There's a lot of talk here about Spengler & Nietzsche, which is insightful, but Spengler himself says the following: "the philosophy of [The Decline of the West] I owe to the philosophy of Goethe, which is practically unknown today, and also (*but in a far less degree*) to that of Nietzsche". I can't help but wonder if many of Heidegger's comments on Spengler's alleged superficial understanding of Nietzsche is, in light of this, a partly misplaced criticism. Does Heidegger comment on Spengler & Goethe at all? After all, Spengler also writes that he gets his "method" from Goethe, which is very significant, and his "questioning faculty" from Nietzsche. In a footnote, Spengler says something interesting: "Plato and Goethe stand for the philosophy of Becoming, Aristotle and Kant the philosophy of Being. Here we have intuition opposed to analysis." So, of course, Spengler consciously emphasizes Becoming, but all while thinking that he's in line with Plato, without reference to Nietzsche's 'inversion' of Being into Becoming. It seems this interpretation of Plato may have more to do with Goethe, again, than Nietzsche. Just some initial thoughts! EDIT: Spengler also says he owes his "outlook" (Ausblick) to Nietzsche and his "overlook" (Überblick) to Goethe. I'm hearing from Heidegger that Spengler has a (superficial) Nietzschean metaphysics, but that seems incorrect. If a metaphysics can be found in Spengler, wouldn't it be Goethean? Surely 'overlook' is a closer word to metaphysics than 'outlook', but I feign no certainty.
You're on to something here. I think the main idea Spengler derives from Nietzsche is from the Birth of Tragedy. When Spengler discusses his destiny idea (the opposition of causality and destiny as outlined in the Decline, Vol. 1, Ch. IV sec. 2, "The idea of destiny and the principle of causality") the main German thinkers in question are Goethe and Kant (Kant, as the systematic thinker of causality). He also says in that section: "Anyone who understands at all what is meant by saying that the soul is the idea of an existence, will also divine a near relationship between it and the sure sense of a destiny and must regard Life itself (our name for the form in which the actualizing of the possible is accomplished) as directed, irrevocable in every line, fate-laden. Primitive man feels this dimly and anxiously, while for the man of a higher Culture it is definite enough to become his vision of the world - though this vision is only communicable through religion and art, never through notions and proofs." Heidegger is certainly the kind of lecture-room philosopher of academia that Spengler disliked, so the two were perhaps in different worlds and understandings. The metaphysical aspect of Nietzsche is quite weakly diluted in Spengler, and Spengler's metaphysics are actually his own. Hence, he says, "The decline of the West, which at first sight may appear, like the corresponding decline of the Classical Culture, a phenomenon limited in time and space, we now perceive to be a philosophical problem that, when comprehended in all its gravity, included within itself every great question of Being."
As someone who has studied Spengler I think he nailed it with the power of physiognomy. Look at America. It’s clearly playing the role of a universal state with the most obvious parallels apparent in Rome.
Lilewise. I have estudied Spengler in a enthusiastic way, reading him in German... I think that Spengler speaks from soul, he understood perfectly well the wester soul, faustic soul, its will and its crave to infinite... Moreovet, his conception about how to treat the universo, the cosmic whole, and his profound unterstanding of mathematical questions, art, music, an son on, it is certainly astounding.
The Black Notebooks are a MUST for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of Heidegger. Being and Time is the start, yes but so many things were made more clear about him both psychologically and in a meta philosophical way by reading the Black Notebooks.
Great Video on Heidegger in his black notebooks and his reading of Spengler! Heidegger and Spengler are two of my personal favourite philosophers. Greetings from Germany
Great video! I’m not sure I understand all of it, but I know Heidegger also criticized Sartre for merely inverting Platonism without overcoming it. There is a quote from Spengler in which he says that it is a person’s ability to foresee their own death that animates them into vitality (though I cannot find the exact quote). It reminded me a bit of being-towards-death. Take care!
Spengler endures today because he was better at predicting the future than his great detractors. In my own experience, I have noticed friends who are highly idealistic have a difficult time with Spengler. Maybe it has something to do with positivism or optimism?
