the state of Existenz at this point in Jaspers’s philosophy: conscience,
faith, and fantasy.

A. Conscience

Jaspers described conscience as a voice not identified with Existenz’s self-

perception, as reflected in the discussion and its different experiences, such as the
drive for communication, suffering, and guilt. Against the background of our
discussion of the modifications occurring in the self-perception of Existenz,
especially those reflected in the transition mechanisms, we can place conscience in
the gap opened in Existenz’s perception following the undermining of the
solipsistic understanding of selfhood. This is how Jaspers described conscience:

In conscience I have a distance from myself… between my existence and

my real selfhood that has yet to be revealed to me, conscience enters as a
reality, and from it what has to become a Being for me must be accepted or
rejected.11

However, the distance of Existenz from its selfhood, enabling the phenomenon of
conscience, is not an empty vacuum. The citation above shows that Existenz has
some hold on it, or more precisely, it understands that this is the very place of
discovering Being, though still without knowing what the nature of this Being is.
Jaspers demonstrated the condition of Existenz at this stage in another context
when he argued that in conscience a person stands “facing transcendence…
without hearing it [but is capable of] obeying it nevertheless like a voice from
another world.”12 Transcendence is perceived as being in another world to which
Existenz has as yet no access, but it faces it already in the existential state of
conscience. The ability of Existenz to move away from itself without requiring the
other existing outside it or consciously transcending toward it, as we saw in the
166 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

transition mechanisms testifies to the maturation of the internal processes that

allow it to become acquainted with things beyond it but not detached from it. In
conscience, Existenz discovers Being and transcendence as an other existing
within itself and grants them meaning even before they become explicit elements
in its consciousness. A similar approach viewing the “conscience” as an internal
voice calling upon people to be themselves appears also in Martin Heidegger.13
For a comparison, see also the concept of conscience in Jean Paul Sartre’s
philosophy.14

B. Faith

As with conscience, so in the presentation of faith within the absolute

consciousness Jaspers indicated the existence of a certainty that cannot be
expressed in forms of knowledge. However, more prominently than was described
in conscience, in faith the ability of Existenz to surrender the security granted by
the phenomena in existence is especially stressed. It seems that despite the sense
of risk accompanying such a surrender, the possibility of becoming acquainted
with Being and transcendence is presented at this stage as preferable to Existenz.15
Jaspers described faith as follows:

From a subjective point of view, faith is the way the spirit is certain of its
Being, its source, and its target, without having sufficiently certain terms
for this. From an objective point of view, faith is expressed in the contents
that as such remain incomprehensible and in fact only get lost repeatedly.16

Faith is unique in that although at this stage there has not yet been any real
explication of Being and transcendence, “…possible Existenz has consciousness
from transcendence. Before any thought about a specific transcendence it is
certain of it or prepared for it.”17 The emphasis on surrendering certainty in the
phenomena accords with what Jaspers defined in conscience as the distance
Existenz has from itself. Eventually, in faith as in conscience, Existenz’s ability to
turn away from itself in order to discover something that at this stage it has only a
vague idea about is expressed. Faith is a central issue in Jaspers’s writings of the
third period, which is outside the boundaries of this study. See especially his
works Philosophical Faith in Light of Revelation and Philosophical Faith.18

C. Fantasy

In fantasy, the idea of surrendering confidence in the phenomena, also typical of

Jaspers’s concept of faith, reaches a climax after which, it seems, Existenz is freed
from the previous inhibitions that blocked it from contact with Being and with
transcendence. As Jaspers put it:
 Transition Mechanisms: A Concluding Overview 167

Through fantasy the eye becomes free to see Being… The contents of
fantasy stand with original certainty before eyes whose criterion is within
it. There are no tests there from reasons or purposes, [since] the moment
the fantasy becomes a means its essence is denied it. In [fantasy] there is
the Being from which existence is justified for me rather than the
opposite.19

In contrast with faith, fantasy is unique in that Existenz lacks in it even the
consciousness of the surrender accompanying faith. In fantasy a new type of
objects of reference is created, in which “I ensure for myself the super-sensory
origin of my existence,”20 and released from the bonds of empirical reality.
Jaspers did not require fantasy to be based on anything from within reality, but
merely stated vaguely that “its contents become real for me.”21 The reality of these
contents is determined by Existenz, and they serve for it as a source of meaning,
without requiring this meaning to be accessible to consciousness or to serve as a
basis for communication between Existenzes.
The penetration of absolute consciousness as a fantasy into the foundation of
Being expresses another stage in the development of Jaspers’s thought. After
Jaspers was able to establish the perception of selfhood through wide
philosophical moves, especially those aimed at achieving world orientation, he
could allow himself to turn to fantasy, which in many ways embodies the opposite
of world orientation.

Fantasy allows me to experience the perfect and peace from itself. In the
boundary situations everything seemed to me to be torn, impossible, or
impure. In fantasy I experience the perfection of Being as beauty… While
[the perfection] is not real in the sense of existence, it does not appear as a
deception from the love of the absolute consciousness.22

From these words, Jaspers seems to be seeking to gather the shreds of the picture
of reality arising from the explication of selfhood, and especially from the
presentation of the boundary situations, and “stitching” them into a new picture of
reality. However, considering the later development of his thinking, and especially
the philosophical moves expressed in Metaphysics, the third volume of
Philosophy, it is obvious that the experience of the perfect or the absolute, to
which Jaspers refers in this context, was not yet an explicit experience for him, but
more of an image for that basic intuition that accompanied his thought from its
inception and illuminated his path. In this context, compare Jaspers’s words in the
introduction to Psychology: “The truth of the first experience was not replaced or
rejected through later clarity. Substantially, the beginning is already the whole.”23
The concluding overview of absolute consciousness from observing three of
the forms whereby it finds tangible expression—conscience, faith, and fantasy—
168 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

shows that just before transcendence and Being became the main and explicit
issue in his philosophizing, Jaspers returned to stressing the particular aspect of
Existenz’s experiences. These forms of existence do not negate the perseverance
Jaspers showed in his attempts to break out of the solipsistic position, his starting
point, in the later stages of the explication of selfhood, but they do demonstrate
once more his basic difficulty as a philosopher in parting with one of his primal
insights that had become a home to him.
It seems that what prevented the solipsistic view of selfhood from becoming
the final position in Jaspers’s philosophy was the introduction of the concepts of
Being and transcendence into his discussion of Existenz, an introduction that was
sufficient to cause a fundamental change in his perception of selfhood. These
terms’ becoming part of Existenz’s self-perception, as will be seen later in our
discussion, led to Jaspers’s effort to reveal another Being, different from Existenz,
a Being whose existence became apparent at the later stages of the explication of
selfhood and even before the tools for its elucidation were found. Some aspects of
this Being were revealed already during the process of its self-constitution and
were part of it, and this has a decisive importance for the explication of Being,
which will be the center of our discussion below; it can be seen as a promise that
from Existenz’s viewpoint the turning of the philosophizing toward the explication
of Being will not occur in a vacuum.
 Ten

THE CIPHERS OF TRANSCENDENCE

1. From the Foundering and the Encompassing to the Concept of Cipher

The experience of the foundering, which deepened the awareness of the

boundaries of Existenz, refined Karl Jaspers’s awareness that Existenz cannot
exist without constituting a real relation toward a Being external to it and more
encompassing than it. While this experience undermined the basic insights
achieved in the explication of selfhood, it did not make Existenz irrelevant, nor
did it lead to its becoming closed within its boundaries, but instead opened to it
new horizons that served as a target for clarification and experience. The two
insights achieved through the elucidation of the foundering—placing Being as the
central target of the philosophization, and making finitude, instead of Existenz, the
starting point for elucidating the Being beyond Existenz—altered the basic
understanding of immanence compared with the one typical of the discussion
within the elucidation of selfhood. Immanence was no longer perceived as the
opposite pole to Existenz, or as hiding the real and the original from philosophy.
Quite the opposite, at this stage the understanding formed in Jaspers’s thought that
it is immanence that holds the key to elucidating Being itself—an understanding
following which immanence became the symbol or cipher (Chiffre) of
transcendence.1 Jaspers usually used the terms symbol and cipher synonymously.
Immanence, as the concrete reality of the world and as the real consciousness of
human beings regarding this world and themselves, is now perceived as a possible
source for elucidating transcendence due to the metaphysical depth it contains.
The connection between the experience of the foundering and the new
perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence, and the more general
distancing from the existential viewpoint, arises from the following passage:

… The foundering is the covering ground of the entire cipher-Being.

Seeing the cipher as the reality of Being originates first and foremost in the
experience of foundering. From it, all the ciphers that are not rejected
receive their final approval. What I allow to sink into annihilation, I can
receive back as a cipher.2

As we have seen, the experience of the foundering indicated two possible ways:
the negative one, which Jaspers defined as “despair,” returned the discussion to
Existenz, apparently recognizing that Being and transcendence were blocked to it.
228 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

Alongside it appeared an option that against the background of the discussion of

the encompassing can be seen as preferable to the previous one. This possibility,
bearing a more positive nature, makes the foundering the starting point for
clarifying transcendence, and indicates that what “must be doubted before the
uninterpretable foundering” is perceived from the viewpoint of the cipher as
capable of elucidation and as a basis for “the source of the life that experiences…
Being.”3 What in the foundering was blocked from understanding becomes in the
perception of ciphers a source for the understanding of Being. In this respect we
can state that the perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence realizes
the constructive possibility that arose from the foundering. It turns Being, which
had been a source of dissatisfaction for Existenz in the experiences included in the
transition mechanisms and blocked for interpretation in the foundering, into a
target that the philosophical elucidation approaches with faith that it can succeed.
However, the perception of the encompassing, explained in the previous
chapter, also reflected an attempt to propose an elucidation of Being and
transcendence, and this raises the question regarding the necessity of the concept
of the cipher for the framework of the explication of Being. This question is even
more important since the framework of the perception of immanence as a cipher
of transcendence contained no direct explication of this immanence, but it relied
on the premise that it is an existing entity—a premise appearing from World
Orientation onwards. Different scholars of Jaspers’s thought have already dealt
with this question. Johannes Thyssen asks whether Existenz’s experience of
transcendence as self-insufficiency, through the absolute consciousness, is not
enough. His answer is that beyond and because of the existential experience of
finitude, the need arises for transcendence to be represented in the finite reality
that is split into object and subject. The concept of the cipher, which Thyssen
defined as a “semi-objective” form portraying the existential attitude toward
empirical reality, enables, in his opinion, the representation of transcendence in
finality without turning it into an object.4
Xavier Tilliette discussed the question of the necessity of ciphers in Jaspers’s
philosophy from another direction by asking whether ciphers were destined to lose
their importance in light of periechontology and philosophical logic as rational
elements on which the discussion of Being was based.5 In his opinion, the ciphers
enable the inception of the method of transcending, and they exist precisely for
those who were unable to divert themselves from the path of objective
consciousness, but especially for Existenz, which is the only one that hears the
“voices” of the ciphers and determines the criterion according to which their truth
is determined.6 He believes that Existenz experiences these “voices” as “shining
lights” showing the way to transcendence, and only thanks to them does it not
move blindly in circles around itself.7 On the basis of the premise that “the scheme
of Existenz in its structures and situations is the formal skeleton of the experience
of cipher,” Tilliette concluded that this experience “must be revealed as an image
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 229

and a backwards look of the clarification of Existenz.”8 Even though Tilliette

located the question of the necessity of the ciphers within the explication of Being,
his interpretation anchored their meaning within the boundaries of the elucidation
of Existenz.
However, unlike Thyssen, who asked about the necessity of the ciphers from
the viewpoint of Existenz, and Tilliette, who returned them to the boundaries of
the explication of Existenz, I believe that the ciphers are both the question and the
answer to the framework of the explication of Being. The concepts cipher and
encompassing were responses to the need for extra-existential elucidation of
Being, since Existenz itself has certainty regarding the existence of a transcendent
experience. More precisely, the need for extra-existential elucidation also belongs
to Existenz, but this does not link the attempt to realize it with the explication of
selfhood, but instead with that aimed at Being. It is within the framework of the
explication of Being that the necessity of symbols is clear: they enable the
accessibility of transcendence itself.

