Lebensphilosophie

<h2 id="overview">Overview</h2>
This philosophy pays special attention to life as a whole, which can only be understood from within. The movement can be regarded as a rejection of <a href="/facts/Kantian/y9UURqIp">Kantian</a> abstract philosophy or scientific reductionism of positivism.
Inspired by the critique of <a href="/facts/Rationalism/MNk171TG">rationalism</a> in the works of <a href="/facts/Arthur_Schopenhauer/pYt2cRmc">Arthur Schopenhauer</a>, <a href="/facts/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard/PXHdh7dt">Søren Kierkegaard</a>[according to whom?], and <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>, Lebensphilosophie emerged in 19th-century Germany as a reaction to the <a href="/facts/Age_of_Enlightenment/Uj2Fa8Mk">Age of Enlightenment</a>, rise of <a href="/facts/Positivism/on887AuJ">positivism</a> and the theoretical focus prominent in much of post-Kantian philosophy.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7">7</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8">8</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9">9</a> As such, Lebensphilosophie is defined as form of <a href="/facts/Irrationalism/6lv1mRDz">irrationalism</a>, as well as a form of <a href="/facts/Counter-Enlightenment/qzUGhUla">Counter-Enlightenment</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10">10</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11">11</a> Twentieth-century forms of Lebensphilosophie can be identified with a critical stress on norms and conventions.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12">12</a>
The first elements of a Lebensphilosophie are found in the context of early <a href="/facts/German_Romanticism/67XxV1Sj">German Romanticism</a> which conceived existence as a continuous tension of "the finite towards <a href="/facts/Infinity_(philosophy)/Xk4qlnoK">the infinite</a>", an aspiration that was always disappointed and generated either a withdrawal into oneself and detachment with an attitude of pessimistic renunciation, or on the contrary exaltation of the instinctive spirit or <a href="/facts/%C3%89lan_vital/SkpAcVTa">vital impulse</a> of the human being, a <a href="/facts/Struggle_for_existence/nNA3jA1r">struggle for existence</a> or a religious acceptance of the destiny of man entrusted to <a href="/facts/Divine_providence/r862Y9Xq">divine providence</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13">13</a>
<a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Wilhelm Dilthey</a> was the first to seek to account for a "pre-theoretical cohesion of living", by taking the <a href="/facts/Phenomenology_(philosophy)/AILzLkKx">phenomenological</a> turn and relying on the historical experience of life, by highlighting relationships specific to life (Lebensbezüge), that <a href="/facts/Martin_Heidegger/VSvHqhcj">Martin Heidegger</a> would later consider both as a fundamental step, but also insufficiently radical.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14">14</a> The Lebensphilosophie movement bore indirect relation to the subjectivist philosophy of <a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">vitalism</a> developed by <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Henri Bergson</a>, which lent importance to <a href="/facts/Immediate_experience/DzvztGT9">immediacy of experience</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15">15</a>
An early systematic presentation was formulated by the German psychologist Philipp Lersch [de], who, while primarily studying <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Bergson</a>, <a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Dilthey</a> and <a href="/facts/Oswald_Spengler/RG767gfM">Spengler</a>, saw <a href="/facts/Georg_Simmel/5BXHr4mT">Georg Simmel</a> and <a href="/facts/Ludwig_Klages/ny5EV6fS">Ludwig Klages</a> as Lebensphilosophie's most important representatives.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:16" href="#fn:16">16</a>
Philosopher <a href="/facts/Fritz_Heinemann_(philosopher)/6kgpQ0HT">Fritz Heinemann</a> considered the Lebensphilosophie as an intermediate stage in the transition from the <a href="/facts/Geist/RT6y7PLU">philosophy of spirit</a> to the <a href="/facts/Existentialism/ylQ1HF6b">philosophy of existence</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:17" href="#fn:17">17</a> <a href="/facts/Georg_Misch/FzRxn2F9">Georg Misch</a>, Dilthey's student and son-in-law, worked out the relationship between the philosophy of <a href="/facts/Martin_Heidegger/VSvHqhcj">Martin Heidegger</a> and <a href="/facts/Edmund_Husserl/xKlMH2KN">Edmund Husserl</a> and the Lebensphilosophie in 1930.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:18" href="#fn:18">18</a>

<h3>Characteristics and schools</h3>
Characteristics that regularly recur in the work of Lebensphilosophie thinkers, although not in every writer, can be summarized as follows:<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:19" href="#fn:19">19</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:20" href="#fn:20">20</a>

<ul><li><a href="/facts/Life/DNw7NUId">Life</a> is central: in contrast to empiricism and materialism on the one hand, which place matter central, or idealism and rationalism on the other, which place intellect central, the philosophy of life wants to explain the world from the perspective of life.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Biology/1M1ee3pB">Biology</a> and <a href="/facts/Historicism/vGQaCapy">historicism</a> is central: while earlier philosophers often gave physics a central role in their thinking, this role is assigned to biology by philosophers of life, including Henri Bergson, or history by Wilhelm Dilthey.</li>
<li>Anti-<a href="/facts/Mechanism_(philosophy)/Tk5eTY06">mechanism</a> thought: life and broader reality should not be understood as a machine, but rather as an evolving and creative process. The philosophy of life is therefore closely linked to the thesis of vitalism, which states that life must be explained by means of a special urge to live that is inherent to life itself.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Actualism/npgVJI1P">Actualism</a>: according to the philosophy of life, reality lacks any form of stability and must instead be understood as a continuous process of change, movement, becoming and life.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Irrationalism/6lv1mRDz">Irrationalism</a>: the philosophy of life also has its own philosophy of science in which a general aversion to reasonable laws, concepts and logical deductions applies. (Scientific) reason is not capable of fully understanding reality. Life and reality, on the other hand, must be understood from intuition or practical experience.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Philosophical_realism/cPo2pK16">Realism</a>: Philosophers of life, unlike idealists, adhere to a form of realism, which means that they believe that the world exists independently of human thought.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Immanence/dSK4m4kv">Immanence</a>: Another characteristic is the aversion to the urge for <a href="/facts/Transcendence_(religion)/7XP571KV">transcendence</a> and the emphasis on immanence. Man should not focus his gaze on possible structures, principles or concepts that transcend man, but should focus on the here and now; man should not long for another, better and higher world, but should place this world centrally.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Aphoristic/hYudG9yF">Aphoristic</a> style: The insights of the philosophy of life are often also written down in an aphoristic or literary style. This is partly due to the conviction that the true insights of life cannot be captured in a theoretical framework. Furthermore, the texts of the philosophy of life were also often characterized by their high literary quality and the absence of philosophical jargon.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:21" href="#fn:21">21</a> This can be found in the work of <a href="/facts/Arthur_Schopenhauer/pYt2cRmc">Arthur Schopenhauer</a>, the aphoristic writing style of <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche </a> and work of Henri Bergson, which earned him the <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize_for_Literature/wWVXbIbp">Nobel Prize for Literature</a> in 1927.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:22" href="#fn:22">22</a></li></ul>
Additionally, Lebensphilosophie can be divided into following different schools:<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:23" href="#fn:23">23</a>

<ul><li><a href="/facts/Bergsonism/CortzHrD">Bergsonism</a> or the doctrine of the urge to live, found in <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Henri Bergson</a> and <a href="/facts/Maurice_Blondel/lUaaBC50">Maurice Blondel</a>.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Historicism/vGQaCapy">Historicism</a> that emphasizes the dynamic role of history, found in <a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Wilhelm Dilthey</a> and <a href="/facts/Georg_Simmel/5BXHr4mT">Georg Simmel</a>.</li>
<li>German lebensphilosophie that had a strong <a href="/facts/Populist/J0EXt6XK">populist</a> and <a href="/facts/Irrationalist/UQEGMC85">irrationalist</a> character, found in <a href="/facts/Hermann_Graf_Keyserling/uKfAhkFw">Hermann Graf Keyserling</a> and <a href="/facts/Ludwig_Klages/ny5EV6fS">Ludwig Klages</a>.</li>
<li>American and English <a href="/facts/Pragmatism/v1zMTt3m">Pragmatism</a></li></ul>
<h3>The infinite in the finite</h3>
The Lebensphilosophie tries to make sense of a continuous and unresolved clash between "the infinite and the finite", that is shown in the incessant fading of living beings. The questions that the Lebensphilosophie poses find a first answer in the fifteen lectures held in 1827 in Vienna by <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Schlegel/3kaE2myu">Friedrich Schlegel</a> who sees the nucleus of <a href="/facts/Divine_revelation/xMygzvLv">divine revelation</a> in the highlighting of the infinite in the finite of man.
Referring to this romantic vision, both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, with completely different results, exalt the active character of life, contrasting it with the staticity of <a href="/facts/German_idealism/SStyy9Bx">idealistic</a> perfection of <a href="/facts/Rationalism/MNk171TG">rationalism</a>. 
Schopenhauer reveals the essential irrationality of living that manifests itself in the <a href="/facts/Will_to_live/YdfpR7GN">will to live</a> (<a href="/facts/German_language/oWaQIDA8">German</a>: Wille zum Leben) , the senseless <a href="/facts/Noumenon/teW0vuly">noumenal essence</a> of everything in the world that has the sole purpose of increasing itself. 
Nietzsche conceives life as a continuous growth and overcoming of those values consolidated over time that would hypocritically try to normalize existence in current morality. Life, in Nietzsche's thought, contrary to <a href="/facts/Darwinism/ojpLgHDY">Darwinism</a>, is never adaptation, conservation, but continuous growth without which the living being dies. The typical attempt of humanity to found its life on certainties, seeking them in <a href="/facts/Religion/cxntrD0R">religion</a>, <a href="/facts/Science/IJoaD7rs">science</a>, <a href="/facts/Values_(Western_philosophy)/opWjaK7n">moral values</a>, causes it to die out, overwhelmed by the proverbial "modern culture".

