KLAGES, LUDWIG
Publié le 22/02/2012
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KLAGES, LUDWIG (1872–1956), cultural theorist; a member of the George
Circle for whom ‘‘research into the unconscious became worship of the unconscious''
(Pachter). Born in Hanover, he studied physics and philosophy before
taking a doctorate in 1901 in chemistry. Despite what he called a ‘‘practical''
approach to education, his humanistic bent led him to coedit Bla¨tter fu¨r die
Kunst during 1892–1904 with Stefan George.* In 1903 he founded a ‘‘Psychodiagnostic
Seminar,'' an enterprise that relocated to Switzerland during World
War I. He gradually became the leading figure in a psychological movement,
sometimes called ‘‘vitalism,'' in which pseudosciences were explored to gain
insight into character types.
Klages exemplified the romantic intellectual dedicated to the repudiation of
reason in the name of instinct. Impugning ‘‘civilization'' in favor of ‘‘Kultur,''
his ideology paralleled that of Oswald Spengler* and unintentionally provided
part of the intellectual framework for Nazism. He argued that the ability to think
and will distinguished humans from animals. This difference was the source of
man's estrangement from the world and the cause of his psychic illnesses; by
dissolving the individual ego and recapturing one's animal consciousness, a
man's natural impulses would triumph. His magnum opus, the three-volume Der
Geist als Widersacher der Seele (Intellect as antagonist of the soul), published
during 1929–1931, denounced scientific rationality on behalf of the irrational.
Although Klages lectured throughout Germany and was much honored in his
homeland—he received the Nietzsche Prize in 1923 and the Goethe Medal in
1932 and was elected Senator of Munich's German Academy in 1933—he chose
to remain in Switzerland.
Liens utiles
- ESPRIT COMME ADVERSAIRE DE L’ÂME (L’) Ludwig Klages (résumé)
- Biographie de KLAGES (Ludwig).
- Ludwig vanBeethoven (1770-1827)
- PRINCIPES DE LA PHILOSOPHIE DE L’AVENIR, Ludwig Feuerbach (résumé)
- GRAMMAIRE PHILOSOPHIQUE, Ludwig Josef Wittgenstein