Everything must be capable of becoming a cipher. Were there no cipher

[there would be] no transcendence….
The very fact that there is a cipher is identical for us to there being
transcendence … Instead of asking why there is existence, the question
appears before us why there is a cipher. The answer to this: for existential
consciousness it is the only form where transcendence rises, a sign that for
Existenz transcendence is hidden, but had not disappeared.9

The concept of the cipher appeared in Jaspers’s writings even before he presented
the perception of the encompassing, but both of them relied on the same premises
and served as means of dealing with the same philosophical problems: the basic
tension between the ontological element and the epistemological element, and the
attempt to elucidate immanence as part of the process of explicating Being. The
cipher first appeared in Philosophy, while the encompassing first appeared in
Reason and Existenz. The concept of the cipher appeared alongside the concept of
the encompassing almost throughout the book Out of Truth.10 Using the concepts
of encompassing and cipher, Jaspers wished to lay down a path that would enable
the transition from the discussion of Existenz to the elucidation of Being and
transcendence and to guarantee that immanence would be essential in the
explication of Being.
Despite these two terms being located genealogically at the same stage of
Jaspers’s development, they do not overlap each other, but each of them includes
different contents that were suited in a different way to dealing with the
fundamental philosophical problems characteristic of the explication of Being.
The argument at the center of the discussion in this chapter is that through the
concept of the cipher, Jaspers was able to establish the status of immanence and
230 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

Existenz within the explication of Being, beyond what he was able to do within
the encompassing. While in the perception of the encompassing immanence
served as a framework gathering within it aspects that appeared separately within
the explication of selfhood and representing an opposite facet to Existenz, the
concept of the cipher clarified the place of immanence as an integral part of the
explication of Being. In the perception of immanence as a cipher of
transcendence, Jaspers largely overcame the duality typical of the encompassing
that was split into “the encompassing that is us” and “the encompassing that is
Being itself.” While the split made it possible to see immanence as merely a
preparation for the explication of Being and not as an actual part of it, the cipher,
which always originates in immanence,11 leaves no such doubt. The cipher is just a
path of the viewpoint toward immanence—an attempt to see immanence as an
expression of Being—and should not be viewed as part of another reality existing
beyond the one we witness in the tangible world. In this respect the cipher, the
mental creation of Existenz, which constitutes a metaphysical relation toward
immanence, does not leave room for an interpretation attributing to Existenz a
merely marginal role in the explication of Being. While Existenz itself is one of
the modes of the encompassing, its location in the “encompassing that is us” could
apparently have the understanding that it had no place in the “encompassing that is
Being itself.” The perception of ciphers presented below can also be seen as a
framework for examining the relation between the two basic encompassings from
a new angle.

2. Foreshadowing Aspects of the Cipher in Psychology

As we have seen, the framework of object-subject relations served as a starting

point in the mental-conscious experience of constituting a world view.12 Beyond
the philosophical aspects relating to selfhood as having this experience that were
discussed in Chapter Two, Jaspers’s ideas, as appearing in Psychology, can also
be seen as the start of a philosophical move that only matured within the
perception of ciphers. The basis of the comparison between the process of
constituting a world view and the perception of ciphers results from selfhood
constituting a new perception of reality in the experience of both points of views
they entail. As the experience of constituting a world view perceives the
“experience flow” of subjectivity as fully anchored in immanence, Jaspers defined
it as creating new contents through which it changes itself.13 The world view does
not serve only as a tool for handling the different experiences of reality, since in
the process of such handling the person forms another understanding of the
experiences and of the reality in which they occur. Similarly, the experience
leading to the perception of reality as a cipher of transcendence—a perception at
the center of our discussion in this chapter—changes the person’s perception of
reality, which is no longer perceived as merely immanent. Knowingly or
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 231

unknowingly, Jaspers already drew the line leading from Psychology to the
concept of cipher when he wrote:

From these boundaries, enclosing all the complete spheres of the split
between object and subject as a mystical thing in which the spirit cannot
escape… an inexpressible and insubstantial light is shed that always urges
for the achievement of a form within this split. This becomes a symbol, a
parable that has infinite desire for clarity. This desire, which is spiritual in
essence, immediately ceases to be merely such a desire.14

In this passage, Jaspers explicitly indicated the clarifying potential of the object-
subject relations entailed in the experience from which the world view results.
Perhaps these words can also be seen as a hint of the possibility that beyond this
clarity metaphysical horizons will be reflected that transcend the boundaries of the
perception of reality in which the world view is anchored. The argument that
Psychology contains aspects that foreshadow the concept of cipher is not based
only on the passage cited above, but also on wide philosophical moves
characteristic of Jaspers’s thought in Psychology. This refers especially to
Jaspers’s prominent effort to present thought frameworks where the character of
the subjective Being that constituted them and the perception of reality that guides
it could be clarified. Jaspers discussed in detail “approaches,” “world pictures,”
and “spirit types.”15 As we may recall, the understanding that the subject-object
relations framework is expressed in different forms reflected in the different world
views guided Jaspers in Psychology in his search for systematic thought16 that
would enable proposing an explication of the human soul. While the soul was
already perceived from the beginning as incapable of being exhaustively
elucidated, Jaspers argued that “the devotion existing in all finite matter enables
us to somehow find an organizing viewpoint.”17 The phenomenological
observation of the phenomenon of multiplicity of world views can provide us with
some grasp points to serve as a basis for elucidating the human soul as a Being
that cannot be exhausted by observing the different world views. The advantages
of the phenomenological viewpoint regarding the multiplicity of world views, by
their very nature distant from the observer’s individual viewpoint, are clear: it
enables the critical observation of selfhood, it may help uncover the infrastructure
shared by the world views as such, and even creates openness toward the
experiences of other people. Also, the process of exposing the structural
characteristics accompanying the experiences involved in world views may help it
see these experiences as reality and to use them as grasp points in reality.
The contribution of these advantages, typical of people’s experience of
constituting a world view, to Jaspers’s developmental stage when he was writing
Psychology becomes more tangible in light of this being Jaspers’s first work after
leaving the practice and science of psychiatry. Unlike pathology, whose
232 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

expressions from Jaspers’s point of view could always surprise without

maintaining a degree of regularity, he perceived the “normality” indicated by the
word “psychology” as capable of prediction and methodical elucidation. He
expected to be able to expose systematic aspects of the constitution of world
views, especially the experience of the range of normality. The specific patterns
discussed in Psychology—the “approaches,” “world pictures,” and “spirit
types”—served him at this period as framework for the formulation of the
perception of selfhood that he called at that time “subjectivity.”
Just as the discussion of the systematic aspects typical of world views
revealed the objective foundations on which the explication of selfhood relied at
the time, so the discussion of immanence that became the cipher of transcendence
clarified the objective foundations on which Jaspers based the philosophizing
aimed at elucidating Being. Like the advantages of systematic thought for the
elucidation of selfhood in Psychology, the perception of ciphers made the
metaphysical consciousness that was formulated in this context open and critical,
and gave it a grasp point in the concrete reality where Existenz finds its existence.
As a result, people’s metaphysical consciousness is portrayed as relying on reality
itself and not as a fantasy whose boundaries spread into the non-obligatory realm
of human imagination.18
In a way, the need of metaphysical consciousness for defined thought patterns
was filled already in the perception of the encompassing, where Jaspers indicated
seven modes whose elucidation, and the clarification of the relations between
which, could serve as a means for constituting consciousness regarding Being
itself. The seven modes of the encompassing and their division by Jaspers are
represented in a table in Chapter Nine, in the section The Two Facets of Being as
the Encompassing. The seven ways are: “existence,” “consciousness in general,”
“spirit,” “Existenz,” “world,” “transcendence,” and “reason.” But the concept of
the cipher provides a better answer to the need for the philosophizing of thought
patterns that would serve as a receptacle for the insights being formulated
regarding Being and transcendence. While the encompassing contains a defined
number of patterns that to a great extent determined the boundaries of
metaphysical consciousness, cipher, as we will see later, turns any object in reality
into a potential pattern in which metaphysical consciousness can be formulated. In
this respect, immanence, which has become a cipher of transcendence, contains an
infinity of thought patterns in which the perception of Being itself can be
formulated.
The perception of world views and the cipher as thought patterns organizing
the philosophical insights in relation to the context in which they were clarified
stresses the functional facet of these two key concepts. This argument, which does
not diminish the importance of the contents aspects that Jaspers developed while
clarifying the concepts of world view and cipher, demonstrates his effort to anchor
his discussion in concepts that would grant clarity to his complex philosophical
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 233

ideas and make them accessible to a wider critical discussion. However, it is

against the background of this argument that the question inevitably arises, why
the works appearing between Psychology and the appearance of the concept of the
cipher abandoned the trend to present thought patterns or even to define terms that
would help organize the philosophical discussion more systematically. This
question could similarly be asked regarding the appearance of the concept of the
encompassing, but it still arises more sharply here, in light of my interpretation
whereby the cipher provides a better answer to the need for more defined thought
frameworks. The answer to this question is linked to the most fundamental
infrastructure on which the two frameworks of the philosophizing where the
concepts of the world views and the cipher were developed, namely the
explication of selfhood and the explication of Being.
I believe that the prominent absence of an organized system of concepts
results from the solipsistic image of selfhood, which influenced the framework of
the philosophizing aimed at its elucidation; even when this image became a
conscious element, and the limitations it imposed upon the possibility of achieving
a complete understanding of Existenz were gradually exposed, its presence was
felt in Jaspers’s thought. This image, which served the need to stress the unique
character of Existenz, could not accord with the constitution of stable thought
patterns that could grant the framework of the explication of selfhood a more
consistent and systematic nature. Jaspers did not completely abandon this value,
and as we have seen he had to deal with what he called “repeating analogical
patterns” in the different world views19 in order to be able to present a “catalog”
or “relative scheme” of world views.20 However, the power of the solipsistic
image of selfhood was more dominant, especially in his early writings, including
Psychology, which found expression in Jaspers’s effort to propose an explication
of world views from a private viewpoint and as an individual experience.21
In some respects, the tension created by the joint presence of these two
viewpoints in Psychology—the viewpoint regarding the multiplicity of world
views and the one aimed at elucidating the individual world view—was resolved
with the constitution of the philosophy of Existenz, where the tendency that made
selfhood unique in its surroundings and isolated it even from other people,
themselves Existenzes, dominated. Even when the idea of communication
appeared, the impressions of this tension, which was not completely resolved at
any stage in the development of this philosophy, remained. Even the placing of
Being at the center of the philosophical discussion did not propose a more general
and systematic viewpoint regarding human beings, but made selfhood into the
background for the explication of Being. Jaspers’s philosophy included no
perception of selfhood that overcame the difficulties raised by its solipsistic
image; these difficulties contributed to the constitution of a new framework of
philosophizing in Jaspers’s thought, where they no longer had the same weight as
in the framework of the explication of selfhood. In any case, the weakening of
234 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

solipsism, which also involved overcoming the need to grant selfhood an absolute
status in the philosophical discussion, enabled the constitution of the concepts of
the encompassing and the cipher within the framework of the explication of
Being. These concepts, which were not mainly intended to help the explication of
selfhood, and that dealt with the metaphysical aspects of existence that were not
exhausted by the meaning they had for Existenz, reflected distancing not only
from the solipsistic selfhood, but also from the drive to elucidate Existenz. These
processes, enabling the very constitution of more structured thought frameworks,
explain why at this stage of the development of his philosophy Jaspers was able to
realize things whose importance he had probably already recognized already at the
start of his journey.

