Edmund Husserl's Influence on Karl Jaspers' Phenomenology

Osborne P. Wiggins and Michael Alan Schwartz

Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, 1997:4(1),15-36.

Abstract: Karl Jaspers' phenomenology remains important today, not solely because of
its continuing influence in some areas of psychiatry, but because, if fully understood, it
can provide a method and set of concepts for making new progress in the science of
psychopathology. In order to understand this method and set of concepts, it helps to
recognize the significant influence that Edmund Husserl's early work, Logical
investigations, exercised on Jaspers' formulation of them. We trace the Husserlian
influence while clarifying the main components of Jaspers' method. Jaspers adopted
Husserl's notions of intuition, description, and presuppositionlessness, transforming
them when necessary in order to serve the investigations of the psychopathologist.
Jaspers also took over from Wilhelm Dilthey and others the tools of understanding
(Verstehen) and self-transposal. The Diltheyian procedures were integrated into the
Husserlian ones to produce a method that enables psychiatrists to define the basic
kinds of psychopathological mental states.
Keywords: Karl Jaspers, Edmund Husserl, phenomenology, psychopathology, method,
intuition, description, and presuppositionlessness

Introduction: Why Karl Jaspers's Phenomenology Today?

Karl Jaspers portrayed "the phenomenological approach in psychopathology" primarily
in two places, first in a 1912 essay bearing precisely that title (Jaspers 1963a, 314-28;
1968), and a year later in 1913 in his monumental book, General psychopathology
(Jaspers 1965, 47-49; 1963b, 55-57). He also applied his phenomenological approach
in concrete studies of psychopathological conditions (Jaspers 1963a). Jaspers'
conception of phenomenology has exercised considerable influence on psychiatry, in
Germany certainly but in several other European countries as well (Spiegelberg 1972).
When M. Shepherd and O. L. Zangwill published their encyclopedic Handbook of
psychiatry in England, they entitled the first volume General psychopathology out of
respect for the lasting impact of Jaspers' book (Shepherd and Zangwill 1983). In the
United States Paul R. McHugh and Phillip R. Slavney continue to develop the
Jaspersian legacy (McHugh and Slavney 1986; Slavney and McHugh 1987).

Recently, however, some authors have posed important questions regarding the correct
way to interpret Jaspers' phenomenology (Spitzer 1988, 6-10; Langenbach 1995). G. E.
Berrios and Chris Walker have raised doubts about the prior consensus that Jaspers'
phenomenology owed much to Edmund Husserl's phenomenology (Berrios 1989; 1993;
Walker 1988; 1994a; 1994b; 1995a; 1995b). After criticizing this earlier way of reading
Jaspers, Berrios and Walker offer differing and novel interpretations of his
phenomenology (Berrios 1992; Walker 1993a; 1993b). We agree with the earlier way of
understanding Jaspers, primarily as set forth by Michael Shepherd (Shepherd 1990)
and Herbert Spiegelberg (Spiegelberg 1972, 173-191); and we disagree with Berrios'
and Walker's contentions that Jaspers did not in fact derive much of his phenomenology
from Husserl (Wiggins, Schwartz, and Spitzer 1992; 1996). In this essay we have set
ourselves two tasks. We would like (1) to demonstrate the respects in which Husserl's
views did influence Jaspers' and (2) to present an exposition of Jaspers'
phenomenology as, we suggest, he himself conceived it. We think that neither one of
these tasks has been sufficiently performed by other authors. Our earlier essay, "Chris
Walker's Interpretation of Karl Jaspers' Phenomenology: A Critique," was polemical: we
argued there against the acceptability of Walker's reading of Jaspers. The present
essay is exegetical: we seek here to understand Jaspers accurately, including
understanding his debt to Husserl.

Our main hope is that, once Jaspers' phenomenology is fully understood, its relevance
for the issues confronting present-day psychopathology can be appreciated. Jaspers'
phenomenology provides both a method and a set of substantive concepts for defining
the main groups of mental states with which psychopathology is concerned. We submit
that his phenomenology, if critically applied and extended in descriptions of
psychopathological states, can take us significantly beyond what is presently available
in DSM-IV and other standard reference books in psychiatry (Schwartz and Wiggins
1992).

It should be noted, however, that Jaspers' method stands in need of further

development and even modification. A method similar to Jaspers', first developed by W.
Dilthey, G. Simmel, and M. Weber, has been employed and redefined several times in
the social sciences and history. This method has subsequently met with numerous
criticisms, and anyone who deems Jaspers' method fruitful must today defend it against
the relevant criticisms. In our judgment, such a defense, in order to prove effective,
would require a re-description and revision of the method. We do not attempt to
advance this larger agenda here. We think it necessary first to explicate Jaspers' own
views as clearly and logically as we can, and it is to that expository task that we confine
ourselves in this essay. The objections which may be lodged against his views can be
better appreciated once Jaspers has been understood in his own right.

Outline of Our Presentation

We begin by citing numerous passages from Jaspers' writings in which he

acknowledged the influence of Husserl's ideas on his own. These citations should
demonstrate Jaspers' own conviction, lasting throughout his lifetime, that his
phenomenology consisted of an adaptation of Husserl's method to the field of
psychopathology. Despite his borrowings from Husserl, however, Jaspers did diverge
from Husserl in an important respect. This divergence was motivated by the need to
adjust the phenomenological method to fit the demands of an empirical science such as
psychopathology. We thus discuss Jaspers' rejection of Husserlian technique of
"intuition of essences." Then, after sketching Jaspers' general line of reasoning in
constructing his phenomenology, we set about explicating this reasoning in detail. He
first distinguishes between objective and subjective symptoms of psychopathology and
subsequently designates subjective symptoms as the special province of
phenomenology. This designation raises the question regarding the best scientific
method for gaining access to such symptoms. Jaspers argues that the proper method is
"understanding" (Verstehen). We thus explicate Jaspers' conception of understanding.
Jaspers then qualifies this conception in an important way, and this qualification marks
his first debt to Husserl: Jaspers maintains that understanding must be "intuitive." We
attempt to interpret Husserl's concept of "intuition" (Anschauung) and Jaspers' rather
different notion of "making intuitively present" (anschauliche Vergegenwärtigung). Since
Jaspers, following Husserl, thinks that a science which proceeds on an exclusively
intuitive basis is necessarily descriptive, we explicate Husserl's and Jaspers'
conceptions of description. Jaspers then argues, again borrowing from Husserl, that a
science which is geared toward remaining descriptive must avoid importing into its
descriptions unnoticed presuppositions. This leads him to require that phenomenology
be presuppositionless. We show the connection between description and
presuppositionlessness as components of Jaspers' method.

In addition to adopting core features of Husserl's method, Jaspers also utilized concepts
that Husserl had developed for describing mental states, primarily the concept of
intentionality. We refer to this additional Husserlian influence on Jaspers'
psychopathology.

We conclude our exposition of Jaspers' phenomenology by locating it within his larger

conception of general psychopathology. Phenomenology remains merely a sub-
discipline within this more encompassing field, and it thus requires complementation by
other sub-disciplines.

As we have indicated, Jaspers' method, if it is to prove fruitful for concerns of

contemporary psychiatry, must be critically revised. As we close, we mention some of
our own reservations regarding Jaspers' position.

Jaspers' Acknowledgments of Husserl's Influence

Since one of the purposes of this essay is to demonstrate Husserl's influence on

Jaspers' phenomenology, we must confront G. E. Berrios' and Chris Walker's assertions
to the contrary. Berrios and Walker have argued that Husserl's influence on Jaspers is
merely apparent and not real. It is unarguable, however, that to Jaspers himself it did
appear that Husserl had decisively influenced him. Throughout his life Jaspers
repeatedly acknowledged the debt he owed to Husserl. Jaspers was familiar with two of
Husserl's early works, Logical investigations (Husserl 1984a, 1984b; 1970a, 1970b) and
Philosophy as rigorous science (Husserl 1965a; 1965b) Jaspers was strongly drawn to
the phenomenology that he found in Logical investigations (First Edition, 1900-01). He
understood Logical investigations as developing a "descriptive psychology" that could
be extended to any domain of the psychological. We shall now quote several of Jaspers'
explicit acknowledgments of his intellectual debt to Husserl.

In "The Phenomenological Approach in Psychopathology" (1912), Jaspers' first and

most thorough presentation of his phenomenology, he states, "Within psychological
research E. Husserl has taken the decisive step to a systematic phenomenology, after
the preparatory work of Brentano and his school and Th. Lipps" (Jaspers 1963a, 316;
1968, 1314).

In the chapter on phenomenology in the General psychology (1913), Jaspers notes,

Hegel used the word phenomenology for the totality of the appearances of spirit, in
consciousness, history, and thought. I use it for the much narrower domain of individual
mental experiences. In the beginning Husserl used the word for a "descriptive
psychology" of what appears to consciousness -- in this sense it applies to my
investigations. Later, however, Husserl used the word for intuition of essences
(Wesensschau), which I do not follow here. Phenomenology is for me an empirical
procedure; it is kept going only through the fact of communication on the part of the
patient (Jaspers 1965, 47; 1963b, 55).

