International Phenomenological Society

Jaspers in English: A Failure of Communication

Author(s): C. F. Wallraff
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jun., 1977), pp. 537-548
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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DISCUSSION
JASPERS IN ENGLISH: A FAILURE OF COMMUNICATION
Students of the late' Karl Jaspers cannot but be disturbed by the
contrast between the abundance of Jaspers literature in English, on
the one hand, and the limited range of Jaspers' influence in AngloAmerican countries, on the other. It is as though the more Jaspers is
translated, the less he is read.
Although as yet there is no English version of his ponderous and
provocative Von der Wahrheit,2 still, more than a score of his writings, including several of his most weighty philosophical pronouncements, are now available in English.3 And within the last few years a
number of thoughtful books explaining his "Existenzphilosophie"
have been published in America.4 This is in line with international
trends: more than a decade ago it could be said that nearly a million
copies of his works had been sold in Germany,. and that translations
of them had appeared in 160 editions in all of 16 different languages.5
At the same time, judging from current philosophical journals,
one must conclude that Jaspers' influence in English speaking coun1 Karl Jaspers died of a stroke in Basel, Switzerland, on Feb. 26, 1969, at the age
of 86. His wife, Gertrud Jaspers, who throughout his entire life as a scholar served as
his amanuensis, died, also in Basel, on May 25, 1974, at the age of 95.
2 A translation of Von der Wahrheit (Munich: Piper, 1947), pp. xxiii, 1103, to be
undertaken by Professor Leonard H. Ehrlich, is being considered for publication by the
University of Massachusetts Press.
3 Seventeen such works are listed at the very beginning of Philosophy is for Everyman, trans. R.F.C. Hull and Grete Wels (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965),
p. ii. The list can now be enlarged to include that book itself, the larger Nietzsche,
Philosophical Faith and Revelation, Existentialism and Humanism, The Future of Germany, and the three volume Philosophy. Cf. Hans Saner, "Bibliographie der Werke und
Schriften," Karl Jaspers: Werk und Wirkung, ed. Klaus Piper (Munich: Piper, 1963).
For information about possible posthumous publications, see Hans Saner, "Zu Karl
Jaspers' Nachlass," Karl Jaspers in der Discussion, ed. Hans Saner (Munich: Piper,
1973) pp. 447-63.
4 Paul Arthur Schilpp, (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (New York: Tudor,
1957); Sebastian Samay, Reason Revisited (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1971); Oswald 0. Schrag, Existence, Existenz, and Transcendence: The Philosophy
of Karl Jaspers (Pittsburgh, Pa.. Duquesne University Press, 1971), and C. F. Wallraff,
Karl Jaspers: An Introduction to His Philosophy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1970). A book or series of books on Jaspers by Leonard Ehrlich should soon be
published by the University of Massachusetts Press.
5 Klaus Piper, (ed.), op. cit., pp. 13-14. Furthermore, in Japan the entire first edition
-15,000 copies in all-of a Japanese translation of Karl Jaspers in Selbstzeugnissen und
Bilddokumenten (Hamburg: Rowolt, 1970) was sold out, according to its author Hans
Saner (personal communication, 5-31-73).

537

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538

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tries is virtually nil. It is as though this remarkable man lies beyond