<h2 id="precursors">Precursors</h2>

In the field of <a href="/facts/Ancient_philosophy/73cd664F">ancient philosophy</a>, whilst almost all philosophers have sidestepped the question of "how man should live", some had devoted themselves to it entirely. At the time, most philosophers and schools of thought focused almost exclusively on <a href="/facts/Ethics/wNVNgL5q">ethics</a> and <a href="/facts/Eudaimonia/wGWdwPL3">the good spirit</a>. For one, <a href="/facts/Socrates/djIKjImv">Socrates</a> had assumed "<a href="/facts/Know_thyself/KoIqGbVD">know thyself</a>" as a <a href="/facts/Maxim_(philosophy)/uPaQwmtW">maxim</a>, and said that "<a href="/facts/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living/zGN7cVdb">the unexamined life is not worth living</a>", which forms one of the cornerstones of Lebensphilosophie thought.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:24" href="#fn:24">24</a>
The roots for what would become Lebensphilosophie go back to the distinction made by <a href="/facts/Immanuel_Kant/vIxjdy6I">Immanuel Kant</a>, with regard to <a href="/facts/Christian_Wolff_(philosopher)/xqtQwMfK">Christian Wolff</a>; between theoretical school philosophy and a philosophy based on the concept of the world, which comes from life itself and is aimed at practical life.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:25" href="#fn:25">25</a>
Other individuals associated with the earliest forms of "Lebensphilosophie" were <a href="/facts/Johann_August_Ernesti/o2Pl3bDh">Johann August Ernesti</a> and <a href="/facts/Johann_Georg_Heinrich_Feder/c3VIhJ7p">Johann Georg Heinrich Feder</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:26" href="#fn:26">26</a>
At the end of the 18th century, life and world wisdom were fashionable terms in higher social circles. The philosophy of life was less a specific philosophical doctrine than a certain cultural mood that influenced large parts of the <a href="/facts/Intelligentsia/UbPjEgue">intelligentsia</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:27" href="#fn:27">27</a>[additional citation(s) needed]
Lebensphilosophie was equated with the popular philosophy that was widespread in the late 18th century, which deliberately distanced itself from school philosophy and, as a philosophy of practical action, was committed to the general dissemination of the ideas of <a href="/facts/The_Enlightenment/Uj2Fa8Mk">the Enlightenment</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:28" href="#fn:28">28</a>
Since then, the wisdom of life and the world has often been presented in <a href="/facts/Aphorisms/hYudG9yF">aphorisms</a>,
<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:29" href="#fn:29">29</a> for example by <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Heinrich_Jacobi/GncIlpkt">Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi</a> in the Ffliegen Blätter: "Philosophy is an inner life. A philosophical life is a concentrated life. Through true philosophy the soul becomes still, and ultimately devout."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:30" href="#fn:30">30</a>
In terms of the history of the concept, the first works to be recorded are those of <a href="/facts/Gottlob_Benedict_von_Schirach/Qe3sHjdP">Gottlob Benedict von Schirach</a>: On Human Beauty and the Philosophy of Life from 1772 and <a href="/facts/Karl_Philipp_Moritz/7sJQF6xl">Karl Philipp Moritz</a>: Contributions to the Philosophy of Life from 1780 (already in its third edition in 1791). Characteristics of Lebensphilosophie are attributed to verse from <a href="/facts/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe/k5hW4Tw5">Goethe</a>'s <a href="/facts/Goethe%27s_Faust/zCqtADGP">Faust</a>;<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:31" href="#fn:31">31</a> 

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.— <a href="/facts/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe/k5hW4Tw5">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:32" href="#fn:32">32</a>
The Lebensphilosophie found new inspiration in <a href="/facts/Sturm_und_Drang/z9FTvKA4">Sturm und Drang</a> movement, as well as the <a href="/facts/Romantic_movement/lfG31kE3">Romantic movement</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:33" href="#fn:33">33</a> Romantics such as <a href="/facts/Novalis/A8bRLBXJ">Novalis</a> emphasized that not only reason, but also the feelings and wills that are more closely related to life, must be taken into account in philosophy. "Philosophy of life contains the science of independent, self-made life, which is in my own power - and belongs to the doctrine of the art of living - or the system of rules for preparing such a life for oneself."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:34" href="#fn:34">34</a> In 1794, <a href="/facts/Immanuel_Kant/vIxjdy6I">Immanuel Kant</a> opposed this type of “salon philosophy” in his essay Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis [de].
In 1827, <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Schlegel/3kaE2myu">Friedrich Schlegel</a>'s lectures on the Lebensphilosophie, which were explicitly directed against the "system philosophers" <a href="/facts/Kant/vIxjdy6I">Kant</a> and <a href="/facts/Hegel/5NXGjvSb">Hegel</a>, helped the philosophy of life to gain wider attention. Schlegel viewed the formal concepts of school philosophy, such as logic, as merely preparation, not as philosophy itself. To him, philosophy must mediate between the philosophy of reason and natural science. That it is important to explore "the inner spiritual life, and indeed in all its fullness" and that the "interpreting soul" encompasses the full consciousness and not just reason. <a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:35" href="#fn:35">35</a>[additional citation(s) needed]

The interpreting soul, however, includes both the distinguishing, connecting, deductive reason, as well as the pondering, inventing, presaging imagination; it encompasses both forces, standing in the middle between them. But it also forms the turning point of the transition between understanding and will, and, as the connecting middle link, fills the gap that lies between the two and separates them.— <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Schlegel/3kaE2myu">Friedrich Schlegel</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:36" href="#fn:36">36</a>
<h2 id="history-and-representatives">History and representatives</h2>
It was not until the second half of the <a href="/facts/19th_century/6LHXycA8">19th century</a> until Lebensphilosophie could be tangibly identified as a real movement. It nevertheless contained many of the ideas that were already present in the predecessors, but radicalized and extrapolated them and developed them into a fully-fledged philosophy through the efforts of noted thinkers.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:37" href="#fn:37">37</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:38" href="#fn:38">38</a>
Lebensphilosophie's emergence contributed to <a href="/facts/Charles_Darwin/uwDLGItY">Charles Darwin</a>'s <a href="/facts/Theory_of_evolution/TuWap5IK">theory of evolution</a> and <a href="/facts/Social_effects_of_evolutionary_theory/JLt91anL">the effect it had on society</a>; resulting in an proverbial "biologization" of man and society in which everything began to be interpreted in terms of <a href="/facts/Survival_of_the_fittest/0HmV10AD">survival</a> and <a href="/facts/Natural_selection/JXTte6en">natural selection</a> (i.e. <a href="/facts/Social_Darwinism/LwLkddXI">social Darwinism</a>). Man was no longer seen as a being that was completely different from animals, but only as one of them, although he was often placed higher on the evolutionary ladder. This opened the door to the Lebensphilosophie, which had to expand this tendency and extend it to all areas of reality.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:39" href="#fn:39">39</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:40" href="#fn:40">40</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:41" href="#fn:41">41</a>
The other factor that paved the way for Lebensphilosophie was the situation at German universities in the second half of the 19th century. The German government then decided to impose strict censorship on German universities. However, this also affected philosophy, in the sense that only the philosophy accepted by the state was allowed to be disseminated and philosophy was limited to <a href="/facts/Epistemology/NsDwpcYH">epistemology</a> and <a href="/facts/Logic/8JnpJLtt">logic</a>.
However, the German public also needed another philosophy, an ethics or metaphysics, a philosophy that could be a guideline for life. In order to fill this void, a group of philosophers emerged in Germany who developed their own philosophy independently of academic thinking. Philosophers such as <a href="/facts/Arthur_Schopenhauer/pYt2cRmc">Arthur Schopenhauer</a> and <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a> are the prime examples of this.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:42" href="#fn:42">42</a> The thinking of these precursors of the Lebensphilosophie reached the public through their writings, which are notable for their absence of philosophical jargon and were distributed outside of academic circuits.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:43" href="#fn:43">43</a>
Thirdly, the political factor is also important, namely in political defeats, had their repercussions in philosophy. Lebensphilosophie precursor <a href="/facts/Arthur_Schopenhauer/pYt2cRmc">Arthur Schopenhauer</a>'s 1818 work <a href="/facts/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation/sHfKoHI7">The World as Will and Representation</a>, was not a success upon its release, but found its audience following the failure of the <a href="/facts/German_revolutions_of_1848%E2%80%931849/6D7NJFDM">German revolutions of 1848–1849</a> and the subsequent mood of the country. Indeed, under these circumstances did <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a> discover Schopenhauer's work and inspire him.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:44" href="#fn:44">44</a> Additionally, the German defeat during <a href="/facts/First_World_War/vITTUanQ">First World War</a> led to a revival of the so-called German Lebensphilosophie, which in turn also had its influence on the rise of <a href="/facts/National_Socialism/JjsMI4lE">National Socialism</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:45" href="#fn:45">45</a>
<a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>, <a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Wilhelm Dilthey</a> and <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Henri Bergson</a> are considered to be the founders of Lebensphilosophie,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:46" href="#fn:46">46</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:47" href="#fn:47">47</a> with <a href="/facts/Max_Scheler/UQFTGT9W">Max Scheler</a> writing the first overview of the Lebensphilosophie in 1913, in which he pointed out the similarities between Nietzsche, Dilthey and Bergson.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:48" href="#fn:48">48</a>

<h3>Arthur Schopenhauer</h3>

The main precursor and source of inspiration for the Lebensphilosophie was the German philosopher <a href="/facts/Arthur_Schopenhauer/pYt2cRmc">Arthur Schopenhauer</a>. He made the first approaches to formalizing Lebensphilosophie, when he no longer placed <a href="/facts/Reason/tcBImN8J">reason</a>, but <a href="/facts/Will_(philosophy)/cLDa60FT">will</a> - thusly actual life - at the centre of his thinking. Seeing that the will is the primary basis of ideas, which is a blind, unstoppable urge that encompasses all of nature. Reason and knowledge are dependent on it and are an expression of the will, with the entire life force of the world being reflected in the will.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:49" href="#fn:49">49</a>

Since the will, the thing in itself, the inner content is the essence of the world; life, the visible world, the appearance, is only the mirror of the will; this will accompany the will as inseparably as its shadow accompanies the body: and if there is will, life, the world will also exist. The will to live is therefore certain of life.— <a href="/facts/Arthur_Schopenhauer/pYt2cRmc">Arthur Schopenhauer</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:50" href="#fn:50">50</a>
His philosophy is largely set out in his 1818 work <a href="/facts/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation/sHfKoHI7">The World as Will and Representation</a>. In it, Schopenhauer voiced his criticism towards idealistic philosophers - such as <a href="/facts/Johann_Gottlieb_Fichte/s44rX8qD">Johann Gottlieb Fichte</a> and <a href="/facts/Hegel/5NXGjvSb">Hegel</a> - whom he accused of placing too much emphasis on reason and intellect. Schopenhauer himself was a follower of Kant and retained his distinction between the "thing as we see it" and the "<a href="/facts/Thing-in-itself/KRQhuqgl">Thing-in-itself</a>"; that reality in itself is unknowable and is inaccessible to our senses.
Schopenhauer, however, also states that there is another way to know the "Thing-in-itself": if one looks into oneself, one experiences that man is nothing more than the expression of an all-encompassing Will that lies hidden behind all phenomena. Reality as we experience it is therefore in fact only an illusory veil that lies over reality as it really is: in reality the world is nothing other than a World Will that, without any rational principle, continually produces new phenomenal manifestations, such as man, in order to express its own will. The world is therefore anything but rational and benign, and reason is certainly not central. The world is indifferent to man, and man himself is primarily a "willing" being: he continually desires things, without rational grounds, but only on the basis of emotions and drives.
On chapter 46 of The World as Will and Representation, entitled "On the Nothingness and Suffering of Life," Schopenhauer describes man as a suffering and lost individual who only finds salvation through death. Man lives in a constant desire with limitless wishes and inexhaustible demands, so that he can never find happiness and salvation. If a wish is fulfilled, it immediately becomes unreal and only grief and pain remain. In this way, human life is nothingness, emptiness (vanitas) and vanity, covered by the deceptive veil of Maya. In earthly life, man can only escape this emptiness through <a href="/facts/Abstinence/FXf52jVY">abstinence</a> and <a href="/facts/Asceticism/s3szkXBx">asceticism</a>, the highest form of which, complete contemplation, can be found in art. Schopenhauer's additional reflections on the practice of life can be found in the aphorisms on the <a href="/facts/Parerga_and_Paralipomena/fSlFzWmC">Parerga and Paralipomena</a>.

