The Spengler connection

total critiques of reason after the great war

Julian Potter

pp. 83-104

in: Matthew Sharpe, Rory Jeffs, Jack Reynolds (eds), 100 years of European philosophy since the Great War, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

This chapter examines the influences that Oswald Spengler's opus The Decline of the West had on contemporary philosophy. It describes affinities and similarities between that work and the historical critiques of reason prosecuted by Horkheimer and Adorno in their Dialectic of Enlightenment, and Heidegger's "history of Being'. At question is no less than the meaning of rationality, the place and purpose of truth, and the destiny of civilization. The discussion here limits itself to noting commonalities and similitudes, in the context of the wars.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Adorno Theodor

Spengler Oswald