From the art of "being healthy when sick": Karl Jaspers about chronic patients, about himself, and in conversation with Hannah Arendt Von der Kunst, “gesund zu sein, wenn man krank ist“: Karl Jaspers über Krankheit, über sich und im Gespräch mit Hannah Arendt

Karl Jaspers was sick all his life. The diagnosis was bronchiectasis and secondary heart failure. In his scholarly work, autobiographical notes and personal correspondence he reflected on “Kranksein” (being sick). Jaspers’ concept of chronic illness as destiny and existentially exceptional state emerges from the tension between his expectations of himself, societal demands, and the given limits of physicality. As a philosopher, physician and sick person, he succeeded in expressing himself critically on the medicine of his time and in redefining health – adopting a significant position from a medico-historical and ethical perspective. This article reconstructs how the not-visibly-sick Jaspers reconciles himself with his illness as a “basic fact” of his existence. Furthermore, his conception of what a doctor is, of health as a state that lies beyond given norms and freedom in spite of limitation are explored. This investigation is based on both published and unpublished works as well as on the correspondence between Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt from 1926 to 1969.