THE SOUL AND THE WORLD OF OSVALD SPENGLER

Abstract

Summary. Purpose. The article deals with the antagonism of culture and civilization through two polarities of human conscious-ness – world and soul. Methodology. The article uses a method of comparison that allows one to see the imperceptible transitions that culture makes on the path to civilization and also to see how the soul enters the world, merges with this world leading to a qualitatively new formation or to the final collapse of the well-known forms of human life. Scientific novelty. The peculiarity of the article, first of all, is that the approach to the concepts of culture and civilization is made by contrasting the concepts of soul and world, which contain the dialec-tical concepts of content and form. The tenuity of these concepts in culture and civilization leads to incomplete knowledge, to the accu-mulation of content without a specific design, or to the advantage of a form devoid of meaningful content. Synthesis, on the contrary, is a wholeness, an animated world, which is filled with life and, therefore, meaning. Conclusions. Based on the work of Oswald Spengler, «The Decline of Europe», it has been found that the relation between the world and the soul, their interconnectedness and mutual development, appear in relation to each other as a form of content. If the balance of content and form is violated, then the living space, the human cul-ture are affected irreversibly. Spiritual in culture and formal in civili-zation – these are the two main meanings that define the world in which people live, that is why this aspect should be especially interesting for us, because it affects not only humanity as a whole, but also everyone in particular. The energy of civilization is always directed to the external, to the production of empty forms, to replace the natural and life-affirming by artificial and consumer-oriented. It is here that the close connection of culture with the soul or soul with culture is traced, based on the creative, spontaneous, life-affirming forces of faith, hope, love and their derivative values aiming at the growth of the human in the person, the selflessness of actions, the creation of beauty for the sake of beauty, for the multiplication of good for the sake of goodness itself.