(; meaning "philosophy of life") was a dominant philosophical movement of German-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which had developed out of German Romanticism. emphasised the meaning, value and purpose of life as the foremost focus of philosophy.
Its central theme was that an understanding of life can only be apprehended by life itself, and from within itself. Drawing on the critiques of epistemology offered by Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, notable ideas of the movement have been seen as precursors to both Husserlian phenomenology and Heideggerian existential phenomenology.
criticised both mechanistic and materialist approaches to science and philosophy and as such has also been referred to as the German vitalist movement, though its relationship to biological vitalism is questionable. Vitality in this sense is instead understood as part of a biocentric distinction between life-affirming and life-denying principles.
While often rejected by academic philosophers, it had strong repercussions in the arts.Cf. Manos Perrakis (ed.), Life as an Aesthetic Idea of Music. Universal Edition, Vienna/London/New York, NY 2019 (Studien zur Wertungsforschung 61), .
Overview This philosophy pays special attention to life as a whole, which can only be understood from within. The movement can be regarded as a rejection of Kantian abstract philosophy or scientific reductionism of positivism.
Inspired by the critique of rationalism in the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, emerged in 19th-century Germany as a reaction to the Age of Enlightenment, the rise of positivism and the theoretical focus prominent in much of post-Kantian philosophy.Michael Friedman, A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger, Open Court, 2013. As such, Lebensphilosophie is defined as form of irrationalism, as well as a form of Counter-Enlightenment. Twentieth-century forms of can be identified with a critical stress on norms and conventions.
The first elements of a Lebensphilosophie are found in the context of early German Romanticism which conceived existence as a continuous tension of "the finite towards the infinite", an aspiration that was always disappointed and generated either a withdrawal into oneself and detachment with an attitude of pessimistic renunciation, or on the contrary exaltation of the instinctive spirit or vital impulse of the human being, a struggle for existence or a religious acceptance of the destiny of man entrusted to divine providence.
Wilhelm Dilthey was the first to seek to account for a "pre-theoretical cohesion of living", by taking the phenomenological turn and relying on the historical experience of life, by highlighting relationships specific to life (Lebensbezüge), that Martin Heidegger would later consider both as a fundamental step, but also insufficiently radical.Introduction dans Le jeune Heidegger 1909–1926, VRIN, coll. « Problèmes et controverses », 2011v, p. 19 The movement bore indirect relation to the subjectivist philosophy of vitalism developed by Henri Bergson, which lent importance to immediacy of experience.
An early systematic presentation was formulated by the German psychologist , who, while primarily studying Bergson, Dilthey and Spengler, saw Georg Simmel and Ludwig Klages as Lebensphilosophie's most important representatives.Philipp Lersch: Contemporary Philosophy of Life, Munich 1932, reprint in: Philipp Lersch: Horizons of Experience. Writings on the Philosophy of Life, edited and introduced by Thomas Rolf, Albunea, Munich 2011, 41–124
Philosopher Fritz Heinemann considered the Lebensphilosophie as an intermediate stage in the transition from the philosophy of spirit to the philosophy of existence.Fritz Heinemann: New Paths of Philosophy. Mind, Life, Existence. An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1929, and Fritz Heinemann: VIVO SUM. Fundamental Remarks on the Meaning and Scope of Life Philosophy. In: New Yearbooks for Science and Youth Education, 9 (Issue 2/1933), 113–126 Georg Misch, Dilthey's student and son-in-law, worked out the relationship between the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl and the Lebensphilosophie in 1930.Georg Misch: Philosophy of Life and Phenomenology. A discussion of Dilthey’s movement with Heidegger and Husserl. , 2nd edition. Teubner, Leipzig/ Berlin 1931.
Characteristics and schools Characteristics that regularly recur in the work of Lebensphilosophie thinkers, although not in every writer, can be summarized as follows:Jean-Claude Gens, L'Herméneutique diltheyenne des mondes de la vie, Revue Philosophie n 108, hiver 2010, p. 67-69. Life is central: in contrast to empiricism and materialism on the one hand, which place matter central, or idealism and rationalism on the other, which place intellect central, the philosophy of life wants to explain the world from the perspective of life. Biology and historicism is central: while earlier philosophers often gave physics a central role in their thinking, this role is assigned to biology by philosophers of life, including Henri Bergson, or history by Wilhelm Dilthey. Anti-mechanism thought: life and broader reality should not be understood as a machine, but rather as an evolving and creative process. The philosophy of life is therefore closely linked to the thesis of vitalism, which states that life must be explained by means of a special urge to live that is inherent to life itself. Actualism: according to the philosophy of life, reality lacks any form of stability and must instead be understood as a continuous process of change, movement, becoming and life. Irrationalism: the philosophy of life also has its own philosophy of science in which a general aversion to reasonable laws, concepts and logical deductions applies. (Scientific) reason is not capable of fully understanding reality. Life and reality, on the other hand, must be understood from intuition or practical experience. Realism: Philosophers of life, unlike idealists, adhere to a form of realism, which means that they believe that the world exists independently of human thought. Immanence: Another characteristic is the aversion to the urge for transcendence and the emphasis on immanence. Man should not focus his gaze on possible structures, principles or concepts that transcend man, but should focus on the here and now; man should not long for another, better and higher world, but should place this world centrally. Aphoristic style: The insights of the philosophy of life are often also written down in an aphoristic or literary style. This is partly due to the conviction that the true insights of life cannot be captured in a theoretical framework. Furthermore, the texts of the philosophy of life were also often characterized by their high literary quality and the absence of philosophical jargon. This can be found in the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, the aphoristic writing style of Friedrich Nietzsche and work of Henri Bergson, which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927.
