Arabian Culture:

Spengler is referring to the Magian Culture/Civilization, not strictly Islamic or Arabic.

 

world –cavern:

the Magian Culture’s ur phenomenon, the fundamental pattern or process

 

Carneades: * see Endnote<A>

(214-129 BC) Academic Skeptic born in Cyrene; by 159 BC, he had started to refute all previous dogmatic doctrines, especially Stoicism & even the Epicureans; a scholarch (leader) of the Academy, he was one of 3 philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC where his lectures on the uncertainty of justice caused consternation among leading politicians.  A Skpetic he doubted the ability not just of the senses but of reason as well in acquiring truth; this was moderated by the belief that we can, nevertheless, ascertain probabilities of truth, to enable us to live and act correctly.  He left no writings; his opinions are known via his successor Clitomachus.  

 

Plotinus:

see Chapter II pages 56, 71, 81 Chapter III page 111 Chapter VII page 248 Chapter X page 347 and above page 383

 

Neo-Pythagoreans:

school of Hellenistic philosophy, revived Pythagorean doctrines; originated 1st century BC, flourished 1st & 2nd centuries AD; link in the chain between the old & new in Hellenistic philosophy; a mix of the asceticism of Pythagoras, middle Platonism, the Orphic mysteries & Oriental philosophy; it in turn influenced Neo-Platonism.  A central idea was the concept of a soul and its inherent desire for mystical union with the divine; it emphasized the fundamental distinction between soul & body.  God must be worshipped not in outward action but spiritually, the will must be good.  The soul must be freed from its material surrounding by ascetic habits, bodily pleasures & sensuous impulses must be abandoned as detrimental to the soul.  God is good, matter is evil.

 

Gospel:

a Magian sacred book which originally referred to the Christian message; in the 2nd century it came to refer to the books in which the Christian message was set out; the gospels are the loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words & deeds of Jesus of Nazareth; the 4 canonical gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke & John; all share the same basic outline: Jesus begins his public ministry in conjunction with that of John the Baptist, calls disciples, teaches and heals and confronts the Pharisees, dies on the cross, and is raised from the dead.  Written in Greek, most scholars agree they were not written by eyewitnesses but are anonymous; dating places their writing between 66 AD & 110 AD.

and see Chapter IX page 306

 

Talmud:

a Magian sacred book, of Rabbinic Judaism, the primary source of Jewish religious law & theology; dating between 200 and 500 AD

and see Chapter IX page 306

 

Avesta:

a Magian sacred book consisting of the teachings of the prophet Zarathustra, dating from the 3rd to 7th century AD.

and see Chapter IX page 306

 

function:

a binary relation between two sets that associates every element of the first set to exactly one element of the second set. Typical examples are functions from integers to integers, or from the real numbers to real numbers; originally the idealization of how a varying quantity depends on another quantity (e.g. the position of a planet is a function of time).  It was elaborated with the infinitesimal calculus late 17th century, the concept was formalized late 19th century in terms of set theory, and this greatly enlarged the domains of its application

 

Democritus (physics):

see Chapter IV page 119, Chapter V, page 177, Chapter IX pages 306, 311 and above pages 392, 386, 385

 

Newton (physics):

see Chapter I page 21 chapter II pages 71, 75 chapter VIII page 282 and above 390, 391

 

a magnet:

Spengler is referring to electromagnetism, a branch of physics which studies electromagnetic force, a type of physical interaction occurring between electrically charged particles; it is carried by electromagnetic fields composed of electric fields & magnetic fields; it is responsible for electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light).  It is 1 of 4 fundamental forces in nature (including strong interaction, the weak interaction & gravitation).  It is a factor in everyday current as well as the movements of sub-atomic particles.

 

Conservation of Energy principle:

in physics & chemistry, this law states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be conserved over time; energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another

 

JR Mayer:

(1814-1878) German physician, chemist & physicist, a founder of thermodynamics, famous for enunciating in 1841 the earliest version of the first law of thermodynamics; his first attempt at stating this idea was a paper he sent to Johann Christian Poggendorff's scientific journal, Annalen der Physik, in which he postulated a conservation of force.  It was not published.

and see above page 378

 

Kant (a priori or a posteriori):

concepts popularized by Kant (Critique of Pure Reason 1781, 1787);, a priori (Latin, “from what is before”) knowledgeis  acquired independently of experience whereas a posteriori (Latin “from what is after”) is knowledge derived from experience.  These terms were used to distinguish between arguments from causes and arguments from effects.  Kant made the distinction between the 2 terms noting the antithesis between necessary truth & contingent truth.  A truth is necessary if it cannot be denied without contradiction, which applies to a priori judgments, arrived at independently of experience & holding universally.  Necessary truth applies to a posteriori judgments, which are dependent on experience and therefore must acknowledge possible exceptions.