Schoolman:

aka Scholastics, Faustian school of philosophy, employed a critical method of philosophical analysis (dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference & to resolve contradictions) within a fixed Latin Catholic theistic curriculum; sought to solve anew general philosophical problems (faith and reason, will and intellect, realism and nominalism, the existence of God), initially influenced by mystical & intuitional patristic philosophy, especially Augustinianism, later Aristotle; dominated medieval universities 1100 to 1700.

 

Mystics of the Gothic:

between 11th  & 14th centuries there was a flowering of mystical practice & theorization;  when praying in contemplation of God’s omnipresence in the world, mystics experienced spiritual marriage, ecstasy or rapture; such figures included: Guigo II (12th century), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179  ) Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153); they are also identified with particular geographic locations: the Beguines,the Rhenish-Flemish mystics (especially Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), Johannes Tauler (1300-61), Henry Suso (1295-1366) & John of Ruysbroeck; the English mystics Richard Rolle (1300-49), Walter Hilton & Julian of Norwich.  

 

Vedic:

reference to pre- Buddhist, Indian religion during the Indian Culture’s Spring period, during which the priestly role was assumed by the Brahman class

 

Homeric (priests):

The Apollonian priest of the Greek Dark Ages (from 1100 BC to the 9th century) held a prestige post & were distinguished by their white or purple clothing & in some circumstances appear as a god; however they possessed competence only within their own sanctuary, & with respect to the particular god or goddess whom he individually served.  His duties were administrative & liturgical, insuring the correct procedure was always followed (especially regarding sacrifices); it was a part-time office; not all sacrifices required a priest as private sacrifice (even in a sanctuary) could be performed by a private individual although for the polis was always performed by a priest, the symbolic mediator between men & gods. The priesthood never developed into a class owing to a lack an institutional framework; they could not to monopolize access to the divine or develop esoteric systems & had no great influence except for certain important sanctuaries (Eleusis, Delphi); despite this they played important roles in the transmission of local rituals and myths.  The seer was different; he did not inherit his position, nor was he appointed or elected but learned the skill of prophecy & owed his prestige to the success of his prophecies.

 

early Arabian centuries:

reference to the Magian Culture Spring time (from 1 to 300 AD); this period saw the great flowering of Magian religions which include Primitive Christianity, Mandaeans, Marcion, Gnosis, Syncretism, Mithras, Baal, the writers of the Gospels & Apocalypses, the Mazdaists & pagans

 

Late period:

in this context Spengler is referring to the Summer phase of the Culture period, the final great flowering of the Cultural Soul

 

epistemological:

pertaining to philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods & limits of human knowledge.

 

Brahman (epistemology):

epistemology in the Indian Culture goes back to Vedic literature & the philosophical offshoots of the Vedas.  Vedic thinkers distinguished between what we come to know through our senses & the knowledge that is remote from the senses, acquired thru divine testimony.  Thus there are 2 kinds of knowledge: knowledge about matters of everyday interest, empirical knowledge and knowledge about that which never perishes.  The latter tells us of the essence of things & is the knowledge the spiritual aspirants seek. It is related to the Brahman of which mystics speak; the Upanishads refer to this kind of knowledge.  It is experienced not learned; ultimately, the unfathomable mystery can only be revealed at the deepest personal level, the experience becomes ineffable, its authenticity can only be felt, not conveyed through words or by reason.

 

Ionic (epistemology):

aka the Ionian School (included Milesian school) the consisted of pre-Socratic , 6th & 5th century BC Greek thinkers who introduced a new methods of inquiry into nature & man’s place in it; recognized as the first philosophers & scientists; their interests included physics, chemistry, geology, meteorology, astronomy, embryology & psychology; they also wrote on theology, metaphysics, ethics & epistemology.  Regarding the latter Xenophanes of Colon, Ionia (570-475) and Heraclitus both looked at the possibility of human understanding & questioned the limits of human understanding. Xenophanes argued that the gods were not going to reveal anything to Man; we are epistemologically autonomous and must rely on our own capacity for inquiry.