In an autobiographical essay entitled "My Way to Philosophy" (1951), Jaspers recalls,

After being confined to medicine for a long time I came in 1909 to know Husserl through
reading him. His phenomenology provided a productive method which I applied in
describing the experiences of the mentally ill. What was essential for me was to see
how extraordinarily disciplined Husserl's thinking was. I then saw that he had overcome
the psychologism which resolved all problems into their psychological motivations.
Above all I appreciated his unceasing demand to clarify unnoticed presuppositions. In
Husserl I found confirmed what was already working within me: the drive to press to the
things themselves. And at that time--in a world full of prejudices, schematisms, and
conventions--this was like a liberation (Jaspers 1951, 327).

In his "Philosophical Autobiography" (1957), Jaspers reports,

My own investigations as well as my reflection about what was being said and done in
psychiatry had led me on tracks which were new at that time. Philosophers gave me the
impetus for two essential steps. As method I adopted Husserl's phenomenology, which,
in its beginnings, he called descriptive psychology; I retained it although I rejected its
further development into intuition of essences (Wesensschau). It proved to be possible
and fruitful to describe the inner experiences of patients as phenomena of
consciousness. Not only hallucinations, but also delusions, modes of ego-
consciousness, and emotions could, on the basis of the patients' own descriptions, be
described so clearly that they became recognizable with certainty in other cases.
Phenomenology became a method for research (Schilpp 1981, 18).

Jaspers' Rejection of Husserl's Wesensschau

Since the quotations cited above twice mention Jaspers' approval of Husserl's
characterization of phenomenology as "descriptive psychology" and Jaspers' rejection
of that component of Husserl's method called "intuition of essences" (Wesensschau),
we shall address these issues now. Jaspers asserts that he understood phenomenology
to be a "descriptive psychology" (Schilpp 1981, 18; Jaspers 1965, 47; 1963b, 55). This
was the phrase that Husserl himself had applied to his phenomenology in the first
edition of his Logical investigations (Husserl 1984a, 24; 1970a, 262-263). This
insistence on retaining Husserl's label "descriptive psychology" is closely connected
with Jaspers' rejection of one cardinal component of Husserl's method, the intuition of
essences. Jaspers' phenomenology differs from Husserl's in that Jaspers'
phenomenology is an empirical discipline and Husserl's is an essential (or "eidetic")
one.

For Husserl, the phenomenologist categorizes the different kinds of mental processes
by carrying out an extensive variation of their properties until he or she discovers
properties without which the mental process would no longer exemplify the kind of
mental process under investigation. This variation is not limited to considering actual,
i.e., real, mental processes. It also considers purely possible, i.e., purely imaginable or
conceivable, ones. The categories thereby discovered define the limits of the possible,
i.e., the limits of what is conceivable. Concepts defined in this way extend beyond the
limits of the actual. Such concepts specify those properties without which this general
kind of mental process cannot be imagined or conceived. Husserl called the categories
that defined the limits of the possible "essences," and he viewed his phenomenology as
concerned with discerning the essential properties of the different kinds of mental
processes (Husserl 1973, 339-64).

Psychological investigations that are restricted to examining actual mental processes

uncover general categories that define the limits of the actual. Such investigations are
empirical, and the categories that define the limits of the actual are empirical concepts.
Jaspers viewed his phenomenology as concerned with studying solely
psychopathological mental processes that patients actually had. His phenomenology
was thus an empirical discipline that sought to define the general features of actual
mental processes. Jaspers' and Husserl's methods differed in this regard, and Jaspers
was explicitly aware of the difference. Jaspers thought of his phenomenology as a
"psychology" because it was an empirical science of the mind (Jaspers 1965, 47;
1963b, 55). And he deemed it a "descriptive psychology" because, as we shall
demonstrate below, its purpose was to describe the general features of psychological
states rather than explain their genesis and causes.
Jaspers' Main Methodological Problem

Since the exposition of Jaspers' phenomenology that we offer below is rather long and
involved, it might help if we preface it with what we take to be the core logic of Jaspers'
position. We are not here presenting a genuine summary but rather an encapsulation of
the central methodological problem that, in our view, Jaspers is in the process of
solving.

Phenomenology, for Jaspers, is a sub-discipline within the larger discipline of

psychopathology. The primary task of phenomenology consists in providing a basic
taxonomy of psychopathological phenomena. Jaspers thus views phenomenology as
performing preparatory work (Vorarbeit) for the science of psychopathology: it furnishes
psychopathology with its elementary vocabulary, i.e., definitions of the different classes
of pathological mental states. These definitions can then serve, in other sub-disciplines
of psychopathology, as conceptual building blocks on the basis of which hypotheses
and interpretations can be constructed. If, however, the basic concepts of
psychopathology are to be defined prior to any theory-building, through what reliable
method can these concepts be defined?

Jaspers seeks to develop a method that will provide the phenomenologist with an
observational point of view on psychopathological phenomena. If the phenomenologist
succeeds in directly observing these phenomena, then he or she can define them on
the basis of such observation. But how can the phenomenologist gain an observational
point of view on psychopathological phenomena? For after all, "psychopathological
phenomena" are the mental states of patients. And how can one person, the
psychopathologist, acquire some sort of observational point of view on the mental states
of another person, the patient? One person surely cannot observe the mental states of
another person in any ordinary sense of "observe." Even if we assume that the patient
can through introspection directly observe his or her own mental processes, no such
direct access is available to the psychopathologist. Moreover, the mental states of one
person cannot be sense perceived by another person. Is the psychopathologist not,
then, barred from any kind of direct observation of his or her subject matter?

Now Jaspers would concede that in one sense the answer to this last question is a firm
"yes." The mental processes of one person cannot be directly observed by another
person, either through introspection or through sense perception. In this sense, then, we
can gain access to the mental states of another person only indirectly, through what the
person says or writes, how he or she behaves, and how we read his or her bodily
postures and facial expressions. This process of gaining an awareness of the
experiences of a person through his or her overt expressions Jaspers calls
"understanding" (Verstehen). The process is indirect because the subject's mental
processes are not directly observed by the other person. It is only the subject's overt
expressions that are directly observed, and these expressions serve as a basis for
(indirectly) apprehending his or her experiences.
But this indirect access to the mental processes of another person is after all some sort
of access. Is there some way, then, in which this indirect access can be made "more
direct"? Jaspers thinks that there is. Rendering understanding more direct involves two
steps: (1) The psychopathologist can transpose him or herself into (sich
hineinversetzen) the mental life of the patient and co-experience (miterleben) what the
patient experiences. Such a co-experiencing means that the psychopathologist's
experiences now become more like the patient's experiences. (2) The
psychopathologist can now make present (vergegenwärtigen) to him- or herself the
patient's experiences. Such a making present (Vergegenwärtigung) means that the
psychopathologist examines the patient's experiences as if those experiences were
directly given to the psychopathologist although they are not actually so given.

Jaspers concedes that this "making present" of another person's mental processes is
not strictly speaking a "direct observation" of them: making present consists in
experiencing psychopathological phenomena as if they were directly given although
they are not actually so. Jaspers is persuaded, nonetheless, that such making present
is the next best thing to direct observation because in it the mental processes of the
patient are experienced by the phenomenologist in definite and precise detail. And
Jaspers thinks that the fundamental definitions of psychopathological phenomena must
be based upon a detailed and precise experience of them.

In addition to providing the "observational" basis for concept-definition, making present

performs two other essential functions in phenomenology. (A) Other psychopathologists
can comprehend the definitions adequately only if they too make the relevant
phenomena present to themselves. One must go beyond the meanings of the concepts
to a direct grasping of the phenomena themselves in order for those meanings to
become fully intelligible. Such a direct grasping of the phenomena themselves occurs
through making them present. (B) Phenomenological definitions, once developed, can
be tested or verified only through making the designated phenomena present. Making
present thus plays a role analogous to the role that sense perception plays in the
natural sciences: it provides our access to the evidence that will either confirm or
disconfirm the claims made.

Jaspers thinks that if phenomenology is to proceed strictly on the basis of the sort of
"observation" accomplished through making present, two additional components of
phenomenological method are necessarily entailed. (i) Phenomenology must be purely
descriptive. By "description" we mean a definition or statement that expresses only what
can be directly observed or--the next best thing--made present. Phenomenology must
be "atheoretical" if "theoretical" implies postulating unobservable entities or processes.
(ii) Phenomenology should proceed "without presuppositions." Phenomenologists must
strive to rid themselves of covert assumptions that may prompt them to impute features
to the phenomena in advance of a thorough inspection of them. Phenomenologists must
instead ascribe to psychopathological phenomena only those features that they directly
find in them when they make those phenomena present to themselves.
Jaspers' central methodological problem thus lies in delineating a mode of "observation"
that can provide the evidential base for defining, comprehending, and testing the basic
concepts of psychopathology. All the components of his phenomenological method are
geared toward securing this observational foundation.

