This site is dedicated to the first ever full, English translation of Ludwig Klages' text Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, translated as The Spirit as Adversary of the Soul
The translated file, which I am naming The Geist Translation, can be found here
(The Geist Translation is currently in Version 0.1. Which is to say, it's a mess. But, the foundation is there, and the text has been formatted for readability. In future versions I would like to address:
- Chapter heading translations
- Key term translations
- In-text page number reference corrections
- Note corrections and hyperlinking
- Reference expansions for contemporary readers (Who is Menyhért Palágyi?, for instance)
As far as something of an 'editor’s introduction' goes, let it be known and made very clear that the translation of this text was performed/translated by an AI. As such, as far as ‘editing’ is concerned, the bulk of the work has primarily been reformatting the text as opposed to fixing actual, textual errors.
Also, let it be known that this text will likely contain a vast amount of errors. Which leads to the question of why ‘publicize’ this AI translation altogether? Simply put, Klages’ German is notoriously difficult to translate, and this, coupled with the length of Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, some 1400+ pages, means that a full translation is either a pipedream or will never be. So this translation, which I am naming the ‘Geist translation,’ is primarily for those non-German-speaking readers of Klages who simply wish to read his magnum opus. The German is very literal and clunky, making using the translation for scholarship an arduous, if not impossible, task.
On the left-hand sidebar, one will find links to a short biography of Ludwig Klages, an Overview of the entire book, chapter-by-chapter summaries/notes, and finally, a resources section.
A word on the notes and summaries: They're my own, and I am by no stretch of the imagination a Klages scholar, merely someone who appreciates his work.
My advice would be, if one desires to get deeper into The Spirit as Adversary of the Soul, to read Paul Bishop's Ludwig Klages and the Philosophy of Life: A Vitalist Toolkit before venturing into the text itself, to try to form a good grasp of basic, Klagesian terminology (Geist, Seele, etc.), before venturing forth. Doing so will forgive much AI literalism.
A glossary will be forthcoming.
~ James