our horizon. Accordingly Jaspers, with whom communication is
almost an obsession,6 and who, as James Collins finds, would seem,
of all existentialists, "most likely to receive a sympathetic hearing
among philosophers in America,"7 is, from our standpoint, virtually
incommunicado. The question I should like to consider here concerns
the extent to which this state of affairs is in large part a result of
faulty English translations. Can it be that these diverge so widely
from the German texts that they do not enable even the most knowledgeable and discerning readers to come to grips with Jaspers'
thoughts?
This is not the usual view of the matter, for it is prima facie
apparent that Jaspers has been extremely fortunate in his translators.
There are a large number of them: since they frequently collaborate,
there are about as many translators as books translated.8 Furthermore, at least half of the work - and by far the most important half
has been done by Ralph Manheim and E. B. Ashton, two eminent
translators who together constitute, in effect, the voice of Jaspers in
America today.
Manheim is of course known to a large number of educated
readers. His extraphilosophical contributions include translations of
three novels by Gunther Grass, and of a novel by Louis-Ferdinand
Celine for which he received a National Book Awards prize. It is not
surprising that Time has taken him to be "one of the world's most
talented translators."' As a philosophical interpreter he has provided,
in addition to a short book by Martin Heidegger,10 a series of books by
Jaspers: the six lectures on philosophical faith that marked his
arrival in Basel,"1 a series of radio lectures constituting an introduction to Existenzphilosophie,l2 essays on the philosophical significance
6 One typical statement, chosen more or less at random from many:
"Wahrheit
suchen, das heisst immer, zur Kommunikation bereit sein. Kommunikation auch von
anderen erwarten." Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (Munich: R. Piper, 1950),
p. 153.
7 The Existentialists: A Critical Study (Chicago, Ill.: Henry Regnery, 1952), p. 88.
8 A tentative but by no means exhaustive list would include: E. B. Ashton, M.
Bullock, K. W. Deutsch, W. Earle, H. E. Fischer, S. Goodman, N. Guterman, M. W.
Hamilton, J. Hoenig, R. F. C. Hull, W. Kimmel, W. Kluback, L. B. Lefebre, E. T. Long,
R. Manheim, H. T. Moore, C. Paul, E. Paul, E. A. Reiche, P. A. Schilpp, F. J. Schmitz,
R. G. Smith, H. F. Vanderschmidt, C. F. Wallraff, and G. Wels.
9 Time, April 13, 1970, p. 73.
10 An Introduction to Metaphysics (New York: Doubleday, 1961).
11 The Perennial Scope of Philosophy (New York, Philosophical Library, 1949).

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JASPERSIN ENGLISH:A FAILURE

OFCOMMUNICATION

539

of Leonardo, Descartes, and Max Weber,3 and, above all, two large
volumes dealing with the history of philosophy.14
Ashton became a translator of Jaspers' books shortly after World
War II. He began in 1947 with The Question of German Guilt."5Thereafter he published a series of translations of writings leading up to
the monumental Philosophical Faith and Revelation" and the recently
completed Philosophy7 - a book which Jaspers regarded as his favorite work."8From the beginning, Ashton impressed his readers as a
superior stylist with a remarkable knack for rendering even the
most difficult Jaspersian sentences in straightforward and intelligible
English. A decade ago I felt that the high level he attained was "more
nearly an ideal to be pursued than a goal to be reached."19 Jaspers
called him "an outstanding translator."20 And, in addition, as Ward
Shaw stated, "Ashton is Jaspers' major English translator."2
In a word, then, about half of the now available translations of
Jaspers' works, and far more than half of the translations of his
scholarly philosophical22 studies, have been prepared by these two
eminent literati. Manheim and Ashton have, in effect, divided the
field between them, the former having concentrated on Jaspers' interpretations of "the great philosophers" of the last 2500 years, the latter
on Jaspers' own philosophy viewed in its twentieth century context.
Given this situation, it is not difficult to evaluate the lines of
12 The

Way to Wisdom (New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1954).

Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964)
14 The Great Philosophers, 2 vols. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962-1966).
15 New York: Dial Press, 1947.
16 New York: Harper and Row, 1967.
17 Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1969-71.
18 "Of all my books," Jaspers wrote, "Philosophy is closest to my heart." See
"Epilogue 1955" to Philosophy I (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1969), p. 5.
19 Karl Jaspers, Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity, trans. C. F. Wallraff and F. J. Schmitz (Tucson, Arizona: University of
Arizona Press, 1965), p. viii.
20 "Herr Ashton ist in der Tat ein hervorragender Ubersetzer." Personal communication, 1-11-62.
21 The Library Journal, Sept. 15, 1969, p. 3070.
22 That Jaspers, wholly apart from his work in philosophy, enjoyed a distinguished
career as a psychiatrist should not be forgotten. As a young man he authored a surprising number of scientific articles and reports. (See Schilpp, op. cit., pp. 872-73).
In 1913 his Aligemeine Psychopathologie (Berlin: Springer, pp. xv, 338) appeared. The
seventh edition of this book, which was completely revised during and after World War
II, is now available in a translation by J. Hoenig and M. W. Hamilton as General
Psychopathology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. xxxii, 922. His pathographical analysis, entitled Strindberg und van Gogh, translated by Oswald Grunow,
will soon be published by the University of Arizona Press.
13 Three