<h3>Friedrich Nietzsche</h3>
Main article: <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_Friedrich_Nietzsche/PVbjBeA5">Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche</a>

The thought of <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a> is also considered a forerunner of the Lebensphilosophie. Nietzsche was a follower of Schopenhauer's philosophy and was known for expressing his skepticism towards reason, science, <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_culture/CdT0lrUt">culture</a> and the modern ideal of the search for truth. 
Throughout his work, Nietzsche developed ideas that are considered to be inspiration for the Lebensphilosophie, such as a view of world events as an organic structure and the concepts of the <a href="/facts/Will_to_power/BpfoB9yL">will to power</a> and the <a href="/facts/Eternal_return/LIBWpAFU">eternal return</a>. Nietzsche turned Schopenhauer's concept of the will as the will to live into the formula of the will to power, which dominates all life.
Already in his early work <a href="/facts/The_Birth_of_Tragedy/fLxL9vDx">The Birth of Tragedy</a>, Nietzsche established that the <a href="/facts/Human_condition/trY462FK">human condition</a> is determined by a contradiction between two different forces: on the one hand, the reasonable and calm <a href="/facts/Apollonian/nBgSYxNK">Apollonian</a> force and on the other, the exuberant and wasteful <a href="/facts/Dionysian/nBgSYxNK">Dionysian</a> force; a contradiction that he also observed present in the classical <a href="/facts/Greek_tragedy/4P3clg5x">Greek tragedy</a>. Nietzsche explicitly connected the Dionysian force with Schopenhauer's metaphysical Will.
In ancient Greece there was a good balance between both principles. However, this was disturbed by the <a href="/facts/Ancient_philosophy/73cd664F">ancient philosophy</a> of <a href="/facts/Socrates/djIKjImv">Socrates</a> and <a href="/facts/Plato/jGtT1UD5">Plato</a>. They rejected the Dionysian side of life and focused only on the Apollonian side, a shift that can be found throughout the history of <a href="/facts/Western_philosophy/4m6EnYCI">Western philosophy</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:51" href="#fn:51">51</a>
Nietzsche also called for getting rid of the too rationalistic side of life because it mainly results in a denial of life itself. Traditional philosophers praise the <a href="/facts/Asceticism/s3szkXBx">ascetic life</a> as the highest form of life, but according to Nietzsche this is only a denial of the creative and dynamic power that life possesses.

In his work, <a href="/facts/Twilight_of_the_Idols/2M9CaB59">Twilight of the Idols</a>, Nietzsche states that: Saying yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems; the will to live, finding joy in the sacrifice of its highest types of its own inexhaustibility - I called that Dionysian, I guessed that was the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet.— <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:52" href="#fn:52">52</a>
Nietzsche also determined that there is no <a href="/facts/Transcendence_(religion)/7XP571KV">transcendental world</a> to mirror ourselves in or to direct ourselves towards (after death); there is only this world and this life. All this is reflected in his well-known propositions such as "<a href="/facts/God_is_dead/wtYygRMb">God is dead</a>" and the "<a href="/facts/Eternal_recurrence/LIBWpAFU">eternal recurrence</a>" from his 1882 work, <a href="/facts/The_Gay_Science/r4I4cXzd">The Gay Science</a>.
The death of God implied the loss of any kind of transcendental orientation, and the idea of eternal return can serve as a new guideline for life: the person should live in such a way that they would want it to return again and again. There was also the concept of "<a href="/facts/Will_to_power/BpfoB9yL">will to power</a>": man, life, and even all of reality does not strive for things like "the good" or "the truth", but rather only for more power.

<h3>Historicism</h3>

Largely due to the influence of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the early modern form of Lebensphilosophie emerged in Germany near the end of the <a href="/facts/19th_century/6LHXycA8">19th century</a>. The initial movement was known as "<a href="/facts/Historicism/vGQaCapy">historicism</a>", which was primarily presented by <a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Wilhelm Dilthey</a>, <a href="/facts/Rudolf_Eucken/rf9K92fp">Rudolf Eucken</a> and <a href="/facts/Georg_Simmel/5BXHr4mT">Georg Simmel</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:53" href="#fn:53">53</a>
One noted progenitor was <a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Wilhelm Dilthey</a>, in whose works the notion of "life" or "human experience" is central. He strongly opposed the <a href="/facts/Deterministic/NhvNlAbe">deterministic</a> <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_nature/tlFzkH0f">philosophy of nature</a> as defended by <a href="/facts/John_Stuart_Mill/0QxUR9l7">John Stuart Mill</a> and <a href="/facts/Herbert_Spencer/d1qsSq4r">Herbert Spencer</a>. Human experience always involves experiencing a coherence; a coherence that cannot be divided into scientific "<a href="/facts/Atoms/FoQ4kGN5">atoms</a>" or <a href="/facts/Chemical_element/0jducgWD">basic elements</a>.
Dilthey argued that there was a difference between the natural sciences and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). In the natural sciences, the scientist "explains" and refers to the causes (erklären). In the human sciences, however, the scientist "understands": in a <a href="/facts/Hermeneutic/96YNfBpK">hermeneutic</a> process, the scientist must place the concept in a broader historical context in order to gain insight into it (Verstehen). In this Verstehen, knowledge is not a product of the mind, but rather an outgrowth of the emotions and will of the person in question. According to Dilthey, both disciplines therefore require a different <a href="/facts/Epistemological/NsDwpcYH">epistemological</a> approach. The classical mechanistic model of <a href="/facts/Natural_science/8hg81Q2p">natural science</a> is therefore unsuitable for understanding life and <a href="/facts/Human_history/uB3yXt4H">human history</a>.
With this idea in mind, Dilthey proposed <a href="/facts/Hermeneutics/96YNfBpK">hermeneutics</a> as a scientific method for the human sciences. The historian or sociologist must always see a certain (historical) fact in relation to the whole, the context in which it took place and at the same time understand the whole on the basis of the different parts. However, hermeneutics is not limited to the written word, but can also be applied to other areas such as art, religion or law. 
Dilthey's philosophy gained many followers, mainly in <a href="/facts/Cultural_philosophy/CdT0lrUt">cultural philosophy</a>, including <a href="/facts/Hans_Freyer/SJUaL69t">Hans Freyer</a>, <a href="/facts/Theodor_Litt/wlBLx1lM">Theodor Litt</a>, <a href="/facts/Georg_Misch/FzRxn2F9">Georg Misch</a>, <a href="/facts/Erich_Rothacker/g5gApdat">Erich Rothacker</a>, <a href="/facts/Oswald_Spengler/RG767gfM">Oswald Spengler</a> and <a href="/facts/Eduard_Spranger/nRYlHlpp">Eduard Spranger</a>. Dilthey also had a strong influence on the theologian <a href="/facts/Ernst_Troeltsch/FUSucuYb">Ernst Troeltsch</a> and the British philosopher <a href="/facts/R._G._Collingwood/PV1RL4LN">R. G. Collingwood</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:54" href="#fn:54">54</a>
The philosopher and sociologist <a href="/facts/Georg_Simmel/5BXHr4mT">Georg Simmel</a> agreed with Kant when he stated that human cognition possesses <a href="/facts/A_priori_and_a_posteriori/C567SkcV">a priori</a> <a href="/facts/Theory_of_categories/xG73S2Af">categories</a> of thought, but argued that these undergo a development. The categories are therefore not a timeless given that is eternally fixed, but on the contrary they can evolve over time, both at the level of humanity and at the level of the individual. Human perception, together with these categories, ensures that the chaos of sensory impressions that man receives, is ordered. However, the human mind is not able to grasp reality in its entirety: thus "the truth" is separate from the human mind. According to Simmel, "truth", or what man considers to be truth, determines behavior. What is true is therefore determined by means of natural selection through the evolution of man, and thus largely by the utility that particular view has.
According to Simmel, "moral must" is also originally a category of human reason that is only "formally" determining, but the content of what must and what may change throughout history. In this moral must, the will of the sex is also expressed: altruism is understood by Simmel, for example, as egoism of the sex.

