Oswald SpenglerTransaction Publishers, 1 janv. 1991 - 192 pages Since its publication in 1918, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West has been the object of academic controversy and opprobrium. In their efforts to dispose of it, scholars have resorted to a variety of tactics: bitter invective, icy scorn, urbane mockery, or simply pretending that the book is not there. Yet generations of readers have refused to be warned off, finding in Spengler a prophetic voice and a source of profound intellectual excitement. H. Stuart Hughes's Oswald Spengler offers a judicious and objective reading of Spengler's works that admirably fills the gap between hypercritical invective and naïve enthusiasm. This pioneering volume makes clear why Spengler's pessimistic reading of the fate of European civilization continues to resonate with contemporary anxieties. Despite the author's self-imposed intellectual and social isolation, Spengler's work was as Hughes demonstrates, a part of the enormous effort of intellectual reevaluation that has characterized the early twentieth century. Viewing Spengler in the broadest possible perspective, the author places his thought in its cultural relationship to that of such predecessors as Giambattista Vico, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Nikolai Danilevsky and contemporaries including Benedetto Croce, Henri Bergson, and Vilfredo Pareto. A chapter of Hughes's book is devoted to Spengler's influence on later cyclical thinkers such as Arnold Toynbee and Pitirim Sorokin. Another chapter clarifies the essentially antagonistic relationship between his thought and Nazi ideology. Throughout, Hughes is carefully attuned to the complex and often bewildering shifts of Spengler's ideas and manner, providing a unified picture of the sober historian; the lofty seer; the cool, detached observer; and the impassioned participant. In his introduction to this new edition, Hughes comments on the timeliness of Spengler's message with respect to technology and environmental issues and draws some unexpected and fascinating parallels between Spengler's thought and that of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Oswald Spengler offers an illuminating view of the achievements and limitations of one of the most influential and representative figures of the twentieth century. It will be of concern to intellectual historians, philosophers, political scientists, and sociologists. |
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... later writings . The rest can be described as the work of enthusiasts — inexact , impres- sionistic , and frequently naive . Between these two , there is prac- tically nothing . The present volume represents an effort to fill this gap ...
... later . There followed the state examination for the teaching career , for which Spengler pre- sented , in addition to his thesis subject , as a special theme , " The Development of the Organ of Sight in the Chief Stages of Animal Life ...
... later , in 1932 , Spen- gler recalled how he had been " terrified " by the " folly " of his country's foreign policy , " which was calmly accepting the com- plete encirclement of Germany , " by the " blindness " of everyone around him ...
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Table des matières
1 | |
The Intellectual Temper | 14 |
The Historians and the World Outlook | 27 |
Sources and Influences | 51 |
The Morphology of Culture | 65 |
From Germany to | 89 |
The Political Phase | 98 |
Spengler and National Socialism | 120 |
The New Spenglerians | 137 |
Spengler and His Detractors | 152 |
CHRONOLOGY | 167 |
APPENDIX I | 173 |
INDEX | 189 |