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540

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communication between Jaspers and the Anglo-American readers,

and to estimate the extent to which Jaspers' message is getting
through. To this end one need only compare a fair sample of the
translations of these two chief interpreters with the German texts,
for communication can hardly rise above the level attained by the
most gifted and famous of the translators involved - especially when
they have done the lion's share of the work. If communication breaks
down at this level, then the translations in toto must fail of their
purpose.
Beginning with The Great Philosophers,23 my objection to this
otherwise first rate work of Manheim's (whether the final responsibility lies with the translator, the editor, or the publisher) amounts
simply to a protest against the many unindicated and seemingly
capricious omissions, both small and large. Surely the statement at
the beginning of the book: "Originally published in German as part
of Die grossen Philosophen I"24must be taken to mean that this is
only the first volume of a two volume translation of the German
original (which, indeed, it is), and not that the book is intended as a
condensation. Why, then, should an 8 page "Introduction" be substituted for the 73 page "Einleitung" of the original? But this is only
one instance:
If we concentrate on the lengthy and distinguished section on
Kant,25we find that many statements are somehow lost in translation
for no discoverable reason. Why tell us, for example, that when Kant
was a young man he was "carried away by a whirl of social distractions," and then omit to mention that women of considerable social
standing were interested in him - including two English ladies visiting Kdnigsberg?26 And how justify an omission of a brief description
of the town of Kdnigsberg?27
23 The Great Philosophers, I (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962) is a translation of about half of Die grossed Philosophen, I (Munich: Piper, 1957). (The other
half, plus a section on Nicholas of Cusa, was soon thereafter presented in a second
volume.) The English version will hereafter be referred to as GPT, the German as
simply GP. Also Philosophical Faith and Revelation (New York: Harper and Row, 1967)
will be called PGT, and the original, Der philosophische Glaube angesichts der Offenbarung, (Munich: Piper, 1962), simply PG. Philosophy (Chicago, Ill.: University of
Chicago Press, 1967-1971)and Philosophie, the original, (Berlin: Springer, 1956) will be
designated as PHT and PH.
24 GPT, p. iv.
25 Published separately as a paperback: Kant, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. ix, 157.
26GP, p. 398; GPT, p. 231.
27 Ibid.

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JASPERS
IN ENGLISH:A FAILURE
OFCOMMUNICATION

541

However trivial such items may be, it would be difficult to justify

the sizable omission that appears in a discussion of the "Ideas of pure
reason." Here half a page devoted to the "Ideas" - or principlesof "homogeneity," "specification," and "continuity" is omitted entirely, while the immediately following section which deals with the
"methodological," "psychological," and "objective" functions of Ideas
is severely pruned.28This is unfortunate, both because of the intrinsic
importance of Kant's "Ideas of pure reason," and because of the
major role which these Ideas play within Jaspers' own Existenzphilosophie. In a well-known appendix to Die Psychologie der Weltanschauungen29 he stresses their overriding significance. His all-important distinction between the "nonknowledge" of philosophical faith
and the knowledge of science30 is based upon the Kantian contrast of
Ideas of reason and categories of the understanding. And in 1950 he
reaffirmed in Heidelberg the central significance of the source and
repository of these Ideas by stating that although he had long used
the term "Existenzphilosophie" to designate his own view, he had
come to prefer the expression "philosophy of reason" (Philosophie
der Vernunft).31
It seems doubtful that Jaspers would have approved of such
omissions. In a personal letter to me he expressed himself as opposed
to condensation, even in a cheap paperback edition, and added that
if a publisher insisted on it, he would wish to participate in the decision-making.32
Ashton's deletions are no less remarkable. Perhaps the policy
which he was to follow was best expressed in the "Translator's Note"
to one of his earlier and more popular books.33 In this book he admittedly left out some "excursions"34 and "pruned" various elaborations.
GP, pp. 467-69; GPT, pp. 282-83.
ed.: Berlin, J. Springer, 1954, pp. 465-86.
30See C. F. Wallraff, Karl Jaspers: An Introduction to His Philosophy (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970) pp. 32-34.
31Vernunft und Widervernunft in unser Zeit (Munich, Piper, 1950), p. 50.
32 Apparently the idea of abridging an original hardback edition never occurred to
him: "Sie erwdgen eine verkarzte Paperback-Ausgabe, die nach angemessener Zeit
spater erscheinen ko'nnte. Ist es nicht modglich,das Buch unverkurst (!) in dem gleichen
Sitze der schon vorliegt, spater als Paperbach heratiszubrigen?" (As it turned out later,
the unabridged Nietzsche book was in fact brought out as a paperback without any
textual changes at 1/3 the original price.) And further, changes should be made only
with his consent: "Wenn der Verleger es unbedingt verlangt, wurden Sie mir vielleicht
Vorschldge darhiber machen, welche Teile man auslassen ko'nnte. ... (May 3, 1964).
33The Future of Mankind (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1961) pp. v-vi.
34Ibid., p. v.
28

