Customer Reviews

Karl Jaspers: Basic Philosophical Writings, Selections (Series in Continental Thought)

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The unusual part of this book, for me, was the Selection 73, "Jaspers on his Illness." (pp. 528-535). The surprising ending to the selection is:

The description of my illness must not give a wrong impression. I am not forgetting that all my suffering was truly alleviated. All the complaining and desperate phrases that I have reported here must be understood against the background of the fundamental situation: the certainty of being loved and of love itself. (pp. 534-5).

Jaspers was born in 1883, so the diary entries from 1903 and 1904 were his state of mind at the age of 20, and even later, he must have still been feeling like an invalid for the entry of February 15, 1907, when he was at least 24 and wrote "The future confronts me like a mountain which I cannot climb over." (p. 533). The greatest thing about his condition was, "I could do no military service." (p. 534). Being isolated from that might have actually helped him reach the aforesaid conclusion.