Spengler and Jünger both remain within Nietzschean metaphysics. What I found interesting in this video is the fact that Spengler ridiculed the Stefan George circle for seeking the image of the Hellenes in Holderlin rather than affirming Roman civilization. Heidegger thought the Romans perverted the essence of truth(aletheia, unconcealment) into an essence(veritas, measurement) that was alien to the Greeks. I've been researching Hellingrath and his involvement with the Stefan George circle. I'd be interested in what Heidegger thought about the Stefan George circle or to what extent did Heidegger know about the circle.
You know what, the best thing about you is that you make complex thinking palatable and "digestible" (albeit not merely "consumable" - one has to still actively listen). It shows that Heidegger etc are not just word salad.
Have you ever thought of discussing Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger? They had a long correspondence and Heidegger wrote about Jünger several text regarding nihilism and technology (GA 90 "On Ernst Jünger", "Regarding 'The Line'").
People want understand where they are in the great flows of history, but also want to participate, to be a part of the flow, at once conscious an unconscious. A movement that’s not for itself is going to get played, but if it is for itself it becomes something different to what it was. People want to be both Realist and Nominalist. Becoming self aware is to make new Real forms. Or something
When I read Introduction into methaphysics I could hear Spenglers influence echo. Or was it that heard Heidegger echo in Spengler when read Spenglers work on technology?
i'm sorry, but i'm really f***ing mad about this. Heidegger himself said subsaharian people didn't have History, not historiology, but no History. Meanwhile Spengler basically says that our understanding of history is one with our own being as a culture, and that the keys to the understanding of history are one with the being in the world as a culture. Each culture has its own way of relating its past to its own self, and this way of relating to the past is one to its being as such. Basically Heidegger is denigrating the fish because it has no lungs. Maybe i'm missing something please, respond.
For Heidegger everything starts and begins with language expressing Dasein. Heidegger never claimed to be operating from a superior field other than the horizon of Dasein. So history, metaphysics , naturalist philosophy that starts with the Pre-Socratic Greeks is the starting point of both thought and metaphysics. Heidegger says ok these are our terms , what do we do now? So philosophy, history and science have a classical Greek identity but it doesn't mean that other peoples do not have a Dasein, great cultures, myths etc. Dugin also rightly also stresses this point when he promotes multipolarity of geopolitics. The exception is indeed animals as you metaphorically hint at, Heidegger did not believe animals had a Dasein , because they did not have a "language" as we do. This is a whole other big debate however.
No surprise with this acute criticism, because for heigegger nobody understood the question of being, except for him, and thats more arrogant than the title "decline of the west". But when all comes to ruins, we will understand why for the faustian soul, the being is not a question, and that the machine rules over thought and "wants to realise itself"
Quite right. Though I have yet to read Heidegger on The Question Concerning Technology, it would be interesting to see if the two vary on the dasein of Tech as well
the power of self-deception is deep, and the critical mind tends to find things to criticize ... because yes it seems like H and S are like 80% similar, in the German Ideal vein
The basic version is it's Heidegger calling Spengler a cheap Nietzsche knock-off who hasn't thought about the actual big issue (of the meaning of being) and who isn't even up to understanding Nietzsche, let alone overcoming him.
Could someone explain how Spengler's concept of Dasein differs from Heidegger's? For Spengler, I think he calls it a plant-like consciousness but I don't really know what he's getting at.
Spengler's idea of plant-like consciousness is a kind of self-being of which one is unaware. Plants exist, but they don't know that they exist. Spengler ascribes this kind of consciousness to certain kinds of animals, as well as to some (but not all) humans. Spengler argues that human beings in the eras before the rise of civilizations were like this, and that after Western civilization collapses humanity will return to this unknowing being.
Great video, though you have a slight habit of switching voices without telling us, then halfway through the quote, telling us that it wasn’t Heidegger but a quote, then restarting or trying to make hand-quotes to remind us when quotes are being said - it hurts the pace and must make it difficult for you to handle so much conplexity. It could get solved by simply remembering to take 1 second when an indent appears, let us know there’s a shift, don’t worry that there’s a pause, and let us know when the quote is over by saying ‘end quote’ for 1 second. Thanks again 🙏🏽
I've just read "Hour of Decision" (original Title: "Entscheidungsjahre") by Spengler and I've had an impression of the author which is much in accord with what Heidegger says. Spengler's writing sounds everytime like an invective, and this fact is not distubing in itself, but it is so because of the lack of an authentic philosophical thinking (as Heidegger in fact says). Spengler seemed to me in fact very focused on a geopolitical analysis which effectively doesn't elaborate any concept. This analysis relies moreover on not clear concepts, which are used in ambiguously: for example that of "race", above all. I found a vague similarity to Nietzsche, more in the style of writing, when Spengler wants to reach dramatic peaks, but I've found no real link to Nietzsche.