29 4th

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542

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Still "this book is not an abridgment,"35 since "all the points, questions, arguments, or theses of the original are in the English version."36

In Jaspers' "Preface" to Philosophical Faith and Revelation

Ashton suppresses (perhaps at the request of the publisher and/or
editor) Jaspers' explicit rejection of precisely the title which was
chosen for the English edition.37 And near the end of this same book
he, with seeming arbitrariness, excludes an excursus, though for
reasons of his own he includes another.38 Other omissions occur frequently throughout the text.39
But the most serious damage is done, not by unindicated omissions, but by various thoughtless and misleading renditions. Time
and again the English version brings about a complete breakdown of
communication by falsifying the original. Summarily stated: (1) he
creates immense confusion by needlessly obliterating fundamental
distinctions; (2) he is careless: he repeatedly provides far-fetched
interpretations instead of faithful translations; (3) he frustrates
scholars by neither openly employing nor explicitly rejecting Jaspers'
Kantian terminology; (4) when speaking in propria persona his
superficial, condescending, and extraneous criticisms of Jaspers
turn away otherwise interested readers and call his own earnestness
and reliability into question. Let us examine these matters in order.
1. Confusion is certainly compounded beyond necessity when, on
a single page at the beginning of Jaspers' magnum opus, the same
expression, viz., "die Geschichte der Philosophie," is translated both
as "philosophical history" and as "history of philosophy."40 This mistake is repeated a few pages later.41
It is simply not the case that, as Ashton affirms, the English
language fails to provide any clear way of differentiating between
"Realitdt and Wirklichkeit."42 For many years translators have dealt
35 Ibid.,
36 Ibid.

p. vi.

37 Jaspers' statement: "Der Titel 'Philosophischer Glaube und Offenbarung' wdre

ungemass. Denn er wurde uberlegenzen Standpunkt ausserhalb beider beanspruchen,
den ich nicht einnehme." PG, p. 8. Cf. PGT, p. xxvi.
38 PG, p. 484, PGT, p. 325.
39 See PGT, pp. 55, 61, 77, 124, 142, 286-87, 361. Cf. PG, pp. 103, 111, 133, 194, 221,
429-30, 534.
40 PHT, p. 8; PH, p. xix.
41 PHT, p. 14; PH, p. xxvi-xxvii.
42 PHT, p. xvii. A good example of Ashton's practice is found on page 93 of
PGT,
where "reality" is used for both "Realitdt" and "Wirklichkeit." Cf. PG, p. 155b.

