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/lit/ - Literature

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12214606 No.12214606 [Reply] [Original]

What is the best English translation of Spengler's "Decline of the West"? There are a lot of garbage tier translations out there and I'm trying to wade my way through them. I've heard that the work is beat read in its original German prose, but I simply don't have the time to learn German. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

>> No.12214679

>>12214606
im also interested.. maybe a version with annotations/notes like scholars edition..

>> No.12215115

bump, am also interested in this

>> No.12215180

>>12214606
Your pic will suffice. Spengler is not impressive, just read him and be done.

>> No.12215808

>>12215180
Not impressive conceptually or linguistically?

>> No.12215955
File: 80 KB, 720x578, FB_IMG_1544575549736.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
12215955

>> No.12215977

>>12215955
what does this pic signify

>> No.12216093

>>12215955
>File name
>Conservatism bad
>degeneracy good
go back to Facebook you leftist boomer and don't come back

>> No.12216360

>>12216093
lmao

>> No.12216502

>>12216093
>>12216093
Sprinkle in a few more buzzwords, people still can't tell you're a teenager.

>> No.12216518

>>12215977
the decline of the west

>> No.12216555

>>12215808
Both. His style is not scholarly, he was writing for the man on the street. This is fine. Except his ideas are nothing to write about either. Civilizations decline. Valid premise. These periods of decline have causes. Fair enough. Woooow.

>> No.12216572

>>12216555
Have you read the book because his main point is that civilizations are metaphysical organisms who have a central essence represented by a prime symbol that expresses itself throughout all the societies cultural expression including even its concept of number, and that these civilizations are mutually unintelligible, alien to each other.

You could actually sum up his entire worldview as the opposite of 'periods of decline have causes', he says that Nature, causality, can never explain the formation and decay of cultures, but that only the organic 'cosmic beat', the rhythm of world history can make sense of them, by analogy.

>> No.12216610

>>12215955
>Actually reading Marx when you can go to someone like Amartya Sen for economics and someone like Robert Nozick or Ronald Dworkin for political philosophy

>> No.12216758

more lilke cuckwald fagler if you ask me desu

>> No.12216959

>>12215180
>>12216555
Christ you're a fucking pleb. His style is not scholarly? No shit you retard, his entire philosophy of history runs contrary to the predominant Whig conception of history held by the Academy since the fucking 19th century.

yeah man he was definitely writing for the man on the street when he starts discussing how the apollonian and faustians souls manifest in euclidean geometry and infinitesimal calculus respectively.

>>12216572
this

Spengler is the most original philosopher of the 20th century. Decline of the West is a masterpiece of cultural history.

>> No.12216968

>>12216959
Can ya help an "enward" out for a good translation?

>> No.12216976

>>12216968
I wouldn't worry much about the translation, the struggle is making sure you don't buy an abridged verison, which the pic in the OP is.

Charles Francis Atkinson is the standard translator for Spengler.