SPENGLER, OSWALD. - Philosopher, b. May 29, 1880 at Blankenburg, d. May 8, 1936 at Munich. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Munich and Berlin. He taught mathematics at Munich.
In his best-known work, though an amateurish and superficial one, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte, 2 vols., 1918-22, he pushes the historicism of Dilthey (v.) to its extreme consequences: historical structures succeed one another fatally (without meaning and without purpose, like the families of fauna and flora) and the values they express decline and pass away like flowers and leaves (absolute relativism). Every "civilization" is characterized by a "form", constitutes a "formal universe", which embraces all the manifestations of an epoch (art, philosophy, religion, science, etc.), is born, flourishes and dies. Western civilization is "Faustian" and its law is "force". This civilization, expressed above all by Germany, is fatally destined for decline. S. wrote this after Germany's defeat in the First World War, which saw the collapse of Pan-Germanism and of Bismarck's (v.) political ideal. With the advent of Nazism S. again saw in Germany the heir of the Faustian civilization (Jahre der Entscheidung, I, Deutschland u. die Weltgeschichtl. Entwicklung, Munich 1933).
Bibliography4 worksK. Schück, S.s Geschichtsphilos., Karlsruhe 1921; A. Messer, S. als Philosoph, Stuttgart 1922; L. Giusso, O. S. e la dottrina degli universi
BIBL.: K. Schück, S.s Geschichtsphilos., Karlsruhe 1921; A. Messer, S. als Philosoph, Stuttgart 1922; L. Giusso, O. S. e la dottrina degli universi formali, Naples 1935; W. Vogel, S.s Staatsmännisches, Denken, Munich 1942. Extensive bibl. with list of works in W. Ziegenfuss, Philosophen-Lexikon, II, Berlin 1950, pp. 583-85.
Sciacca, Michele Federico. “Spengler, oswald.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, coll. 1108–1109. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953. https://azioneromana.com/article/spengler-oswald.
MLA
Sciacca, Michele Federico. “Spengler, oswald.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. XI, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1953, coll. 1108–1109. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/spengler-oswald.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec11_spengler_oswald,
author = {Sciacca, Michele Federico},
title = {Spengler, oswald},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {XI},
pages = {1108--1109},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1953},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/spengler-oswald}
}
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