This is a bit puzzling. Spengler expressly saw his philosophy as not only an expression of its time, but of German culture. His entire point was that the historically relative nature of truth etc was lacking in Western thought, and saw it as his duty to sketch out a completely new method of understanding history. Furthermore, Spengler did not have a biological view of history. On the contrary he criticized those who viewed history as something that could be studied scientifically. You could say he supplants biology with history, which is where his idea of destiny comes from. I. e. we are as free from history as we are from nature, that is, not very. Might do a video about this later.
@@millerman Thanks for your reply and encouragement. I will definitely check out those sources you mention at the end. I will let you know when my video is up.
That opposition between science and poetic intuition is well developed by Spengler in the Second Chapter of the Volume I in The Decline of The West, the chapter is called "Physiognomic and Systematic". I think, in general terms, we can say Spengler favoured a "poetic-narrative" vision of life, which was related to the asystematic non-mathematic cientific method of Goethe; this is _physiognomic,_ which centers in the total-form of the observated object, intuitively understood (verstehen), without isolating/cutting/dissecting the object (which is the central criticism towards scientific method from the vitalist philosophy--science 'kills' life--) nor attempting to replicate phenomena in laboratory neither find principles of causality.
“His blindness which nevertheless has the power to shock…is permanent” It misses and hits the mark - as you later say. Why does it hit the mark? If it does so because it is a “symptom” of our time that is because our time has just that kind of possibility of distance from itself that Spengler calls “scepticism” - something it can attain without thereby becoming indifferent to what is happening. What is happening? Europe appearing in the movement of the decline of the West - as Heidegger says...
Have you ever talked about Dugin's conception of Atlantis vs Hyperborea? I'm not sure where he gets that from, and haven't found an unbiased response with a quick search.
I haven't. It doesn't come up in any of the texts I have studied or translated. I believe it is primarily from his earlier writings. When I do encounter it in my work, I will address it. I'm not shy about it I just don't know it well enough.
@@millerman I'm surprised to hear you say that, Michael. Seems to me that the whole mythology of these supposed parent civilisations mysteriously underlie the foundations of Eurasian theory, and are something a scholar of AD like yourself ought to be familiar with. From what little I can gather, the Hyperborean exodus along the North-South axis from their collapsing homeland is the origin story of the populating of the World-Island. Likewise, the exodus from Atlantis along the East-West axis conjured Western civilization into being. The occult aspects of Dugin are what interest me the most, but it seems most of that material has yet to be translated into English. A shame, because it seems essential to the excavation of Dugin's thought. If only there was someone who could help with that *wink nudge wink*
Understanding Heidegger or Spengler how does that increase one's own creative powers ? Tony Robbins and even Werner Erhard no where as deep as Heidegger, Spengler or Millerman but they access distinct creative domains .
it's more like the power of positive bullshit and projecting confidence - that helps in social life / power relationships but is not about finding 'truth', in the greek sense
There's a lot of talk here about Spengler & Nietzsche, which is insightful, but Spengler himself says the following: "the philosophy of [The Decline of the West] I owe to the philosophy of Goethe, which is practically unknown today, and also (*but in a far less degree*) to that of Nietzsche". I can't help but wonder if many of Heidegger's comments on Spengler's alleged superficial understanding of Nietzsche is, in light of this, a partly misplaced criticism. Does Heidegger comment on Spengler & Goethe at all? After all, Spengler also writes that he gets his "method" from Goethe, which is very significant, and his "questioning faculty" from Nietzsche.
In a footnote, Spengler says something interesting: "Plato and Goethe stand for the philosophy of Becoming, Aristotle and Kant the philosophy of Being. Here we have intuition opposed to analysis." So, of course, Spengler consciously emphasizes Becoming, but all while thinking that he's in line with Plato, without reference to Nietzsche's 'inversion' of Being into Becoming. It seems this interpretation of Plato may have more to do with Goethe, again, than Nietzsche.
