27 Facts About Ludwig Klages

Friedrich Konrad Eduard Wilhelm Ludwig Klages was a German philosopher, psychologist, graphologist, poet, writer, and lecturer, who was a two-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Ludwig Klages began his career as a research chemist according to his family's wishes, though soon returned to his passions for poetry, philosophy and classical studies.

Ludwig Klages held a post at the University of Munich, where in 1905 he founded the ; the latter was forced to close in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I In 1915, Klages moved to neutral Switzerland, where over the following decades much of his mature philosophical works were written.

Central to Ludwig Klages's thought is a linguistic opposition to logocentrism, a term introduced by Ludwig Klages to diagnose a fixation on language or words to the detriment of the things to which they refer.

Ludwig Klages is similarly seen as a forebear to critical theory, deep ecology, and existential phenomenology.

Ludwig Klages's philosophy was roundly attacked by Nazi leaders during the height of his career, though his proximity has since fallen to dispute.

Ludwig Klages was born on 10 December 1872, in Hannover, Germany, the son of Friedrich Ferdinand Louis Ludwig Klages, a businessman and former military officer, and wife Marie Helene Kolster.

In 1878, his sister Helene Ludwig Klages was born and the two shared a strong bond throughout their lives.

In 1882, when Ludwig Klages was nine years old, his mother died.

Ludwig Klages had begun attending school at the in Hannover, when his aunt, Ida Kolster, soon came to live with them to help raise the children, in keeping with the dying mother's request.

Ludwig Klages quickly developed a strong interest in both prose and poetry writing, as well as in Greek and Germanic antiquity.

Nevertheless, attempts to forbid Ludwig Klages from writing poetry were unsuccessful by both his teachers and parents.

Ludwig Klages developed an intense childhood friendship with classmate Theodor Lessing, with whom he shared many passionate interests.

Ludwig Klages fought to maintain their friendship in spite of his father's antisemitism.

Ludwig Klages's father had instructed him to pursue a career in industrial chemistry.

Ludwig Klages moved to Munich in 1893, continuing his undergraduate degree at Munich University.

In 1894, Ludwig Klages met poet and sculptor Hans Busse, who had recently founded the.

In 1900, Ludwig Klages received his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Munich; since chemistry had seven years earlier moved from the medical faculty, Ludwig Klages received his qualification as a philosophy doctorate rather than a medical doctorate.

In 1914 at the outbreak of war Ludwig Klages moved to Switzerland and supported himself with his writing and income from lectures.

Ludwig Klages returned to Germany in the 1920s and in 1932 was awarded the Goethe medal for Art and Science.

Ludwig Klages's thought is often seen as the link between Friedrich Nietzsche and much of contemporary continental philosophy, with even Ludwig Klages once regarding his as "the most plundered" body of work of the present age.

Much of Ludwig Klages's work makes noted use of highly precise philosophical German language as well as occasional esoteric terminology.

Ludwig Klages created a complete theory of graphology and will be long associated with the concepts of form level, rhythm and bi-polar interpretation.

Habermas characterized Ludwig Klages's thought in this regard as ahead of its time.

Ludwig Klages has largely been identified as apolitical, with resemblances to deep ecology in his bioethical stance, feminism in his rejection of Christian patriarchy, and pacifism in his staunch anti-war position on German involvement in World Wars I and II.

Ludwig Klages is sometimes placed among thinkers of the Conservative Revolution.

Ludwig Klages wrote 14 books and 60 articles between 1910 and 1948, and co-edited the journal Berichte and its successor Graphologische Monatshefte until 1908.