The Distinction between Objective and Subjective Symptoms

We now begin our detailed exposition of Jaspers' phenomenological method. We shall

remain rather faithful to the order of Jaspers' own exposition in his essay of 1912, "The
Phenomenological Approach in Psychopathology" (Jaspers 1963a, 314-28; 1968, 1313-
23), because this essay contains the most thorough presentation of Jaspers' ideas. The
relevant chapter in General psychopathology, "The Subjective Appearances of Ill Mental
Life (Phenomenology)" (Jaspers 1965, 47-49; 1963b, 55-57), is obviously only a brief
synopsis of the much more complete essay. We shall draw on this chapter only when its
formulations seem especially illuminating.

Jaspers begins his presentation of phenomenology by appealing to a dichotomy

between objective and subjective symptoms of mental illness (Jaspers 1963a, 314-15;
1968, 1313-14). We shall first restate the dichotomy as Jaspers views it. We shall then
seek to locate the fundamental difference that underlies Jaspers' distinctions.

Jaspers delineates three different kinds of objective symptoms. We should first note,
however, the point of view from which Jaspers draws his distinctions. He does not
distinguish among the symptoms on the basis of their inherent properties. That is to say,
he does not claim that they consist of three different kinds of entity. His distinctions
rather rest on the way that the psychiatrist gains access to the symptoms. It is a matter,
then, of how the psychiatrist comes to experience these symptoms in the patient.

Objective symptoms, Jaspers writes, are (1) all the processes in the patient that the
psychiatrist can perceive through his or her senses, e.g., reflexes, registerable
movements, the photographable face, motor excitations, linguistic utterances, products
of writing, actions, and conduct. Objective symptoms also encompass (2) all
measurable performances, e.g., work capacity, exercise capacity, and recall
performance. They finally include (3) the rational contents of what the patient says, e.g.,
delusional ideas and falsifications of memory. The psychiatrist cannot sense perceive
symptoms of this third kind. They can only be understood (verstehen). The psychiatrist
makes sense of them through rationally thinking about them (Jaspers 1963a, 314; 1968,
1313).

The "objectivity" of objective symptoms thus arises from the fact that they are
accessible to everyone in objective ways: namely, through sense perception,
measurement, or logical thinking. Because of these objective ways of experiencing
them, objective symptoms are immediately demonstrable and their real presence can
be convincingly shown (Jaspers 1963a, 314; 1968, 1313). The "subjectivity" of
subjective symptoms, on the other hand, issues from the fact that

they cannot seen through the sense organs. They can only be grasped through
transposing oneself (Hineinversetzen) into the mind of the patient, through empathy
(Einfühlen). They can be brought to an inner intuition (inneren Anschauung) only
through co-experiencing (Miterleben), not through thinking (Jaspers 1963a, 314; 1968,
1313).

Jaspers also distinguishes among three different kinds of subjective symptoms. Again
his distinctions among these symptoms arise not from the fact that they compose three
different kinds of realities but rather from the fact that the psychiatrist gains access to
them in three different ways.

Subjective symptoms consist in (1) those experiences of patients which the psychiatrist
can grasp immediately through their sense perceivable appearances, namely, through
various bodily expressions; such symptoms include anxiety, sadness, and cheerfulness.
Subjective symptoms are also (2) all experiences which patients report and which
therefore are only mediately accessible to the psychiatrist, namely, through the patient's
statements about them. Finally subjective symptoms include (3) the patient's mental
processes which are disclosed to the psychiatrist by interpreting fragments of the two
foregoing sorts of data and also through the patient's actions, conduct, etc. (Jaspers
1963a, 314; 1968, 1313).

We shall now attempt to interpret Jaspers' distinctions among these three classes of
subjective symptoms.

Class (1) of subjective symptoms consists in the patient's mental processes to which the
psychiatrist has "immediate" access through something that is sense perceivable,
namely, the patient's overt expressions. The overt expression, such as the patient's
facial expression, is not the symptom; the symptom is an unperceivable mental process.
Nevertheless, the psychiatrist becomes "immediately" aware of the patient's mental
processes through his or her perception of the patient's overt expressions. Jaspers
seems to be implying that the psychiatrist need not "infer" the mental process from the
bodily expression or in any other way "reason from" the expression to the underlying
mental process; the awareness of the mental through the bodily is rather "immediate."

Class (2) consists in mental processes to which the psychiatrist has access through the
patient's language, e.g., his or her verbal reports or statements. Again we must first
point out that the patient's linguistic statement is not the symptom; the symptom is
rather the mental process to which the statement refers. Jaspers seems to have in mind
cases in which the patient, having reported that he or she feels profoundly sad for hours
on end, then goes on to describe that sadness as well as he or she can. Other ways in
which linguistic utterances "indicate" the speaker's psychological state would seem to
fall more appropriately into Jaspers' class (3).
Class (3) are the patient's mental processes to which we have access through
interpretation. It is not clear what Jaspers means by "interpretation." Here it does
appear to imply that different sorts of overt manifestations are considered conjointly as
indicating the patient's psychological state. Thus what the patient says, how he or she
acts, his or her facial expressions, etc. must all be taken together to arrive at an
interpretation. They must all be intelligibly pieced together as parts of a whole. Taking
any separately would only mislead. For this reason, these various manifestations do not
"immediately" disclose the patient's underlying mental state. They disclose it only after a
(mediating) "interpretation."

Jaspers pinpoints the crux of this distinction between objective and subjective
symptoms only toward the end of his essay (Jaspers 1963a, 326; 1968, 1322). There he
explains the basic distinction as follows. Subjective symptoms consist of symptoms of
mental illness precisely as those symptoms are experienced by the patient. They are
the symptoms of mental illness experienced "from within." The first task of subjective
psychiatry lies, then, in finding some method for gaining scientific access to symptoms
as the patient experiences them. Objective symptoms, by contrast, are symptoms of
mental illness as experienced "from outside," by the observing psychiatrist. The
objective psychiatrist is not concerned with the subject's experience. The objective
psychiatrist purposefully disregards the subject's experiences and concentrates
exclusively on the overt manifestations of the illness. Jaspers even maintains that the
ideal of objective psychiatry lies in a systematic and total disregard of subjective
symptoms, or, as Jaspers himself puts it, in "eliminating" all subjective symptoms
(Jaspers 1963a, 315; 1968, 1313-14). Thus Jaspers contends that objective psychiatry
leads ultimately to "a psychiatry without a psyche." He cites as an example the way in
which objective psychiatry studies work through charting "work curves." Such studies
are not concerned with, for instance, the worker's feeling of fatigue (weariness) but
solely with his or her "objective fatigue." In characterizing work, such a psychiatry
restricts itself to measuring fatiguability, the capacity to recover, the effects of learning,
practice, and rest periods. As Jaspers writes, "it does not matter here whether one is
dealing with a machine, a living but mindless organism, or a human being endowed with
a mind" (Jaspers 1963a, 315; 1968, 1313-14).

The reason that objective psychiatry seeks to eliminate all references to subjective
symptoms lies ultimately in what makes objective psychiatry "objective," namely, its
reliance on objective modes of access to its subject matter. These modes of access are,
according to Jaspers, sense perception, measurement, and logical thinking. It is thought
that only these are objective because only they provide certainty. Subjective symptoms,
because of the ways in which we have access to them, remain highly uncertain. As
soon as the psychiatrist starts making assertions about unperceivable and
unmeasurable mental processes, he or she has forfeited all aspirations to certainty. In
order to become an "objective scientist," therefore, the psychiatrist must make no claims
regarding the mental. Objective psychiatry must become "a psychiatry without a psyche,
" and it leads ultimately, according to Jaspers, to a physiology (Jaspers 1963a, 315;
1968, 1314).
What, then, is the subject matter of subjective psychiatry? Jaspers first states that
subjective psychiatry takes mental life itself as its object. He then explains a little more
precisely what this includes. The subject matter of subjective psychiatry consists of "that
upon which mental experiences depend," "what kinds of outcomes they have," and
"what kinds of connections can be found among them" (Jaspers 1963a, 315; 1968,
1314). All of these items, in order to fall within the province of subjective psychiatry,
must be mental in nature.

Notice that Jaspers thus arrives at a dualism which sharply distinguishes between body
and mind: the subject matter of objective psychiatry is the body (or ultimately, as
Jaspers says, physiology) while the subject matter of subjective psychiatry is the mind.
Jaspers, however, has not reached this scientific dualism through some metaphysical
route. He has rather arrived at it from a methodological direction.

Jaspers now points out that before subjective psychiatrists can reliably investigate the
(mental) sources, connections, and results of mental processes, they must first develop
definitions of the various kinds of mental processes. This preparatory work (Vorarbeit)
constitutes the task of phenomenology (Jaspers 1963a, 315-16; 1968, 1314)
Phenomenology is, accordingly, the foundational discipline of subjective psychiatry: by
conceptually distinguishing among the different kinds of mental processes,
phenomenology furnishes the basic categories of subjective psychiatry. On the basis of
this preparatory phenomenological work, subjective psychiatrists can then proceed to
search out the (mental) origins of these processes, the (mental) relationships among
them, and their ultimate (mental) outcomes; i.e., subjective psychiatrists can then study
mental life as a whole of related parts. Phenomenology, however, must first define the
discriminable parts of mental life. Phenomenology is thus only one sub-discipline within
the larger discipline of subjective psychiatry; phenomenology is, namely, the
conceptually most basic sub-discipline.

