Ludwig Klages

Personal

Vocation

German philosopher, psychologist and a theoretician in the field of handwriting analysis, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He coined the term logocentrism in the 1920s. Klages was an influential anti-semitic thinker. He met the sculptor Hans Busse and with him and Georg Meyer he founded the Deutsche Graphologische Gesellschaft (German Graphology Association) 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. 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 was the author of 14 books and 60 articles (1910–1948). He was co-editor of the journals Berichte (1897–1898) and its successor Graphologische Monatshefte until 1908. He died on 29 July 1956, aged 83, in Kilchberg, Zurich. Link to Wikipedia biography