3. Immanence as a Cipher of Transcendence

The interpretation of the perception of the encompassing presented in the previous

chapter apparently left Existenz in an impossible situation. On the one hand, its
awareness was heightened of the gap between Being itself or transcendence and
the way it was perceived in its thought; an awareness that also indicated the
limitations of the method of transcending in serving as a sole tool for the
explication of Being.22 On the other hand, the understanding that the very
existence of Being for individuals depends on their ability to experience it is a
datum that encourages Existenz not to accept the abyss between it and the direct
understanding of Being itself, and the possibility that such an abyss could become
the last datum of human existence. The possibility that awareness of the
boundaries of the method of transcending could develop into acceptance of the
gap between human consciousness and Being itself constitutes a real threat both to
Existenz’s self-understanding and to the framework of the philosophizing as laid
out so far. This is because the transcending on which the most basic infrastructure
of Jaspers’s thought was established is no mere method or viewpoint; it has
become a mechanism through which the framework of the philosophizing was
determined and the aims of the philosophizing itself were set. Surrendering the
method of transcending at this stage due to the exposure of its limitations could
have raised serious doubts regarding the value of the philosophical insights
achieved using this method. There would have been no less far-reaching
implications for the acceptance of the existence of the abyss between the person
and Being itself. Such acceptance is first and foremost contrary to the basic
intuition regarding the real existence of the transcendent Being, an intuition that
fed Jaspers’s metaphysical drive, and thanks to which the philosophizing was able
to continue its constant development. This acceptance could have immediately
turned the boundary situations into the final datum in Jaspers’s philosophy and
undermined the foundation on which the metaphysical consciousness was based,
aimed primarily at constituting a positive consciousness regarding Being itself.
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 235

These insights and the awareness of their far-reaching implications for

Jaspers’s thought were at the basis of the constitution of the term “immanent
transcendence,”23 a term that was probably intended to satisfy two requirements
that apparently do not accord with each other: the attempt to experience Being and
at the same time to preserve the transcendent aspect in its perception. These two
facets reveal two philosophical commitments of Jaspers’s, which only the
maturation of his philosophy enabled him to present explicitly: the commitment to
immanence as a reality with its existence and as a source that could enable
Existenz to experience it. As he put it: “only immanent transcendence grants
Existenz weight in the world.”24 Also, the unconditional commitment to the
process of searching for the transcendent Being, with clear knowledge that it is not
fully accessible to an individual.
This dual commitment was expressed in denying the pantheist position,
locating itself only in immanence, and in denying the ascetic position, which, in its
approach to transcendence, abandons the world as a reality with its value. Jaspers
viewed these two approaches, to which he believed rational thought led, as a
“decline.”25 He clarified that what immanent transcendence indicates is that
immanence has a role in powers that cannot be perceived using the tools of
immanent consciousness, but at the same time, these powers can be expressed, or
as he put it, “speak,” in the immanent reality itself.26
The need for the way of Being embodied in immanent transcendence
originates in the recognition that the entity as “Being in itself” is not present in the
world in full as real reality or as a Being external to this world, but in what Jaspers
defined as “unity without identity.”27 This means that people cannot give full
expression to the way transcendence is present in immanence, because Being’s
reality is not identical to the way in which it is reflected in human consciousness.
However, consciousness is responsible for us not accepting the abyss between us
and transcendence, which could have turned it into “other in itself” for us and into
its sinking for us.28 The relation that people constitute toward the transcendent
Being is what makes it significant for them, without negating their egos as
Existenzes or the unbridgeable gap between it and human consciousness as such.
This relation is precisely the experience of Being.
From the viewpoint of Existenz we can state that the meaning of the
expression “immanent transcendence” is that immanence and transcendence are
not alien to Existenz or to each other. The ongoing effort to determine the
boundaries of the Being of Existenz and of the world and the constantly
continuing acquaintance with the reality of transcendence are revealed as fruitful.
Henceforth, Existenz is revealed not only as capable of constituting a relation
toward realities different from it without this undermining its self-consciousness,
but also as ripe for recognizing the separateness of what is different from it
without facing it with a sense of alienation. It understands itself as connected to
immanence and transcendence, although it knows it is not identical to them.
236 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

From the viewpoint of immanence, the term “immanent transcendence”

indicates the perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence. The change
in the way immanence is understood deeply undermines the foundations of the
approach that identifies Being with the empirical and the finite.29 The
understanding that the defined and fixed logical categories of reality cannot be
implemented in the elucidation of transcendence30 leads to the disappearance of
the perception of immanence that was anchored in them.31 Jaspers’s need to return
and express in this context, too, his familiar criticism of the positivistic world
view32 does not indicate that his perception of Being was founded on the principle
of denying the reality of the world, but instead shows his awareness of the need to
redefine the boundaries of the philosophizing aimed at Being. Just as in the
framework of the explication of selfhood, the distancing of the objective
viewpoint did not lead to the denial of the reality of the world, so here the denial
of the understanding of reality as empirical did not serve as a basis for the
perception of Being as existing outside the boundaries of the world as a self-
existing reality. In this respect, the extreme phrasing that presented immanence as
opposed to empiricism serves only as a first stage in the discussion, which will not
be aimed at detaching the experience of Being from the empirical aspects of
immanence, but will harness them to its explication.
The perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence was anchored in
the new understanding of objectivity, whereby it “contains the transcendence
revealed in it.”33 The definition of ciphers as ciphers of transcendence appears
throughout Philosophy in different forms.34 The booklet Ciphers of
Transcendence collects Jaspers’s lectures on this issue at Basel University in
1961.35 Jaspers’s discussion in this booklet contains no innovation regarding his
approach as it appeared in Metaphysics and in Out of Truth. The publication of
this booklet, like other publications on specific issues from his whole philosophy,
was characteristic of the third period of Jaspers’s work, when he sought to present
his philosophical thinking more simply or even in a popular form (see the division
of Jaspers’s work into periods in the Introduction). In this respect, metaphysical
consciousness based on the perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence
does not create a new reality, but reveals a hidden facet of objectivity itself. The
concept of the cipher does not deny the reality of the world, but shows immanence
to be essential for the constitution of a philosophical consciousness of Being. The
perception of ciphers preserves the original meaning granted to the perception of
immanence as empiricism, and exists alongside it as such. In Jaspers’s words, the
perception of ciphers “is simultaneously across the width of any objectivity,”36 or
“taking place simultaneously across the width of reality in a depth dimension
where man must sink himself but from which he cannot emerge without
immediately losing it [this reality] completely.”37 The deep affirmation of the
world embodied in the perception of immanence as a cipher does not allow the
ciphers to be viewed as a Being isolated from the real reality in which an
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 237

individual participates, or alternatively, as an internality without any external

expression in reality.38 The argument that the ciphers “exist in historistic sense of
fulfillment [which is] like an unignorable depth”39 connects their hidden internal
facet with their exposure in the existential reality of human beings.40
Understanding immanence as a cipher makes transcendence into something that a
person can experience, and the reality of the present from which the perception of
Being is constituted can also be seen as an element in the reality of transcendence
itself.
Immanence, which no longer required proof of its very reality, became in the
perception of ciphers more than mere immanence. Jaspers’s original metaphysical
intuition, which served as a substrate for the understanding that did not identify
the existence of Existenz with empirical reality, was, in this context, too, at the
basis of the perception that did not identify what was considered to be immanent
reality with what existed in it but was concealed.41 This perception did not enable
the attribution of a total status to such immanence, but constantly directed toward
what appeared close and accessible to human beings. Thinking about
transcendence, which does not release people seeking the meaning of their
existence, makes the objects represent what could never become an object: Being
itself.42 Compare also Jaspers’s description of the process of converting objective
and tangible reality into ciphers as part of the elucidation of Existenz.43
Eventually, the viewpoint of the cipher, expanding the boundaries of the
meaning immanence could be granted, does not apply only to what appears as an
object. It redefines life in general, perceived as a result as a totality expressing
Being in different ways.44 Under its inspiration, people reveal the metaphysical
depth hidden in ordinary things and routine events,45 in nature,46 in history,47 in
art,48 and in all the forms of human beings’ grasp of existence where their search
for meaning and significance is expressed.49 This process is so deep that alongside
the immanence that world orientation sees as empirical, the viewpoint of the
cipher places “another mythical reality.”50 This mythical reality is not separate
from immanence, since existence, which the viewpoint of consciousness sees as
empirical, and the cipher are two aspects of one world.51 The perception of the
cipher is anchored in the understanding that in the reality in which we live there is
a remnant that cannot be assimilated into anything else of the real,52 a remnant
concealed in the same factuality that world orientation wishes to report. Compare
also the argument that Being is not a second reality.53 This clarification, which
moderates the potential for error that exists in the definition of this reality as a
“mythical reality,” enables us to state that the ontological picture behind world
orientation does not contradict the one on which the perception of immanence as a
cipher of transcendence is based. Support for this clarification can also be found
in Jaspers’s discussion of the differences between the conscious relation toward
objective reality and the one expressed in reading the cipher. In this discussion,
238 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

Jaspers withdraws more explicitly from the definition of the cipher reality as a
“mythical reality.”
Jaspers described a sort of interrelationship between the viewpoint of world
orientation and the viewpoint of the cipher: on the one hand, any knowledge that
world orientation obtains makes the certainty of the cipher’s viewpoint more
decisive.54 World orientation, defined as a “ladder rung,” grants the person, thanks
to its rational element, protection from the false perception of ciphers,55 without
which metaphysics would become fantasy. On the other hand, metaphysical
consciousness, originating in the cipher’s viewpoint, may serve as an incentive
and a drive for deepening the scientific investigation, though the concept of cipher
should not be seen as a justification or proof of any reality. In this spirit, Jaspers
described “the search for transcendence… simultaneously as a relentless wish for
knowledge of the real, conducted as an unsatisfied study of the world.”56 He went
even further, arguing that the categories of thought are shaped only by the
metaphysical drives,57 and that the realization of the world orientation was tested
by its ability to enable those involved in it to detach themselves from total views
of the world and to direct themselves to transcendence.58
Against the background of this description of the relationship between the
perception of the ciphers and the nature of the experience of world orientation, we
can understand more accurately the argument whereby the viewpoint of the cipher
exists “across the width of objectivity.” World orientation constitutes a significant
layer of the Being of the cipher since already there the person discovers that
reality is not exhausted by what can be studied empirically. The experience that
leads to the turning of “the facts of world orientation into possible ciphers”59
expresses the peak of Jaspers’s attempt to establish the role of immanence in the
metaphysical consciousness revealed as deeply connected to the world reality that
it seeks to transcend. Not only does the perception of immanence as a cipher of
transcendence not negate the essentiality of the framework of world orientation for
establishing metaphysical consciousness, it even enables a person to achieve
consciousness about Being without detaching him from immanence as such. It
shows that the same immanence that from one viewpoint serves as a source for the
achievement of world orientation can also grant its owner, through another
viewpoint, orientation in Being.
At the same time, Jaspers’s commitment to elucidating transcendence as
Being in itself did not enable him to be satisfied with clarifying “immanent
transcendence,” clarifying Being only from the viewpoint of immanence. The
definition of the cipher as “Being which transcendence brings to presence without
[it] having to turn Being into object-Being” and as “a gift from the source of
Being”60 indicates the existence of a force driving transcendence to discover itself
in immanence. This philosophical drive constitutes a sort of continuation of
Jaspers’s effort to guarantee the presence of the metaphysical Being from different
directions. Like the explication of the foundering, where Jaspers wished to show
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 239

that not only Existenz but also existence itself was driven from itself to founder,61
so also in the context of elucidating the cipher he aimed to show that there were
different forces working for the presence of the metaphysical entity in human
reality: immanence due to the metaphysical depth it contains, and transcendence
that is driven by itself to be revealed in immanence.
Transcendence embodied in reality in the form of the ciphers62 appears as an
element a-priori to immanence, thanks to which the second was able to become
the medium where transcendence was revealed. The argument that “in penetrating
the world we fall into transcendence,”63 as a “prototype,”64 reflects the perception
of transcendence as prior in presence to immanence. In this respect, the very
presence of transcendence does not depend on being revealed through the
viewpoint of the cipher. According to Jaspers, this viewpoint reflects the
“response” to the already existing reality of transcendence.65 The cipher’s
viewpoint is a-posteriori, and is enabled only thanks to the a-priori presence of
transcendence, characterized by the power that motivates it to realize its
immanence.
Compared with the detailed explication proposed for the immanent part of the
expression “immanent transcendence,” the elucidation Jaspers offered the
transcendent part was partial and vague. This situation is not surprising, and is
even similar to the difficulty in establishing the interpretation presented regarding
the perception of the encompassing, whereby in the third transcending the
philosophizing achieves a presentation of Being in itself. In these two contexts, it
transpired that immanence by its very nature is capable of being more fully
elucidated compared with transcendence, the main arguments about which rely
mainly on the intuition that the boundaries of its explication constitute an essential
part of it. However, precisely due to this difficulty, Jaspers’s efforts to make some
positive determinations regarding transcendence are especially noticeable.
Although these statements are not easily defended, this does not call into doubt
Jaspers’s conviction regarding the existence of a power in transcendence itself.
This power leads it to be revealed in immanence, with the ciphers serving as a
medium where this power expresses itself.
The concept “immanent transcendence,” linking transcendence and
immanence—with transcendence making itself present while the metaphysical
depth of immanence turning into a medium through which transcendence is
revealed—transpires as a framework for the clarification of the objective part of
the explication of Being, or more precisely of the extra-existential part of it.
Unlike scientific objectivity, which scientists define in accordance with the
research framework they set themselves, objectivity that was defined at the
beginning of the discussion as “extra-existential” is revealed as a reality
independent of people’s relation toward it. Jaspers distinguished in the following
passage between these two types of objectivity:
240 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