Jaspers must then outline a methodology for such a phenomenology. The primary aim
of such a methodology lies in rendering as secure as possible, i.e., as certain as
possible, knowledge about patients' psychopathological experiences. Jaspers first
confronts the problem of how the phenomenologist can gain cognitive access to
patients' experiences. He must then confront the problem of how the descriptions of the
experiences thus gained can be tested or proven. How, then, can the phenomenologist
gain cognitive access to the mental processes of patients?

Understanding, Empathy, and Self-Transposal

At the time that Jaspers was writing, there was a lively academic debate about the ways
in which social scientists, such as historians and sociologists, could gain cognitive
access to the experiences of the people whom they are studying. This debate has come
to be known as the Methodenstreit (Oakes 1988). Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Simmel, Max
Weber, and other social scientists and philosophers held the view that cognitive access
to another person's mental life could be obtained through a process known as
Verstehen, understanding. Jaspers is acquainted with this discussion (Schilpp 1981,
18). Dilthey, with his notion of transposing oneself into the mental life of the person one
is trying to understand (Sichhineinversetzen) (Dilthey 1977, 132-35), seems to have had
the most decisive influence on Jaspers. Dilthey claims that "higher understanding"
requires empathy (Einfühlen), re-experiencing (Nacherleben), sympathy or co-feeling
(Mitfühlen), reliving (Nachleben), and re-creating (Nachbilden) (Dilthey 1977, 132-35).
Most of these Diltheyian terms reappear in Jaspers' essay.

In order to try to clarify what is involved here, we shall first advance a broad definition of
Verstehen. "Understanding" means that one person apprehends another person's
mental processes on the basis of perceiving something directly given, e.g., the other
person's facial expressions or linguistic utterances. Understanding thus consists in
apprehending the mental through the givenness of something non-mental, such as
bodily gestures or cultural artifacts.

If we adopt the term "understanding" in this broad definition, however, we suggest that it
might be helpful to distinguish further between two forms of it. (1) In the first form I
understand another person when his or her mental processes or experiences are the
objects of my experiences; the other person's experiences are that of which I am aware;
the other person's experiences are, in phenomenological terms, my intended objects.
(2) In the second form of understanding I understand another person when I come to
have the same experiences that he or she is having, i.e., when my experiences are the
same as his or hers. In this second form of understanding I come to understand, for
example, another person's grief when I myself come to grieve in the same way that this
other person grieves. The first form of understanding would not require that I myself
grieve in order to apprehend another person's grief. In the first form of understanding I
am simply aware of the other person's grief as the object of my conscious processes;
my conscious processes are not themselves processes of grieving. In the second form
of understanding I would understand the other person's grief only to the extent that my
own conscious processes were processes of grieving similar to the other person's. The
basic German term Verstehen could be taken to designate merely this first form of
understanding. But the other terms, "empathy," "co-experiencing," "reliving," and "co-
feeling," appear to signify the second form of understanding. And there can be no doubt,
we think, that the stronger term "self-transposal" (Sichhineinversetzen) means having
the same experiences that another person is having, i.e., the second form of
understanding.

We can make a further distinction that, as we shall see, can cut across the distinction
made just above. We can distinguish between (A) prescientific and (B) scientific
understanding. (A) Prescientific understanding is the way in which we understand one
another in everyday life. In prescientific life I may understand another person and even
empathize with her; I may try to put myself in her place and thereby co-experience what
she is experiencing. This kind of understanding is not scientific, however, because I am
not primarily concerned to obtain systematic and fixed conceptualizations of the
person's experience. (B) In scientific understanding, on the other hand, my primary aim
is to gain testable and systematic knowledge of a person's experience. In general, then,
scientific understanding must meet more stringent criteria for precision, clarity, and
verification. These two different sets of distinctions will, we think, help us to shed light
on Jaspers' discussion of understanding and related terms.

Jaspers believes that the understanding of other people is a commonplace component

of everyday life (Jaspers 1963a, 316; 1968, 1315). In our everyday lives we are already
understanding the experiences of our fellow humans beings, although our
understanding of them differs from that of the psychiatrist. As Jaspers writes, when in
daily life we are engaged in common projects with other people, we are not usually
directed toward the other person's mental processes themselves. We are rather
directed toward that for the sake of which (um dessenwillen) the other person is acting
and experiencing. We are concerned, that is, with the aims or goals of the other
person's experiences. This involves understanding the other person because we must
at least to some extent apprehend these goals and aims from his or her point of view;
we must have some awareness of how he or she is experiencing those goals. But in
order to carry out our concerns in daily life we usually need not know exactly how the
other person is experiencing things.

Now this kind of prescientific understanding of other people, Jaspers claims, can be
deepened and extended by the psychiatrist (Jaspers 1963a, 316; 1968, 1315). The
psychiatrist can immerse him or herself more and more into such empathic co-
experiencing. The psychiatrist can seek to thoroughly transpose him- or herself into the
experience of the other. Thus the psychiatrist comes to experience the world more and
more as the other person experiences it.

Jaspers points out, however, that such a thorough empathic understanding of others,
even if it could be fully achieved, would not by itself constitute scientific knowledge.
Experiencing the world as other people experience it, when practiced for its own sake,
remains simply experience (Erleben) (Jaspers 1963a, 316; 1968, 1315). The
psychiatrist is indeed experiencing the world from another person's point of view; but,
granting that, the psychiatrist is still simply experiencing the world. And science does
not grow by merely having people experience the world, whether from their own point of
view or from someone else's. Understanding and even self-transposal are thus
necessary for a scientific psychiatry, but they are not by themselves sufficient.

In order to become scientific knowledge, understanding must become communicable

(mitteilbar), debatable (diskutierbar), and testable (nachprüfbar) (Jaspers 1963a, 317;
1968, 1315). And the only way that this can occur is for such understanding to achieve
formulation in fixed, rule-governed concepts (feste regelmässige Begriffe) and particular
assertions (einzelne Behauptungen) (Jaspers 1963a, 316; 1968, 1315). Jaspers
emphasizes the need to formulate this understanding in definite expressions
(bestimmten Ausdruck) (Jaspers 1963a, 317; 1968, 1315-16).

Phenomenologists must first, then, understand patients' experiences and the objects of
experience as these objects are experienced by patients. Jaspers cites three different
sorts of means (Mittel) for coming to know what the patient is actually experiencing. (1)
Phenomenologists can immerse (Versenkung) themselves in the behavior, deportment,
and expressive movements of patients. (2) Phenomenologists can explore patients
experiences by asking them questions and thereby eliciting further information from
them. (3) Written reports of their experience by patients themselves are seldom good,
Jaspers asserts; but when they are good, they can be of especially great value. Having
listed these three different clues for what patients experience, Jaspers points out that
they are not in themselves objects for phenomenological investigation. They are useful
to phenomenologists only as means for gaining access to what patients are subjectively
experiencing; throughout their investigations, Jaspers insists, phenomenologists remain
focused on the mental (Jaspers 1963a, 320; 1968, 1317-18).

Taking these three sorts of items as clues, phenomenologists must transpose

themselves into the minds of patients and empathically experience things as patients
experience them. Empathy with patients thus consists in co-experiencing things as
patients experience them (Jaspers 1963a, 314; 1968, 1313). In this way
phenomenologists will come at least in imagination to have experiences like those of
their patients.

It would perhaps be worthwhile to pause at this point in our exposition of Jaspers views
and briefly address the doubt that some readers may have regarding the very possibility
of the kind of self-transposal and co-experiencing that Jaspers advocates. Jaspers does
appear to be requiring a great deal of empathy from the psychiatrist, and we may
wonder whether one person can actually succeed in transposing him or herself into
someone else's mind and experience things as he or she experiences them. The
success of this effort may seem to grow even more dubious to the extent that the
patient is unlike the psychiatrist. In response to this kind of worry, we would like first to
emphasize the fact that such re-experiencing is carried out in the psychiatrist's
imagination. The psychiatrist is not actually experiencing things as the patient
experiences them; the psychiatrist is only imaginatively experiencing them in this
manner. The psychiatrist will in all likelihood not be able to experience something in
actuality as a psychotic patient experiences it, but we can see no reason why in
principle the psychiatrist would remain unable to imaginatively experience something as
the psychotic patient does. Different people, of course, have different imaginative
capacities, but in most people these capacities can be developed with practice. In any
event, we do not see how it can be claimed a priori that people can never imagine how
another person is experiencing something.

