What is so vital about vitalism? Ludwig Klages, C.G. Jung, and why “the point of life is life”

 This seminar examines the curious relationship (or rather the curious lack of a relationship …) between two thinkers, living in Switzerland at the same time but on different sides of Lake Zurich: C.G. Jung in Küsnacht and Ludwig Klages in Kilchberg. We’ll begin by trying to uncover the occluded tradition of vitalism (or Lebensphilosophie) in German philosophy, before considering in more detail the life and works of Ludwig Klages – a thinker who once described himself as “the most plundered author of the present age.” Yet it could be argued that Jung, far from “plundering” the work of his neighbour on the other side of the lake, conspicuously ignored him for the most part. Why was this? Next we shall turn to examine some of the “signature concepts” of Klagesian philosophy, which demonstrate striking affinities with — yet significant differences from — key notions in Jung’s analytical psychology. Can Jung and Klages help mutually illuminate each other, and in what sense can they be said to validate the principle once articulated by Goethe that “the point of life is life”? This seminar aims to showcase the fascinating thought of an unjustly forgotten thinker and explore the differing ways Jung and Klages drew on (and, in turn, shaped) German intellectual life in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The seminar includes a Q & A session, and questions, discussion, and debate are very much encouraged.