“The Decline of the West” by Oswald Spengler: Providential Model of Science

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31861/pytlit2018.98.007

Keywords:

O. Spengler, science, culture, civilization, world picture, model, humanitarian studies, creativity

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the 100 Anniversary from the first publication of the monumental work by Oswald Spengler “The Decline of the West”. The main attention is focused upon the problems of the role, place, functions and methods of science in the situation of changeability and instability of the contemporary academic space; trajectory of the possible development of the human knowledge in the West world; delimitation of the science and humanitarian studies spheres and their interrelations; opposing of the cultural and civilization scientific models. The study reveals that the scholar suggests the necessity of drawing of the idea of the internal as the overcoming of the crisis in the science which would help to oppose spiritual world picture to the mechanic worldview and consequently open the way to the penetration into deep internal essence of the things. So the article deals with the comprehended by German scholar such concepts as knowledge, understanding, creativity; scientific experience as self-perception; the past and the future as an expression of separate human soul or culture; idea of irrational and creative components of investigation. Oswald Spengler in his unsurpassed work “The Decline of the West” had predicted risks of our epoch and had developed the unique scheme of the study of the past as the foundation for the future construction. Proposed approach confirmed the possibility of the existence of the providential model of science, which would take into consideration in scientific knowledge not only spiritual phenomena but intuitive penetration, insight, enlightens as well; to project the ways of the possible dynamics of the historical, cultural and scientific development. The providential model of science is analyzed as the method of avoidance of the probable risks in the conditions of civilization crisis, as well as the possible approach of preserving of the West culture.

Author Biographies

Mariana Lanovyk, Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatyuk National Pedagogical University

Доктор філологічних наук, професор

Кафедра теорії і методики української та світової літератури

Тернопільський національний педагогічний університет імені Володимира Гнатюка

Zoriana Lanovyk, Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University

The Department of Theory and Methodology of Ukrainian and World Literature

Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University

M. Kryvonis Str., 2, 46027, Ternopil, Ukraine

References

Averintsev S. Shpengler [Spengler]. In: Filosofskaia entsiklopediia. Moscow, 1970, vol. V, p. 519. (in Russian).

Bod R. Zabuti nauky. Istoriia humanitarnykh nauk [Forgotten Sciences]. Kyiv, 2016, 376 p. (in Ukrainian).

Makkreel R. A. Tvorcheskaia sila istorii i postroenie istoricheskogo mira u Dil'teia [The Productive Force of History and Diltheys Formation of the Historical World]. In: Germenevtika. Psikhologiia. Istoriia. Moscow, 2002, pp. 47–64. (in Russian).

Habermas J. Ot kartin mira k zhiznennomu miru [From the Picture of the World to the Life World]. Moscow, 2011, 128 p. (in Russian).

Spengler O. Zakat Evropy [The Decline of the West]. Moscow, 2004, vols. 1–2. (in Russian).

Published

2018-12-28

How to Cite

Lanovyk, M., and Z. Lanovyk. “‘The Decline of the West’ by Oswald Spengler: Providential Model of Science”. Pitannâ lìteraturoznavstva, no. 98, Dec. 2018, pp. 7-22, doi:10.31861/pytlit2018.98.007.

Issue

Section

Anniversaries