The real stumbling block here seems to us to reside rather in the following question:
how can the psychiatrist ever know that he or she has succeeded in imagining what the
patient is experiencing? The question, in other words, concerns how we can test or
prove the correspondence between the patient's actual experience and the
psychiatrist's imagined experience. The answer to this question depends upon the
quality and quantity of evidence available in Verstehen. As we noted above, Jaspers
mentions three kinds of evidence: (1) the behavior, deportment, and expressive
movements of patients; (2) the answers which patients give concerning their experience
when questioned by the psychiatrist; and (3) written reports of their experience by
patients themselves. The proper setting, then, within which to develop a Jaspersian
psychopathology is clinical practice, or perhaps more accurately in subsequent
reflection upon what has transpired in such practice. The evidence for a Jaspersian
psychopathology comes to clinicians in their daily practice, and everything depends
upon the careful and critical use which clinicians make of this evidence. We cannot
imagine how it would be possible to set a priori limits on what such evidence might
reveal concerning the general structure of psychopathological states. In other words,
objections to Jaspers' method that view its goal as impossible to achieve strike us as
unprovable. Difficult to achieve? Yes. Requiring keen skills, long experience, an
expansive imagination, sensitive interpretation, and rigorous self-criticism? Yes. But
impossible? Why should we believe this before the method has been appropriately
tried? We readily concede that it would be helpful to have more light shed on the
epistemological issues involved in one person's attempt to interpret accurately the
experiences of another person. But lacking this light, we remain skeptical of a priori
claims that any such attempt is doomed to fail.

We now return to our explication of Jaspers' position. For Jaspers, engaging in an

empathic co-experiencing of what the patient experiences is necessary for scientific
knowledge of patients' mental states, but it is not sufficient. In addition
phenomenologists need to define concepts that specify the different kinds of
psychopathical experience. These concepts, in order to qualify as genuinely scientific,
must be definite and precise in their meanings. Now concepts can be definite and
precise in their meanings only if they precisely capture features of the mental processes
under study. And concepts can capture such features, Jaspers believes, only if the
phenomenologist can observe the mental processes and on the basis of this
observation describe the features. How can the phenomenologist observe patients'
mental processes? This, of course, poses a sizable problem. For the mental processes
of another person are by their very nature unobservable, at least in the standard sense
of "observation." The standard sense of observation means observable through the
senses. Since the mental states of one person cannot be sense perceived by another
person, Jaspers must employ some other notion of "observation" if he is to require that
the psychopathologist "observe" the mental states of patients. For this novel notion
Jaspers turns to Husserl's conception of "intuition."

Intuition and Making Intuitively Present

The German language contains a number of words for "seeing." Schauen, erschauen,
sehen can all be correctly translated as "seeing" (Wildhagen and Héraucourt 1965). All
of these terms are closely related to anschauen, although anschauen is best translated
as "intuiting." For German readers, schauen, erschauen, and sehen contain the
meaning of anschauen. Seeing is thus an intuiting. If we are to understand Jaspers's
phenomenology and its debt to Husserl, it is crucial to recall the traditional technical
meaning of the German verb anschauen (to intuit), the noun Anschauung (intuition), and
its Latin source intuitus. In our day "intuition" has lost its traditional meaning. Today the
word "intuition" signifies one's immediate impression of something or a thought which
simply pops into one's head. These contemporary meanings lie far from the traditional
technical ones employed by Husserl, Jaspers, and earlier philosophers, such as
Descartes and Kant.

Husserl employs the traditional philosophical meaning of the German term "intuition." In
that tradition "intuition" and cognate words signify the direct experience of something.
Jaspers, too, uses "bringing to givenness" (zur Gegebenheit bringen) as synonymous
with erschauen (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). In intuition the object itself is directly
given to the experiencing subject. Intuition is an awareness of the self-presentation of
the object. My direct perception of the coffee cup at which I am now looking is an
example of intuition in this first sense. Anschauung is thus to be contrasted with an
experience of an object in which that object is not directly given. If I am remembering an
architecturally interesting building that I saw last week, I am experiencing the building,
but I am not intuitively experiencing it. The building is not itself directly given to me
although it was so given last week.

Intuition in this traditional sense plays a central role in Husserl's phenomenological

method. Husserl thought that one could reflect upon one's own mental processes and
intuit them, i.e., directly observe them. In such self-reflection one's own mental
processes could be directly given "in person" for philosophical examination and
description. Husserl made this intuitive self-reflection a methodological requirement for
his phenomenology (Husserl 1984a, 5-29; 1970a, 248-266). In a new "Preface" to the
Logical investigations, written in 1913, he included a section entitled "The Demand for
an Intuitive Method of Philosophy in the Return to Intuition (Anschauung)" (Husserl
1975, 23-25). In this section Husserl maintains that it is intuition that provides the
methodological basis for examining the structures of mental life. He goes on to write,

It is for the philosophers to declare themselves radically for the principle of all principles,
which demands of him who really strives for "absolute" cognition . . . that he precisely
not chase from above after gratuitous constructions as if one could not get close to the
things (Sachen) themselves, but rather that he develop all knowledge from the ultimate
sources--out of principles seen directly. To this also belongs, however, (the
requirement) that one not be diverted by prejudices of any type, not by verbal
contradictions, not by anything in the world . . . and that one give that which is clearly
seen its due as that which is the "original," as that which lies prior to all theories, as that
which supplies the final criterion. This return to "the seeing" which both ultimately
clarifies and fulfills, and to the analysis carried out in this "seeing" is admittedly no easy
matter; and every bit as difficult is the accompanying true description, as a description
given through newly developed and standardized concepts (Husserl 1975, 23-24).

Note that Husserl here relates intuition to two other components of his method,
presuppositionlessness (the researcher must "not be diverted by prejudices of any
type") and description. We shall discuss these other two components below.
For Husserl, such "direct seeing" provides the evidence for any claims that one makes
about mental life. Such seeing can either confirm or disconfirm the claims. It is through
intuition, therefore, that claims about mental processes are tested for their truth. If the
mental process is directly seen to be as the claim says it is, then the claim is "fulfilled"
(erfüllt). If the mental process is directly seen to be contrary to what the claim asserts,
then the claim is "cancelled." We shall see later that, for Jaspers, too, intuition is a
"fulfilling experience" (erfüllende Erlebnis) and for this reason can serve in
psychopathology the same purpose that sensory perception serves in the natural
sciences, namely, the purpose of the testing the truth of claims to knowledge (Jaspers
1963a, 319; 1968, 1317).

The German word "intuition" can be used in another, extended sense. In this second
sense "intuition" means the experience of an object in graphic and definite detail. In this
second sense of intuition, then, the object of which I am aware need not be directly
given to me, i.e., it need not be given "in person" to me, it need only be experienced by
me in precise and exact detail. Thus my memory of the architecturally interesting
building that I saw last week could be "intuitive" if I remember the building in precise and
definite detail. Intuition in this sense is to be contrasted with a vague and indefinite
experience of an object. In this sense of intuition, the coffee cup in front of me is
intuitively experienced by me, not because it is directly given to me, but rather because I
am perceiving its precise details. My memory of the architecturally interesting building
that I saw last week would be non-intuitive in this second sense only to the extent that
my memory of it remains vague and indeterminate.

Husserl recognizes these two different kinds of "intuition." He calls the first kind
explicated above "originary intuition" (Husserl 1975, 23). The second kind of intuition
Husserl labels "Veranschaulichung" (Husserl 1984b, 596-631, 670-76). J. N. Findlay
translates this Husserlian word as "illustrative intuition" (Husserl 1970b, 719-48, 784-
88).

Jaspers, following Husserl, requires that phenomenology proceed through intuition. As

Jaspers writes, "Only insofar as something is brought to actual, immediate givenness,
i.e., is intuited, is it an object for phenomenology" (Jaspers 1963a, 323; 1968, 1320). He
will speak of "intuiting" or "seeing" the psychopathological experiences of patients.
Jaspers believes, however, that one person cannot sense perceive another person's
mental processes. Hence the "intuiting" or "seeing" in question cannot be a sensory
intuiting or seeing (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). And moreover, it would seem that
in the first sense of intuition discussed above there is no other way in which one person
could intuit or see another person's experiences. That is to say, there does not seem to
be any way in which the mental processes of one person could be directly given to
another person. Hence when Jaspers speaks of one person "intuiting" or "seeing"
another person's mental processes, he must have in mind "intuiting" or "seeing" in the
second sense above. He must mean that a person can become aware of another
person's experiences in precise and graphic detail although those experiences are not
self-given to him or her.
This interpretation of Jaspers' use of intuition is borne out if we examine the meaning of
a term which he almost always conjoins with it, Vergegenwärtigung. The German noun
Vergegenwärtigung and verb vergegenwärtigen should be contrasted with Gegenwart.
The first meaning of Gegenwart is Anwesenheit, presence or to be directly present
(Wildhagen and Héraucourt 1964, 479). Something is gegenwärtig when it is directly
present or self-given to the experiencing subject. The verb vergegenwärtigen provides
an interesting modification of this. Vergegenwärtigen means to bring to a person's mind
as if the thing were directly present (although it is not).

There exists no truly suitable English translation of Vergegenwärtigung and cognate

German words. Dorion Cairns, in his Guide for Translating Husserl, prefers
"presentation" or "making present" (Cairns 1973, 123). Other translators use
"presentification" and "re-presentation." Obviously all of these translators are seeking to
retain the notion of "presence" or "the mental act of making something present" through
their choice of terms. For lack of a better word we shall employ "making present."

