How much of a philosophical background do I need to read and understand this?
It's useful to be familiar with Nietzsche but that's pretty much it.
Read Schopenhauer and Vico instead
>>7635137
start with the greeks
i'm ndrunk as fuckinjg hell but best would be background in a few alternate historical episteme things (vico e.g.) but that's a bit facile, more important desu is solid grounding in idealism, leibniz spinoza kant hegel fichte schelling schiller goethe a boon, epistemic relativismsmsmsms major but don't tell anyone i told you that kuhn castoriadis burtt others too lazy foucault interesting hughes coverage is good but not great
no one gets spengler, poor bald guy, if as a result of laundry list you publish anything seminal please give me partial credit
>>7635205
goethe more important than it seems desu vitalism integralism hard to separate read hayden white for that other organicist guy not humboldt
spengler underappreciaed
gpot rejected from berkeley 2 hours ago feel bad
>>7635207
>gpot rejected from berkeley
Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Berkeley is a shithole, you probably wouldn't like it there if you post on 4chan. East coast is best coast.
>>7635300
it's a harbinger of rejections to come, i can feel it
there genuinely wasn't any fit for me there but still
>>7635305
>it's a harbinger of rejections to come, i can feel it
You can't feel shit. I got rejected from NYU but accepted to Princeton for undergrad. The admissions process is colossally fucked up and disorganized, if you're decently qualified you'll get in somewhere acceptable.
>>7635317
it's phd
kill me
>>7635137
You don't need a philosophical grounding, it's fairly self-regarding in that sense... You should know a lot of world history however..
>>7635336
>tfw didn't get in anywhere I wanted to go postgrad
>tfw just gonna enlist in the military because my degree is fucking useless for career purposes
>>7635336
you should kill yourself, frog faggot
>wanting to read literal pre-Nazi propaganda
>>>/pol/
>>7635414
>waaah people like what I don't like!!!
>>7635414
>literally an author of one of the many books burned by the Nazis
How's the echo chamber in that head of yours?
>>7635414
The Beat generation read and were influenced by Spengler
>>7635137
Nothing.
The book is pretty much self-contained.
Knowledge of history will be more useful than philosophical knowledge, but it's not extremely necessary.
He can be quite a poet, even though the translation remains imperfect.
>>7635556
Damn, that sexy handwriting.
What did you think of the book?
>>7635414
>>7635583
Volume One was very interesting as a gloss upon the author's own themes...having three basic outlooks is a compelling unitary principle for bringing together very complex historical ideas. I don't find the Classical, Magian, Faustian idea to be terribly necessary but you can rely upon it for some things.
What I'm interested in seeing more however, is his view of Classical and Chinese history. His claim that we are living in an era of 'Contending States' in our own day (between a Roman-style conception of a Nation-state or the E.U. On the other hand) is kind of intriguing, although the E.U. is becoming more Roman by the day, with its accumulation of military power. Where will a King Zheng of Qin spring up in the midst of all this?
>>7635640
*he compares the Tsin Dynasty to Rome, I'm not sure why I wrote nation-state...
>>7635336
>not DPhil
pleb
>>7635300
>Berkeley is a shithole
but m-mm... muh bears
>>7636625
bearded musc/masc?
gtfout of here, the queers are all femmes in phd programs, even the bearded ones
>>7636634
no, I was trying to defend the school by saying we have bears & "go bears". not the gay men; merely the mascot.
>>7636648
i knew that this interpretation was more likely but enjoyed obliquely letting you know that berkeley is gay and that you are gay
>>7636656
More asians than gays desu senpai