Just some initial thoughts!
EDIT: Spengler also says he owes his "outlook" (Ausblick) to Nietzsche and his "overlook" (Überblick) to Goethe. I'm hearing from Heidegger that Spengler has a (superficial) Nietzschean metaphysics, but that seems incorrect. If a metaphysics can be found in Spengler, wouldn't it be Goethean? Surely 'overlook' is a closer word to metaphysics than 'outlook', but I feign no certainty.
You're on to something here. I think the main idea Spengler derives from Nietzsche is from the Birth of Tragedy. When Spengler discusses his destiny idea (the opposition of causality and destiny as outlined in the Decline, Vol. 1, Ch. IV sec. 2, "The idea of destiny and the principle of causality") the main German thinkers in question are Goethe and Kant (Kant, as the systematic thinker of causality). He also says in that section: "Anyone who understands at all what is meant by saying that the soul is the idea of an existence, will also divine a near relationship between it and the sure sense of a destiny and must regard Life itself (our name for the form in which the actualizing of the possible is accomplished) as directed, irrevocable in every line, fate-laden. Primitive man feels this dimly and anxiously, while for the man of a higher Culture it is definite enough to become his vision of the world - though this vision is only communicable through religion and art, never through notions and proofs." Heidegger is certainly the kind of lecture-room philosopher of academia that Spengler disliked, so the two were perhaps in different worlds and understandings.
The metaphysical aspect of Nietzsche is quite weakly diluted in Spengler, and Spengler's metaphysics are actually his own. Hence, he says, "The decline of the West, which at first sight may appear, like the corresponding decline of the Classical Culture, a phenomenon limited in time and space, we now perceive to be a philosophical problem that, when comprehended in all its gravity, included within itself every great question of Being."
As someone who has studied Spengler I think he nailed it with the power of physiognomy. Look at America. It’s clearly playing the role of a universal state with the most obvious parallels apparent in Rome.
Lilewise. I have estudied Spengler in a enthusiastic way, reading him in German... I think that Spengler speaks from soul, he understood perfectly well the wester soul, faustic soul, its will and its crave to infinite... Moreovet, his conception about how to treat the universo, the cosmic whole, and his profound unterstanding of mathematical questions, art, music, an son on, it is certainly astounding.
That's what will cause America's extinction.
@@tarhunta2111 What what *is causing America's extinction.
@@jorgep.valdeavero9990 In my perspective he was the last german romantican.
America is the new Carthage, not Rome.
The Black Notebooks are a MUST for anyone interested in a deeper understanding of Heidegger. Being and Time is the start, yes but so many things were made more clear about him both psychologically and in a meta philosophical way by reading the Black Notebooks.
I can think of dozens of texts by Heidegger that I would turn to decades sooner than anything from the BNs for understanding his thinking...
@@rileywebb9Any recommendations?
Great Video on Heidegger in his black notebooks and his reading of Spengler! Heidegger and Spengler are two of my personal favourite philosophers.
Greetings from Germany
A pleasure seeing you in the comments! Really love your channel(s)
@@LittleMushroomGuy Thank you very much.
Great video! I’m not sure I understand all of it, but I know Heidegger also criticized Sartre for merely inverting Platonism without overcoming it. There is a quote from Spengler in which he says that it is a person’s ability to foresee their own death that animates them into vitality (though I cannot find the exact quote). It reminded me a bit of being-towards-death. Take care!
Spengler endures today because he was better at predicting the future than his great detractors. In my own experience, I have noticed friends who are highly idealistic have a difficult time with Spengler. Maybe it has something to do with positivism or optimism?
Optimism is cowardice
Spengler and Jünger both remain within Nietzschean metaphysics. What I found interesting in this video is the fact that Spengler ridiculed the Stefan George circle for seeking the image of the Hellenes in Holderlin rather than affirming Roman civilization. Heidegger thought the Romans perverted the essence of truth(aletheia, unconcealment) into an essence(veritas, measurement) that was alien to the Greeks. I've been researching Hellingrath and his involvement with the Stefan George circle. I'd be interested in what Heidegger thought about the Stefan George circle or to what extent did Heidegger know about the circle.
You know what, the best thing about you is that you make complex thinking palatable and "digestible" (albeit not merely "consumable" - one has to still actively listen). It shows that Heidegger etc are not just word salad.
