Karl Jaspers on Spinoza

Abstract

Die Großen Philosophen is a late work by Karl Jaspers based on his individual selection and order of thinkers, quite different from the one offered in an academic lecture on the history of philosophy. The main idea of the work is to consider human greatness which finds its expression in the history of philosophy in a form of a one’s own personal experience and a model of humanity which inspires various ways of philosophising, a source metaphysical thought, and an example of creative systematics. Jaspers places Spinoza among “source” metaphysicians and presents his philosophy in the existential context. This unusual interpretation becomes comprehensible only when the content of the chapter on Spinoza is read in contrast to the context of remarks included in the introduction to Die Großen Philosophen which is usually omitted in partial editions of the work by Jaspers.