Max Scheler

Norm and deviation, who chose is oun destiny.

This chapter examines Max Scheler’s and Edith Stein’s shared commitment to two core tenets of phenomenological personalism: (1) the person’s irreducibility to nature, and (2) the person as the source of individuality. While individuality implies irreducibility, it does not simply follow from it; Scholastic metaphysics and Kantian formalism are both examples of adequate philosophical irreducibility with inadequate foundations for personal individuality. Stein’s later philosophy incorporates features of scholasticism so extensively that it warrants considering whether those features compromise a sense of (...) individuality. I argue that Stein’s later work does indeed adequately ground personal individuality though primarily through Schelerian vestiges in her philosophy. (shrink)

This contribution will explore a realist theme shared by the phenomenologists Edith Stein and Max Scheler concerning the experience of essences. I will argue that in both authors one finds an account of the experience of essences as a determining factor of the intentional objects experienced. That is, Stein and Scheler phenomenologically show how the experience of reality is dependent on—in some sense—observable, mind-independent features. I understand this to be one possible basis for a consistent program for phenomenological realism. The (...) text will proceed in three steps. First, I will consider Scheler’s “phenomenological experience” as being one of the essential features of experience. Second, I will explore Stein’s notion of “objective sense” that is embedded in perception. Third, I will discuss why this is to be understood as a common concern. (shrink)

The text, known as Biologievorlesung, written by the German phenomenologist Max Scheler appeared in 1993 in volume XIV of the Schelerian Gesammelte Werke by M.S. Frings. It collects the surviving fragments of the notes on the “Gnoseological foundations of biology” elaborated by Scheler for the cycle of lectures, which were held as Privatdozent at the University of Munich in the winter semester of the academic year 1908-1909. Despite being interesting in many respects, the text is still largely unexplored to the (...) very day. In this article I intend to focus on two points: 1) demonstrate the relatively advanced state of progress of the proposal expressed therein by the author compared to his real first phenomenological production between the publication in 1912 of the long article Über Selbsttäuschungen and 1922, the year that marks Scheler's open detachment from the Catholic cultural horizon hitherto embraced, and 2) bring out the systematic unity of the epistemological, ontological and phenomenological themes, articulated here, in a first attempt to develop an ontology of modern science, understood as the product of a vision of a historically located world, through a descriptive analysis of the intentional structures of consciousness implicated in intellectual knowledge. (shrink)

Edith Stein (1891-1942) and Max Scheler (1874-1928) have enough shared intellectual debts and interests that their respective oeuvres demand to be placed in conversation. Both were early practitioners of the phenomenological method, drew from and reflected on theological resources in their philosophical explorations, and maintained a lifelong interest in the human person. This volume, the first of its kind, brings together philosophers and theologians to explore the convergences and divergences in their thought. It examines key themes such as the human (...) person, spirit (Geist), education (Bildung), and social ontology, demonstrating their historical importance and contemporary relevance. The authors argue that reading these philosophers together is essential for understanding their historical significance and for illuminating contemporary concerns both within and beyond academia. The volume also features the first English translation of Edith Stein's seminal essay, “The Meaning of Phenomenology as Worldview.”. (shrink)

In this paper, I try to outline the phenomenological fundament of the collective experiences which emerges along with the sound phenomena of the masses. Through an analysis of the phenomenological modes of affect, as Scheler tried to point out for the affective contagion, and through the reflection on non-self-referential forms of consciousness, I will attempt to comprehend the collective forms of intentionality.

Why does Scheler reject the possibility of reconciling phenomenological personalism and Scholastic metaphysics? Mohr claims that Scheler's rejection is in part related to the meaning of moral development. For Scheler, personal value is not grounded in metaphysical capacities of a shared nature, but in the value of individuality. This paper interprets and clarifies Scheler's positions on the content of personal individuality, how this content is value-bearing, and whether this value is original or derivative, absolute or conditional. Traditional ways of attempting (...) to account for personal uniqueness, via either formal or empirical criteria, prove insufficient. If individuality is intrinsic to the person, and individuality is value-bearing, then there is a social responsible for assisting in disclosing personal individuality. (shrink)

This collection furthers English-language scholarship on the philosophy of Max Scheler, with a focus on areas that are potentially integral to Scheler's continuing legacy. The chapters are divided according to Scheler's early work in phenomenology and value theory and his later work in metaphysics and anthropology.