Conjoined with his requirement of intuition, Jaspers demands that the phenomenologist
make the patient's mental processes present (vergegenwärtigen) (Jaspers 1963a, 314-
28; 1965, 47-49). This means that the phenomenologist should become aware of the
patient's mental processes as if those mental processes where directly given to the
phenomenologist. The patient's mental processes, of course, cannot actually be directly
given to the phenomenologist. But the phenomenologist should nevertheless strive to
achieve an awareness of them that is so graphic and precise it is as if those mental
processes were directly given to the phenomenologist.

We suggest that what Jaspers is seeking to express here can be better appreciated if
we recognize the imaginative component involved in making something present
(Vergegenwärtigung). When the phenomenologist achieves an awareness of the
patient's mental processes as if those mental processes were directly given to him or
her, the phenomenologist is imagining those experiences as if they were directly given.
The patient's mental processes are not actually directly given to the phenomenologist,
but he or she is aware of them as if they were directly present. And this is precisely
what imagination is, at least in one of its forms: the ability to experience something as if
it were present when in actuality it is not.

We have reached a point from which we can comprehend why Jaspers frequently
qualifies "making present" with the adjective "intuitive." In the chapter on
"Phenomenology" in the General psychopathology, the first sentence begins,
"Phenomenology has the task of making intuitively present to us (uns anschaulich zu
vergegenwärtigen) the mental states which the patient actually experiences . . ."
(Jaspers 1965, 47; 1963b, 55). Phenomenological making present, for Jaspers, is
intuitive making present. Moreover, the second sentence begins, "Since we can never
directly perceive another person's mental life like we can (directly perceive) something
physical, it is always a matter of making it present (eine Vergegenwärtigung) . . . "
(Jaspers 1965, 47; 1963b, 55). Because in phenomenology our subject matter is the
mental life of another person, it can never be intuited by us in the first sense of intuition
given above. We must therefore strive to intuit it in the second sense. This means that
we should strive to experience the other person's mental processes graphically and
precisely; we must try to experience the other person's experiences as if they were
directly given in their definite characteristics.

Jaspers claims that this intuitive making present plays a role in psychopathology similar
to the role that sense perception plays in the natural sciences (Jaspers 1963a, 319;
1968, 1317). Sense perception in the natural sciences plays the role of confirming or
disconfirming scientific claims. Sense perception can play this role because it is one
kind of intuition; it is, namely, sensory intuition. Moreover, sense perception is the sole
way in which natural objects can be intuited, i.e., brought to direct givenness. Thus
sense perception alone can provide evidence for the truth or falsity of natural scientific
claims. Jaspers contends that intuitive making present plays the same evidential role in
phenomenology. Husserl distinguished between a "signitive awareness" of something
(i.e., an experience in which the object meant is not given "in person") and a "fulfilled
awareness" of something (i.e., an experience in which the object meant is directly given
"in person"). The latter sort of experience, for Husserl, is an experience of evidence.
Adopting this Husserlian notion, Jaspers calls intuitive making present a "fulfilling
experience" (erfüllende Erlebnis) (Jaspers 1963a, 319; 1968, 1317). This means that it
delivers the evidence through which the truth or falsity of psychopathological statements
can be determined. Psychopathologists can thus test their claims by making intuitively
present to themselves the mental processes to which the claims refer.

Jaspers realizes that critics may raise questions regarding the certainty of claims which
must be tested in this manner. He points out, however, that sense perception too never
provides certainty. And just as in the natural sciences certainty can be approached only
through comparing, repeating, and rechecking sense perceptions, so in
psychopathology certainty can be approached through comparing, repeating, and
rechecking empathic experiences (durch Vergleich, Wiederholung, Nachprüfung der
Einfühlungserlebnisse) (Jaspers 1963a, 319; 1968, 1317). Jaspers thus maintains that
uncertainty attends both sense perception and intuitive making present although he
does concede that the degree of uncertainty is greater in psychopathology.

By joining Dilthey's notions of understanding and self-transposal with Husserl's

conceptions of intuition and evidence, Jaspers arrives at a methodological principle that
is all his own. He contends that phenomenologists must actively transpose themselves
into the mental lives of their patients and co-experience things as patients experience
them. Of course, the phenomenologists will probably not be able to experience things
exactly as patients experience them. But these co-experienced mental processes and
their objects will bring phenomenologists as close as possible to the patients'
experiences. No other procedure can furnish phenomenologists with experiences as
graphic, detailed, and definite. If phenomenologists do not do this, they will remain
confined to only vaguely and indefinitely imagining what patients must be experiencing.
Having immersed themselves in such co-experiencing, phenomenologists can then
make these experiences intuitively present to themselves; they can attend to these
mental events and, imagining what they must be like in the patients' minds, thematize
their detailed and precise features. These mental features can then be specified in
concepts. Concepts which thus specify the detailed features of intuited things can be
called "descriptive" concepts. We now turn to this methodological requirement of
description that Jaspers also takes from Husserl.

Description

Concepts and statements can be called "descriptive" in Husserl's and Jaspers's sense if
they specify only that which is directly "seen" in intuition: descriptions are formulations in
language of what is intuited. The meanings of descriptive concepts and propositions,
therefore, must not exceed what is intuited. For Husserl and Jaspers, phenomenological
concepts and statements must remain exclusively descriptive. No phenomenological
concept or statement refers to an entity that cannot be intuited.

It is for this reason that phenomenology, according to Jaspers, must restrict its subject
matter to what the patient actually experiences: phenomenology is concerned solely
with "what really goes on in the patient, what he actually experiences, how something is
given to him in consciousness, how he feels, etc." (Jaspers 1963a, 317; 1968, 1316).
Phenomenology is therefore not concerned with what underlies, generates, or causes
the patient's experience except insofar as such "causes" are themselves experiences
inherent in the patient's consciousness. The patient's actual experiences alone can be
"made intuitively present" by the phenomenologist, and these alone can then be defined
in descriptive concepts. The phenomenologist refrains from formulating or assuming
any hypotheses regarding underlying causes which may be generating these actual
experiences because such underlying causes, not being parts of the patient's actual
experience, cannot be made intuitively present (Jaspers 1963a, 327; 1968, 1322).
Theoretical hypotheses which may attempt to "explain" why patients have the
experiences they do have fall outside of the field of phenomenology. Theoretical
explanations are the task of other branches of psychopathology. And Jaspers believes
that these theoretical branches of psychopathology must presuppose the purely
descriptive findings of phenomenology. These theoretical fields must know precisely
what it is that they need to explain, and knowing this precisely and clearly requires that
phenomenology first do its descriptive, atheoretical work. Phenomenology is thus
"preparatory work" (Vorarbeit) in psychopathology (Jaspers 1963a, 315-16; 1968,
1314): it prepares the way for subsequent theories.

This Jaspersian position perfectly parallels Husserl's in the Logical investigations (First
Edition). After having defined phenomenology as a descriptive psychology, Husserl
writes, "pure description is a mere preparatory stage (Vorstufe) for theory; description is
not itself a theory. One and the same sphere of pure description can serve as
preparation for various theoretical sciences" (Husserl 1984a, 24; 1970a, 262). And
Husserl subsequently specifies what he means by "theory." By "theory" he means
explanatory theory: "Explanatory theory consists in making particulars intelligible on the
basis of general laws and in turn making general laws intelligible on the basis of more
fundamental laws. In the domain of facts the task is to know that what happens in a
given collection of circumstances happens necessarily, i.e., happens according to
natural laws" (Husserl 1984a, 26-27; 1970a, 264). Such theoretical laws must, at least
at the higher levels, refer to non-intuitable entities. To the extent that they do, they refer
to purely "theoretical" entities and thereby fail to be descriptive.

Phenomenology, for Jaspers, is an exclusively descriptive, atheoretical sub-discipline

within the larger science of psychopathology. It does not attempt to explain the mental
processes whose precise features it describes.

Descriptive concepts, once defined, can then be used to help other psychiatrists
intuitively "see" the same features of psychopathological processes. Indeed, it is only if
other psychiatrists do succeed in directly seeing these features through the aid of the
concepts that they will succeed in comprehending the meaning of the concepts. In other
words, descriptive concepts are not merely developed on the basis of an intuitive
making present; their meaning can be comprehended by others only if these others
make intuitively present to themselves the realities to which the concepts refer. Other
psychiatrists will never succeed in fully comprehending the meaning of the concepts as
long as they simply think about this meaning and fail to intuit the realities for
themselves. Jaspers warns that psychiatrists do suffer from a tendency merely to think
about psychopathological mental states and may not take the step to seeing them. As
he expresses it, "Just like we as children first draw things not as we see them but as we
think them, so we as psychiatrists and psychopathologists go through a stage in which
we somehow think the mental to a presuppositionless, immediate grasping of the
mental as it is" (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). The step to a precise seeing of the
features of the mental states to which the concepts refer is necessary, however.
Jaspers formulates this point through a comparison with histology:

Just as the histologist describes particular morphological elements in detail only so that
others can see them more easily, and just as the histologist must presuppose or induce
this seeing-for-oneself in people who are really to understand him, so also the
phenomenologist specifies features and distinctions and warns against confusions in
order to describe qualitatively peculiar mental data. He must, however, count on others
not merely thinking along with him but rather, in their interaction and conversation with
patients and through their own making present (Vergegenwärtigung), seeing along with
him. This seeing is not a sensory seeing, but rather an understanding (verstehendes)
seeing. One must have practiced and comprehended this completely peculiar,
irreducible ultimate--this "bringing to givenness," "understanding" ("verstehen"),
"grasping" ("erfassen"), "intuiting" ("erschauen"), "making present to oneself" ("sich
vergegenwärtigen")--in order to make even one step forward in phenomenology.
(Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316).

