Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 38 No. 1, 2023.
Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.21464/sp38102
Essence and Purpose of Characterology in Ludwig Klages and Julius Bahnsen
Stephen Atzert
; University of Queensland, School of Languages and Cultures, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia
Abstract
This chapter seeks to determine the essence and the purpose of Klages’ characterology by means of his Grundlagen der Charakterkunde (Bonn: Bouvier 1951) and by comparison with Bahnsen’s Beiträge zur Charakterologie (Leipzig: Brockhaus 1867). Both Julius Bahnsen (1830–1881) and Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) are eminent representatives of the field known as characterology. Though separated by only a few decades, they worked in distinctly different centuries and with very different motivations. The differences of purpose and in the articulation of their respective characterologies thus comes as no surprise; for Klages, characterology, along with graphology and other modes of observation, serves to ground his ideas in immediate experience – or to at least claim such a grounding. For Klages, the particulars resulting from these observations correspond to the opposition between spirit and body/soul. For this reason, the Grundlagen der Charakterkunde are, in the main, an introduction to Klage’s world view, and a catechism of pos tulations rather than a systematisation of phenomenological descriptions. The second section contrasts this with Bahnsen’s more descriptive approach, and the final section presents some comparative remarks on the intellectual peculiarities of the two authors.
Keywords
anthropology; characterology; empirical character; behavioural studies; Julius Bahnsen; Ludwig Klages; Arthur Schopenhauer; Friedrich Nietzsche
Hrčak ID:
308272
URI
Publication date:
30.9.2023.
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