<h3>France and Bergsonism</h3>

In France, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a series of philosophers emerged who defended similar life-philosophical ideas. The first philosophers to take up the fight against the <a href="/facts/Mechanism_(philosophy)/Tk5eTY06">mechanism</a> and <a href="/facts/Idealism/w8JAlhjG">idealism</a> of the 19th century were <a href="/facts/Maurice_Blondel/lUaaBC50">Maurice Blondel</a> and <a href="/facts/%C3%89douard_Le_Roy/u0wffVRk">Édouard Le Roy</a>. Blondel, for example, already set out his version of the Lebensphilosophie in his 1893 work "L'Action", with the development of the "<a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_action/TMFsJsBa">philosophy of action</a>". Other French philosophers - such as <a href="/facts/%C3%89mile_Boutroux/VYoHnowm">Émile Boutroux</a>, <a href="/facts/Jules_Lachelier/wwl30BR3">Jules Lachelier</a> and <a href="/facts/F%C3%A9lix_Ravaisson-Mollien/tXS2huI9">Félix Ravaisson-Mollien</a> - are also associated with the early French-strain of Lebensphilosophie.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:55" href="#fn:55">55</a>
However, it was not until the philosophy of <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Henri Bergson</a> that French Lebensphilosophie took on its definitive form and had a strong influence on the further course of French philosophy. In his philosophy he expounded a strong form of <a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">vitalism</a> and anti-mechanism. Bergson had been a follower of <a href="/facts/Herbert_Spencer/d1qsSq4r">Herbert Spencer</a>'s philosophy in his early thinking, but later renounced this kind of philosophy because he found Spencer's philosophy much too mechanistic. 
He expounded his own thinking mainly in four works, each covering an area of his philosophy of life: first being <a href="/facts/Time_and_Free_Will/JLGnhoGj">Time and Free Will</a>, in which he expounded his <a href="/facts/Theory_of_knowledge/NsDwpcYH">theory of knowledge</a>, <a href="/facts/Matter_and_Memory/xeq9rtuY">Matter and Memory</a>, detailing his views on psychology,
<a href="/facts/Creative_Evolution_(book)/Un1b3Wpv">Creative Evolution</a>, detailing his views on <a href="/facts/Metaphysics/fSFt6SHe">metaphysics</a>, and <a href="/facts/The_Two_Sources_of_Morality_and_Religion/CortzHrD">The Two Sources of Morality and Religion</a>, in which Bergson expounds his <a href="/facts/Ethics/wNVNgL5q">ethics</a> and <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_religion/1yI4cqMx">philosophy of religion</a>.
According to Bergson, there are two different ways of knowing the world, which arise from a fundamental contradiction in man himself. Just as we can conceive of time as either a mathematical series of successive points or a continuous flow (durée) that we experience, we can also know the objects around us according to these two methods: <a href="/facts/Analysis/heFlRrYd">analysis</a> on the one hand and <a href="/facts/Intuition/Mshu0Vxb">intuition</a> on the other. Analysis essentially means that one reduces the object one wants to know to more fundamental parts that are already known. 
However, Bergson argues that in this way one is not really dealing with reality, but isolating some repeatable aspects of it. Classical movements such as <a href="/facts/Idealism/w8JAlhjG">idealism</a> and/or <a href="/facts/Rationalism/MNk171TG">rationalism</a> place this form of knowledge central, while analysis according to Bergson can never penetrate reality itself, but can at most play a role in our practical dealings with the world. In contrast, there is knowledge through intuition. Through intuition, man can understand the world in itself without reducing it to something else. Bergson conceives the contrast between the two methods as analogous to the two ways in which one can describe the movements of our actions: either we perceive our action from within as a whole, or we can describe it from without, but then it falls apart into smaller parts and is by definition incomplete. Bergson also sees this method of analysis at work in the sciences, which is why he shows a certain contempt for science.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:56" href="#fn:56">56</a>
In his 1907 work, <a href="/facts/Creative_Evolution_(book)/Un1b3Wpv">Creative Evolution</a>, Bergson argued that the two classical models to explain life, the mechanical and <a href="/facts/Teleological/8YR2sPUf">teleological</a> models, were wrong. They do not take into account duration (durée). Starting from his epistemology he argued that both currents wrongly mirror themselves on reason instead of intuition.
In contrast, life must be understood as a life stream that follows its own creative, irrational path through reality. Life cannot be explained by mechanisms or final causes, but has its own life drive (<a href="/facts/%C3%89lan_vital/SkpAcVTa">élan vital</a>) that brings it into being and drives it forward. Life has followed an ascending path through plants and animals in its history, ultimately resulting in man. In man, in addition to reason, intuition also emerged and thus the possibility of truly understanding reality. This dynamic and creative interpretation is not limited to life, however, but covers everything: the whole of reality is evolution. In reality, there are no 'things', only actions and becoming.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:57" href="#fn:57">57</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:58" href="#fn:58">58</a>
Towards the end of Bergson's career, various philosophers emerged who supported his philosophy and even radicalized it. So much so that the movement can be identified as "Bergsonism". Examples of this is a whole series of <a href="/facts/Catholic/YpnKqaEL">Catholic</a> thinkers such as <a href="/facts/L%C3%A9on_Oll%C3%A9-Laprune/kWB8WSkk">Léon Ollé-Laprune</a>, <a href="/facts/Lucien_Laberthonni%C3%A8re/fkLpcY6H">Lucien Laberthonnière</a> and <a href="/facts/Alfred_Loisy/b9JWEvy1">Alfred Loisy</a>.

<h3>Late 19th century and early 20th century popularity</h3>
The philosophical movement of Lebensphilosophie at the end of the 19th century began clearly distinguishing itself from the definition that "Philosophy of Life" meant in the late 18th century 100 years prior, which was to provide orientation for practical life. This new form of Lebensphilosophie critically examined modern <a href="/facts/Epistemology/NsDwpcYH">epistemology</a> and <a href="/facts/Ontology/QJKTsEIJ">ontology</a> and seek to gain a systematic standpoint. 
Lebensphilosophie became a part of the reaction towards the contemporary <a href="/facts/Zeitgeist/GkE5MB6I">zeitgeist</a>, which was characterized by the rapid progress of technology, <a href="/facts/Industrialization/h3QXzS6C">industrialization</a> and the rationality of the positive sciences and the modern economy. It found support within the <a href="/facts/Fin_de_si%C3%A8cle/rdx9BN6z">fin de siècle</a>, <a href="/facts/German_Youth_Movement/TgSttH0R">the German youth movement</a> and <a href="/facts/Art_Nouveau/e2Ahfp05">Art Nouveau</a>, along with the <a href="/facts/Symbolism_(movement)/LfFKeSLb">Symbolism movement</a> and/or <a href="/facts/Decadent_movement/a4lCvrGv">Decadent movement</a>, all sharing the need to find a "new beginning" against the constraints of modern civilization.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:59" href="#fn:59">59</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:60" href="#fn:60">60</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:61" href="#fn:61">61</a>

<h3>Interwar period and German Lebensphilosophie</h3>

Following <a href="/facts/History_of_Germany_during_World_War_I/f4Np4aBe">the defeat of Germany</a> at the end of <a href="/facts/First_World_War/vITTUanQ">First World War</a>, a new school of Lebensphilosophie emerged, which had its influence primarily in <a href="/facts/Biology/1M1ee3pB">biology</a>, but also in <a href="/facts/Politics/1gDNy3RP">politics</a>. The main thinkers who belonged to this school were <a href="/facts/Hans_Driesch/QC22kE7X">Hans Driesch</a>, <a href="/facts/Karl_Joel_(philosopher)/FN0BxSvt">Karl Joel</a>, <a href="/facts/Hermann_Graf_Keyserling/uKfAhkFw">Hermann Graf Keyserling</a> and <a href="/facts/Ludwig_Klages/ny5EV6fS">Ludwig Klages</a>.
Largely under the influence of post-World War I pessimism, they associated reason and intellect with the shortcomings of "<a href="/facts/Civilization/xvGpjDPj">civilization</a>" and therefore advocated a <a href="/facts/Anti-intellectualism/vgKWU8Yx">rejection of intellectualism</a>. Instead, they focused their attention primarily on the irrational forces of life and lust. This largely resulted in an equation of nature and culture and a biological interpretation of society. This is said to have contributed to the rise of <a href="/facts/National_Socialist/JjsMI4lE">National Socialist</a> <a href="/facts/Racism/SfrqGbu8">racism</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:62" href="#fn:62">62</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:63" href="#fn:63">63</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:64" href="#fn:64">64</a>
Hans Driesch, a philosopher and biologist, concluded from a number of experiments in which bacteria were split and only new bacteria were formed, that life could not be a product of causal natural forces, but instead had to be understood in the light of <a href="/facts/Entelechy/JFC0nVdx">entelechy</a>. That behind living matter there is an immaterial force that purposefully creates and supports life. Driesch was therefore considered one of the main representatives of <a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">vitalism</a>.
Ludwig Klages, on the other hand, emphasized the contrast between the unity of body and soul on the one hand and the human spirit or reason on the other. This contrast is also reflected in the title of his main work, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, released 1929-1932. 
According to Klages, soul and body are inseparable and if the soul could work undisturbed, then man would see the world as a continuous stream of images. However, through the action of the spirit and human reason, the illusion is created that body and soul can be separated from each other. According to Klages, the natural science that emphasizes this division is therefore a danger to life itself. As a result, Klages adopted a strongly <a href="/facts/Irrationalist/UQEGMC85">irrationalist</a> position and was very hostile to human reason. Partly because of this, his teaching was influential within <a href="/facts/Nazi_ideology/JjsMI4lE">Nazi ideology</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:65" href="#fn:65">65</a>
<a href="/facts/Oswald_Spengler/RG767gfM">Oswald Spengler</a> is occasionally cited as a Lebensphilosophie representative of the interwar period, having introduced a very <a href="/facts/Populist/J0EXt6XK">populist</a> form in his work, that was popular in post-World War Germany (i.e. <a href="/facts/Weimar_Republic/LYYS66ad">Weimar Republic</a>), especially amongst the politically <a href="/facts/Right-wing/CVoubHMm">right-wing</a> circles.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:66" href="#fn:66">66</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:67" href="#fn:67">67</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:68" href="#fn:68">68</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:69" href="#fn:69">69</a>

