Gregory Morgan Swer’s essay for the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, online in advance of the paper edition.
Gregory Morgan Swer – ‘Longing, Dread and Care: Spengler’s Account of the Existential Structure of Human Experience’ (Originally published online: 22 June 2019).
Abstract: 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.
Full article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2019.1633613
Gregory Morgan Swer, Department of Philosophy, School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, Memorial Tower Building, Howard College, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
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