Reality-Being for empirical knowledge exists as a Being only in contexts

and dependence types through which it is understood. Genesis and
causality show if and how something indeed exists there. They are not the
existence [of this thing] in itself, but everything [in them] exists in
relations. In contrast, the symbol-Being as a cipher of transcendence is not
in a relation, but exists directly only for those people for whom it is
transparent.66

From these words we can understand that beyond the permanence and the stability
typical of objectivity as such, including objectivity in science, the extra-existential
objectivity expresses the idea that the very reality of Being and transcendence is
not a speculative matter, or as Jaspers put it: “is not in a relation.” The
dependence existing here applies to individuals, since without constituting a
relation toward Being and transcendence they would not have a metaphysical
consciousness granting meaning to Being and transcendence, while the reality of
Being and transcendence themselves exists without any connection to any
consciousness that could affirm them.
The need to establish the perception of Being outside the boundaries of
Existenz, in order to grant it an objective aspect, also arose in the explication of
selfhood, which also required world orientation—a framework that granted the
perception of Existenz a sort of objective anchor, or more precisely an extra-
existential one. Jaspers, who himself dealt with the importance of objectivity in
the discussion of Being and Existenz,67 was probably concerned that this
philosophical move could accidentally lead to Existenz and the world becoming
objects, and clarified that this was not the case.68 However, what is noticeable in
this context is the difference in the way Jaspers presented the role of objectivity in
the two contexts. In the discussion of selfhood, the anchoring of Existenz in
objectivity was the conclusion of a tortuous philosophical move that, among other
things, examined the possibility of detaching Existenz from the world.69 In
contrast, in the discussion of ciphers objectivity was perceived as a datum on
which the explication of Being was based, instead of as a problem that should be
overcome. The new attitude toward objectivity in this context is a continuation of
the earlier philosophical move, which appeared already in World Orientation and
even benefited from it.
Against this background, we can state that the objectivity in which the
discussion of Being was anchored was not perceived as an opposite pole to
subjectivity, whose duty was to decipher the symbols and reveal the metaphysical
element contained therein as ciphers of transcendence. Separating the discussion
of objectivity from the subjectivity that sustains it, intended for methodological
purposes, stresses at this stage of the discussion that the area of ciphers applies to
whatever represents itself tangibly or could appear as such.70 Jaspers’s words
about symbols in the fourth edition of General Psychopathology do not appear
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 241

even in abbreviated form or in hints in the first edition of this work, but in my
opinion they constitute part of his philosophical approach that is reflected in the
expanded edition of this book. See the discussion on the relation between the two
editions in Chapter One. The obvious conclusion from the discussion of the term
“immanent transcendence” is that the cipher does not represent a new type of
objectivity. The entirety of the concept of the cipher is in the new meaning granted
to objectivity that Jaspers sometimes called “metaphysical objectivity,”71 a
meaning following which immanence was revealed as a source for a wider
meaning. As he put it: “ciphers are not new objects, but newly filled objects.”72

4. The Concept of Cipher and Consciousness

The anchoring of the explication of Being in immanence as a tangible reality,

known for its accessibility to the tools of formal consciousness, required Jaspers
to discuss the role of consciousness regarding the cipher Being, too. Jaspers’s
argument in principle in this context was that “consciousness in general, in all its
valid forms… [is] the skeleton of existence, without which there is no
understanding and no continuity of certainty.”73 This means that consciousness
defines, at least in a preliminary way, the general framework in whose boundary
the cipher’s viewpoint functions. In his words:

Sinking into symbols is not a mythical sinking, which in the lack of

objectivity of transcendence enters a union lacking any objects and thus is
also uncommunicative. In fact, in hearing the language of the symbol, the
phenomenon of transcendence is articulated for Existenz in the split
existing between object and subject in the medium of clear conscious-
ness.74

Immanence, which appears in consciousness as a split between object and subject,

and that when acted upon by consciousness acquires clarity and a degree of
communicativity, has some weight in Existenz’s becoming acquainted with
transcendence. This expresses the presence of the epistemological viewpoint in
the perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence, a viewpoint that gives
the certainty of the Being of transcendence a general aspect and that releases it
from dependence on the necessarily particular relation Existenz shows it. Alan M.
Olson proposed a different interpretation of the perception of ciphers when he
stated that the source of the split between objectivity and subjectivity does not
necessarily depend on objective consciousness, but on the ontological element,
meaning the uniform Being of transcendence.75 At the same time, consciousness
bases the role of immanence in metaphysical consciousness; more precisely, the
necessity of consciousness for the perception of immanence as a cipher of
transcendence affirms metaphysical consciousness as being anchored in the same
242 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

immanence accessible to the tools of consciousness. Unlike what Jaspers termed

“mythical sinking,” the action of consciousness occurs according to clear rules
that are not derived from the needs or personality of the conscious person. The
importance of the discussion of consciousness within the framework of the
perception of ciphers stems from its contribution to delineating the boundaries in
principle within which the metaphysical consciousness relying on the concept of
cipher may move.
The discussion about the meaning of formal consciousness in the context of
the perception of ciphers complements the philosophical move aimed at
establishing the status of immanence in constituting metaphysical consciousness.
While the concept “immanent transcendence” exposed the existential facet of
immanence, the connection between objective consciousness and the cipher’s
viewpoint clarifies the conscious facet of this immanence. The viewpoint seeing
immanence as a cipher of transcendence exceeds the boundaries of objectivity and
grants it, as we have seen, a much wider significance than that granted it by formal
consciousness. As Jaspers said: “The clarification through the symbol walks a
path that is above objectivity.”76 Jaspers stressed that the same consciousness in
which the individual “participates impersonally,” enabling “unambiguous
understanding,” is the basis of our trust in order, and “dread takes us if its collapse
appears real.”77 Consciousness, as an extra-existential anchor of Being, may
guarantee the stability of metaphysical consciousness and its linking to the
immanent reality where people live and act. The meeting that takes place at this
point between the existential motives in the metaphysical search and the character
of immanence at the basis of this search reveals the nature of the metaphysical
consciousness Jaspers wished to constitute: it does not rely on the occurrence of a
“total conversion” of the existence and consciousness in which people live, but
instead all its depth depends on its ability to expose hidden aspects embodied in
the two facets—existential and conscious—of immanence. For further discussion,
see Jacques Waardenburg’s argument that the creation of symbols always passes
through some existential discomfort, and that thanks to the symbolic expression
internal and external reality become bearable.78
This insight can correctly illuminate the essence of the reorientation that
Jaspers’s philosophy underwent. This reorientation not only placed the explication
of Being as the desired object of the philosophizing and opened new horizons for
it, but also reflected a release from the commitment to one exclusive viewpoint,
like the one accompanying the elucidation of selfhood. This release not only
enabled a relieving of the tension between different components of the
discussion—such as “consciousness,” “existence,” and “Existenz”—typical of his
earlier thought, but also enriched Jaspers’s philosophical discourse, which became
increasingly complex. In contrast with the tension typical of the framework of the
explication of selfhood, between the wish to establish the superiority of Existenz
and the aim of expanding the boundaries of the philosophizing, the framework of
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 243

the explication of Being expressed Jaspers’s tendency to use as many viewpoints

as possible in order to constitute metaphysical consciousness, revealed as multi-
faceted.
However, although the “essentiality of the universal legality [of
consciousness] is a support and a comfort,”79 in the complex process of
constituting metaphysical consciousness, the correct dimensions of consciousness
within the framework of the explication of Being transpire from the following
passage:

If everything threatens to erode into coincidence then in the law I have a

place where I can take hold of solid ground. If Being sinks for me, I
perceive all of existence in this law. But then this law is a cipher, and like
any cipher it is ambiguous… I can grasp it, but not final[ly] and
absolute[ly]. As with any cipher, I must go deep in this one, without ever
finding a ground. I no longer see it when I perceive validity as merely
objective.80

Only after the clarification of objectivity by consciousness has been exhausted

does objectivity itself become a cipher of transcendence. Objectivity transpires as
the first and overt layer of understanding, but its perception as a cipher reflects the
hidden meaning it contains, that the awareness of the insufficiency of objectivity
constitutes a condition for its exposure. It is clear that in order for something—an
object, a word, a way of speaking, or a way of behaving—to symbolize something
else, other than itself, it must first have its meaning, and only then can it serve as
an indicator of another meaning. Similarly, the cipher also requires the
background existence of the objective understanding of immanence as the first
layer of meaning, which in itself would constitute a transcending or addition
thereof. The philosophical move in which Jaspers sought to combine on the one
hand the epistemological viewpoint of consciousness in its perception of
immanence as a cipher of transcendence, and on the other hand to try to limit this
viewpoint so that it would not exhaust the perception of ciphers—or more
precisely so that the second would not be subjugated to the viewpoint of
consciousness—receives its concise expression in the following passage, which
also summarizes this interpretative move:

Order, rules, and laws of everything, precisely those that appear to cancel
any symbolism and to enforce the uncompromising separation between
reality and illusion, themselves become a cipher: the fact that existence is
like this, that it contains order, and that this order exists, is the cipher of
its transcendence.81
244 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

It transpires that only after the place of world orientation and of consciousness
was guaranteed within the framework of the philosophical discussion around
Being did Jaspers wish to stress that not all the viewpoints have an equal status in
the process of constituting metaphysical consciousness; that their coming together
in order to achieve a shared goal does not remove the differences between them.
The concept of cipher shows that “the object does not become through change a
construct by a methodic view of a single science, but it becomes transparent
through philosophy.”82 This statement, distinguishing the way consciousness
handles immanence and the viewpoint of the cipher, can indicate some crucial
aspects of the concept of cipher: first, consciousness cannot deal with all the facets
of immanence, but only with those accessible to the tools of objective thinking,
from which knowledge can be produced. In a way, this activity of consciousness
can be seen as distancing from immanent reality, because it cannot represent the
aspects existing in it that are not accessible to the rules of objectivity. In contrast,
the cipher making this immanent reality transparent expresses an attempt to cling
to it enabled by the very ability of consciousness to “breaking away from
sensuality as such.”83 This ability is what enables immanence itself, and not
another reality, to be seen as an expression of Being. While for consciousness the
objects constitute the only object of reference, with everything remaining outside
the objective patterns considered as non-existent, the perception of ciphers, which
does not neglect those aspects to which consciousness refers, transpires as
exhausting the fullness of immanence. However, the exhaustion of immanence is
not revealed only by clinging to it, but as the ability to experience also what is
reflected in it but whose reality does not match its own, meaning transcendence.
The release from the bonds of consciousness enables a different way of
experiencing immanence, anchored in the distinction between two types of
symbolism: “interpretable symbolism” and “observable symbolism.”84 The first
disintegrates immanence in order to rebuild it according to the rules of objectivity,
and places a barrier between indicator and indicated, meaning between
immanence and transcendence. The second, in contrast, maintains the integrity of
immanence and of the human being as an organic part of it without contradicting
the basic effort to which the perception of ciphers is aimed, meaning the creation
of continuity from immanence to transcendence. Even if the observation behind
the cipher’s viewpoint does not reflect complete passivity, its relation toward
immanence lacks the same emphasis on activity and sovereignty on the
individual’s behalf that is typical of consciousness’ relationship toward immanent
reality. Similarly, Jaspers differentiated elsewhere between “penetration” of the
cipher, which is a tool for its clarification, and “interpretation,” which stresses the
control a person has over his object of reference.85
Sebastian Samay’s interpretation emphasized another facet of this distinction
between these two types of symbolism, but accords with the interpretation offered
here. In his opinion, the first symbolism sees its objects as an absolute thing, and
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 245

treats them the way “consciousness in general” treats its objects. The object of this
symbolism ceases to be perceived as a symbol and is perceived, following this
treatment, as reality itself.86 In contrast, the other symbolism does not achieve an
unambiguous understanding of its objects.87 He defines this symbolism as poetic,
since it penetrates the metaphysical depth contained in objects.88 Samay’s
interpretation also shows, although in a different way, that immanence that
becomes a symbol of transcendence does not lose its connection to immanence as
such.
At this point we can indicate the traces of the method of transcending, on
which Jaspers’s entire philosophical thought was constituted. Beyond the general
contribution to expanding the scope of the philosophizing familiar from previous
contexts we have discussed, in this context this method aided the escape from the
rigid categories of consciousness,89 and undermined the logical and rational
structure of arguments about reality90—an undermining following which Jaspers
defined the objects in reality as “floating.”91 However, unlike in previous contexts,
where this method led to the expansion of the scope of discussion by means of
transferring its focus elsewhere, in this context of the cipher, the expansion was
achieved by “penetrating the world”92 and “deep study” of the symbol it created.93
The implementation of the method of transcending within the framework of the
perception of ciphers expresses the main philosophical message Jaspers wished to
express through it, whereby individuals do not have to go far from their position
in the world and seek the meaning of their life elsewhere, since it is right within
their reach.
The change in the way the method of transcending is expressed reflects the
status of Existenz at this stage of the explication. Following his discussion of
consciousness within the framework of the perception of the cipher, Jaspers stated
that “real Being should be perceived only in the loosening of the possible
Existenz,”94 meaning that Existenz is liberated from the drive that had controlled
it in the framework of the explication of selfhood. After discussing philosophy’s
need for objects, he stated that the cipher’s viewpoint grants objectivity symbolic
validity, when “their content becomes feelable.”95 Compared with the
consciousness of conquest and achievement that fills the conscious person, Jaspers
noted that “in the cipher I delay,”96 and chose to emphasize the sense of magic,97
the experience of wonder and of facing a reality filled with secrets.98 These
descriptions of the Existenz becoming aware of the symbolic aspects of
immanence enable the characterizing of the cipher’s viewpoint as what Peter Wust
termed “second naiveté,” meaning a renewed turn toward absolute Being, with
awareness of the scientific and philosophical criticism of the world and of the
intention to repair the rift caused by this awareness. This concept was developed
in Wust’s book Naivität und Pietät (Naiveté and Piety) (1925),99 although its
early elements can be found in his first book, Die Auferstehung der Metaphysik
(The Rebirth of Metaphysics) (1921),100 and in articles published between these
246 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

two books.101 Alternatively, Existenz can be defined in this context as existing in

what Olson called, following Paul Ricoeur, as “post-critical naiveté,” meaning
openness to the wonder from a view to what the symbol and the myth can
imply.102 In this context, Olson mentions Jaspers as expressing the need for
openness to the wonderful through symbols, and he also refers to the argument
Jaspers had with Bultman, as published in Jaspers’s work Demythologization.
Like the “second naiveté,” and the “post-critical naiveté,” the cipher’s viewpoint,
too, does not detach itself from people’s basic aim of understanding the world
around them using the tools at their disposal, and it cannot be defined as a
skeptical position. Quite the opposite, the cipher’s viewpoint on the one hand
reflects Jaspers’s attempt to find a way to preserve the spirit of intuitive certainty
regarding the existence of a transcendent Being, while on the other hand expresses
his certainty that the philosophical medium where its explication is carried out can
help in this task.
However, while the cipher’s viewpoint, which was defined above as “the
loosening of the possible Existenz” aiming at the “observable objects” and
preserving the wholeness of immanence, Jaspers clarified that it by no means
constitutes an aesthetic viewpoint. Several scholars have discussed the influence
of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Immanuel Kant’s “Nature’s cipher” on
Jaspers’s perception of ciphers.103 In my opinion, Kant’s emphasis on the aesthetic
aspects is not equivalent to Jaspers’s explicitly anti-aesthetic position.104 Unlike
the cipher, indicating the presence of transcendence in the world, in his opinion
the symbols become non-binding aesthetic contents in which no reality is
present.105 Compared with the aesthetic observation, which from Jaspers’s point of
view was perceived as meaningless for self-Being, the thought that perceives the
world as filled with the presence of transcendence was defined as creative
thought.106 Defining the relation of the cipher’s viewpoint to immanence as “a
possibility of appropriation”107 reveals unambiguously the observers’
commitment to what is revealed to them from the ciphers. The appropriating
position that adopts something from what already exists establishes the connection
of the perception of ciphers to immanence, and at the same time stresses the
difference between the method of observation depicted in this perception and both
the aesthetic viewpoint and the viewpoint of formal consciousness. Eventually the
release from the specificity of the categories of objective consciousness and from
people’s conscious relation toward reality108 leads to the diminishing of the area of
tangency between the cipher’s viewpoint and that of consciousness to the point of
the cipher being defined as “a vague fantasy of consciousness.”109 Although the
all-inclusive horizons of transcendence to which the symbolic observation was
aimed enabled the different viewpoints to coexist, they also demanded the
“surplus meaning” over what the consciousness of immanence could grant and the
concept of cipher could indicate.
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 247

5. Metaphysical Consciousness as a Language

The connection between the perception of ciphers and the framework of the
explication of Being was achieved through the anchoring of this perception in two
elements independent of Existenz: the metaphysical potential embodied in
immanence and transcendence’s drive to immanentize itself. However, these
elements are insufficient to exhaust the philosophical depth contained in the
viewpoint seeing immanence as a cipher of transcendence. Although it is clear that
before the appearance of the concept of cipher Jaspers’s words referred to clear
processes that reflected the diversion of Existenz from the focus of the
philosophical discussion, he stated:

If we go in metaphysics directly from absolute objectivity up to

transcendence as a cipher, then there is no possibility of grasping it. [This
means] that we should search for contact with its existential roots.110

Existenz transpires from this passage as a necessary condition for the constitution
of a relation toward transcendence through the cipher’s viewpoint.111 In order to
establish this argument, Jaspers sought to indicate a significant connection
between the cipher’s viewpoint and the most explicit characteristics of Existenz.
He wrote that “the ciphers in the historistic sense of fulfillment are as an
unignorable depth.”112 The cipher’s viewpoint, which reveals new facets of the
reality in which Existenz exists, reflects Existenz’s ability to detach itself from its
form of existence and to examine other possibilities. In this respect, the ciphers
can be considered a metaphoric expression of the undeciphered existence
possibilities that were available to Existenz but hidden in the absence of a more
profound examination of immanence. This interpretation accords with Jaspers’s
statement that the connection between ciphers and the historicity of Existenz does
not allow Existenz to observe the order of the cipher world “from above,”113 but
instead to see them as a space where its possibilities for realization lie. 114
The dual relation of the ciphers—both to the immanence where they are
anchored with Existenz, and to the transcendence they indicate—is reflected in the
two different ways Existenz faces them. As we have seen, Existenz was described
as delaying and as loosening in the face of the Being of transcendence arising
from the ciphers. This description, aimed at preventing the identification of
transcendence with immanence in a way that could have turned it into a sort of
knowledge, differs from the description of Existenz’s stance toward the
immanence in which it identifies the ciphers of transcendence:

As a tangible thing objectivity is an existential possibility: the possibility of

appropriation is what turns in the world into an object—as empirical
248 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

reality, as rational validity, as nature and history, and as handed down

cipher text.115

The direct contact the cipher’s viewpoint has with Existenz’s mode of existence
served as a basis for granting legitimacy to the activity Existenz shows regarding
them. Precisely because Existenz does not experience the immanence in which the
ciphers are anchored as a reality external to it, but as “its own world,” it sees itself
as free to appropriate from among the ciphers taken from immanence the
possibilities they contain for it, and not to face them with the distance typical of its
stance toward transcendence. Against this background, the definition of the
concept of cipher as the possibility of “appropriation” receives its full meaning.
On the one hand, it indicates the rooting of metaphysical consciousness in
immanence, and on the other hand, since this consciousness revolves around the
transcendence beyond the boundaries of immanence as such, it also indicates the
distance between metaphysics and immanence—a distance that requires Existenz
to show activity that could bring it closer to transcendence, although
transcendence remains distant from Existenz.
The implications stemming from anchoring the concept of cipher in the
existential infrastructure are clear: this infrastructure does not allow immanence to
lead to the constitution of a uniform metaphysical consciousness in different
people, since beyond the differences between people, immanence reveals itself in
different and varied facets.116 As he put it: “empirical existence, which through the
expression [of Being] is supposed to be perceived and ascertained, does not
therefore exist per se,”117 and the ciphers “enable a variety of viewpoints.”118 The
given gap between transcendence as Being in itself and immanent reality is joined,
through the existential infrastructure, by another gap stemming from the
differences between human viewpoints about immanent reality.
The barrier against constituting a uniform consciousness regarding
transcendence through the ciphers does not stem only from the individual
differences between people. Even for the same person it does not always happen
on the same level, since it depends on the “person’s elation ability” that changes
over time. In this respect, the ciphers indicate, in their undeciphered form, the
person’s development potential, and so Jaspers saw the ciphers as reflecting the
real human Being,119 and argued that they “open themselves for me in accordance
with my essence.”120 The conclusion resulting from the existential infrastructure of
the ciphers—both the multiplicity of viewpoints of different people regarding the
same reality and as a function of the frequently changing state of the individual—
is unambiguous. The metaphysical grasp in the cipher text is not finally valid, but
is subject to people’s state when they turn to transcendence, which in turn grants
itself to those seeking it in a different way each time. 121
Olson’s interpretation, seeking to distinguish between Jaspers’s perception of
ciphers and that of the church’s dogmatic theology, illuminates from a different
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 249

angle the essentiality of Existenz in becoming acquainted with the symbolic

aspects of immanence. According to Olson, Jaspers’s perception of ciphers
stresses the centrality of the individual experiencing the constitution of the symbol
and activity involved in interpreting it, compared with Christian theology, which
grants a different weight to the individual and to the symbolic aspects of religion.
In his opinion, the fear that pandeism or the tendency to reduce faith into the
external means by which it is obtained would eventually lead to the viewing of
these means as having purely subjective, and also mutable, validity, was behind
the Catholic church’s emphasis on the objective truth of the symbols themselves in
relation to the individual religious experience.122 Olson bases his words on
Bernard Joseph Francis Lonergan’s work.123 Stephen A. Erickson discussed the
difference between Jaspers’s religious approach and that of Søren Kierkegaard as
the difference between a non-voluntarist position and a voluntarist position.124
Olson’s interpretation, revealing the religious aspects of the experience of
constituting the Being of the cipher, accords with his discussion of the role of
subjectivity in revealing the metaphysical depth contained in immanent reality,
although it is clear that Jaspers’s perception of the ciphers cannot be seen as a
basis for his identification with the dogmatic theology of the church, which was in
any case not discussed in his writings of this period. Jaspers’s book Der
philosophische Glaube (Philosophical Faith in Light of Revelation) (1963)
contains a more direct dialog with Christian faith.125
The centrality of Existenz in the constitution of the approach seeing
immanence as a cipher of transcendence and the individualistic facet
accompanying this experience remind us of the rhetoric typical of the framework
of the elucidation of Existenz. Jaspers’s reference to these aspects at this stage of
his philosophy has a different meaning than the one familiar from the explication
of selfhood. As we recall, in the second, controlled by the drive to solipsism, the
uniqueness of Existenz was perceived as an essential tool for its elucidation, and
the isolation of Existenz from the world and from other Existenzes was an
essential condition for its constitution as an explicit Being. In contrast, in light of
the cipher’s viewpoint, the unique character of Existenz helps elucidate the
eternality of the ciphers themselves. In this context, Jaspers differentiated between
the multiplicity of meanings that is a result of the “interpretable symbolism” and
the multiplicity of meanings that is a product of the “observable symbolism.” The
first one relies on a fixed starting point aimed at achieving the interpretation as a
final target. In contrast, the existentialist viewpoint behind the other symbolism
observes its objects as possibilities for appropriation. No less than the reference
revealing the presence of transcendence in immanence expresses the quality of
Existenz, it also testifies to the anchor ciphers have in infinity itself.126 Even the
fact that “infinite multiplicity of meanings of all the ciphers shows itself in the
reality of time as its essence”127 does not enable the isolation of the ciphers, since
each symbol gives rise to a new symbol.128 In the framework of the elucidation of
250 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

selfhood, the singularity of Existenz served as a tool for emphasizing its particular
uniqueness, which largely isolated it from its surroundings, but in the framework
of the perception of ciphers, this singularity functions as a tool for elucidating
Being as an extra-existential and infinite entity existing beyond Existenz.
In addition to the multiplicity of meanings granted to the ciphers not enabling
them to be isolated from the historistic universe of Existenz129—Jaspers puts it as
thinking “out of the ciphers” and not “about them”130—it does not allow a valid
and complete understanding of them.131 This situation requires the definition of
ciphers as a relativized Being-consciousness,132 and so they are perceived as an
absolute barrier against the constitution of a dogmatic metaphysical system133
characterized by the institutionalization and canonization of the symbols.
Waardenburg distinguished between “free symbols,” which have not been
canonized, and “established symbols,” characteristic of organized religions and
institutions.134 Jaspers, who was aware of the “price” that must be paid by a
metaphysical approach rooted in the world of a person as an individual, indicated
the danger of instability135 and the constantly threatening doubt.136 It is no wonder
that he stated that “it would not be possible for there to be any research of a
symbol, but only the perception of symbols and creation of symbols.”137 The poor
formality and the weak generality characterizing the symbols not only do not
enable the world to be known through them,138 and do not provide any knowledge
about it,139 but even make the undeciphered possibilities for existence in the world
into the last datum of human Being. Therefore, Jaspers argued that seeing
immanence as a cipher of transcendence charges individuals with finding for
themselves the justification of the metaphysical consciousness they form. This
point makes more prominent the difference between metaphysical consciousness
based on symbolic observation, which tries to deal with the gap between itself and
transcendence as an absolute Being, and the myths that are usually understood as
having a relative meaning that leaves the gap between transcendence itself and its
description intact without seeing the overcoming of this gap as a worthy
challenge.140
In some respects, the discussion about the role of subjectivity in the
constitution of the cipher-Being demonstrates the difficulties entailed in
elucidating Being itself and also those entailed in the constitution of metaphysical
consciousness regarding this Being. Hermann-Josef Seideneck, who stressed these
aspects of Jaspers’s thought, stated that what apparently appeared to be blunt
concepts reflects the doubt of the philosophical thought. This general argument
about Jaspers’s thought is especially stressed in relation to the ciphers, which in
Seideneck’s opinion mainly reflect the experience of Being through the doubt that
moves between the possibilities at Existenz’s disposal and the reality of Being in
itself.141 While the ciphers reflect, in his words, “daring to doubt,” they also exist
on the same impassable boundary that only faith and communication between
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 251

different religions through theological thought, instead of philosophy, can

overcome.142
The interpretation emphasizing the element of doubt entailed in the symbolic
viewpoint of reality has some support in the text, but doubt in this context has
only a role similar in principle to that of “restraint” (epoché) in Edmund Husserl’s
thought. This means that the presence of doubt is required as an inevitable
component in Jaspers’s perception of Being, which sought to rid itself of absolute
aspects that could grant the metaphysical consciousness that was formulated in his
thought a dogmatic nature or present it as a religious commitment. But despite the
importance of Existenz in determining the character of the developing
metaphysical consciousness and in creating the connection with the philosophy of
Existenz in the background, the existential infrastructure remained, in which doubt
is anchored as a background understanding, and did not take over the elucidation
of the concept of cipher. According to the basic principles that most generally
typify the framework of the explication of Being, we can find in Jaspers’s words a
real expression of his attempt to qualify the existential aspects that arose in his
discussion of the concept of cipher. After presenting the ciphers as an existential
possibility, Jaspers wrote:

Only on the basis of Existenz’s ground does objectivity become a present

reality, if it cancels the mere possibility of identifying with the existential
selfhood.143

These words affirm the premise of the perception of ciphers, that immanence
contains a metaphysical depth or what was called here a “present reality,” and
establishes the meaning of appropriation in the framework of this perception.
Unlike the appropriation ability in the elucidation of selfhood, expressed in the
translation of different contents and experiences into the language of existential
selfhood, the meaning of appropriation expressed in the symbolic observation of
immanent reality is almost the opposite. The Existenz that constitutes the cipher’s
viewpoint and appropriates the possibilities it recognizes in immanence does not
subject the objective contents it encounters to its needs, nor does it aim to identify
itself with the possibilities it has chosen to appropriate. Existenz’s ability to
appropriate to itself possibilities from the symbolic observation of reality depends
on negating the very possibility of identifying its selfhood with what it chooses to
appropriate.
The different meaning granted in this context to the concept of appropriation,
containing one of the explicit meanings of Existenz, is part of a wide
philosophical move characterizing the explication of Being, where there is a deep
transformation of the basic insights achieved in the elucidation of selfhood. In this
spirit, Jaspers argued that denying the factuality of transcendence can be
considered a human freedom, but that the possible Existenz that knows its
252 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

boundaries cannot deny the reality of transcendence.144 While the framework of

the elucidation of selfhood expressed the freedom of Existenz in its ability to
constitute itself, in the explication of Being, Existenz is presented as not observing
transcendence as a possibility at its disposal, meaning a Being that teaches it
something about itself, but as becoming “identical to the certainty of the Being of
transcendence.”145 The maturation of Existenz’s self-consciousness is reflected in
the certainty it has of the Being of transcendence. Eventually, to the extent that
Existenz can have any certainty about its Being, this certainty is related to its
ability to experience the presence of transcendence.146
Although the presence of Existenz makes the difference between seeing
immanence as merely empirical and perceiving immanence as a cipher of
transcendence, the existential viewpoint does not exhaust the full meaning of the
concept of cipher. This is because the metaphysical interpretation granted to
immanence does not function as a mechanism for confirming the real existence of
the Being of transcendence, but is intended to grant an explicit expression to the
intuition regarding the existence of an extra-immanent Being. The cipher’s
viewpoint is intended to answer the requirement in principle that transcendence
should be accessible to the tools of human consciousness. Jaspers wrote:

… to the extent that Existenz appears to itself in existence, so what is exists

for it only as patterns of consciousness; therefore even what is
transcendence receives for the Existenz connected to existence the form of
objectivity.147

Following the philosophical move that clarified the connection between the
viewpoint of consciousness regarding reality and the perception of that reality as a
cipher of transcendence, these words also express the need to make metaphysical
consciousness more communicative. What rescues the experience of ciphers from
being the individual’s private experience and turns it into part of philosophical
metaphysics stems from the existence of a process of “systematic analysis of
absolute objectivity” and of turning the objectivity perceived as a cipher into a
“meant concept.”148 Even if this process does not completely remove the doubt
inevitably accompanying the symbolic observation portrayed in the perception of
ciphers, it reflects handling it using the tools of philosophical explication.
Objective consciousness is part of the process of forming the metaphysical
relation toward immanent reality, which guarantees that the metaphysical
consciousness formed does not rise up against its maker, detach it from itself, and
become a dogmatic religious commitment or a mystical experience. However,
especially in the face of the doubt, which is an essential component of
metaphysical consciousness, the product of a person’s self-constitution—doubt
that the objective part of the perception of Being is supposed to answer—the
reliability of Jaspers’s commitment to preserving the centrality of Existenz within
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 253

the perception of immanence as a cipher of transcendence is noticeable. The

innovation in this commitment Jaspers showed toward Existenz stems from it not
being intended only for purposes of its self-understanding, but also preserved
when the philosophizing directs itself toward the transcendent Being.
Jaspers’s effort to grant the idea of the cipher an aspect of generality by
elucidating it separately from the framework of the explication of selfhood, but
without alienating it from the Being of Existenz, reaches its peak with its
definition as a language of transcendence.149 Just as every language is based on
some rules, and familiarity with them and internalization of them enable
communication, so the language of the cipher, too, relies on accessibility to the
general aspects of immanence as empirical reality. Like all languages, the
language of the cipher has no existence as such, but only by being understood by
particular people. The definition of immanence itself as a cipher text150
emphasizes the dependence of the cipher language on people who can decipher it.
While the general facet on which the understanding of ciphers is based is
responsible for their perception as a language of transcendence instead of as a
language of Existenz, the need for the cipher language to be comprehensible
ensures the essentiality of Existenz as the one that indicates in practice that
immanence is a cipher of transcendence.
In order to define the nature and uniqueness of the cipher language compared
with other expressions of human Being, which themselves constitute a language,
Jaspers differentiated between three languages. Olson argued that these three
levels of the cipher language are close, if not entirely identical, to the three
movements of absolute spirit in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.151
The first language represents the experience of the unmediated presence of
transcendence in the absolute consciousness of Existenz. Although Jaspers
perceives the experience in the widest sense as a source for certainty regarding
transcendence and as an answer to the need for its presence in historistic reality,
he stressed in this context, “The metaphysical experience lacks any verifiability
that could have turned it into a valid thing for every person.” Whether the
individual sees it as knowledge or it remains merely a subjective feeling, the
experience of transcendence through the first language is destined to turn into a
deception.152 Compared with Jaspers’s presentation of absolute consciousness in
Elucidation of Existenz, which still emphasized the dealing with the question of
selfhood,153 here Jaspers stressed its role as mediating between Existenz and
transcendence—although this facet was already present in its earlier appearance.
See the discussion in the chapter summing up the transition mechanisms following
Chapter Seven. In this respect, the role of absolute consciousness in the context of
the discussion of ciphers can be seen as an expression of its development and as
affirmation of the interpretation offered here whereby selfhood is moved aside
from the center of the philosophical discussion with the transition to the
explication of Being.
254 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

The inability to conduct communication on the basis of the first language and
its insufficiency even for the person trying to use it serve, apparently, as a basis
for the constitution of the second language, where the metaphysical consciousness
is embodied. Unlike the first language, anchored in the historicity of the
individual’s present, the second language is based on the premise that
transcendence takes place in contrast to the real present as empirical reality.154
The constituting experience of this language is not “the fault in reality, but the
lack of transcendence”155 that should be accessible to a person’s world of
metaphors and thoughts. So it is not surprising that the form in which this
language is expressed is that of myths. The commitment of the second language to
making transcendence accessible to the objective forms of expression, as
portrayed in the formation of myths, constitutes an opposite pole to the first
language, free of these needs and mainly committed to the individual existential
experiencing of the metaphysical experience.
Between these two languages, Jaspers placed the third language, the cipher
language. He defined it as a mediating language,156 and the transcendental
thoughts arising in it as speculations:

They are not knowledge of an object, nor appealing to freedom through

reflection that elucidates Existenz, nor a categorical transcending that does
not perceive anything but liberates, nor even an interpretation of existential
relations to the transcendent, but [they are] contemplative self-sinking for
purposes of contact with transcendence through a formulated, deep, and
self-understanding cipher text that brings transcendence before the spirit as
metaphysical objectivity.157