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JASPERSIN ENGLISH: A FAILUREOF COMMUNICATION

543

with this by simply rendering "Wirklichkeit" as "actuality." The distinction is much too important to be overlooked:43 reality, as Jaspers
tells us at length, is present to us from the beginning; actuality is the
terminus ad quem of philosophizing."44
Wilhelm Dilthey's celebrated distinction between the Naturwissenschaf ten, or natural sciences, and the Geisteswissenschaf ten, or
humanistic sciences - a differentiation suggestive of C. P. Snow's
"two cultures"45-loses
its sense when the latter group is named the
"intellectual sciences,"46 as though some sciences were more "intellectual" than mathematics and physics. Here as elsewhere there are
precedents that could be followed: Heinrich Kluiver calls the Geisteswissenschaften simply "cultural sciences,"47 Hodges, an authority on
Dilthey, proffered the term "human studies,"48while Herbert Spiegelberg49 and Richard Palmer50 prefer the more capricious expression:
"the social sciences and the humanities." Jaspers was the first to
introduce this distinction to German psychiatrists and it has played
an important role in his thinking ever since.51
2. Ashton repeatedly sacrifices semantic to esthetic considerations, factuality to plausibility, accuracy, to style, and clarity antdistinctness to a semipopular and, I believe, meretricious chiaroscuro.
Why should he tell us, for instance, that "the use of . . . such words as
idea, mind, soul, substance, Existenz, world" "has been held against
43 I agree with Walter Kaufmann's statement in Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts, and
Commentary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965): "It is essential to translate
Wirklichkeit and ivirklich as actuality and actual, not as reality and real" (p. 381).
44 This point is developed in extenso in Chap. III of Jaspers' Existenzphilosophie
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964), pp. 55-90.
45 See The Two Cultures (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
46PHT, p. 207; PH, p. 188.
47 "Supplement: Contemporary German Psychology," in Gardner Murphy, Historical
Introduction to Modern Psychology, 3d ed. rev. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.,
1932) pp. 417-456.
48 The Philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey (London: Routledge & Paul, 1952).
49 The Phenomenological Movement: A Historical Introduction (The Hague, Holland:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), I, 59.
50 Hermeneutics (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1969), p. 98.
51 See, for example, Jaspers' Allgemeine Psychopathologie (Berlin: Springer, 1959),
p. 642. Having used the distinction between "erkldrende" and "verstehende" psychology
throughout the entire book, he now relates it to the broader distinction here in question: "Nun ist Naturwvissenschaft zwar Grundlage und iwesentliches Element der Psychopathologie, aber ebenso sind es die Geisteswissenschaften, und dadurch wird die
Psychopathologie keineswegs weniger wissenschaftlich, sondern auch auf andere weise
wissenschaf tlich. "

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544

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PHILOSOPHYAND PHENOMENOLOGICAL

German thinkers in all fields,"52 when, in fact, all but one of these
terms belongs to the vocabulary of the British empiricists?53
That he is careless in his choice of words is obvious. The crucial
term "Existenz," which he usually italicizes and leaves untranslated
the normal procedure today - is, on one occasion, translated as
"humanity," and, on another, entirely omitted.54
Since our language would appear to offer the precise equivalent
of "Phantasie," one is puzzled at finding that he often translates this
term as "imagination,"55 and even, on one occasion, as "mind."56
While "Geist" is explicitly said to mean "mind,"57it is sometimes
identified with "spirit,"58 and more often with "imagination."59 One
simply does not know when Geist (as basic a term to Jaspers as to
Hegel) is meant. Finally, confusion is compounded when "Die Phantasie des Geistes" turns out (incredibly) to mean simply "our imagination."60
It would be easy to expatiate upon the mischief caused by his use
of "adopt" for "aneignen,"61the nasty little verb "void" for Hegel's
more dignified "aufheben,"62 "existence" for "Dasein,"63 "rapport"
for "Verstehen,""4 "mental images" for "Gestalten,"65and the like.
PHT, p. 14. This word list, as employed by Jaspers, appears on page 272 of PHT.
The British empiricists, of course, used all of them save one. And perhaps we
do well to remember that E. B. Tichener, the British psychologist, used the term
"Existentialism" to distinguish his Cornell school from other schools. See Edna Heidbreder, Seven Psychologies (New \York. Appleton-Century, 1933), p. 120.
54PGT,p. 5 and p. 60. Cf. PG, p. 31 and p. 110.
55 PGT, pp. 64-66; PG, pp. 114-16.
56 PGT, p. 69; PG, p. 122.
57 PHT, p. xxi. Cf. PGT, p. 64.
58 PGT, p. 347 and 359. Cf. p. 514 and p. 532.
59 PGT, 65, 66 and 69. Cf. PG, pp. 116-17,and p. 122.
60 PGT, p. 64; PG, p. 115.
61 "Translator's Note," PHT, p. xix. It should be noted that I must "assimilate"
much that I would be unwilling to "adopt," as, e.g., Berkeley's subjective idealism.
62 Ibid., p. 20. To at least one reader the verb "void" simply reeks of the outhouse
and the Krankenhaus.
63 Ibid., p. xvi. To be sure, "Dasein" is often translated as "existence" or "empirical
existence." Still the two terms are hardly exact equivalents as Ashton claims. "Dasein"
could not possibly be simply the same "existence" that philosophers are accustomed
to contrast with "essence." And "existence" is not the "Dasein" which is carefully
described on p. 63 of PGT. The meaning of the term is elaborated upon on pages 53-63
of Von der Wahrheit (Munich: Piper, 1947). See also Reason and Existenz, trans.
William Earle (New York: Noonday Press, 1955), pp. 54-55.
64Verstehen in Dilthey's sense, a process to which the youthful Jaspers introduced
his colleagues, is often translated "understanding." It refers to our direct awareness
of the experiences of other persons. See Hodges, op. cit.
65 "Spiel der Formen der Gestalten" becomes (incredibly) "playing with images"
(PUT), p. 70). Cf. PG 123.
52

