Spengler, Oswald (spĕng`glər, Ger. ôs`vält shpĕng`glər), 1880–1936, German historian and philosopher. His studies covered many fields, among them mathematics, science, philosophy, history, and art. His major work, The Decline of the West (2 vol., 1918–22; tr. 1926–28), brought him worldwide fame. Spengler maintained that every culture passes a life cycle from youth through maturity and old age to death. Western culture, he believed, had proceeded through this same cycle and had entered the period of decline, from which there was no escape. Spengler upheld the ideal of obedience to the state and supported German hegemony in Europe. His refusal to support Nazi theories of racial superiority led to his ostracism after the Nazis came to power in 1933.
(born May 29, 1880, Blankenburg, Ger.—died May 8, 1936, Munich) German philosopher. A schoolmaster before he turned to writing, Spengler is remembered for his influential The Decline of the West, 2 vol. (1918–22), a study in the philosophy of history. He contended that civilizations pass through a life cycle, blossoming and decaying like natural organisms, and that Western culture is irreversibly past its creative stage and headed into eclipse. Though acclaimed by a public disillusioned in the wake of World War I, his work was criticized by both professional scholars and the Nazi Party, despite some affinities with its dogma.
Bibliography
See critical study by H. S. Hughes (1952).
Spengler, Oswald
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Spengler, pencil drawing by K. Grossmann, 1920; in a private collection
(credit: Deutsche Fotothek, Dresden)
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