<h2 id="influence">Influence</h2>
The Lebensphilosophie was very popular in the first half of the 20th century, but quickly lost its following after the <a href="/facts/Second_World_War/2efV5L1U">Second World War</a>. Its initial popularity can be understood by the fact that it emerged as an alternative to the then dominant <a href="/facts/Scientific/IJoaD7rs">scientific</a> and <a href="/facts/Positivist/on887AuJ">positivist</a> philosophy. Positivism denied the relevance of an ethic or philosophy of life and emphasized epistemology and science. The Lebensphilosophie broke with this tradition and wanted to make philosophy relevant again for "the life of the man on the street".
It's quick dissipation following the second world war is believed to be due to the associations that this type of philosophy had leading to <a href="/facts/Nazism/JjsMI4lE">Nazism</a> and <a href="/facts/Fascism/EhQWcPsE">fascism</a>, which also appealed to similar <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_biology/6mvwcP29">biological</a>, <a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">vitalistic</a> and <a href="/facts/Irrationalism/6lv1mRDz">irrational</a> elements. Additionally, other philosophical movements, such as <a href="/facts/Existentialism/ylQ1HF6b">existentialism</a>, overtook Lebensphilosophie.
The ideas of the Lebensphilosophie have entered many other contemporary movements, which often rejected the "irrational" character of the Lebensphilosophie. The philosopher <a href="/facts/Otto_Friedrich_Bollnow/xfzpRqEy">Otto Friedrich Bollnow</a> for example, claims to be a follower of the Lebensphilosophie developed by Dilthey, but also connects this movement with insights from <a href="/facts/Existentialism/ylQ1HF6b">existentialism</a> and <a href="/facts/Phenomenology_(philosophy)/AILzLkKx">phenomenology</a>. The work of <a href="/facts/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset/Y6euQGJD">José Ortega y Gasset</a>, and especially his 1930 work <a href="/facts/The_Revolt_of_the_Masses/NfwBSyve">The Revolt of the Masses</a>, also contains many elements from the Lebensphilosophie and is strongly influenced by the <a href="/facts/Perspectivism/SRk8sIPr">perspectivism</a> of <a href="/facts/Friedrich_Nietzsche/u7VdQ5sg">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:70" href="#fn:70">70</a>
While not outright identified with Lebensphilosophie, thinkers like <a href="/facts/Hannah_Arendt/ssB5GXJc">Hannah Arendt</a>, notable for her distinction between <a href="/facts/The_Human_Condition_(Arendt_book)/scD0lLaS">vita activa</a> and vita contemplativa, as well as <a href="/facts/Pierre_Hadot/X8QYMD9C">Pierre Hadot</a>, notable for his conception of <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greek_philosophy/LWEkp8JX">ancient Greek philosophy</a> as a <a href="/facts/Bios_(philosophy)/vtb98GvQ">bios</a> or way of life, are associated with the movement. Lebensphilosophie is also seen as a influence to German philosopher and sociologist <a href="/facts/Max_Horkheimer/w2wG10VH">Max Horkheimer</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:71" href="#fn:71">71</a> Other philosophers influenced and/or associated with Lebensphilosophie include <a href="/facts/Jakob_von_Uexk%C3%BCll/DkVBUsMh">Jakob von Uexküll</a>, <a href="/facts/Hans_Jonas/4LB5UMMC">Hans Jonas</a>, <a href="/facts/Florian_Znaniecki/LTHIezRm">Florian Znaniecki</a>, <a href="/facts/Viktor_Frankl/znVcpf79">Viktor Frankl</a>.
The direct influence of Lebensphilosophie thinkers on academic philosophy remained limited, despite their great popularity with the masses, mainly because of their hostility to reason and science. Instead, someone like Bergson had an influence on other genres, such as writers like <a href="/facts/Marcel_Proust/qlaFVd9D">Marcel Proust</a> and <a href="/facts/Political_scientists/lmp4W6BD">political scientists</a> like <a href="/facts/Charles_P%C3%A9guy/IrlxJeMp">Charles Péguy</a> and <a href="/facts/Georges_Sorel/nI2Icn1R">Georges Sorel</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:72" href="#fn:72">72</a>
Only after the Second World War, when the Lebensphilosophie lost importance, did <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Henri Bergson</a>'s influence also become clear in academic philosophy. Later thinkers such as <a href="/facts/Jean-Paul_Sartre/aRWvzA8U">Jean-Paul Sartre</a> and <a href="/facts/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty/275vqdqg">Maurice Merleau-Ponty</a> often contrasted their views with those of Bergson in order to expose the differences, but in doing so they nevertheless betrayed the influence that Bergson had exerted on their work. Traces of the Lebensphilosophie can also be recognized in the work of <a href="/facts/Max_Scheler/UQFTGT9W">Max Scheler</a> and <a href="/facts/Martin_Heidegger/VSvHqhcj">Martin Heidegger</a>.
This is even more explicit in the work of the French poststructuralist <a href="/facts/Gilles_Deleuze/cnkduWTX">Gilles Deleuze</a>, who characterized himself as a "vitalist". In 1966, Deleuze wrote a book, "Le Bergsonisme", which revived the study of Bergson's work. Furthermore, the Lebensphilosophie can also be found in the form of concepts such as <a href="/facts/Biopolitics/8W5DDxWQ">biopolitics</a> and <a href="/facts/Biopower/UP6k0Fj0">biopower</a> in the work of <a href="/facts/Michel_Foucault/rWu19rjx">Michel Foucault</a> or <a href="/facts/Giorgio_Agamben/vtb98GvQ">Giorgio Agamben</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:73" href="#fn:73">73</a> 
In 1993, <a href="/facts/Ferdinand_Fellmann/En01YMSh">Ferdinand Fellmann</a> attempted to rehabilitate the Lebensphilosophie, after it had been rejected as a "disturbance in philosophy" due to the ideological abuse by <a href="/facts/National_Socialism/JjsMI4lE">National Socialism</a>. According to Fellmann, human self-understanding is not only the product of a "<a href="/facts/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes/ohqj6DMf">Cartesian</a> <a href="/facts/Consciousness/IAxmgt6c">cogito</a>", but must also take into account the irrational physical and emotional aspects of human existence. He also points out that contemporary <a href="/facts/Analytical_philosophy/ALSWKaQa">analytical philosophy</a> and the <a href="/facts/Philosophy_of_mind/o6yNRjwd">philosophy of mind</a> are also influenced by the Lebensphilosophie.

<h3>Association with American pragmatism</h3>
Main article: <a href="/facts/Pragmatism/v1zMTt3m">Pragmatism</a>
Although the American movement of pragmatism is often seen as an independent movement, it has many similarities with the Lebensphilosophie.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:74" href="#fn:74">74</a> For example, pragmatism and the Lebensphilosophie are often placed together under the heading of "<a href="/facts/Anti-intellectualism/vgKWU8Yx">anti-intellectualism</a>". This is mainly due to the works of <a href="/facts/William_James/IdmT5LX7">William James</a> and <a href="/facts/John_Dewey/ljz3mzpf">John Dewey</a>, and is present to a much lesser extent in the work of <a href="/facts/C.S._Peirce/z76dNqhM">C.S. Peirce</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:75" href="#fn:75">75</a>
<a href="/facts/William_James/IdmT5LX7">William James</a>' philosophy, which incorporated numerous influences from various movements, explicitly referred to the work of Bergson.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:76" href="#fn:76">76</a> The two philosophers, Bergson and James, were also good friends and the latter's well-known concept of consciousness as a <a href="/facts/Stream_of_consciousness/wjWFwBp6">stream of consciousness</a> shows a strong affinity with former's concept of duration (durée).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:77" href="#fn:77">77</a>
As a bridge between pragmatism and Lebensphilosophie, the so-called "dialectical school" should also be mentioned. This school consisted of a number of thinkers, such as <a href="/facts/Ferdinand_Gonseth/Hn02qatP">Ferdinand Gonseth</a> and <a href="/facts/Gaston_Bachelard/3Qg3bdde">Gaston Bachelard</a>, grouped around the philosophical journal <a href="/facts/Dialectica/E8nmKskd">Dialectica</a>, founded in 1947. They stated that truth was always <a href="/facts/Dialectical/NTL69ms6">dialectical</a> and therefore a temporary and changeable given. For the dialectical school too, there was no absolute truth separate from practical life itself.

<h2 id="criticism">Criticism</h2>
Before the <a href="/facts/Second_World_War/2efV5L1U">Second World War</a>, Lebensphilosophie drew derision from <a href="/facts/Neo-Kantian/2RdeEucp">neo-Kantian</a> and <a href="/facts/Rationalist/MNk171TG">rationalist</a> thinkers, such as <a href="/facts/Heinrich_Rickert/X9HK3HnH">Heinrich Rickert</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:78" href="#fn:78">78</a> and <a href="/facts/Ernst_Cassirer/AsMY88Bb">Ernst Cassirer</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:79" href="#fn:79">79</a> Following the Second World War, various studies have found links between Lebensphilosophie and <a href="/facts/Nazism/JjsMI4lE">Nazism</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:80" href="#fn:80">80</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:81" href="#fn:81">81</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:82" href="#fn:82">82</a>

<h3>Irrationalism</h3>
A reproach often made against Lebensphilosophie is that of <a href="/facts/Irrationalism/6lv1mRDz">irrationalism</a>. Some Lebensphilosophie philosophers endorse the irrationalist element in their philosophy, but critics find this unacceptable. To give up reason as a means to truth means to give up philosophy and even thought as a whole.
For example, <a href="/facts/Bertrand_Russell/SRpwNX2U">Bertrand Russell</a> states in his 1946 book <a href="/facts/A_History_of_Western_Philosophy/Jf1KRzVH">A History of Western Philosophy</a> that according to Lebensphilosophie; "intellect is the misfortune of man, while instinct is seen at its best in ants, bees, and <a href="/facts/Henri_Bergson/CortzHrD">Bergson</a>" and concludes that for "those to whom action, if it is to be of any value, must be inspired by some vision, by some imaginative foreshadowing of a world less painful, less unjust, less full of strife than the world of our every-day life, those, in a word, whose action is built on contemplation, will find in this philosophy nothing of what they seek, and will not regret that there is no reason to think it true."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:83" href="#fn:83">83</a>
This criticism is also shared by <a href="/facts/George_Santayana/xToPTHDm">George Santayana</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:84" href="#fn:84">84</a> He states that Lebensphilosophie is a symptom of a spiritually impoverished imagination, that in it; "the mind has forgotten its proper function, which is to crown life by quickening it into intelligence, and thinks if it could only prove that it accelerated life, that might perhaps justify its existence."<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:85" href="#fn:85">85</a>
In his 1953 book, The Destruction of Reason, Marxist philosopher <a href="/facts/Georg_Luk%C3%A1cs/N6U2d7MB">Georg Lukács</a> also strongly criticized the Lebensphilosophie and characterized it as an extreme form of <a href="/facts/Irrationalism/6lv1mRDz">irrationalism</a>, which served as a method to justify the <a href="/facts/Dominant_ideology/5RYTJyG4">ruling ideology</a> of the "<a href="/facts/Imperialist/JvofndS2">imperialist</a> <a href="/facts/Bourgeoisie/Ho3RUrlA">bourgeoisie</a>" (i.e. <a href="/facts/Bourgeois_nationalism/7EK0DrGE">bourgeois nationalism</a>).<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:86" href="#fn:86">86</a>

<h3>Vitalism</h3>
Main article: <a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">Vitalism § Criticism</a>
Another criticism is that the principle of vitalism, which is upheld by the Lebensphilosophie, namely that there is a kind of life force behind life, contains <a href="/facts/Circular_reasoning/Kgac2eUw">circular reasoning</a>.

<h3>Relativism</h3>
Other philosophers accuse the Lebensphilosophie of falling into a form of <a href="/facts/Relativism/a6s6dGtw">relativism</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:87" href="#fn:87">87</a> Because certain knowledge is no longer possible, due to the irrationalist nature of the Lebensphilosophie, it is impossible to provide any form of criticism of ideas, because one would then have to use reason anyway. The result is that all ideas and visions would then be of equal value.
This stems from <a href="/facts/Wilhelm_Dilthey/r0o404A3">Wilhelm Dilthey</a>'s <a href="/facts/Hermeneutics/96YNfBpK">hermeneutics</a> and <a href="/facts/Historicism/vGQaCapy">historicism</a> - which laid the basis of Lebensphilosophie - being already scrutinized for being of relativistic thought.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:88" href="#fn:88">88</a> If ideas or institutions have to be assessed in the specific historical context in which they exist, it is always possible to shield these ideas from any form of criticism. Criticism of an idea is then interpreted as the failure to correctly understand the idea in its specific context. Every idea is correct, as long as it is understood within the specific historical context in question.