The cipher language transpires from this passage as connecting what appeared
separately in the two previous languages. On the one hand, it recognizes that it is
the product of the individual’s self-search, and so it does not blur its being an
expression of human creativity, as happens in the second language. On the other
hand, awareness of its being based on speculation, meaning “a thought that in
thinking pushes beyond the thinkable,”158 sets the boundary between it and the
first language. Unlike the first language, transcendence is not perceived in the
cipher language as an expression of mere existential relations or as exhaustible as
reflection about sensory understanding revolving around objects in reality.159
Existenz understands itself as aimed at the Being existing beyond the familiar
boundaries of immanence, though it knows that only through the symbolic
function of language can this Being become accessible to it. As Jaspers said: “the
symbol does not only clarify, it makes real what would otherwise be as
nothing.”160
The definition of the cipher as a “language” that summarizes all the features
of the cipher-Being also meets the real needs of Jaspers’s philosophy at this stage
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 255

of its development. First, language serves as a clear framework of rules and

semantic boundaries, and this accords with Jaspers’s need to provide the
metaphysical experience with a more general and communicative facet, and even
explains the extensive dealing with the “objective” aspects entailed in the concept
of cipher. Second, like language, the concept of cipher is also a human creation
and so is dependent for its very existence on a human Being to create it.
Therefore, even if Jaspers assumed that the very reality of immanent reality
contained metaphysical depth not exhausted in the existential relation toward it, he
made the possibility of revealing it dependent on people interested in
transcendence as a source of the meaning of their existence. In this respect, the
parallel between the symbol as a way of people’s relating to what is beyond them
and language, which also refers to a reality not identical to it, stresses the human
creativity expressed in the very constitution of the relation and in the contents
formed thereby. Third, just as language reports a reality in accordance with the
rules and meanings typifying it, so also the cipher reports the existence of a
transcendent Being within the boundaries of symbolic observation, though from
awareness that “there is no simple parallel between the sensory fullness and the
fullness of the contents of the Being.”161 The definition of the cipher as a language
leaves intact the awareness of the unbridgeable gap between the human Being
constituting the metaphysical relation and the object to which it is intended. This
affirms that analogous nature of the cipher’s viewpoint, expressed in this context
in recognition that the “meeting” with Being in a “real and whole” way is
impossible.162
Jaspers’s commitment to proposing a positive elucidation to the “Being in
itself” led him to argue that precisely because it is the language of a fable, the
cipher language does not lead to the loss of transcendence. As he phrased it: “truth
is lost if it changes when it becomes an identical and general Being for everyone,
and becomes lacking the indirectness of language.”163 The special emphasis
granted to the element of indirectness in the cipher language, becoming a criterion
of the truth of the metaphysical experience, reveals that the comparison between
the cipher and language was not primarily intended to stress the semantic aspects,
constituting an inseparable part of the symbolic view of reality. The quality of
indirectness defines the relation between the cipher as a concept and
transcendence as a Being: the cipher expresses the human creativity revealed in
the process of searching for the meaning of existence. Transcendence, however, is
a reality that one can become acquainted with indirectly—though its
differentiation from human reality turns it into a source for meaning in life. The
indirectness typical of the cipher language as a way in which we can become
acquainted with transcendence ensures a meeting point between the metaphysical
search and transcendence itself. It also explains and even justifies the variety of
forms of the metaphysical consciousness based on the cipher’s viewpoint that can
always “communicate itself in a different way.”164 The definition of the cipher’s
256 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

viewpoint as a language, the exposure of the metaphysical elements in

immanence, and the image of subjectivity being driven to search for the meaning
of existence in the worlds existing beyond it can serve as a basis and inspiration
for dealing with Jaspers’s ideas also from the hermeneutic perspective, an
approach that is currently in its early stages in research. The infrastructure for this
direction to interpreting Jaspers’s philosophy exists already in Olson and
Ricoeur.165 The scope of the current study does not permit such a discussion of
Jaspers’s thought, but we can state that unlike other philosophers such as Hans-
Georg Gadamer, Heidegger, Ricoeur, and Ernst Cassirer, who offered a “theory of
interpretation” or a basis for one, such a basis does not exist in Jaspers’s
philosophy, and even the cipher language described above has a mainly intuitive
nature.
In the context of the ciphers, as in other subjects, Jaspers expressed his
tendency to deal with the conditions enabling the development of real philosophy,
or more precisely, to clarify the conditions that do not prevent it, while avoiding a
general description of the correct practice of philosophizing. Jaspers conveyed the
unique nature of the knowledge to which his philosophy was directed in his
definition of the term “fundamental knowledge.”

We call fundamental knowledge the knowledge where the person discovers

himself by all his defined knowledge being dependent upon him, or [the
knowledge] that is a premise for any other knowledge. [This knowledge] is
also called a-priori. As such it is the general a-priori of consciousness in
general in the categories of the mind, the a-priori of the spirit in the ideas,
the a-priori of existence in practical motives and response patterns; this is
the historistic a-priori of the tradition of human Being that experiences its
world as a one-time pattern, as a realization of the general that has meaning
and weight not as general but as infinite.166

Although these words of Jaspers’s were not written in the context of the
discussion of ciphers, they can be seen as an explicit disclosure of the usually
hidden intentions and motives of his ideas, and perhaps even as a general phrasing
of the wider ethos guiding his philosophical work. In this context, the a-priori and
one-time nature of “fundamental knowledge” can explain the intuitive aspect
characterizing the language of ciphers, which cannot serve as a basis for the
constitution of metaphysics in the full sense, even if it illuminates an aspect of the
experience of constituting a metaphysical relation toward reality. Olson argues
that Jaspers did not exhaust the hermeneutic potential contained in his ideas, and
even states that Jaspers was wrong not to call his philosophy of transcendence
hermeneutical.167 In his opinion, Jaspers’s objection to dealing with formal
questions of logic and epistemology was an inseparable part of his interpretative
approach as such.168 Thyssen argued that meeting transcendence through the
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 257

ciphers is meeting contents.169 Unlike the arguments of Olson and Thyssen, I

believe that Jaspers’s familiar objection to system or any formalization of
philosophy that would present itself as a wholeness that exhausts itself could serve
as part of the explanation for him not using these elements and developing an
interpretative theory on their basis. It is possible that the decisive influence of
Heidegger’s philosophy in Being and Time, which was already a real fact in the
philosophical discourse in which Jaspers operated, largely determined the basic
understanding of hermeneutics as ontology. Jaspers’s objection to ontology, which
was part of his objection to positivism as a whole, probably did not enable him to
define his thought as hermeneutics or even to indicate the possible implications of
his ideas for this realm of thought. Finally, the primary importance of the
comparison between the cipher’s viewpoint and language rests in it clarifying the
basic idea on which the explication of Being relied, that the human need to
express metaphysical experiences using the tools of consciousness does not serve
as a final test for the reality of the Being of transcendence to which this experience
is aimed.

6. The Concept of Cipher as Mediating between

the Elucidation of Selfhood and the Explication of Being

The distinction between the three languages of metaphysical tangibility, which

served as a basis for the definition of the uniqueness of the cipher language,
helped sharpen crucial aspects contained within the concept of the cipher.
However, an additional examination of these three languages as one complex
reveals that they reflect milestones in the process of the development of Jaspers’s
thought. From this genealogical viewpoint, the cipher language reflects a new
integration of early insights related to the framework of the elucidation of
selfhood and represented by the first two languages. Samay offers another
interpretation to these three languages. In his opinion, the first language reflects
“the immediate language of Being,” the second reflects the person’s answer to the
language of transcendence, and the third reflects the translation of the experience
of Being appearing in the first two languages into a speculative language. In
Samay’s opinion, these three languages reflect a hierarchy aimed at making the
ciphers into a more communicative Being.170
Perhaps this statement about the cipher language reveals some awareness on
Jaspers’s part of the developing nature of his philosophy, and perhaps the
distinction between the three languages was merely a methodical tool aimed
mainly at clarifying the concept of cipher. In any case, unique nature of the cipher
language as revealed from its comparison with the two other languages may serve
as a basis for a reexamination of the connection between the processes of the
explication of Being and the early philosophical insights that were formulated in
the framework of the elucidation of selfhood.
258 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

As we recall, the first language represented the experience with the

unmediated presence of transcendence of absolute consciousness of Existenz.
Jaspers’s statement in this context that “the experience of the first language
immediately requires the self giving its utmost of possible Existenz,” and more
generally the definition of Existenz as “the place where the cipher text is read,”171
indicate the centrality of Existenz in it. However, although Jaspers himself
discussed the existential infrastructure contained in the cipher’s viewpoint that is
located in the third language, the character of the Existenz related to the cipher is
not equivalent to the one constituting the first language. Unlike the existential
aspects in which the concept of cipher is anchored, representing the selfhood that
has matured and as a result found in itself the power to turn to elucidating the
Being existing beyond it, the Existenz that constitutes the first language is
connected to some aspects of Jaspers’s early perception of selfhood.
This argument is based, first and foremost, on the definition of the first cipher
language as “unverifiable,” a definition that indicates the uncommunicative nature
of the experience of transcendence in this language.172 Additional support for this
is found in that statement that “I affirm [the reading of the cipher text] through my
selfhood, without having another measure from this selfhood for knowing the
transcendence of ciphers.”173 Finally, the reference repeated in the following
citation to the idea of possibility and the element of struggle, which filled a central
role in the elucidation of selfhood, also supports the impression about the
presence of the early perception of selfhood in the first language. As Jaspers put
it:

I do indeed have consciousness of the real Being only in the Being of

transcendence; only here there is peace for me. However, I always find
myself again on the unquiet island of struggle, I remain alone, and appear
to get lost; I lose myself if I no longer feel Being … in my philosophizing I
remain suspended between adjusting and my possibility for my reality to be
given.174

Jaspers’s repeated confrontation with the thought patterns typical of his early
perception of selfhood is apparently no coincidence. The statement that “the
reality of transcendence is still decided only in the first language”175 indicates that
the elements of the explication of Being are anchored already in the early
perception of selfhood. In this respect, “something” from the first language is
present in the cipher language. So the selfhood that constitutes the cipher language
must be capable, as part of its self-understanding, of comprehending the language
of the early selfhood as a sort of “ancient writing” of its own.
Like the first language, we can also identify in the second language of
metaphysical tangibility the presence of early philosophical ideas Jaspers had
handled in the explication of selfhood. The general element typical of Christian
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 259

myths within the second language may serve as a basis for the communication, or
“mediation” in Jaspers’s word, of the metaphysical experiences it contains. 176 A
basic similarity exists between the process of creating myths as Jaspers described
it in this context and his perception of the process of the objectivization of the
scientific viewpoint. Even the role Jaspers attributed to the scientific viewpoint in
the elucidation of selfhood is not different from the one he granted myths when
discussing the concept of the cipher. Just as the act of scientific objectivization
defines the boundaries of the reality that it created and sets the general criteria for
its reality, so the observation seeing immanence as a cipher of transcendence
determines the boundaries of the reality on which metaphysical consciousness is
based. Just as the act of scientific objectivization grants the scientist a sense of
connection to the objective reality, and a real grasp of it, so the myths grant the
metaphysical experience a sense of a grasp of something real. Recognizing the
advantages of the positivistic viewpoint and the contribution of formal
consciousness to the clarification of the concept of cipher does not enable the
simple rejection of the way of dealing proposed in the second language. In the
following passage Jaspers sketched the philosophical move originating in the
elucidation of Existenz, continuing in the second language and ending in a
detailed justification for its rejection:

The objectivity of the metaphysical tradition attracts at first the forming

Existenz, even before it disassembles itself again in the formed Existenz.
As a historical thing, objectivity has stable sides; it can be significant only
in raising the question whether Existenz reaches its selfhood alone. … The
pretension to become familiar is realized even before it could be sought.
Against [this pretension], the experience of Existenz turns with the world
orientation that expands itself and can bring itself not to believe in anything
as empirical and finite. If this positivism collapses, within the boundaries
that it perceived, [then] for the first time only the stable and authoritative
objectivity can be perceived anew. Fused into the movement of the
existential ascertaining of transcendence, this [objectivity perceived anew]
serves as a function where the substantial ground becomes present. This is
because the objectivity of transcendence in the ciphers of the second
language cannot be exhaustive at any moment either from principle or ad
hoc, but it is only acquired historistically.177

