Zu Jaspers´ frühen psychopathologischen Schriften und deren Beziehung zu Husserls Phänomenologie

Abstract

This article explores the question of the importance of the phenomenological method in Karl Jaspers’ psychopathological writings and highlights a deep continuity between the human understanding of the early writings and his later existential philosophy. Already in Zur Analyse der Trugwahrnehmungen applies Jaspers' interest to the human being as a whole and at the same time to the subtle differentiation of human destinies. This anticipates the dialectic between plurality and unity, which will characterize his philosophical approach in Psychologie der Weltanschauungen. In order to do justice to the tension between totality and particularity of human life, both in the theoretical and in the therapeutic sense, Jaspers relies on the phenomenological concept of evidence and interprets it as the peculiar incarnation of experience. Die phänomenologische Forschungsrichtung in der Psychopathologie then deepens the concept of evidence by analyzing the various forms of fulfillment. This emphasizes the philosophical and not just psychopathological meaning of Jaspers' analysis of the pathological experience and his methodological reflection.