<h3>Connection to Nazism</h3>
In Germany the corresponding school [to <a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">vitalism</a>], known as Lebensphilosophie ("philosophy of life"), began to take on aspects of a political ideology in the years immediately preceding <a href="/facts/World_War_I/vITTUanQ">World War I</a>. The work of <a href="/facts/Hans_Driesch/QC22kE7X">Hans Driesch</a> and <a href="/facts/Ludwig_Klages/ny5EV6fS">Ludwig Klages</a>, for example, openly condemned the superficial intellectualism of Western civilization. In associating "reason" with the shortcomings of "civilization" and "the West", Lebensphilosophie spurred many German thinkers to reject intellection in favour of the irrational forces of blood and life. In the words of Herbert Schnädelbach, at this point "philosophy of life tendentiously abolished the traditional difference between nature and culture and thus facilitated the success of the general biologism in the theory of culture, which culminated in National Socialist racism."— <a href="/facts/Richard_Wolin/5RonnHvf">Richard Wolin</a><a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:89" href="#fn:89">89</a>
In his 1953 book, The Destruction of Reason, having concluded that Lebensphilosophie merely represented irrationalism from the standpoint of the "imperialist bourgeoisie", <a href="/facts/Georg_Luk%C3%A1cs/N6U2d7MB">Georg Lukács</a> also concluded that it was an ideological development towards Nazism. Lukács saw <a href="/facts/Ludwig_Klages/ny5EV6fS">Ludwig Klages</a> in particular as the forerunner of fascism, having "transformed [German vitalism] into an open attack on reason and culture." He additionally pointed to <a href="/facts/Oswald_Spengler/RG767gfM">Oswald Spengler</a> and his work (primarily <a href="/facts/The_Decline_of_the_West/6jSh1ckX">The Decline of the West</a>) being a key part in “reconstructing [German vitalism] as a philosophy of <a href="/facts/Militant/JFJkBXcL">militant</a> <a href="/facts/Reactionism/YXNs6GQC">reaction</a>” following the first world war, resulting in a “veritable, direct prelude to <a href="/facts/Fascism_and_ideology/SHdjoduo">fascist philosophy</a>.”<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:90" href="#fn:90">90</a>
Intellectual historian Carl Müller Frøland concluded that Lebenphilosophie movement experienced an "<a href="/facts/V%C3%B6lkisch/zWorla66">Völkisch</a>-Ideological Turn", which formed the ideological basis for the Nazism. He saw that the biopolitical vitalism of Lebenphilosophie was easily connected with <a href="/facts/Social_Darwinist/LwLkddXI">social Darwinist</a> thought, with an co-current strain of Nietzschean-style vitalism mixed with <a href="/facts/V%C3%B6lkisch_nationalism/JjsMI4lE">Völkisch nationalism</a> rising within Imperial Germany. At outbreak of the first world war, these ideas fused into a proverbial "war-worshipping vitalism", which was an progenitor of Nazism.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:91" href="#fn:91">91</a>
The Israeli-American historian Nitzan Lebovic identified Lebensphilosophie with the tight relation between a "corpus of life-concepts" and what the German education system came to see, during the 1920s, as the proper Lebenskunde, the 'teaching of life' or 'science of life'—a name that seemed to support the broader philosophical outlook long held by most biologists of the time. In his book Lebovic traces the transformation of the post-Nietzschean Lebensphilosophie from the radical aesthetics of the <a href="/facts/George-Kreis/gvn201pS">Stefan George Circle</a> to <a href="/facts/Nazi/JjsMI4lE">Nazi</a> or "<a href="/facts/Biopolitical/8W5DDxWQ">biopolitical</a>" rhetoric and politics.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:92" href="#fn:92">92</a>
<a href="/facts/Frederick_C._Beiser/Gl4P5T8L">Frederick C. Beiser</a>, in his book Philosophy of Life: German Lebensphilosophie 1870-1920 found that Nazis had appropriated some of its themes to their ideology. However, Beiser notes that "there is really very little in common" between national socialism and Lebensphilosophie thought.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:93" href="#fn:93">93</a>

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>

<ul><li><a href="/facts/Absurdity/aY5BuWk0">Absurdity</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Essence/X1uqmlSm">Essence</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Existence/IRAl4dlu">Existence</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Existential_crisis/yp5GkbdE">Existential crisis</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/German_Idealism/SStyy9Bx">German Idealism</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Human_situation/trY462FK">Human situation</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Meaning_of_life/YxbldkPE">Meaning of life</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Self-discovery/6FI2tcT2">Self-discovery</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Vitalism/wYrVvfUf">Vitalism</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/German_Idealism/SStyy9Bx">German Idealism</a>, an antecedent philosophical movement to Lebensphilosophie<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:94" href="#fn:94">94</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/German_Romanticism/67XxV1Sj">German Romanticism</a>, an antecedent intellectual movement to Lebensphilosophie</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Lebensreform/JXHILcR4">Lebensreform</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Dark_Enlightenment/wrNle8hm">Dark Enlightenment</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="notes">Notes</h2>

<h3>Sources</h3>

<ul><li>Gordon, Peter E.; Breckman, Warren, eds. (August 29, 2019). <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ">The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought: Volume 2, The Twentieth Century</a>. Cambridge University Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 9781107097780.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Richard_Wolin/5RonnHvf">Wolin, Richard</a>. <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1308494/continental-philosophy">"Continental philosophy"</a>. <a href="/facts/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/CEyVsjlN">Encyclopædia Britannica</a>. Retrieved April 24, 2011.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/J%C3%B3zef_Maria_Boche%C5%84ski/nWsm4IKA">Bochenski, I.M</a> (1974) [1947]. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC">Contemporary European Philosophy</a>. University of California Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 0-520-00133-8.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Gy%C3%B6rgy_Luk%C3%A1cs/N6U2d7MB">Lukács, György</a> (1981) [1953]. <a href="http://archive.org/details/the-destruction-of-reason-by-gyorgy-lukacs">The Destruction of Reason</a>. Humanities Press. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 9780391022478.</li>
<li>Lebovic, Nitzan (September 11, 2013). <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7aAhAQAAQBAJ">The Philosophy of Life and Death: Ludwig Klages and the Rise of a Nazi Biopolitics</a>. Palgrave Macmillan. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 9781137342065.</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Frederick_C._Beiser/Gl4P5T8L">Beiser, Frederick C.</a> (March 21, 2023). <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Xbi1EAAAQBAJ">Philosophy of Life: German Lebensphilosophie 1870-1920</a>. <a href="/facts/OUP_Oxford/CYyTzzWG">OUP Oxford</a>. <a href="/facts/ISBN_(identifier)/15AdSPa9">ISBN</a> 9780192899781.</li></ul>