Historicity. Good to see and hear you working with/through Heidegger at this caliber.
“How do you like your coffee?” “Just the cup.”
Have you ever thought of discussing Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger? They had a long correspondence and Heidegger wrote about Jünger several text regarding nihilism and technology (GA 90 "On Ernst Jünger", "Regarding 'The Line'").
People want understand where they are in the great flows of history, but also want to participate, to be a part of the flow, at once conscious an unconscious. A movement that’s not for itself is going to get played, but if it is for itself it becomes something different to what it was.
People want to be both Realist and Nominalist. Becoming self aware is to make new Real forms. Or something
I fucking love and appreciate you keep up the amazing work
German philosophers really didn't get along did they?
I suspect there are hostile schismatic factions among German muffin-bakers as well.
With good reason.
When I read Introduction into methaphysics I could hear Spenglers influence echo. Or was it that heard Heidegger echo in Spengler when read Spenglers work on technology?
...meanwhile the time and recent day's history or happenings justifying Spengler's theory!
Yeah
i'm sorry, but i'm really f***ing mad about this. Heidegger himself said subsaharian people didn't have History, not historiology, but no History. Meanwhile Spengler basically says that our understanding of history is one with our own being as a culture, and that the keys to the understanding of history are one with the being in the world as a culture. Each culture has its own way of relating its past to its own self, and this way of relating to the past is one to its being as such. Basically Heidegger is denigrating the fish because it has no lungs. Maybe i'm missing something please, respond.
For Heidegger everything starts and begins with language expressing Dasein. Heidegger never claimed to be operating from a superior field other than the horizon of Dasein. So history, metaphysics , naturalist philosophy that starts with the Pre-Socratic Greeks is the starting point of both thought and metaphysics. Heidegger says ok these are our terms , what do we do now? So philosophy, history and science have a classical Greek identity but it doesn't mean that other peoples do not have a Dasein, great cultures, myths etc. Dugin also rightly also stresses this point when he promotes multipolarity of geopolitics. The exception is indeed animals as you metaphorically hint at, Heidegger did not believe animals had a Dasein , because they did not have a "language" as we do. This is a whole other big debate however.
No surprise with this acute criticism, because for heigegger nobody understood the question of being, except for him, and thats more arrogant than the title "decline of the west". But when all comes to ruins, we will understand why for the faustian soul, the being is not a question, and that the machine rules over thought and "wants to realise itself"
Quite right. Though I have yet to read Heidegger on The Question Concerning Technology, it would be interesting to see if the two vary on the dasein of Tech as well
the power of self-deception is deep, and the critical mind tends to find things to criticize ... because yes it seems like H and S are like 80% similar, in the German Ideal vein
Can you do a version of this but for dumb people like me?
The basic version is it's Heidegger calling Spengler a cheap Nietzsche knock-off who hasn't thought about the actual big issue (of the meaning of being) and who isn't even up to understanding Nietzsche, let alone overcoming him.
Spengler saw the future…
Is there any historian the could not be deconstructed by Heidegger’s “philosophical supremacist” reasoning?
This is gonna be good
Could someone explain how Spengler's concept of Dasein differs from Heidegger's?
For Spengler, I think he calls it a plant-like consciousness but I don't really know what he's getting at.
Spengler's idea of plant-like consciousness is a kind of self-being of which one is unaware. Plants exist, but they don't know that they exist. Spengler ascribes this kind of consciousness to certain kinds of animals, as well as to some (but not all) humans. Spengler argues that human beings in the eras before the rise of civilizations were like this, and that after Western civilization collapses humanity will return to this unknowing being.
Great video, though you have a slight habit of switching voices without telling us, then halfway through the quote, telling us that it wasn’t Heidegger but a quote, then restarting or trying to make hand-quotes to remind us when quotes are being said - it hurts the pace and must make it difficult for you to handle so much conplexity.
It could get solved by simply remembering to take 1 second when an indent appears, let us know there’s a shift, don’t worry that there’s a pause, and let us know when the quote is over by saying ‘end quote’ for 1 second.
Thanks again 🙏🏽
Nice!
