Karl Jaspers

Karl Jaspers is best known for his philosophy of existence. What is less well known is that he advocated a metaphysics of oneness that is demonstrably influenced by Neoplatonism, especially Plotinus. Jaspers speaks of Transcendence as the all-encompassing One in which both the objective world and our human experience are grounded. Because Transcendence surpasses our categories, it can, like the Plotinian One, only be hinted at through negative theology or circumscribed in terms that must remain inadequate. In the context of his existential philosophy, Jaspers, like Plotinus, understands the realisation of the human self as becoming one with oneself, which is at the same time understood as an ascent to the absolute One. Jaspers’ influential philosophy of religion is also influenced by Plotinian thought in that for him only the unknowable One is truly God and all positive conceptions of God are merely symbols (‘ciphers’) of human imagination.