<h3>Citations</h3>

<h2 id="further-reading">Further reading</h2>
<ul><li>William James and other essays on the philosophy of life, <a href="/facts/Josiah_Royce/Lg0ze3e8">Josiah Royce</a></li>
<li>Existential philosophy, <a href="/facts/Paul_Tillich/HwmPnGH7">Paul Tillich</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.philosophyoflife.org/jpl2015si_book.pdf">Reconsidering Meaning in Life</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.lifestudies.org/press/rls0802.pdf">Philosophy of Life in Contemporary Society</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
Academic journals
<ul><li><a href="http://www.philosophyoflife.org/">Journal of Philosophy of Life</a></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">Gaiger, Jason (1998). "Lebensphilosophie". In Craig, Edward (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge. <a href="/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy" target="_blank">/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:2">Gaiger, Jason (1998). "Lebensphilosophie". In Craig, Edward (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge. <a href="/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy" target="_blank">/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:3">Gaiger, Jason (1998). "Lebensphilosophie". In Craig, Edward (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge. <a href="/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy" target="_blank">/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:4">"Ludwig Klages". Encyclopædia Britannica. 19 March 2024. Klages was a leader in the German vitalist movement (1895–1915),"Klages, Ludwig (1872–1956)". Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved September 26, 2020 – via Encyclopedia.com. Klages was the principal representative in psychology of the vitalist movement that swept Germany from 1895 to 1915. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Klages" target="_blank">https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-Klages</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:5">Sprott, W. J. H. (1929). "Review: The Science of Character by Ludwig Klages; W. H. Johnson". Mind. New Series. 38 (152). Oxford University Press: 513–520. doi:10.1093/mind/XXXVIII.152.513. JSTOR 2250002.Lebovic, Nitzan (2006). "The Beauty and Terror of Lebensphilosophie: Ludwig Klages, Walter Benjamin, and Alfred Baeumler". South Central Review. 23 (1). The Johns Hopkins University Press: 23–39. doi:10.1353/scr.2006.0009. S2CID 170637814. <a href="/wiki/Doi_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/Doi_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:6">Cf. Manos Perrakis (ed.), Life as an Aesthetic Idea of Music. Universal Edition, Vienna/London/New York, NY 2019 (Studien zur Wertungsforschung 61), ISBN 978-3-7024-7621-2. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:7">Gaiger, Jason (1998). "Lebensphilosophie". In Craig, Edward (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge. <a href="/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy" target="_blank">/wiki/Routledge_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:8">Michael Friedman, A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger, Open Court, 2013. <a href="/wiki/Michael_Friedman_(philosopher)" target="_blank">/wiki/Michael_Friedman_(philosopher)</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:9">Ruggiano, Michele (1981). L'infinito nella sensibilità romantica (in Italian). University of California: G. Ricolo. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pX4yAAAAIAAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=pX4yAAAAIAAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:10">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:11">Ruggiano, Michele (1981). L'infinito nella sensibilità romantica (in Italian). University of California: G. Ricolo. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pX4yAAAAIAAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=pX4yAAAAIAAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:12">Lebovic, 2013 <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:13">Ruggiano, Michele (1981). L'infinito nella sensibilità romantica (in Italian). University of California: G. Ricolo. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pX4yAAAAIAAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=pX4yAAAAIAAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:14">Introduction dans Le jeune Heidegger 1909-1926, VRIN, coll. « Problèmes et controverses », 2011v, p. 19
 <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:15">Wolin, Richard. "Continental philosophy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 24, 2011. In Germany the corresponding school [to vitalism], known as Lebensphilosophie ("philosophy of life"), began to take on aspects of a political ideology in the years immediately preceding World War I. The work of Hans Driesch and Ludwig Klages, for example, openly condemned the superficial intellectualism of Western civilization. In associating "reason" with the shortcomings of "civilization" and "the West", Lebensphilosophie spurred many German thinkers to reject intellection in favour of the irrational forces of blood and life. In the words of Herbert Schnädelbach, at this point "philosophy of life tendentiously abolished the traditional difference between nature and culture and thus facilitated the success of the general biologism in the theory of culture, which culminated in National Socialist racism." <a href="/wiki/Richard_Wolin" target="_blank">/wiki/Richard_Wolin</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:16">Philipp Lersch: Contemporary Philosophy of Life, Munich 1932, reprint in: Philipp Lersch: Horizons of Experience. Writings on the Philosophy of Life, edited and introduced by Thomas Rolf, Albunea, Munich 2011, 41–124 <a href="#fnref:16" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:17">Fritz Heinemann: New Paths of Philosophy. Mind, Life, Existence. An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1929, and Fritz Heinemann: VIVO SUM. Fundamental Remarks on the Meaning and Scope of Life Philosophy. In: New Yearbooks for Science and Youth Education, 9 (Issue 2/1933), 113–126 <a href="#fnref:17" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:18">Georg Misch: Philosophy of Life and Phenomenology. A discussion of Dilthey’s movement with Heidegger and Husserl. [1931], 2nd edition. Teubner, Leipzig/ Berlin 1931. <a href="#fnref:18" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:19">Bochenski 1974, p. 100-101. - Bochenski, I.M (1974) [1947]. Contemporary European Philosophy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00133-8. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC</a> <a href="#fnref:19" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:20">Jean-Claude Gens, L'Herméneutique diltheyenne des mondes de la vie, Revue Philosophie n 108, hiver 2010, p. 67-69. <a href="#fnref:20" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:21">Gordon & Breckman 2019, p. 158. - Gordon, Peter E.; Breckman, Warren, eds. (August 29, 2019). The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought: Volume 2, The Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107097780. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:21" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:22">"Nobel Prize in Literature 1927". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 2008-10-11. Retrieved 2008-10-17. <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1927/index.html" target="_blank">http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1927/index.html</a> <a href="#fnref:22" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:23">Bochenski 1974, p. 101. - Bochenski, I.M (1974) [1947]. Contemporary European Philosophy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00133-8. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC</a> <a href="#fnref:23" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:24">Copjec, Joan (1994). Supposing the Subject. Verso Books. p. 3. ISBN 9781859840757. <a href="9781859840757" target="_blank">9781859840757</a> <a href="#fnref:24" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:25">Gordon & Breckman 2019, p. 158-159. - Gordon, Peter E.; Breckman, Warren, eds. (August 29, 2019). The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought: Volume 2, The Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107097780. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:25" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:26">Nitzan Lebovic, "The Beauty and Terror of "Lebensphilosophie": Ludwig Klages, Walter Benjamin, and Alfred Baeumler", South Central Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2006, p. 25.
 <a href="#fnref:26" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:27">Beiser, Frederick C. (March 21, 2023), page 29."The term Lebensphilosophie first arose in the late eighteenth century to designate a philosophy oriented around practical life. A Lebensphilosophie was a philosophy for a person's life, a guide to action and the good life.
 <a href="#fnref:27" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:28">Wilhelm Traugott Krug: Allgemeines Handwörterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften, nebst ihrer Literatur und Geschichte. Band 2, Brockhaus 1827, Stichwort: Lebensphilosophie. Zur Popularphilosophie siehe: Christoph Böhr: Die Popularphilosophie der deutschen Spätaufklärung im Zeitalter Kants. frommann-holzboog, Stuttgart 2003. <a href="#fnref:28" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:29">Gordon & Breckman 2019, p. 158. - Gordon, Peter E.; Breckman, Warren, eds. (August 29, 2019). The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought: Volume 2, The Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107097780. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:29" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:30">Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: Fliegende Blätter. In: Werke. 6 Bände, Leipzig 1812–1827 (Nachdruck: Band VI, Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1968, page 136). <a href="#fnref:30" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:31">Lüer, Renja (2013) [1992]. Goethes Faust als Lebensphilosophie: Teil 1: Faust - eine (Lebens-)Tragödie?. GRIN Verlag. ISBN 9783656382980. <a href="9783656382980" target="_blank">9783656382980</a> <a href="#fnref:31" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:32">Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I, 2038 f
 <a href="#fnref:32" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:33">Bollnow, Otto Friedrich; Boelhauve, Ursula (2009). Lebensphilosophie und Existenzphilosophie [Lebensphilosophie and existential philosophy] (in German). Königshausen & Neumann. p. 82, 125, 273. ISBN 9783826041860. <a href="9783826041860" target="_blank">9783826041860</a> <a href="#fnref:33" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:34">Novalis Schriften. Die Werke Friedrich von Hardenbergs. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe (HKA) in vier Bänden. Band II, Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1965–1975, page. 599.
 <a href="#fnref:34" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:35">Friedrich Schlegel: Philosophie des Lebens. In fünfzehn Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1827. Kritische Ausgabe seiner Werke. Band 10, p. 1–308, <a href="#fnref:35" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:36">Friedrich Schlegel: Philosophie des Lebens. In fünfzehn Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1827. Kritische Ausgabe seiner Werke. Band 10, p. 1–308, <a href="#fnref:36" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:37">Kraus, Katharina Teresa (2024). Nassar, Dalia; Gjesdal, Kristin (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition. Oxford University Press. p. 195-196. ISBN 9780190066239. <a href="9780190066239" target="_blank">9780190066239</a> <a href="#fnref:37" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:38">Bohang Chen (2024). Transforming Philosophy in the Early Twentieth Century: A Historico-Critical Investigation. Taylor & Francis. p. 21. ISBN 9781040226650. <a href="9781040226650" target="_blank">9781040226650</a> <a href="#fnref:38" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:39">Frøland, Carl Müller (2020). Understanding Nazi Ideology: The Genesis and Impact of a Political Faith. McFarland, Incorporated. ISBN 9781476637624. <a href="9781476637624" target="_blank">9781476637624</a> <a href="#fnref:39" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:40">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter VII. Social Darwinism, racial theory and fascism" <a href="#fnref:40" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:41">Kosaka, Kunitsugu (April 30, 2005). 倫理学概説 (Rinri-gaku gaisetsu) [Outline of Ethics]. Mineruvu~Ashobō. p. 207. ISBN 978-4623041411. <a href="978-4623041411" target="_blank">978-4623041411</a> <a href="#fnref:41" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:42">Schopenhauer had indeed received a philosophical education, but only taught philosophy for a short time, when he was not yet famous. He lived off his inheritance and therefore never really had to work; he himself stated that he lived for philosophy and not from philosophy. Nietzsche was not even a philosopher by training, but a philologist and never gave a lecture on philosophy.
 <a href="#fnref:42" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:43">Magnus, Bernd; Higgins, Kathleen Marie, eds. (1996). The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche. Cambridge University Press. p. 74. ISBN 9780521367677. <a href="9780521367677" target="_blank">9780521367677</a> <a href="#fnref:43" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:44">Losurdo, Domenico (October 14, 2019). Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel:Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance-Sheet. Brill. ISBN 9789004270954. <a href="9789004270954" target="_blank">9789004270954</a> <a href="#fnref:44" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:45">Wolin, Richard. "Continental philosophy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 24, 2011. In Germany the corresponding school [to vitalism], known as Lebensphilosophie ("philosophy of life"), began to take on aspects of a political ideology in the years immediately preceding World War I. The work of Hans Driesch and Ludwig Klages, for example, openly condemned the superficial intellectualism of Western civilization. In associating "reason" with the shortcomings of "civilization" and "the West", Lebensphilosophie spurred many German thinkers to reject intellection in favour of the irrational forces of blood and life. In the words of Herbert Schnädelbach, at this point "philosophy of life tendentiously abolished the traditional difference between nature and culture and thus facilitated the success of the general biologism in the theory of culture, which culminated in National Socialist racism." <a href="/wiki/Richard_Wolin" target="_blank">/wiki/Richard_Wolin</a> <a href="#fnref:45" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:46">Albert, Karl (1995). Lebensphilosophie: Von den Anfängen bei Nietzsche bis zu ihrer Kritik bei Lukács (Kolleg Philosophie) (in German). K. Alber. p. 9. ISBN 9783495478264. <a href="9783495478264" target="_blank">9783495478264</a> <a href="#fnref:46" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:47">Warren, Scott (September 15, 2008). The Emergence of Dialectical Theory:Philosophy and Political Inquiry. University of Chicago Press. p. 150. ISBN 9780226873923. A further influence on Horkheimer's thought was Lebenshilosophie. The "philosophy of life" tradition, rooted in the thought of Nietzche, Dilthey and Bergson and later developed (for Horkheimer, degenerated) into various forms of irrationalism and existentialism. <a href="9780226873923" target="_blank">9780226873923</a> <a href="#fnref:47" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:48">Max Scheler: Attempts at a Philosophy of Life, first in: Die weissen Blätter, 1st year, No. III (Nov.) 1913, republished with additions in: Max Scheler: Vom Umsturz der Werte, 1915, republished as 4th edition by Maria Scheler, Francke, Berlin and Munich 1972, 311–339 <a href="#fnref:48" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:49">Arthur Schopenhauer: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Werke in fünf Bänden (Ausgabe letzter Hand), hrsg. von Ludger Lütkehaus. Band 1, Haffmans, Zürich 1988, S. 362.
 <a href="#fnref:49" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:50">Arthur Schopenhauer: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Werke in fünf Bänden (Ausgabe letzter Hand), hrsg. von Ludger Lütkehaus. Band 1, Haffmans, Zürich 1988, S. 362.
 <a href="#fnref:50" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:51">Wolin, Richard / Encyclopædia Britannica <a href="#fnref:51" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:52">Friedrich Nietzsche: Götzendämmerung. Was ich den Alten verdanke § 5, KSA 6, 160
 <a href="#fnref:52" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:53">Bochenski 1974, p. 122. - Bochenski, I.M (1974) [1947]. Contemporary European Philosophy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00133-8. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC</a> <a href="#fnref:53" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:54">Bochenski 1974, p. 124-125. - Bochenski, I.M (1974) [1947]. Contemporary European Philosophy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00133-8. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC</a> <a href="#fnref:54" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:55">Gordon & Breckman 2019, p. 157. - Gordon, Peter E.; Breckman, Warren, eds. (August 29, 2019). The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought: Volume 2, The Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107097780. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:55" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:56">Kołakowski, Leszek (1985). Bergson. Oxford University Press. p. 42-46. ISBN 9780192876454. <a href="9780192876454" target="_blank">9780192876454</a> <a href="#fnref:56" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:57">Gordon & Breckman 2019, p. 4. - Gordon, Peter E.; Breckman, Warren, eds. (August 29, 2019). The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought: Volume 2, The Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107097780. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=m3E8EAAAQBAJ</a> <a href="#fnref:57" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:58">Aboulafia, Mitchell, ed. (1991). Philosophy, Social Theory, and the Thought of George Herbert Mead. State University of New York Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780791403594. Retrieved January 5, 2025. <a href="9780791403594" target="_blank">9780791403594</a> <a href="#fnref:58" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:59">Lebovic, 2013 <a href="#fnref:59" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:60">Mauskopf, Seymore H (2019). The Reception Of Unconventional Science. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000305098. <a href="9781000305098" target="_blank">9781000305098</a> <a href="#fnref:60" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:61">Wohl, Robert (June 30, 2009). "2. Germany: The Mission of the Young Generation". The Generation of 1914. Harvard University Press. p. 42-55. ISBN 9780674045309. <a href="9780674045309" target="_blank">9780674045309</a> <a href="#fnref:61" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:62">Wolin, Richard. "Continental philosophy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 24, 2011. In Germany the corresponding school [to vitalism], known as Lebensphilosophie ("philosophy of life"), began to take on aspects of a political ideology in the years immediately preceding World War I. The work of Hans Driesch and Ludwig Klages, for example, openly condemned the superficial intellectualism of Western civilization. In associating "reason" with the shortcomings of "civilization" and "the West", Lebensphilosophie spurred many German thinkers to reject intellection in favour of the irrational forces of blood and life. In the words of Herbert Schnädelbach, at this point "philosophy of life tendentiously abolished the traditional difference between nature and culture and thus facilitated the success of the general biologism in the theory of culture, which culminated in National Socialist racism." <a href="/wiki/Richard_Wolin" target="_blank">/wiki/Richard_Wolin</a> <a href="#fnref:62" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:63">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:63" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:64">Lebovic, 2013 <a href="#fnref:64" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:65">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:65" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:66">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:66" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:67">Protevi, John (2006). A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy. Yale University Press. p. 355. ISBN 9780300116052. Lebensphilosophie became a fashionable and quickly worn-out term after the end of the First World War, when it was given a vitalistic and even racist direction. It was employed by thinkers such as Oswald Spengler who developed neo-conservative and culturally pessimistic critiques of the decline of the vitality of the West in its growing modernity, rationality and technology. This popularised and vulgarised Lebensphilosophie is part of the context for the emergence of European fascism. <a href="9780300116052" target="_blank">9780300116052</a> <a href="#fnref:67" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:68">Vrahimis, Andreas (2022). Bergsonism and the History of Analytic Philosophy. p. 237. ISBN 9783030807559. The voice that had most prominently brought elements of Lebensphilosophie to the broader public was not, however, Heidegger's. It came from outside academia, in the work of Oswald Spengler. With the publication of his Untergang des Abendlandes in 1918, Spengler became a kind of minor extra-academic celebrity in the Germanophone world. Spengler's mainly historical work develops an account of the rise and fall of cultures and the phenomena that emerge within them. Its overgeneralisations about the downfall of Western civilisation are based on dubious historical accounts of the emergence and decline of human cultures. Its broad span ranges from the history of art to the history of science and mathematics. <a href="9783030807559" target="_blank">9783030807559</a> <a href="#fnref:68" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:69">Abromeit, John (October 10, 2011). Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School. Cambridge University Press. p. 134-135. ISBN 9781139499361. [In regards of Max Horkheimer discussing several different representatives of Lebensphilosophie.] As was the case with Husserl and phenomenology, Horkheimer was ultimately more concerned about the popularizations of Bergson and Lebensphilosophie and the fateful social dynamic that they obscured and thereby reinforced, than with the philosophical doctrines themselves, which contained moments of truth.As an example of the worst sort of popularizations of Lebensphilosophie, Horkheimer discusses Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. Horkheimer dismisses Spengler's study which enjoyed wide popularity in Germany in the 1920s, especially among culturally conservative circles -- as superficial synthesis of poorly understood material from a wide variety of fields. He is particularly vehement in his rejection of Spengler's facile comparison of the development of human culture with that of plants. For Horkheimer, there is no comparison between genuine Lebensphilosophie and popularizers like Spengler. <a href="9781139499361" target="_blank">9781139499361</a> <a href="#fnref:69" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:70">Holmes, Oliver, "José Ortega y Gasset", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gasset/" target="_blank">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/gasset/</a> <a href="#fnref:70" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:71">Warren, Scott (September 15, 2008). The Emergence of Dialectical Theory:Philosophy and Political Inquiry. University of Chicago Press. p. 150. ISBN 9780226873923. A further influence on Horkheimer's thought was Lebenshilosophie. The "philosophy of life" tradition, rooted in the thought of Nietzche, Dilthey and Bergson and later developed (for Horkheimer, degenerated) into various forms of irrationalism and existentialism. <a href="9780226873923" target="_blank">9780226873923</a> <a href="#fnref:71" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:72">Wolin, Richard / Encyclopædia Britannica <a href="#fnref:72" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:73">Nitzan Lebovic, "The Beauty and Terror of "Lebensphilosophie": Ludwig Klages, Walter Benjamin, and Alfred Baeumler", South Central Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2006, p. 25.
 <a href="#fnref:73" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:74">Bochenski 1974, p. 114. - Bochenski, I.M (1974) [1947]. Contemporary European Philosophy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-00133-8. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=271ylGgpcOcC</a> <a href="#fnref:74" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:75">Gallie, W.B. (1975) [1952]. Peirce and Pragmatism. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 14. ISBN 9780837183428. <a href="9780837183428" target="_blank">9780837183428</a> <a href="#fnref:75" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:76">Gallie, W.B. (1975) [1952]. Peirce and Pragmatism. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 24. ISBN 9780837183428. <a href="9780837183428" target="_blank">9780837183428</a> <a href="#fnref:76" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:77">Sachs, Marilyn M. (2013). Marcel Proust in the Light of William James: In Search of a Lost Source. Lexington Books. p. 99. ISBN 9780739181638. Henri Bergson, Letter to H. Massis [fin décembre 1937), Correspondences, 1585 Bergson compares his view of the "durêe" to the "flights" and "perchings" in James's conception of the stream of consciousness in a letter to Floris Delattre [fr] (24 août 1923)Correspondences, 1053-1054. Bergson wrote regarding Delattre's book, William James, bergsonien (Paris: Universitaires de France). The only information available regarding date of publication indicates that it was sometime in the 1920s. <a href="9780739181638" target="_blank">9780739181638</a> <a href="#fnref:77" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:78">Heinrich Rickert: The Philosophy of Life. Presentation and Critique of the Philosophical Fashions of Our Time [1920], 2nd ed. Mohr, Tübingen 1922 <a href="#fnref:78" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:79">Ernst Cassirer: Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Part III: Phenomenology of Knowledge. (1929), reprint of the 2nd edition 1954, WBG, Darmstadt 1982, p. 46. <a href="#fnref:79" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:80">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:80" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:81">Lebovic, 2013 <a href="#fnref:81" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:82">Frøland, Carl Müller (2020). Understanding Nazi Ideology: The Genesis and Impact of a Political Faith. McFarland, Incorporated. p. 95-96. ISBN 9781476637624. <a href="9781476637624" target="_blank">9781476637624</a> <a href="#fnref:82" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:83">Russell, Bertrand (2004) [1945]. A History of Western Philosophy, and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Taylor & Francis. p. 716. ISBN 9781134343669. <a href="9781134343669" target="_blank">9781134343669</a> <a href="#fnref:83" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:84">O'Sullivan, Noël (1992). Santayana - Thinkers of Our Time (2 ed.). Claridge Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-1870626330. <a href="978-1870626330" target="_blank">978-1870626330</a> <a href="#fnref:84" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:85">Santayana, George (1968). Henfrey, Norman (ed.). Selected Critical Writings of George Santayana Volume 2 (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 160. ISBN 978-0521094641. <a href="978-0521094641" target="_blank">978-0521094641</a> <a href="#fnref:85" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:86">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:86" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:87">Bollnow, Otto Friedrich (2009). Boelhauve, Ursula (ed.). Lebensphilosophie und Existenzphilosophie. Königshausen & Neumann. p. 142. ISBN 9783826041860. <a href="9783826041860" target="_blank">9783826041860</a> <a href="#fnref:87" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:88">Wolfgang, Röd (1976). Geschichte der Philosophie,, Beck'sche Elementarbücher, Vol. 3 / Die Philosophie des ausgehenden 19. und des 20. Jahrhunderts. C.H.Beck. p. 127. ISBN 9783406492754. <a href="9783406492754" target="_blank">9783406492754</a> <a href="#fnref:88" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:89">Wolin, Richard. "Continental philosophy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 24, 2011. In Germany the corresponding school [to vitalism], known as Lebensphilosophie ("philosophy of life"), began to take on aspects of a political ideology in the years immediately preceding World War I. The work of Hans Driesch and Ludwig Klages, for example, openly condemned the superficial intellectualism of Western civilization. In associating "reason" with the shortcomings of "civilization" and "the West", Lebensphilosophie spurred many German thinkers to reject intellection in favour of the irrational forces of blood and life. In the words of Herbert Schnädelbach, at this point "philosophy of life tendentiously abolished the traditional difference between nature and culture and thus facilitated the success of the general biologism in the theory of culture, which culminated in National Socialist racism." <a href="/wiki/Richard_Wolin" target="_blank">/wiki/Richard_Wolin</a> <a href="#fnref:89" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:90">Lukács, György (1981) [1953], "Chapter IV. Vitalism (Lebensphilosophie) in Imperialist Germany" <a href="#fnref:90" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:91">Frøland, Carl Müller (2020). Understanding Nazi Ideology: The Genesis and Impact of a Political Faith. McFarland, Incorporated. p. 95-96. ISBN 9781476637624. <a href="9781476637624" target="_blank">9781476637624</a> <a href="#fnref:91" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:92">Lebovic, 2013 <a href="#fnref:92" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:93">Beiser 2023, Chapter: "Introduction", Lebensphilosophie. Some of its themes were appropriated by the Nazis, who tried to make them the philosophy of their movement.[...] Yet there is really very little in common between national socialism and Lebensphilosophie. The aggressive hypernationalism, racism, and imperialism characteristic of Nazism have no precedent in Lebenphilosophie. <a href="#fnref:93" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
<li id="fn:94">Michael Friedman, A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger, Open Court, 2013. <a href="/wiki/Michael_Friedman_(philosopher)" target="_blank">/wiki/Michael_Friedman_(philosopher)</a> <a href="#fnref:94" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Lebensphilosophie open-in-new

Lebensphilosophie