I've just read "Hour of Decision" (original Title: "Entscheidungsjahre") by Spengler and I've had an impression of the author which is much in accord with what Heidegger says. Spengler's writing sounds everytime like an invective, and this fact is not distubing in itself, but it is so because of the lack of an authentic philosophical thinking (as Heidegger in fact says). Spengler seemed to me in fact very focused on a geopolitical analysis which effectively doesn't elaborate any concept. This analysis relies moreover on not clear concepts, which are used in ambiguously: for example that of "race", above all. I found a vague similarity to Nietzsche, more in the style of writing, when Spengler wants to reach dramatic peaks, but I've found no real link to Nietzsche.
This is a bit puzzling. Spengler expressly saw his philosophy as not only an expression of its time, but of German culture. His entire point was that the historically relative nature of truth etc was lacking in Western thought, and saw it as his duty to sketch out a completely new method of understanding history. Furthermore, Spengler did not have a biological view of history. On the contrary he criticized those who viewed history as something that could be studied scientifically. You could say he supplants biology with history, which is where his idea of destiny comes from. I. e. we are as free from history as we are from nature, that is, not very. Might do a video about this later.
Do it! I do also suggest checking the other passages in Heidegger about Spengler that I mention at the end. Cheers and thanks for watching/commenting.
@@millerman Thanks for your reply and encouragement. I will definitely check out those sources you mention at the end. I will let you know when my video is up.
That opposition between science and poetic intuition is well developed by Spengler in the Second Chapter of the Volume I in The Decline of The West, the chapter is called "Physiognomic and Systematic". I think, in general terms, we can say Spengler favoured a "poetic-narrative" vision of life, which was related to the asystematic non-mathematic cientific method of Goethe; this is _physiognomic,_ which centers in the total-form of the observated object, intuitively understood (verstehen), without isolating/cutting/dissecting the object (which is the central criticism towards scientific method from the vitalist philosophy--science 'kills' life--) nor attempting to replicate phenomena in laboratory neither find principles of causality.
@@millerman Finally got around to making a video on this. I hope you and others might find it useful: czcams.com/video/DFpQBM-R1VA/video.html
@@2fiafisdoafw34 Finally made a video on this if you're interested.
“His blindness which nevertheless has the power to shock…is permanent” It misses and hits the mark - as you later say. Why does it hit the mark? If it does so because it is a “symptom” of our time that is because our time has just that kind of possibility of distance from itself that Spengler calls “scepticism” - something it can attain without thereby becoming indifferent to what is happening. What is happening? Europe appearing in the movement of the decline of the West - as Heidegger says...
Have you ever talked about Dugin's conception of Atlantis vs Hyperborea? I'm not sure where he gets that from, and haven't found an unbiased response with a quick search.
I haven't. It doesn't come up in any of the texts I have studied or translated. I believe it is primarily from his earlier writings. When I do encounter it in my work, I will address it. I'm not shy about it I just don't know it well enough.
@@millerman I'm surprised to hear you say that, Michael. Seems to me that the whole mythology of these supposed parent civilisations mysteriously underlie the foundations of Eurasian theory, and are something a scholar of AD like yourself ought to be familiar with.
From what little I can gather, the Hyperborean exodus along the North-South axis from their collapsing homeland is the origin story of the populating of the World-Island. Likewise, the exodus from Atlantis along the East-West axis conjured Western civilization into being.
The occult aspects of Dugin are what interest me the most, but it seems most of that material has yet to be translated into English. A shame, because it seems essential to the excavation of Dugin's thought. If only there was someone who could help with that *wink nudge wink*
Did Oswald respond to these remarks?
Not as far as I know
Understanding Heidegger or Spengler how does that increase one's own creative powers ? Tony Robbins and even Werner Erhard no where as deep as Heidegger, Spengler or Millerman but they access distinct creative domains .
I like Erhard. Have never really listened to Robbins so I can't comment.
Tony Robbins is more charismatic than creative
it's more like the power of positive bullshit and projecting confidence - that helps in social life / power relationships but is not about finding 'truth', in the greek sense
Oh, btw, on Heideggers thoughts on art more or less the same applies. Art as searched for by Heidegger didnt come into being until the enlightenment
is he?
Heidegger could not even understand Duns Scotus correctly. He was a mere purveyor of word-salads.
I am less considerate of Heidegger for this...
Why aren't you bald?
I will be. It's only a matter of time.
too much testosterone=superior male.