Additionally, Lebensphilosophie can be divided into following different schools: Bergsonism or the doctrine of the urge to live, found in Henri Bergson and Maurice Blondel. Historicism that emphasizes the dynamic role of history, found in Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel. German lebensphilosophie that had a strong populist and irrationalist character, found in Hermann Graf Keyserling and Ludwig Klages. American and English Pragmatism
The infinite in the finite The Lebensphilosophie tries to make sense of a continuous and unresolved clash between "the infinite and the finite", that is shown in the incessant fading of living beings. The questions that the Lebensphilosophie poses find a first answer in the fifteen lectures held in 1827 in Vienna by Friedrich Schlegel who sees the nucleus of divine revelation in the highlighting of the infinite in the finite of man.
Referring to this romantic vision, both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, with completely different results, exalt the active character of life, contrasting it with the staticity of idealistic perfection of rationalism.
Schopenhauer reveals the essential irrationality of living that manifests itself in the will to live (German: Wille zum Leben), the senseless noumenal essence of everything in the world that has the sole purpose of increasing itself.
Nietzsche conceives life as a continuous growth and overcoming of those values consolidated over time that would hypocritically try to normalize existence in current morality. Life, in Nietzsche's thought, contrary to Darwinism, is never adaptation, conservation, but continuous growth without which the living being dies. The typical attempt of humanity to found its life on certainties, seeking them in religion, science, moral values, causes it to die out, overwhelmed by the proverbial "modern culture".
Precursors
In the field of ancient philosophy, whilst almost all philosophers have sidestepped the question of "how man should live", some had devoted themselves to it entirely. At the time, most philosophers and schools of thought focused almost exclusively on ethics and the good spirit. For one, Socrates had assumed "know thyself" as a maxim, and said that "the unexamined life is not worth living", which forms one of the cornerstones of Lebensphilosophie thought.
The roots for what would become Lebensphilosophie go back to the distinction made by Immanuel Kant, with regard to Christian Wolff; between theoretical school philosophy and a philosophy based on the concept of the world, which comes from life itself and is aimed at practical life.
Other individuals associated with the earliest forms of "Lebensphilosophie" were Johann August Ernesti and Johann Georg Heinrich Feder.Nitzan Lebovic, "The Beauty and Terror of "Lebensphilosophie": Ludwig Klages, Walter Benjamin, and Alfred Baeumler", South Central Review, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2006, p. 25.
At the end of the 18th century, life and world wisdom were fashionable terms in higher social circles. The philosophy of life was less a specific philosophical doctrine than a certain cultural mood that influenced large parts of the intelligentsia.Beiser, Frederick C. (March 21, 2023), page 29."The term Lebensphilosophie first arose in the late eighteenth century to designate a philosophy oriented around practical life. A Lebensphilosophie was a philosophy for a person's life, a guide to action and the good life.
Lebensphilosophie was equated with the popular philosophy that was widespread in the late 18th century, which deliberately distanced itself from school philosophy and, as a philosophy of practical action, was committed to the general dissemination of the ideas of the Enlightenment.Wilhelm Traugott Krug: Allgemeines Handwörterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften, nebst ihrer Literatur und Geschichte. Band 2, Brockhaus 1827, Stichwort: Lebensphilosophie. Zur Popularphilosophie siehe: Christoph Böhr: Die Popularphilosophie der deutschen Spätaufklärung im Zeitalter Kants. frommann-holzboog, Stuttgart 2003.
Since then, the wisdom of life and the world has often been presented in aphorisms, for example by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in the Ffliegen Blätter: "Philosophy is an inner life. A philosophical life is a concentrated life. Through true philosophy the soul becomes still, and ultimately devout."Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: Fliegende Blätter. In: Werke. 6 Bände, Leipzig 1812–1827 (Nachdruck: Band VI, Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1968, page 136).
In terms of the history of the concept, the first works to be recorded are those of Gottlob Benedict von Schirach: On Human Beauty and the Philosophy of Life from 1772 and Karl Philipp Moritz: Contributions to the Philosophy of Life from 1780 (already in its third edition in 1791). Characteristics of Lebensphilosophie are attributed to verse from Goethe's Faust;