53

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3. That "Jaspers takes his basic philosophical vocabulary from

Kant" is said to be "the first hurdle facing a translator."66 But why
a "hurdle"? Apparently because the "Kant [who already] exists in
English"67 is but a travesty of the original: Some of the German
words that gave rise to an "academically sanctioned diet of recondite
English expressions" were "mistranslated from the start,"68 and now
have to be corrected. Max Muller,69 one gathers, along with Norman
Kemp Smith,70 fell short of the mark. Whatever the merits of this
contention, it is quite obvious that the invention of a new Kant
terminology at this time is bound to place the reader who is acquainted with the generally accepted versions of The Critique of Pure Reason - along with the dozen or so standard histories of philosophyat a distinct disadvantage.
While Jaspers was himself a severe critic of the academic philosophies of his day," he would not have defended the radical separatism here represented. For he repeatedly stressed the extent to which
philosophic terms receive their meanings from the historic contexts
in which they appear. Ashton's version, with its novel vocabulary, is
like a historical play in which the main characters have been assigned
new and inconsistent names: as though, for example, our primal
father is now called Cain, and now Noah.
This is no exaggeration. The "I think" which for Kant was the
subject of all cognitive activities, is now identified with the "cogito,"72
and now with the "thinking person."73 The "universally valid" (allgemeingiiltig) becomes the "generally valid"74 (generally or usually but
not always?), and the verb "scheitern" (to be "shipwrecked" or to

66

PHT, p. xv.

67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 As Walter Kaufmann points out, Max Muller, being
"completely bilingual" and
a great scholar "was perfectly equipped to translate Kant's Kritik." Philosophic Classics
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 1968), II, 364.
70 Author of the celebrated A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
(New
York: Humanities Press, 1962), pp. lxi, 651.
71 See my Karl Jaspers: An Introduction to His
Philosophy, p. 4 and pp. 125-130.
72 PGT, p. 64; PG, p. 115.
73 PGT, p. 70; PG, p. 123.
74 PGT, p. 62 and p. 357; PG, p. 113 and p. 528.

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"founder") - a basic cipher - may mean simply "to trip himself,""5

or to have "an end put to . . .xp76
One wonders why Ashton should claim that "der Verstand,"
(which admittedly "comes from the verb verstehen, to understand")7
being altogether different from "Verstindnis," "the German word for
understanding," does not mean "understanding," but "intellect."78
This, of course, is indefensible: (a) It contradicts standard GermanEnglish dictionaries which give "understanding" as the first meaning
of "der Verstand."79 (b) It runs counter to Jaspers himself, who carefully explains that it was Spinoza who translated "ratio" as "Vernunft" and "intellectus" as "Verstand," while Kant did precisely the
opposite." (c) Being at loggerheads with the usage of knowledgeable
readers, it obstructs communication. (d) It is not consistently maintained by Ashton himself, who does not reserve "understanding" for
Verstdndnis merely. "Verstehen,"'81and even "Verbindung"82may also
mean "understanding."
4. The disparaging comments that appear in the "Translator's
Note"83 would, if taken at face value, simply mean that Philosophy
is not worth reading. Here we are told - among other things (vide
supra) - that Jaspers is a relativist; that he fails to reach firm
conclusions; that he does not practice what he preaches; and that he
offers preposterous definitions. Let us consider this damning indictment:
"To begin with," we read, "relativity is the key to words peculiarly identified with Jaspers . . . Relativism shows . . . in his warnings
of absolutizing and definitive conclusions."84 Nothing could be more
75Nietzsche and Christianitv (Chicago: Regnery, 1961), p. 71. Cf. Nietzsche und das
Christentum (Munich: Piper, 1947), p. 49.
76 Thus "Die menschliche Dinge scheitern am Chaos
wie an der totalen Ordnung"
(PG, p. 70) becomes "Either chaos or total order may put an end to life . .
(PGT, p. 32).
77 "Translator's Note," PHT, p. xv.
78 Ibid.
79 See, for example, Cassell's New German-English Dictionary (New
York: Funk and
Wagnalls,
80 "If
reason,'

1936), p. 676.
we translate
Spinoza's
his

81 "Der
understanding

use
.

of terms
.

intellectus

becomes

the

as

opposite

'understanding'
of Kant's."