Jaspers is thus asserting that linguistic descriptions are used properly only when they
become tools employed for seeing what the phenomenologist is describing. As long as
readers try merely to conceptually comprehend the descriptions, they are merely
thinking along with the phenomenologist. This will not do. The readers must, on the
basis of such conceptual thinking, go beyond it to their own seeing of the mental
phenomena being described.

Since phenomenological descriptions can be comprehended only through an intuitive

making present of the mental phenomena, someone who either cannot or refuses to do
the latter cannot comprehend what the phenomenologist is saying. As Jaspers writes,
"Whoever has no eyes to see cannot practice histology; whoever resists or has no talent
for making the mental present and vividly intuiting it cannot comprehend
phenomenology" (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316-17). Notice that Jaspers recognizes
that some people will simply "resist" making the mental intuitively present. They will,
perhaps because of prior theoretical commitments, not want to do this or will see no
persuasive reason for it. Jaspers thinks that such people will remain unable to
comprehend phenomenological descriptions. The same can be said for those who
"have no talent" for intuitively making the mental present. People who try but simply
prove incapable of it will also remain unable to comprehend phenomenological
concepts. Vergegenwärtigung and Schauen are not merely optional or salutary
phenomenological procedures; they are necessary. As Jaspers writes regarding the
necessity of intuitive making present, "Only in this manner can we acquire a fruitful
critical capacity that can set itself against theoretical constructions as well as against
unfruitful, deadening denials of any possibility of progress (in psychopathology)"
(Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). Jaspers thinks that intuitive making present provides
the phenomenologist with a capacity for criticizing theoretical constructions. It does this
by furnishing a descriptive evidential base with reference to which constructions may
turn out to be unfounded. Intuitive making present also allows the phenomenologist to
demonstrate just how it is possible to progress toward developing a basic set of
descriptive concepts for psychopathology, concepts upon which theories can then be
justifiably built.

Presuppositionlessness

We would now like to show that Jaspers' insistence that phenomenology be descriptive
is closely connected with his requirement that phenomenology be presuppositionless.
Again Jaspers is following Husserl. In the "Introduction" to his Logical investigations,
Husserl states, "An epistemological investigation which raises the serious claim to being
scientific must, as is often emphasized, satisfy the principle of presuppositionlessness.
In my opinion, however, this principle signifies no more than the strict exclusion of all
assertions that cannot be entirely performed phenomenologically. Every epistemological
investigation must be carried out on purely phenomenological grounds" (Husserl 1984a,
24-25; 1970a, 263). For Husserl, these "phenomenological grounds" are originary
intuition; for Jaspers, they are intuitive making present. Husserl is saying that no claim
about a mental process is to be accepted as a phenomenological claim unless it reports
solely what can intuitively observed in that mental process. What cannot be intuitively
observed in the mental process cannot be assumed to exist. Claims that attribute to
mental processes features that they cannot be intuitively observed to possess must be
excluded from phenomenology as mere "presuppositions."

Jaspers' position can be seen to be the same in the following passages: "The beginning
(of phenomenology) consists in the making present (Vergegenwärtigung) of that which
really goes on in the patient, what he actually experiences, how something is given to
him in consciousness, how he feels, etc. . . ." (Jaspers 1963a, 317; 1968, 1316). And
"only that which really exists in consciousness should be made present
(vergegenwärtigt); everything that is not actually given in consciousness does not exist"
(Jaspers 1963a, 317; 1968, 1316).

In order to focus, then, exclusively on what "really exists in consciousness," we are to

disregard (absehen) all assumptions that would lead us to impute to mental states
features which they cannot be seen to possess when we make them intuitively present
to ourselves. Jaspers lists some of these assumptions: thoughts that are added to
phenomena (Hinzugedachtem), what is thought to underlie phenomena (zugrunde
liegend Gedachtem), and theoretical representations (Jaspers 1963a, 317; 1968, 1316).
And he lists others in the following sentence: "We must set aside all received theories,
psychological constructions, or materialistic mythologies of brain processes; we must
rather apply ourselves purely to what we can understand, grasp, distinguish, and
describe in its real existence" (Jaspers 1963a, 317; 1968, 1316).

We can now succinctly formulate the logical relation between (1) intuitive making
present and (2) presuppositionlessness as components of Jaspers's phenomenological
method. (1) As phenomenologists, we must impute to mental processes only those
features which we can directly see them to possess when we make them present to
ourselves. (2) This implies that, as phenomenologists, we are prohibited from imputing
to mental processes any features which our presuppositions would require us to impute
to them but which we cannot directly see them to possess when we make them present
to ourselves. Or, to phrase the point differently, presuppositionlessness requires the
exclusion of all claims regarding mental processes that cannot be evidentially supported
through making the mental processes intuitively present to ourselves. As Husserl would
have it, presuppositionlessness "signifies the strict exclusion of all assertions that
cannot be entirely performed phenomenologically" (Husserl 1984a, 24-25; 1970a, 263).

Jaspers is aware that the presuppositions that may influence our descriptions can be
unnoticed and unavowed. Eradicating their influence will be "a very difficult task" and
require "long critical work" (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). A presuppositionless
standpoint is certainly not "an original possession" of the phenomenologist; it is rather "a
laborious acquisition" (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). It would appear that the "long
critical work" to which Jaspers refers must be done on oneself. The phenomenologist
must engage in self-criticism. Indeed, Jaspers seems to think that the phenomenologist
must be continually criticizing and re-criticizing his or her tendencies to impute to the
mental phenomena features which are not there but which his or her assumptions imply.
Jaspers speaks of the tendency of the psychopathologist to fall into "often vain efforts at
construction and mythologies" (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316). For this reason, the
"phenomenological attitude," for Jaspers, is a "good" that can be acquired only "through
ever renewed efforts and through an ever renewed overcoming of presuppositions
(Vorurteile) (Jaspers 1963a, 318; 1968, 1316).

It has become common to believe nowadays, however, that the sort of

presuppositionlessness that Jaspers advocates is either (1) undesirable or (2)
impossible to achieve. We shall address each of these claim briefly

(1) Presuppositionlessness, it is sometimes thought today, is undesirable because

presuppositions are required if we are to make sense of anything. Far from preventing
us from seeing what there is, presuppositions enable us to intuit or see what there is.
Consequently, presuppositionlessness, even if achievable, would render us blind to
what is there to be seen. Richard Bernstein has thus spoken of "enabling prejudices,"
meaning thereby "justified prejudices productive of knowledge" (Bernstein 128). Jaspers
would probably agree to some extent with this contemporary thesis because he does
believe that concepts facilitate our examination of reality. Jaspers is worried, however,
about what we might call "disabling prejudices," i.e., presuppositions that lead us to
impute to reality features that are not there. And he would probably argue that there
exists no way to distinguish between enabling and disabling prejudices except to
compare them closely with what is intuitively given. His advocacy of
presuppositionlessness can thus be viewed as requiring that we not simply presuppose
our presuppositions, that, in other words, we be determined to test them against what is
intuitively presented.

(2) It is claimed nowadays, however, that it is impossible to achieve a state of

presuppositionlessness. Indeed, in view of the fact that we are beings conditioned and
shaped by our culture, traditions, and education, we cannot possibly call all of this
internalized heritage into question and somehow "set it aside." Jaspers would certainly
agree that one cannot set aside all of one's presuppositions. But he would insist that
psychiatrists as scientists have a professional obligation to remain as critical as possible
toward even those beliefs which they are strongly inclined to accept. And in order to
determine what those presupposed beliefs are, one is professionally obligated to
engage in a self-criticism that honestly strives to catch sight of them and then to inquire
into their validity. Now surely such an undertaking is not impossible. Certainly only some
and not all of one's presuppositions can be unearthed and critically examined in this
way. But this is all that Jaspers would seem to be requiring: the psychiatrist--and
anyone else who aspires to be a scientist--should not assume without question what
one is nevertheless inclined to believe is true. To express the idea in terms that we have
employed in other articles, Jaspers is insisting that psychiatrists, when they do
phenomenology, adopt a "critical attitude" toward their own beliefs and that they not
simply assume those beliefs to be true, that they not simply "presuppose" them
(Schwartz and Wiggins 1985).

Summary of Jaspers's Phenomenological Method

We have now completed our exposition of Jaspers's phenomenological method and of
Husserl's influence on it. Since our presentation has been lengthy and involved, we
shall here bring together the various components of that method that we have treated
separately above.