The connection arising from these words between the rejection of the second
language that crystallized the metaphysical consciousness in the framework of
myths, and the objection Jaspers raised during the elucidation of selfhood toward
the positivistic world view is clear. The eternality of the Being embodied in
selfhood and in the cipher is perceived as contradicting the very possibility that it
could be exhausted using the tools of finitude. Just as positivism cannot propose a
260 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

complete elucidation of the experience of constituting selfhood and of the reality

viewed from it, so the myths do not embody the metaphysical reality that the
concept of cipher is intended to indicate.
Jaspers’s choice represented in the second language, to establish his objection
to metaphysical objectivization precisely on the basis of existential considerations
related to the processes of its historistic formation, constitutes a continuation of
the philosophical move that appeared already in the first language. In these two
languages we can notice the attempt to deal with the ways of forming
metaphysical consciousness in light of the central aspects that had appeared in the
elucidation of selfhood. Although the idea of historicity has been interpreted in
this book as a transition mechanism reflecting a transcending of the framework of
the explication of selfhood, Jaspers’s criticism of positivism, as raised in the
presentation of the second language, does not allow us to ignore the prominent
connection this language has with the questions guiding the discussion of the early
perception of selfhood.
The ongoing dialog Jaspers conducted with these early insights, which had
become the constituting elements of the framework of the explication of selfhood
in his philosophy, demonstrates the continuity between the different issues he
discussed over the long years of his work. While the third language where the
cipher’s viewpoint is located is not satisfied with the one-time experience of
Existenz as expressed in the first language, nor does it turn to the other extreme
that organizes the metaphysical experience within the fenced boundaries of the
myths that fill the second language. However, the third language is revealed from
the interpretation presented above as anchored in the early philosophical
processes represented in the two first languages. So the cipher language shows, on
the one hand, recognition of the self-sinking ability of Existenz that typified the
elucidation of selfhood, though unlike the first language this ability was directed
toward the transcendent Being. On the other hand, the cipher language reflects
Jaspers’s attempt to satisfy the philosophical need for defined thought patterns at
some level—though unlike the second language, the cipher language does not
satisfy this need to the point of isolating it from its connection to the historistic
selfhood characterizing myths as such.
The combination of the existential element anchored in the processes of
elucidating selfhood and of the more structured and communicative facet that
developed in the framework of the explication of Being in the cipher language
realizes what Jaspers saw as a condition for the constitution of the consciousness
of Being: maintaining the tension between objectivity and subjectivity.178 He
walks “on the double ground” that consciousness of Being has “both in objectivity
and in subjectivity.”179 So the cipher’s viewpoint represents the process in which
the development of the person’s selfhood gradually becomes a reflection of
transcendence,180 without losing the connection with the concrete reality of
 The Ciphers of Transcendence 261

Existenz.181 Jaspers described the new situation created by the symbolic

observation of reality as follows:

In the cipher, what is connected to the root of my Being and yet does not
unite with me faces me as a Being. I am real in that I exist in the cipher as
myself without chasing a [certain] end or serving some interest of
existence.182

Finally, the concept of cipher becomes a crossroads where the meeting of different
aspects of Jaspers’s philosophy led to the maturation of metaphysical
consciousness—a maturity expressed in its ability to acquire a new philosophical
language that does not involve losing the connection with its constituent elements.
The ability of the cipher language to speak also the language of the philosophizing
that characterized the elucidation of selfhood not only revealed the metaphysical
depth contained in the Being of Existenz, but also demonstrated the thematic
continuity from the elucidation of selfhood to the explication of Being. At this
point we can find grounds for a comparison between Jaspers and Ricoeur, who
argued that understanding the symbolic aspects is a moment of self-
comprehension.183 In this respect, the concept of cipher expressed a meeting
between two potencies: the one existing in immanence, whose roots are in
transcendence, and the one typical of Existenz, described in this context as
experiencing reality as “the pure self-presence of transcendence in immanence.”184
The same experience that in the perception of the encompassing was held in the
duality between “the encompassing that is us” and “the encompassing that is
Being itself” led in the framework of the cipher’s viewpoint to the integration of
Existenz and immanence with transcendence. As Jaspers put it: “in the cipher text
the separation between the symbol and what it symbolizes [is] impossible,”185
since “the cipher is a parable that is Being or Being that is a parable.” 186
 CONCLUSION

Karl Jaspers’s philosophical search for Being was based on the search for
comprehensive existential wholeness. Unlike systematic wholeness, where the role
of its system is merely the element that directs the process of philosophizing, the
comprehensive wholeness does not function as a “guiding principle” but instead as
a “fundamental drive,” a deep motivation that cannot be silenced.1 In this study,
which aimed to make contact with the primary elements on which Jaspers’s
philosophy was based, as they developed over the long years of his work, I tried to
find the element connecting the varied philosophical themes with which he dealt.
These issues transpired during the study as combining into a unity that goes
beyond the sum of all its components. I have called this unity “metaphysical
consciousness.” Since philosophizing was, for Jaspers, a drive rather than just a
way of observing reality, the interpretation I have proposed to his philosophy
sought to express the internal tension apparent in the process of the development
of metaphysical consciousness and to avoid as much as possible eroding it through
an interpretation that would devote itself to illuminating this philosophy as a
harmonious whole.
The effort to reveal the wholeness at the basis of Jaspers’s thought relied on
two viewpoints, genealogical and thematic, on which the research methodology of
this study was based. The genealogical viewpoint was intended to clarify the
development dynamic of Jaspers’s work, from his psychiatric period up to the
peak of the philosophical period, while the thematic viewpoint was aimed at
elucidating the various issues presented in the different chapters. However, with
hindsight it seems that the fuller understanding of the metaphysical consciousness
in Jaspers’s thought did not rely mainly on the implementation of these two
viewpoints, each of which illuminated Jaspers’s work from a different angle, but
instead on the fact that it was not actually possible to separate them.
It was not possible to present the stages of the development of Jaspers’s
philosophy from the genealogical viewpoint without being aware of the various
issues discussed in the framework of the thematic study. In this respect, the
thematic viewpoint served as an infrastructure enabling the genealogical study.
Only thanks to the existence of this understanding in the background of the
genealogical study was it possible to determine what would be considered as a
milestone in the development of Jaspers’s ideas, and to distinguish between the
primary and secondary stages. The genealogical study of Jaspers’s philosophy
could not be structured as a descriptive spread, a sort of “narrative of the
276 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

development of Jaspers’s ideas” from the “starting point” to the “end,” since the
“narrative” itself was only enabled on the basis of acquaintance with its end.
Against the background of these ideas we can characterize the genealogical
viewpoint as a “progressive method” in the sense that it always aimed to advance
from the early to the late point. The awareness whereby in the background of this
viewpoint there must exist a thematic understanding of the subject enables us to
understand more precisely the nature of the genealogical study, and to see it as a
detracting progress, meaning progress achieved from extricating the aspects
relevant to the subject and abandoning those the thematic understanding already
knows are not essential for elucidating the topic.
At the same time, the formulation of the discussion of the different issues in
Jaspers’s philosophy, the focus of the study from the thematic viewpoint, would
not have been possible without understanding the philosophical moves that led to
the constitution of the issues included in the wider topic of the metaphysical
consciousness. The thematic viewpoint, relying on the background genealogical
study, can thus be defined as a “regressive method.” But since this method is
eventually aimed at revealing the connection between the issues in the studied
philosophy, we can make the definition of the thematic viewpoint more precise,
and see it as cumulative regression, meaning a method that requires acquaintance
with the early stages of the development of the philosophy in order to formulate
the topic on which the study is focused.
In the end, it transpired that not only is there no way of separating the two
viewpoints on which the research methodology in this book was based—they
actually simultaneously present the existence of both continuous phenomena and
non-continuous phenomena in Jaspers’s philosophy. We can call the non-
continuous phenomena “tears” (Zerrissenheit) in the sense Jaspers gave this term
in the context of the perception of Being.2 As the genealogical study reflected the
different stages of the philosophy’s development and served as a basis for its
division into periods, so this study showed the continuity unifying all the various
stages of development. But as the thematic study aimed at reaching a coherent
understanding of central topics and concepts in Jaspers’s thought referring to their
appearances throughout the years of his work, so it also revealed the processes of
alteration and meaning-change these topics and concepts underwent during the
development of his thought.
This book exposed two philosophizing axes along which Jaspers’s philosophy
developed: one aimed at achieving what I have called the “explication of
selfhood,” the other aimed at what I have defined as the “explication of Being.”
The structure of the book apparently reflects the understanding that the first axis
of philosophizing led to the second, but against the background of the renewed
discussion of the nature of the two viewpoints on which the research methodology
was based, we can state that these two axes were actually simultaneously present
throughout the stages of the development of this philosophy, and only the mode of
 Conclusion 277

their presence is what changed. Our study of the explication of selfhood, relying
on the publications where Jaspers discussed this issue directly, showed that the
perception of Being was also present implicitly in the background of insights that
were apparently not related to it, but to selfhood. In contrast, in the explication of
Being his arguments were aimed directly at Being, and apparently they had
nothing to add to the character of selfhood that had been elucidated earlier.
Subjectivity or Existenz, which were focused only on elucidating their selfhoods,
were revealed as different from those perceiving themselves as existing in the face
of transcendence.
The change in the mode of presence of Being and selfhood in the two axes of
the explication can also be understood as Jaspers’s attempt to exhaust his
discussion of these two objects of philosophizing on two levels: as a possibility
(Möglichkeit) and as a reality (Sein). Within the explication of selfhood, selfhood
portrayed the reality to which the philosophizing was directed, while Being itself
was placed in the background of this framework of explication as a possibility that
had yet to find its realization within the philosophizing. In the second explication,
in contrast, Being or transcendence constituted the reality the philosophical
discussion was intended to elucidate, while selfhood was delegated to the
background. In this respect, the category of reality expresses the central object of
the philosophizing that is given overtly and directly, while the category of
possibility has two different meanings. In the explication of selfhood it refers to
the Being portraying the horizons beyond the boundaries of the philosophical
discussion, which still lacked the tools to explicate it. In the explication of Being
this category represents selfhood, which had served in Jaspers’s philosophy as an
a-priori infrastructure on which the discussion was based, and which actually
enabled it.
Illuminating the changing mode of presence of the two main objects of
Jaspers’s philosophy has great significance for understanding it as one whole. It
prevents the option of seeing selfhood or Being as a decisive issue in this thought,
and implies that in fact there is no significance to Jaspers’s perception of selfhood
without his perception of Being, and vice versa. Just as the explication of selfhood
was unable to fulfill all the needs of selfhood, which required the explication of
Being to complement it, so it is impossible to understand the explication of Being
without knowing the existential infrastructure that led to it and remains implicit
within it. The completion of the two frameworks of explication can only be
achieved outside them. In this respect, the “turning point” in Jaspers’s thought
reflected primarily the context in which it was revealed. From the perspective of
the entire philosophy, however, the transition from the explication of selfhood to
the one aimed at Being is perceived as the exposure and realization of
philosophical potentials that had existed in this thought from the very beginning.
In this sense, the three parts composing this book reflect the essential limitations
of the philosophical explication, which by its very nature was unable to illuminate
278 KARL JASPERS: FROM SELFHOOD TO BEING

the wholeness of the philosophy all at once without spreading it out over several
stages.
The illumination of each of the two objects of explication, both as a possible
element and as a real element, reveals the depth of meaning of the metaphysical
consciousness being constituted in Jaspers’s philosophy. On the one hand, it is
presented as the realization of a possibility that selfhood had chosen, and thus it
should be seen as having significance only for selfhood rather than as an
expression of a deterministic process. On the other hand, the very existence of the
possibility as background and even as an a-priori condition for the constitution of
metaphysical consciousness contains the basis for the realization of this
possibility—a reality that is not tested by its actual realization, but that has value
even without this realization. Jaspers’s philosophy does not lay down “the road to
the constitution of metaphysical consciousness,” but only entails one of the
possibilities for constituting such a consciousness.
Finally, just as the method guiding this study was not prior to the very act of
research, but was formulated during it, so also the metaphysical consciousness
typical of Jaspers’s thought was not a teleological object to which the
philosophizing consciously aimed itself, but became tangible only after it had
actually been achieved. The secret of the authenticity of Jaspers’s philosophy
stems from the constant dialog he conducted with the basic intuitions that had
guided him at the beginning, intuitions that at various stages along the way were
put to the test, but that survived despite the criticism of them as part of the
framework of philosophizing, which constantly expanded. Metaphysical
consciousness, portraying at the early stages of the development of his thought the
self-consciousness of Existenz, and seeking at the later stages to meet not only the
“searchlight” illuminating Being, but also “this light itself,”3 apparently always
found its way to the selfhood in which its starting point was anchored.