I offer an account of the centrality of values to moral experience and the ways in which value disorder characterizes our relationships with nonhuman animals. To do this, I first provide an account of Max Scheler’s phenomenology of values, including the hierarchy of values, and loving and hating as value orientations. Drawing on this account, I map out two value orientations specific to our relationships with animals—anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism. Within these two value orientations, I detail three specific forms of valuation—gustatory, (...) cosmetic, and anthropomorphic substitution—which demonstrate the ways in which people’s naïve love for the nonhuman animal is often, phenomenologically, a hating of the nonhuman as the necessarily other than human. I argue that valuing nonhuman animals as nonhuman, vital individuals is central to correcting these persistent and pervasive value disorders that prevent us from genuine love and moral consideration of the nonhuman. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to confront the crisis in art and argument over whether it has lost its way. According to Friedrich Schelling, the ‘modern mythology’, bolstered by the onset of Christianity, is responsible for generating ‘aesthetic privation’ producing a joint crisis of meaning for humanity and art. Their artificial historicising, at the root of this, began with overturning the ‘ancient mythology’ in which art was a unified principle integrally linked to both Nature and History via the Person. (...) Extending this argument, drawing on other Radical Enlightenment thinkers, I show why this corrupted the essential link between aesthetics, ethics, and logic (exacerbated by Kant’s re-definition of aesthetics). And subsequently how the human habitus and telos globally transformed under an evolving modern ‘positivistic materialism’, characterised by an ideological, reflective standpoint, ‘worlding’ humanity toward posthumanism and possible extinction. Addressing the underlying problem of modern ‘mythologising’ and ‘aesthetic privation’ is proposed as essential to mending the associated historicised disjunctures between Art and Society, Nature, and the Person connecting both meaning crises. Early chapters examine why reassociating art ontologically with the normative discipline of aesthetics rather than theoretical ‘aesthetics’ is necessary for this. Reconceiving art as complexity science (Wissenschaft), as Schelling’s ‘process metaphysics’; ‘naturalising’ it to restore habitual primary attendance to bearers of higher meaning (‘internal’ goods) is proposed. This requires understanding ‘ethical value’ in the phenomenology of this ‘science of admiring’. A method for which, and for returning virtue ethics (firstly to the arts ecology), is suggested as a meaningful, practical way to reunite ethics with morals in modern society. Naturalising Art is thus argued as necessary for developing a new mythology and genuine political community needed to reorient humanity. The procedure followed is to firstly examine the posited underlying problem’s significance and causes. Deterioration of the Principle of Art (and essential link between Art and the Person, via corruption of the normative disciplines) emerges as a key reason for why art and humanity’s meaning crises developed together, peaking in contemporary ‘modernity’. This central claim and corresponding remedial propositions (reconnecting Art with normative aesthetics) centre on four main arguments for addressing five suggested historical ‘modifications’ (identified by Raymond Williams, and others) producing the above disjunctures. Re-establishing an ontological conception of Art, restoring dialectical normativity to our modes of admiring (‘idealising’), is thus proposed as essential for confronting deep assumptions inherent in modern mythologising. A methodology for assessing ‘ethical’ meaning-value directionality in any artwork, by combining Peircian semiotics with Max Scheler’s hierarchy of values to revive Schelling’s principle of Art, is then developed to suggest a practical approach for restoring virtue ethics to the human telos. (shrink)

