Karl Jaspers’ Philosophy and Psychopathology

In this book, international scholars examine the basic psychopathological concepts of Karl Jaspers and their anthropological roots in light of modern research paradigms. It offers new perspectives for the analysis of consciousness and its disorders.

This book is based on a congress evaluating Jaspers' basic psychopathological concepts and their anthropological roots in light of modern research paradigms. It provides a definition of delusion, his concept of "limit situation" so much challenged by trauma research, and his methodological debate. We are approaching the anniversary of Jaspers seminal work General Psychopathology in 1913. The Centre of Psychosocial Medicine of the University with its Psychiatric Hospital where Jaspers wrote this influential volume as a 29 year old clinical assistant hosted a number of international experts familiar with his psychiatric and philosophical work. This fruitful interdisciplinary discussion seems particularly important in light of the renewed interest in Jaspers’ work, which will presumably increase towards the anniversary year 2013. This volume is unique in bringing together the knowledge of leading international scholars and combining three dimensions of investigation that are necessary to understand Jaspers in light of contemporary questions: history (section I), methodology (section II) and application (section III).

Part I: History and Methodology.- Psychopathology and the Modern Age. Karl Jaspers reads Hölderlin.- Hermeneutical and dialectical thinking in psychiatry and the contribution of Karl Jaspers.- Phenomenological intuitionism and its psychiatric impact.- The reception of Jaspers’General Psychopathology outside of Europe.- Brain mythologies: Jaspers’ critique of reductionism from a current perspective.- Karl Jaspers’ criticism of anthropological and phenomenological psychiatry.- Perspectival knowing: Karl Jaspers and Ronald N. Giere.- Part II: Psychopathology and Psychotherapy.-Karl Jaspers on primary delusional experiences of schizophrenics: his concept of delusion compared to that of the DSM.- Delusion and double book-keeping.- Jaspers on feelings and affective states.- Jaspers’ concept of “limit situation”: extensions and therapeutic applications.- Psychopathology and psychotherapy in Jaspers’ work and today’s perspectives on psychotherapy in psychiatry.