Oswald Spengler was a major German conservative philosopher of history whose famous work The Decline of the West (published in 1918) offered a powerful cyclical interpretation of historical development. Rejecting the Enlightenment belief in linear progress, Spengler argued that history moves in recurring cycles of rise, maturity, and decline. His theory stood in sharp contrast to the optimistic philosophies of history associated with thinkers like Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, and Marx.

According to Spengler, human history does not represent a single and continuous world history but consists of multiple independent cultures, each functioning like a living organism. Cultures are born, grow, flourish, and eventually decay into civilisations. Culture represents the creative, spiritual, and artistic phase, while civilisation marks rigidity, materialism, and decline. For Spengler, the transition from culture to civilisation is inevitable, comparable to ageing and death in biological life.

Drawing on ancient cyclical ideas from Greek philosophy, medieval thought, and the doctrine of anacyclosis, Spengler emphasised repetition rather than progress. He identified eight major cultures, including Babylonian, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Antique, Arab, and Western. Among them, the Western or ‘Faustian’ culture—characterised by the urge to conquer infinite space through science, technology, and expansion—was of central concern. Spengler believed that modern Western civilisation had already entered its declining phase.

Spengler denied any universal purpose or final goal of history. Instead, history consists of endless creation and destruction, guided by recurring patterns rather than moral or rational progress. His cyclical theory profoundly influenced modern philosophy of history by challenging teleological and progressive interpretations of the past.