Jaspers als Zeitdiagnostiker

For a number of writings of Jaspers it is significant that they imply diagnoses (or critical reflections) about some cultural and political tendencies and events during his lifetime. Those diagnoses becomes evident in the books “Man in modern Age”, “The Question of German Guilt”, “The Atom bomb and the Future of Man” or “The Future of Mankind”, and “The Future of Germa- ny”. There Jaspers treated in a critical mode: inhuman consequences of the development of modern sciences und techniques, the guilt of German people for the rise of Naziism, the danger of the extinction of all mankind by the atom-bomb, the abolition of individual freedom and human dignity by totali- tarian governments, the introduction of a new constitution for West-Germany without an open and broader discussion and cooperation with the German people a. s. o. That those critical diagnoses are grounded in a liberal ethos of freedom and humanity in Jaspers’ philosophy is the main thesis of this article.