Mythology, as we know, is at the heart of everything. This paper advances an argument for creating harmony among humanity, and with nature, by changing how we ‘world’ reality in modern mythologising. The connection between metaphor, the person, and art is proposed as key, since artmaking and admiring presents our most powerful way of creating a mythology. Metaphor is the unique form of meaning productivity, originating in nature’s ‘semiotic freedom’, which is fundamental to expressing human embodiment in a ‘world’. Symbol (...) merely represents; but metaphor places us in the realm of the part-whole relation simultaneously with the becoming-being polarity. These are processes inherent in all life and emerging consciousness, hence ‘spiritual’ phenomena (in the most scientific sense), producing what Peirce claimed as the evolution of thought toward Reason. And, equally, the key processes in artmaking. Though high mathematics is metaphoric, revealed religion is essentially symbolic; and arguably the highest ‘spiritual’ expression is made, not even in philosophical discourse, but through Art. Linking meaning with valuing, I show where neuroscience is helpful, but hamstrung, in accounting for the primacy of metaphor in art. Benefits of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology and Max Scheler’s philosophical anthropology over Lakoff & Johnson’s more generalised ‘experientialist’ approach to metaphor are examined. Ricoeur’s account of “symbolism’s” confusion with metaphor here reveals that, to activate the ‘re-productive’ imagination, art must present a ‘proper’ metaphoric utterance (as does Schelling’s: T2024a & 2024b). This was distinguished from the ‘productive’ imagination’s merely reflective engagement with symbol and concept; and later argued to move us ‘beyond interpretation’ as Bradley (2009) suggests necessary, via Peircian semiotics (T2024c). Further detailed exploration here of this key relation between metaphor, the person, and art, hence reveals how philosophical anthropology provides the basis for re-empowering art to transcend Danto’s ‘artworld’. Making it thus capable of producing a realistic collectivising Spirit able to inspire the essential longer term humanistic ‘new deal’ with Nature, that is much needed to avert our possible extinction or descent into ‘posthuman’ mechanism. (shrink)

"Philosophical anthropology" is a special and extremely comprehensive branch of the history of world science and modern philosophical thought in general. Philosophical anthropology is an important branch of Western philosophical and social thought. Philosophical anthropology, which took its historical roots from ancient Greek philosophy, existed in the later periods of the history of philosophy, acquired a new meaning in German classical philosophy, and became a special trend in the history of philosophy starting from the beginning of the 20th century, is (...) also, in general, a new philosophy of man. It is a philosophical teaching that includes the results of various systems of knowledge about the nature and existence of man in the 20th century Western Europe, mainly in German-language philosophy. In a broader sense, philosophical anthropology is a scientific system consisting of a set of philosophical ideas, concepts, and teachings that focus on man and aim to study him. Philosophical anthropology, which emerged in the late 1920s as a result of Max Scheler's philosophical teaching and was considered a new direction in the history of thought, developed as a branch of non-classical philosophy. (shrink)

Ressentiment can be regarded as one of the most complicated feelings of human beings. It is a French foreign-loan word which is used as a noun, but originated from the verb ressentir, which means to feel, to experience or be aware of an emotion or sensation. As in the cases of many other European notions, ressentiment obtained an interesting profile when it traveled from the “West” to the “East.” While the word is usually untranslated in German and English, in Chinese (...) it is translated into two characters, namely, 怨恨 (pronounced as yuàn hèn in Mandarin, and enkon in Japanese). As in the cases of many other vocabularies, yuàn hèn or enkon is a combination of two Chinese characters with similar meanings: 怨 yuàn or en means to rankle, to grudge, to blame, to reproach, to complain or to satirize; 恨 hèn or kon means to hate, to dislike, to resent or to regret. (shrink)

According to Max Ferdinand Scheler, love is a priori a force unto human life. A force whose sake is not dominion but acts as integral ‘movement’. Scheler’s notion of ‘movement’ grounds itself on his interpretation of love as agape. This text endeavours to explore and highlight Scheler’s notion of love, and use the movie ‘My Dinner with Andre’ as fulfilling example and for demonstrative purposes. When the cliché ‘all we need is love’ rings in the ear, it is often mentioned (...) how naïve one must be to still associate oneself with such ‘delusion’. On the contrary, when one delves into the totality of love as movement, as valuable for its own sake, the naivete of such comments of ‘delusion’ becomes clearly unparalleled. If someone were to say that the body does not require its blood, seldom would we consider their heads to be adequately filled with it. Even if we were not so zealous, the role of love and its imprint on sympathy is worth considering—most especially the sympathy needed in dialogue. Whether it is possible to love someone so totally different from oneself—in short, the complete ‘Other’—is discussed. Furthermore, with ideas such as toleration making their way into contemporary discourse, we beg the question of whether that is enough. That said, it is not that in inquiring if it is adequate we wish to devalue toleration, but instead advocate for a more fulfilling notion. In the hopes of ‘being authentic’, in an unarbitrary sense, something much more passionate is required. (shrink)