The task of phenomenology, a sub-discipline within the larger discipline of

psychopathology, lies in developing general concepts of the main kinds of
psychopathological experiences. Developing such concepts is preparatory work for the
other branches of psychopathology. In order to define such concepts,
phenomenologists must first transpose and immerse themselves into the experiences of
their patients. The basis for such an empathic self-transposal is patients' behavior and
expressive movements, the answers which patients' give to phenomenologists'
questions about their experiences, and the descriptions that patients themselves have
written of their experiences. By thus immersing themselves in patients' mental lives,
phenomenologists come to have experiences which are much like those of their
patients; phenomenologists come to co-experience in imagination what patients
experience. On the basis of such imaginative co-experiencing, phenomenologists can
make intuitively present to themselves what patients experience: it is as if the
phenomenologists were directly seeing patients' experiences. Phenomenologists then
focus on the features of patients' experiences that they "directly see" and find that many
individual experiences share certain features. Phenomenologists then generalize and
define concepts that specify those common features. The meanings of such concepts
can be communicated to other psychopathologists only if they also succeed in making
intuitively present to themselves the features so defined. Finally, the concepts can be
tested for their accuracy only if other psychopathologists make present to themselves
the experiences to which the concepts refer and thereby determine whether the
experiences can be directly seen to possess the specified features. In this way a set of
concepts is defined, communicated, and tested that serves as the basic vocabulary for
the science of psychopathology.

Jaspers' Adoption of Husserl's Concept of Intentionality

In this paper we have concentrated on the respects in which Jaspers' method was
influenced by the method that he found in Husserl's Logical investigations. In his own
applications of this method, Jaspers described different kinds of psychopathological
experiences. The basic concepts that Jaspers employed in these descriptions were
again taken from Husserl.

In his essay, "The Analysis of False Perceptions," for example, Jaspers writes, "It is the
experience that we as subjects are directed toward (gerichtet auf) an object, that we
have something standing over and against us as object, that we 'intend' (meinen)
something. Husserl speaks of 'intentional experiences' (intentionalen Erlebnissen) or
'acts'" (Jaspers 1963a, 196). The main terms and phrases in this passage, "directed
toward," "intend," and "intentional experiences," are words that are used first in this way
by Husserl in his Logical investigations.

Jaspers continues to follow Husserl in General psychopathology. In the passage in this

book in which he is defining his basic notion of "consciousness of objects," Jaspers
states,

In perceptions as well as in representations we distinguish three elements: the sensory

material (for example, red, blue, the pitch of a sound, etc.), spatial and temporal
arrangement, and the intentional act (den intentionalen Akt) (being intendingly directed
to something [die meinende Gerichtetheit auf etwas], the objectification). The sensory
material is, so to speak, brought to life (beseelt) through the act; only through the act
does the sensory material get its meaning as objective. These acts are also called
thoughts, consciousness of meaning (Jaspers 1965, 51-52; 1963b, 60).

"Intentional act," "intending," "directedness to," and "beseelt" are all Husserlian terms.
Even the way in which Jaspers describes the sensory material as "brought to life"
through the act and thereby getting its meaning as objective is a uniquely Husserlian
way of speaking.

Since we have documented Jaspers' appropriation of Husserl's notion of intentionality

and related concepts in an earlier essay (Wiggins and Schwartz 1995, 333-38), we shall
not provide further evidence for our contention here. We instead refer the reader to that
earlier essay (ibid. 319-43). Suffice it to say that Jaspers not only adopts cardinal
components of his method from Husserl's Logical investigations but the main concepts
for characterizing the subject matter of phenomenology as well.

Phenomenology as a Sub-Discipline within Psychopathology

Jaspers viewed phenomenology as merely a part of the larger fields of psychopathology

and psychology. In "The Phenomenological Approach in Psychopathology," he
distinguished between the kind of understanding (Verstehen) utilized by the
phenomenologist which he called "static" and a different method of understanding which
he labeled "genetic" (Jaspers 1963a, 326-27; Jaspers 1968, 1322-23). And
subsequently in General psychopathology, Jaspers delineated other sub-disciplines in
psychopathology that employed other methods. Jaspers describes (1) a "psychology of
understanding" (verstehende Psychologie) that through genetic understanding
examines the motives and meaningful sources of patients' experiences (Jaspers 1965,
251-374; 1963b, 302-448), (2) an "explanatory psychology" (erklärende Psychologie)
that uncovers the causal mechanisms which underlie mental processes (Jaspers 1965,
375-463; 1963b, 451-552), (3) a "somatopsychology" that studies the bodily events in
patients that can be seen or detected by an outside observer (Jaspers 1965, 188-211;
1963b, 222-50), and (4) procedures for interpreting the objective expressions or
products of patients' mental lives, such as writing, physiognomy, or conduct (Jaspers
1965, 212-49; 1963b, 251-97). Although phenomenology should be viewed as
performing "preparatory work" for these other sub-disciplines, they too are necessary if
the psychopathologist is to illuminate the multiple, sometimes interrelated components
of mental illness.

Conclusion: Four Critical Comments on Jaspers's Method

Having concluded our exposition and summary of Jaspers' phenomenology, we shall

close by merely mentioning some of our own reservations regarding Jaspers' position.
Jaspers' method can be fruitfully employed in present-day psychiatry only if it proves
able to respond to criticisms that have and can be lodged against it. Such responses,
we think, will require revisions of the method in the light of the contemporary philosophy
of science.

(1) Jaspers certainly wants his phenomenological method to qualify as a scientific one.
If it is to so qualify, however, more attention must be paid than Jaspers does to the
problems of evidence associated with it. Jaspers, as we have shown above, does treat
one area of evidence in his explication of phenomenology. He claims that the concepts
which phenomenologists define by making intuitively present to themselves the
psychopathological experiences of patients can also be tested for their correctness or
incorrectness by further acts of making present. A descriptive concept is correct, then,
to the extent that its meaning is "fulfilled" by what phenomenologists make intuitively
present. And likewise a descriptive concept is incorrect to the extent that its meaning
conflicts with what is made intuitively present. But we may ask, what guarantees us that
the experiences that phenomenologists make intuitively present to themselves
correspond to what patients actually experience? In other words, how do we test the
correctness or incorrectness of what phenomenologists make intuitively present to
themselves? Jaspers offers the beginnings of an answer to these questions. He
maintains that intuitive making present is based on the behavior and expressive
movements of patients, the responses patients make when phenomenologists ask them
questions, and patients' written descriptions of their own experiences. But how reliable
are such movements, responses, and descriptions as tests for what phenomenologists
make intuitively present to themselves? This, of course, is the immensely perplexing
epistemological problem of our knowledge of other minds. But the Jaspersian
methodologist must address it directly.

(2) Jaspers tends to underestimate the extent to which the "evidence" available to the
phenomenologist depends upon the prior course of the doctor-patient interchange.
Psychopathologists' interactions with patients may shape what patients say and how
they behave. Psychopathologists themselves, their personal and intellectual points of
view, values, etc., may be "forces" that influence patients' experiences. As a result, the
evidence elicited from patients may not possess the "purity" that Jaspers seems to
assume it has. The Jaspersian phenomenologist needs to practice a version of what
Paul Ricoeur has termed "the exercise of suspicion" (Ricoeur 1970, 32-36).
Phenomenologists need to remain "suspicious" of their own role in shaping the data
from the patient.

(3) The subject matter of Jaspers' phenomenology is exclusively the subjective

experiences, the mental lives, of patients. Such a phenomenology has thus from the
outset abstracted from and disregarded all non-mental aspects of the reality of mental
illnesses. Jaspers' phenomenology requires in method and conceptualization a strict
mind/body separation and focuses exclusively on the mind. Perhaps such an
abstraction is helpful in certain respects. But we submit that there is a need in the
science of psychopathology for a phenomenology--and one considerably like the
phenomenology depicted by Jaspers--that examines mental illnesses prior to such
abstract separation of mind from body, subjective symptoms from objective symptoms.
We envision, in other terms, a phenomenology that remains "psychophysically neutral":
a phenomenology that describes aspects of mental illness without worrying too much
about whether they are mental or physical. Such a phenomenology would look more like
that of Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

(4) The above consideration leads us to a final critical point. Jaspers has a fondness for
drawing broad but seemingly firm distinctions. Not only does his phenomenology
separate mind from body, but he insists on sharp distinctions between understanding
and explanation, between static and genetic understanding, between philosophy and
science, etc. We suspect that such distinctions are at best indeterminate and uncertain,
i.e., that they are much softer than Jaspers would concede. We submit that a
phenomenology that is less concerned about honoring distinctions between
understanding and explanation, static and genetic understanding, mind and body, and
even science and philosophy would prove more fruitful for the purposes of
psychopathology. In brief, we envision a phenomenology that, while much like Jaspers',
is far more inclusive than his. We see no convincing reason to follow Jaspers in his
determination to confine phenomenology to such a narrow province within
psychopathology.

Osborne P Wiggins, Ph.D., Department of Philosophy, University of Louisville,

Louisville, KY 40292, USA; Michael Alan Schwartz, M.D., Department of Psychiatry,
Case Western Reserve University, 11100 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106-5000,
USA

Note

The translations of Husserl's and Jaspers' texts in this essay are our own. We have
consulted the standard English translations, and in some passages we have followed
them. But in order to display the consistency of Jaspers' terminology and in order to
remain as literal as possible, we have usually taken the liberty of retranslating the
passages we quote. At the end of each quotation, however, we refer to the standard
translation if one exists.
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