Socialism (and Darwin): * see EndNote<A>

Socialism, especially in Germany, began with Marxist roots but then gradually evolved into a movement which was quite different, advocating reform rather than revolution.  This is what Spengler means when he writes “Socialism based on Darwin”

 

Hegel (and development): * see EndNote<B>

see below Goethe (development)- like Goethe, Hegel was critical of the Enlightenment, claiming it invested too much in reason while ignoring the emotional & religious, denying an essential part of human life.  His philosophy rejected Enlightenment science, the mechanical versus the organic; Goethe (1749-1832) was an influence on Hegel (21 years his junior) in his development of phenomenology and his use of morphology (the Ur-phänomen).  Hegel would extend phenomenology into the realm of history as dialectical phenomenology.  His approach to philosophy begins with an exploration of that which presents itself to us in conscious experience (i.e. phenomena).  As a follower of Kant he applied Kant's ideas of unity of action, understanding & phenomenal reality to developing a new view of history.  In particular he used Kant’s categories.  However Hegel’s categories kept changing & one category would conflict with another in a state of flux with their opposites.  Over time (history) the categories worked themselves out (evolved or developed).  This development or evolution is what Hegel calls the dialectic.

 

Goethe (development): * see EndNote<C>

Development for Goethe meant the process by which full living nature emerged or grew from its archetype.  Discovering the archetype was a principle goal for the experimenter in Goethean science.  In this he differed from physiology which aimed to discover the functions of living systems. For Goethe observation of the phenomenon was necessary, but observation in which the strict demarcation between object & subject was not enforced.  His method favoured morphology over an exclusive physiology (function based).  From this his phenomenology developed.

 

karma (Buddhism & Vedic): * see EndNote<D>

The goal for both Hindus and Buddhists was escaping the cycle of death/rebirth but their interpretation of how to do this & what it meant to escape, differ.

 

Nietzsche (his Nihilism):

nihilism was the outcome of repeated frustrations in the search for the meaning of religion, & latent in the foundations of European culture; he saw it as a necessary destiny.  Christianity was already challenged by philosophical scepticism & modern science's evolutionary & heliocentric theories. Nihilism was a challenge to European culture which Nietzsche conceptualized with his statement "God is dead" (first in The Gay Science, then Thus Spoke Zarathustra).  This was the crisis of Western Culture; which must transcend the irreparable dissolution of its traditional foundations.

 

prime symbol:

this is borrowed from Goethean science, it is his Ur-phänomen but transposed into history; each Culture has its own unique prime symbol, some of them very concrete others abstract.  For the Apollonian it is the nude sculpture; for the Faustian it is infinite space.  All Cultural manifestations, the entire Makrokosmos, reflects the Culture’s prime symbol.

 

Nirvana (Stoic):

Spengler is saying that a character like Diogenes, is the final goal, the last mental picture of the Apollonian Civilization; in effect the end of that Culture /Civilization.  This end is specific to the Apollonian prime symbol (the nude sculpture); it is personal & inward looking, bounded, near & limited, corporal, a self-contained body.

 

Nirvana (Socialist):

20th century Faustian sentiments (world peace, the brotherhood of man, humanity), are the wishes & imagination of the late Faustian Civilization, in effect a mind-set reflecting the end of that Culture /Civilization, the retreat from Deed; these final sentiments also reflect the prime symbol (infinite space) in that they require extension, unbounded global reach, global relations and are abstract & incorporeal notions.

 

Nirvana (Buddhist):

literally means "blowing out" or "quenching", describes the soteriological goal in Buddhism: release from the cycle of rebirth.  The Buddha is believed to have realized 2 types of nirvana, one at enlightenment, and another at his death; the first is nirvana with a remainder, the second final nirvana.  It is the extinguishing of the fires that cause rebirths and associated suffering: the extinguishing of greed, sensuality, aversion, hate and ignorance, delusion.  The state of nirvana is the cessation of all afflictions, all actions, all rebirths & all suffering, these being a consequence of afflictions and actions; liberation is identical to anatta or non-self, lack of any self; it is achieved when all things & beings are understood to be with no Self; it is also identical to achieving emptiness, where there is no essence or fundamental nature in anything, and everything is empty.

 

Antisthenes:

see above page 353- EndNote A

 

si duo faciunt idem, non est idem:

Latin proverb, meaning “If the two do the same thing, is not the same”; when people or groups have the same activity, they will not recognize them as the same