Philosophy of Life

Philosophy of Life and the Social Sciences

The philosophy of life has significantly influenced the social sciences concerning the spirit. However, we are not dealing so much with Nietzsche's own philosophy as with the teachings of his followers, particularly Wilhelm Dilthey and Oswald Spengler. Dilthey is credited with developing a method for understanding historical phenomena, while Spengler established an original concept of the historical process that laid the foundation for a cultural approach within social philosophy.

Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) was not the first to distinguish between the natural sciences and the sciences of the spirit; earlier neo-Kantians, particularly Heinrich Rickert, had already differentiated between natural and social sciences based on their methods of cognition. Rickert classified them according to their epistemological approaches: the natural sciences employ a "generalizing" method, seeking universal laws of nature, whereas the historical sciences utilize an "individualizing" method, depicting specific events that are inherently unique.

Dilthey, however, approached this distinction from a different methodological perspective rooted in the philosophy of life. The sciences of the spirit must center on life as it is directly experienced—through feeling, experience, action, and thought. The intellect, with its desire for analysis, precision, and definitions, cannot grasp the wholeness and dynamism of life. Instead, life can only be comprehended through intuition, which, for Dilthey, stands in opposition to reason, unlike for Descartes. He argues that the method of the sciences of the spirit must be the direct experience of historical events and their interpretation. “Humanity, understood through perception and (rational) cognition, would be a physical fact accessible only to natural scientific inquiry. As an object of the sciences of the spirit, it exists only insofar as human states are experienced and find expression in lived revelations that are comprehended.” Thus, a historian must engage with historical events as moments of life, a methodological stance that holds significant implications for understanding the historical process.

There are two methodological principles from which one can approach the historical process. The first was articulated by Hegel and later adopted by Marxism: “The owl of Minerva flies only at dusk.” This implies that a historical phenomenon or event can be properly understood only after it has reached the pinnacle of its development and full bloom. The past can only be understood from the present, and a correct evaluation of a historical event (as any social event carries value implications) is only possible from the mature state of society. While this may seem reasonable, it contains a significant methodological flaw. Changes in social order or even shifts in political power typically lead to changes in ideology, alterations in value systems, and consequently, a re-evaluation of historical priorities and events. This is why historical science is often characterized as a fickle maiden, changing its perspective on historical processes under the influence of or at the direct behest of authority. The post-Soviet space provides a vivid example of this historical re-evaluation of values. A comparison of today’s history of any post-Soviet state with its narrative during the Soviet era reveals significant discrepancies in the assessment of historical events, often reaching outright contradictions.

Dilthey’s methodology aimed to alleviate this flaw, if not entirely eliminate it (which is unlikely), by encouraging historians to base their interpretations of historical events primarily on the interests, motives, and value systems that guided the actors involved, rather than imposing contemporary standards upon history.

Another prominent follower of the philosophy of life was Oswald Spengler (1880-1936). His book "The Decline of the West," published shortly after World War I in 1918, achieved immense success. Spengler also posited that the natural world and the world of social life are fundamentally distinct realms that require different approaches to understanding.

In the study of social life, one must consider chronology and the concept of fate. History is the chronicle of the emergence, development, and demise of cultures. At the core of each culture lies a soul that demands expression, manifesting itself as life. The world, therefore, is the result of this expression, the culmination of life. Each culture is born, reaches its zenith, and ultimately perishes. This is what fate entails.

The prevailing framework in Western European historical science, characterized by the linear progression of "Antiquity - the Middle Ages - Modern Times," is impoverished and nonsensical. It reflects an Eurocentric bias in historical scholarship and fails to encompass the richness of history. Alongside Antiquity and Western culture, cultures of India, Babylon, China, Egypt, as well as Arab, Mexican, and Mayan cultures, exist and have existed. Each is unique, with some even surpassing ancient cultures in significance. Spengler articulates the essence of his "Copernican revolution" in views on the historical process: “Instead of a bleak linear world history, which one can support only by closing one’s eyes to a dismal pile of facts, I see a true spectacle of myriad powerful cultures that bloom with primal vigor from the maternal landscape to which each is rigorously bound throughout its existence.” The commonality among these cultures lies merely in the stages of their development: spring - summer - autumn - winter, or in the realms of art and politics: deep antiquity - culture - civilization. Commonality implies not repetitiveness but rather analogous events, processes, and epochs.

The cultural-historical concept of the historical process received further development in the 20th century through the works of English historian and sociologist Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) and American sociologist of Russian descent Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968). The value of these concepts resides in their emphasis on the individual characteristics of events and processes across different countries and cultures. Yet, therein lies their limitation, especially in our current age—the age of globalization—when cultural interactions and mutual enrichment are in flux.