Oswald Spengler and the Concepts of the Musical Principle of Faustian Culture: A Philosophical Analysis

Abstract

This article analyzes Oswald Spengler’s specific approach to the philosophical and cultural understanding of the music of Faustian culture. The study employs methods of comparative philosophical studies, reconstruction as well as the conceptual tenets of a civilizational approach. A reconstruction of the philosophical approach to understanding music presented in the first volume of Spengler’s “The Decline of the West” is provided. The study emphasizes the ontological aspect of Spengler’s philosophy. It argues that the concept of music developed by this philosopher belongs to a post-metaphysical ontology. The article provides a critical analysis of Spengler’s thesis on the predominantly musical nature of Faustian culture. It is shown that in Spengler’s conception, the phenomenon of music is analyzed on two levels: cultural – as an artistic form of expression of the primordial symbol of Faustian culture; and ontological – as a phenomenon that best corresponds to the specific interpretation of being in post-metaphysical philosophy. The working hypothesis is that Spengler views music as a form capable of serving as the most characteristic expression of a particular way of understanding existence. The study asks whether this particular way of understanding existence represents the quintessence of the ontological paradigm of European philosophy. Another point under discussion is whether the ontology that Spengler, following A. Schopenhauer and F.W. Nietzsche, finds in music corresponds to the ontology of R. Descartes, and I. Kant. The answer to these questions is that Spengler himself, in his ontological constructions, proceeds from a different type of ontology, one that can be defined as post-metaphysical and that expresses not the essential character of European philosophy, but its crisis.