Longing, Dread and Care
Spengler’s Account of the Existential Structure of Human Experience
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8409803 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gregory Morgan Swer (0000-0001-7657-2337, University of KwaZulu-Natal, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 71-87 |
| Publication date | 2020-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1773 • E-ISSN: 2332-0486 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00071773.2019.1633613 |
| OpenAlex | W2952291398 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 6 |
In The Decline of the West Spengler puts forward a type of philosophical anthropology, an account of the structures of human experiential consciousness and a method of “physiognomic” analysis, which I argue has dimensions that can be understood as akin to existential phenomenology. Humanity, for Spengler, is witness to the creative flux of “Becoming” and constructs a world of phenomena bounded by death, underpinned by the two prime feelings of dread and longing and structured by the two forms of Destiny (Time) and Direction (Space). Human existence, Spengler argues, is future-directed and open in the sense that there is a certain degree of freedom in the ways in which humanity can actualize its existential possibilities. In the course of elaborating the existential implications of this future-orientation, Spengler introduces the concept of care (Sorge), the fundamental experiential structure
Consciousness · Destiny (ISS module) · Epistemology · Existentialism · Experiential learning · Feeling · Humanity · Phenomenology (philosophy) · Sociology · Theology · Witness · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2023 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |