Abstract of the Thesis

 

Das verzwistete Ich - Ludwig Klages und sein philosophisches Hauptwerk "Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele" by Roland Müller. 213 pages. Bern: Peter Lang 1971.
University of Basel, Switzerland, 9th July 1970

 

Suggestions for a title:

 

The Paradoxical Ego

The Inconsistent Ego

The Ego at Strife

The Ego Set at Variance

 

 

 

Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) became well-known through his studies in graphology, character and expression (phenomenology).

This present investigation is so far the most detailed and the first for the past thirty years to consider his 1500-page "Mind as the Soul's Adversary" (1929-32; 1960⁴) as a whole.

 

This critical analysis does not correspond to Klages' intention, to the contemplative, biocentric, inductive mentality dependent on life. Nevertheless, after a summary of Klages' life, after judgement of his works and their genesis, plus some peculiarities, in a textually faithful reconstruction of all the most important trains of thought - with special reference to the dualities and the ego - the writer has attempted a systematic structure.

 

This leads us from ratio-free occurrences (= reality), elemental and cosmic life, via human apprehension and the mental act to the world of the mind (= being) with things (= noumena), concepts, theories and the will as the adversary of life.

 

More precisely: In the copulation of occurrences with contemplative souls, i. e. of the active with the receptive pole, the UR-images are released. They appear (= phainomena), and out of them speak souls, beings or demonic powers. As a result of elemental similarity or dissimilarity, their characters or qualities are grasped through the partial processes of spiritual contemplation and physical experience. The two combine into inspection, which, through the addition of mental acts, becomes apprehension. These acts of understanding based on alienating experience are, in comparison with the constant receding and mutability of the images, instantaneous and localizing.

 

Consciousness is thus non-continuous, it anchors itself at disruptive points in the stream of experience or of the all-combining stream of life(= vital reflection). It snitches its objects from the world of phenomena, or projects the thing, the durable, into the fluctuating. It can neither experience nor synthesize, but only define limits and then draw conclusions, set up judgement and rules, or make laws.

 

Man is bearer of the two dissimilar powers - life and the mind. The ego is the non-extensive centre (= pivotal point) of their togetherness, which is both opposition and collaboration. The ego is a paradoxical entity (polarity II): personally experiencing and historical, i. e. fluctuating-mutable, rationally comprehending and inert, i. e. existent-identical.

Its origin - like the first flash of rationality - remains obscure; of significance are its re-active nature of achievement and its drive to self-assertion. Man suffers not only impressions, but drives. Those among them pertaining to things are split by the ratio, thus giving rise to force of will, which receives its directives towards its goal from the ego command.

The increasing arrogance of reason and the solely negating will (= universal inhibiting force) towards the drive as a vital cause of motion, can be observed in the course of human history and leaves us little hope, in view of mounting pollution of the environment and destruction of nature as a result of the victory of logocentric, mechanico-deterministic thinking on the formative power of the soul (= loss of image view).

 

Inexact, yet fascinating, Klages' self-willed, philosophical magnum opus is a gigantic torso, much misunderstood and by no means fathomed yet.