An introduction to the work of the greatest German sociologist and a key figure in the development of present-day sociological thought.

    "Are the German people guilty?" These lectures by Karl Jaspers, an outstanding European philosopher, attracted wide attention among German intellectuals and students; they seemed to offer a path to sanity and morality in a disordered world.Jaspers, a life-long liberal, attempted in this book to discuss rationally a problem that had thus far evoked only heat and fury. Neither an evasive apology nor a wholesome condemnation, his book distinguished between types of guilt and degrees of responsibility. He listed four categories of guilt: criminal guilt (the commitment of overt acts), political guilt (the degree of political acquiescence in the Nazi regime), moral guilt (a matter of private judgment among one's friends), and metaphysical guilt (a universally shared responsibility of those who chose to remain alive rather than die in protest against Nazi atrocities). Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) took his degree in medicine but soon became interested in psychiatry. He is the author of a standard work of psychopathology, as well as special studies on Strindberg, Van Gogh and Nietsche. After World War I he became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, where he achieved fame as a brilliant teacher and an early exponent of existentialism. He was among the first to acquaint German readers with the works of Kierkegaard.Jaspers had to resign from his post in 1935. From the total isolation into which the Hitler regime forced him, Jaspers returned in 1945 to a position of central intellectual leadership of the younger liberal elements of Germany. In his first lecture in 1945, he forcefully reminded his audience of the fate of the German Jews. Jaspers's unblemished record as an anti-Nazi, as well as his sentient mind, have made him a rallying point center for those of his compatriots who wish to reconstruct a free and democratic Germany.

    

    They never walked abroad unless disguised in irony or allegory. To have revealed their true selves would have been fatal.Today their status is more that of guerrillas. They snipe from cover, ambush stragglers, harass retreating rear guards, cut communications, and now and then execute swift forays against detached units of the enemy. But they dare not yet risk an open engagement with the main force; they would be massacred. Their life is dangerous but exciting and is warmed by a sense of camaraderie not often known among the dull conscripts of orthodoxy.This book is intended as a sort of handbook for young recruits in the gay cause of common sense. It indicates where the main armies of ignorance are now encamped and tells in a secret code what garrisons are undermanned or mutinous. It tries to show the use of cover and camouflage and the techniques of infiltration and retreat. It maps road blocks and mine fields and shows how to rig a booby trap. It warns of counterespionage and gives—again in code—the five infallible signs to know a fool.When the recruit has finished with it he can toss it over the wall into the enemy's barracks. It may encourage desertion.