 

Baroque (epistemology):

reference to the philosophers of the 17th & 18th centuries (not the art period), the Faustian Culture’s Summer; these thinkers were epistemological & empiricist.  It was led by the school of British empiricism, in particular John Locke (1632–1704) & David Hume (1711-76) who dominated until Kant.  Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) aimed to provide an account of the origins of reason.  He worked to produce the total world of human conceptual experience from elementary sensory building blocks, moving from sensation to thought, from the simple to the complex.  The ultimate source of human ideas is sense experience; mental operations are a combining & compounding of simple sensory materials into complex conceptual entities.  Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) attempted to apply experimental reasoning to moral subjects, shifting its application from the physical universe to human nature. He followed Locke both in approaching knowledge from a psychological perspective & in finding the origin of knowledge in sense experience.  His analysis revealed the importance of contingency: all uniformity in perceptual experience comes from “an associating quality of the mind.”  The “association of ideas” is a fact, but the relations of resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect that it produces have no intrinsic validity but are merely the product of “mental habit.”

 

Thales to Protagoras: * see EndNote<A>

Apollonian philosophy in the 6th & 5th centuries, heavily based on epistemology, challenged many traditional beliefs; Spengler identifies a series of philosophers representing the Summer of Apollonian thought, a period reflecting the beginning of a purely philosophical form of world-feeling, and the birth of the opposition between idealistic & realistic systems

 

Bacon to Hume: * see EndNote<B>

reference to a series of philosophers from the Summer period of the Faustian Culture (which Spengler refers to as the Baroque); Bacon (1561-1626) was one of the earliest British Empiricists, Hume is also a British Empiricist, see above Baroque.

 

pre-Confucian thinkers:

China has a rich history of humanistic (non-theological) philosophy) but before the time of  Lao-tze (6th century contemporary of Confucius) only fragments & names survived.  The only important surviving work of metaphysics in this pre-Confucian period is the I-Ching, or “Book of Changes” with which the recorded history of Chinese thought begins.  The I Ching was used in a type of divination called cleromancy during the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC); it uses random numbers turned into hexagrams, which can then be interpreted.  The hexagrams have acquired cosmological significance and been paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing.  All science and history were contained in the changeful; all wisdom, science & history lay hidden in the interplay of the 64 combinations symbolically represented by the trigrams; ultimately all reality could be reduced to the opposition & union of the 2 basic factors in the universe—the male and the female principles, the yang and the yin.

 

pre-Buddha thinkers: * see EndNotes<C>

Several śramaṇa movements existed in India before the 6th century BC.  During the great religious ferment towards the end of the Vedic period, the Brahmanic & Sramanic traditions intermingled.  Six pre-Buddhist śrāmana schools have been identified, all with diverse philosophies, ranging from Amoralism, to Fatalism to Agnosticism

 

Kant (end of series):

Kant represents the final conclusive “system” of the Faustian Baroque philosophers, the final Summer expression of Faustian thinking (although the mystic side of this summer was extended, by the Romantics, Hegel & Nietzsche).  Following Kant we see degeneration & loss of originality, repetition.

 

Aristotle (end of series):

similar to Kant, producing the final conclusive “system” of the Apollonian Ionic philosophers, the final Summer expression of Apollonian Culture; Aristotelianism was a tradition of philosophy defined by Aristotle, covering existence, ethics, mind, & natural philosophy; his epistemology, immanent realism, is based on the study of things that exist or happen in the world, and from the particular, rises to knowledge of the universal,

 

Kantian system:

The foundation of Kant’s system is the doctrine of “transcendental idealism,” we only know things we can experience (the natural, observable world); humans cannot know the answers to questions of metaphysics (“super sensible” objects such as God).  His ethics was organized around the notion of a “categorical imperative,” a universal ethical principle that one should always respect the humanity in others, that one should only act in accordance with rules that hold for everyone.  His ethical theory requires belief in free will, God & the immortality of the soul, even though we cannot have knowledge of these things.

and see above- Kant