Klages was born in Hannover, Germany. In Munich, he studied physics, philosophy and chemistry but, after finishing his doctorate in chemistry at the University of Munich, he resolved never to work as a chemist. He metthe sculptor Hans Busse and with him and Georg Meyer he founded the Deutsche Graphologische Gesellschaft in 1894. In Munich, Klages also encountered the writer Karl Wolfskehl and the mystic Alfred Schuler. He was a lover of Fanny zu Reventlow, the "Bohemian Countess" of Schwabing, and with Wolfskehl, Schuler and the writer Ludwig Derleth they formed a group known as the Munich Cosmic Circle, with which the poet Stefan George is sometimes associated. He wrote a book praising George's poetry in 1902. As a member of this group his philosophy contrasted the "degenerate" modern world with an ancient, and mystical, Germanic past, with a heroic role for the artist in forging a new future. George distanced himself from Klages' mystical philosophy, but continued for a time to publish Klages' poems in his journal Blätter für die Kunst. Wolfskehl acquainted Klages with the work of Johann Jakob Bachofen, a Swiss anthropologist and sociologist, and his research into matriarchal clans. In 1914 at the outbreak of war Klages moved to Switzerland and supported himself with his writing and income from lectures. He returned to Germany in the 1920s and in 1932 was awarded the Goethe medal for Art and Science. However, by 1936 he was under attack from Naziauthorities for lack of support and on his 70th birthday in 1942 was denounced by many newspapers in Germany. After the war he was honoured by the new government, particularly on his 80th birthday in 1952.
Work
He created a complete theory of graphology and will be long associated with the concepts of form level, rhythm and bi-polar interpretation. Together with Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson he anticipated existential phenomenology. He also coined the term logocentrism in the 1920s. Ludwig Klages was a major figure in the European revival of paganism and has been called "the most significant restorer of polytheism since Julian, the Roman Emperor known as 'the Apostate' ". He wrote 14 books and 60 articles, and co-edited the journals Berichte and its successor Graphologische Monatshefte until 1908. His most important works are:
Prinzipien der Charakterologie
Vom kosmogonischen Eros
Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele
As a philosopher, Klages took the Nietzschean premises of Lebensphilosophie "to their most extreme conclusions." He drew a distinction between life-affirming Seele and life-destroying Geist. Geist represented the forces of "modern, industrial, and intellectual rationalization", while Seele represented the possibility of overcoming "alienated intellectuality in favor of a new-found earthly rootedness." When Klages died, the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas urged that Klages' "realizations concerning anthropology and philosophy of language" should not be left "hidden behind the veil" of Klages' "anti-intellectualist metaphysics and apocalyptic philosophy of history". Habermas characterized these realizations as "not outdated" but ahead of the time. Klages voiced a fierce cultural critique of Judeo-Christianity and, on rare occasions, like in his introduction to the Nachlass of his former colleague Alfred Schuler in 1940, slipped into bouts of anti-semitism. Klages influence was widespread and amongst his great admirers were contemporaries like Jewish thinker Walter Benjamin, philosopher Ernst Cassirer, philologist Walter F. Otto and novelist Hermann Hesse.