GPT,

II,

and

his

298.

Cf.,

ratio

Sinn des Verstehens des Verstandenen" (PG, p. 123) becomes

of what

has been

understood."

PGT,

as

p. 782.

"the

p. 70.

82 "Das Verlangen ist, dieses Grundwissen, das Bedingung eines allgemeinen

Sichverbindens ist, selber in der Verbindung zu entfalten" (PG, p. 151) becomes "We
ask
the

that this basic knowledge,

understanding."
(PGT, p.
83 PHT, pp. xiii-xxi.
84 PHT, p. xiv.

this

condition

of general

understanding,

90)

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be

developed

in

JASPERSIN ENGLISH: A FAILUREOF COMMUNICATION

547

misleading. One can, of course, accept the facts of relativity without

being a relativist. And Ashton's own translation shows that Jaspers
abhors relativism: In a brief section, entitled "Relativism; Fanaticism; the Void" we find him saying: "Today contemplation has advanced so far that we have grown conscious of it as a universal
relativism. Everything is valid from a specific, definable standpoint
which I can take, abandon, and change....
The result would be that
I am no longer myself. When someone wants to get hold of me I
already am someone else.... "85To accept relativism is to give my
self up.
Jaspers need not be saddled with a "principle of inconclusiveness"86 simply because he calls our attention to such matters as the
inability of science to gain complete knowledge of the universe, the
obvious limitations of psychology and psychiatry, and the inevitable
inadequacy of all human ideas of the Deity. "Inconclusiveness" certainly sounds different in German: that philosophy is "inconclusive"
means only that it "remains open" (bleibt offen),87 while a "refusal
to be conclusive"88 amounts to no more than "the openness of my
expositions" (die Offenheit meiner Darlegungen).89
There is really no reason to say that Jaspers "deplores 'polemicizing against an unnamed author,' " but nevertheless does so himself.90
Jaspers' own statement on this, as translated by Ashton, is surely
unexceptionable: "Polemicizing against an unnamed author may be
appropriate on issues that are impersonal and widely known; otherwise it expresses disrespect and denies the other's weight."91 It should
be added that when Karl Barth polemicizes against Jaspers without
naming him, Jaspers takes it with good grace.92
One hardly knows what can be said of the preposterous charge
that Jaspers is responsible for "definitions like those of simplicity as a
refusal to simplify and of philosophizing as 'building by tearing down
what we have built.' "93Why should anyone suppose that such statements were intended as definitions?94
PHT, p. 253.
PHT, p. xiv.
87PHT, p. 21; PH, p. xxxv.
88 PHT, p. 23.
89 PH, p. xxxvii.
90PHT, p. xiv.
91PHT, p. 30.
92PGT, p. 325.
93 PHT, p. xv.
94 No definition is intended, of course, when one simply
says, apropos of a given
procedure, "We are indeed building by tearing down what we have built." PHT, p. 34.
85

86

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548

PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICALRESEARCH

When Ashton retranslated the "Philosophical Autobiography"

that Paul A. Schilpp and Ludwig B. Lefebre had prepared for the large
volume on Jaspers in "The Library of Living Philosophers,"95 he commented that he was doing over for the "general reader" an essay
which "Professors Schilpp and Kaufmann [sic] have done for an
academic audience."96Perhaps Philosophy too was prepared expressly
for the "general reader." Whether or not this is so, it is to be hoped
that some thoroughly trained bilingual student of German philosophy
will soon take it upon himself to retranslate both Philosophie and
Philosophische Glaube for academic philosophers. Until that occurs,
or until a really first-rate translation of Von der Wahrheit appears,
Jaspers, as viewed from the English-speaking countries, will remain
largely incommunicado.
C. F. WALLRAFF.
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA.

95The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers, pp. 5-94.

96 Philosophy and the World, p. 193, n.

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