As persons we are irreducibly unique and essentially relational. In many contexts individual uniqueness has been accentuated at the expense of communal relationality. Our age has been marked by the loss of deep and meaningful relations to one another, and still more dramatically to the earth and its living creatures. The cosmological dimension of human personhood, that is, has been largely obscured. This chapter argues that our age has been marked increasingly by anesthetizing, alienating, and anonymizing tendencies. It proposes three (...) commensurate responses: aestheticization, or embodied philosophical knowing that remains faithful to the earth; anacarnation, or willful return to the wonders of embodied life, purged of romantic sentimentality; and attestation, or speaking up on behalf of the haecceitas or thisness of living creatures systematically instrumentalized for profit and pleasure. Together these responses help us to regain touch with animality by embracing the earth that hosts us, thus becoming more gracious guests, and to become more fully human by becoming better hosts to the multitude of earth's creatures, whose lives hang in the balance. (shrink)

The reassessment of intentionality as “tendency” or “drive,” already important when the intentionality at stake designates the directedness of lived experiences toward a particular object, might be even more crucial when the orientation toward others is concerned. How do drives and affects intermingle within our intersubjective life and fashion our relations to others? The present paper will address this question by focusing on a particular or even primary kind of intersubjectivity: the mother–child relationship, that received a particular, yet still insufficiently (...) noticed attention in early phenomenology. Scheler and Husserl both analyse this relationship, indeed, in terms that imply drive intentionality as well as affective intentionality (that is, for what concerns the mother, maternal instinct and maternal love). In their view, this relation also has a crucial ethical significance, and may even be taken to be paradigmatic for ethical relationships as such. Accordingly, drive intentionality is understood as an instinctive orientation toward others, that love takes up and develops, thus providing an affective and even instinctive ground for ethical behaviour. All this imples the depart from an ethics grounded on the primacy and sufficiency of reason. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Scheler’s mid‑period religious theory, focusing on his pursuit of a harmonious cosmic order and religious experience by integrating Catholic theology and phenomenology. The argument has four key stages. First, I argue that the realization of this cosmic order, which enables communion with both the cosmos and God, relies on three elements: spiritual intuition, love, and faith in God’s reality. Second, I contend that these elements, in turn, originate from God’s self‑revelation and divine love, which establish a (...) bidirectional relationship between humanity and God. Third, I demonstrate that this mutuality is deepened through Scheler’s dual‑layered cosmic order, which employs analogy and phenomenological intuition to distinguish between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Finally, I identify two critical limitations in Scheler’s framework: his oversimplification of the divine–human asymmetry through analogy and his insufficient treatment of the origins of evil. Therefore, while Scheler’s synthesis offers valuable insights, it necessitates the further exploration of metaphysical and religious questions, particularly those concerning divine transcendence and the nature of evil. (shrink)

Dans cet article, on élabore une réflexion sur les rapports entre intentionnalité et histoire du capitalisme à partir du commentaire schélérien de L’Éthique protestante de Max Weber. Nous montrons d’abord que la psychologie est un moyen de dépasser l’alternative ruineuse entre matérialisme et idéalisme de par sa position centrale dans la genèse des phénomènes sociaux : les individus capitalistes sont portés au travail notamment par des incitations psychologiques qui sont déterminées autant par le contenu du dogme que les conditions sociales (...) de sa pratique. Nous montrons ensuite que la phénoménologie de Scheler décrit une intentionnalité historique en écart avec l’intentionnalité qui vise des essences axiologiques : le capitalisme substitue à l’amour un pseudo a priori contingent qui détermine l’intentionnalité à partir du ressentiment et de l’angoisse, celle-là même dont Weber, au moyen de la figure du puritain abandonné par un dieu hyper-transcendant et épouvanté par son statut sotériologique, faisait l’histoire. Ainsi, on essaie d’indiquer, en compagnie de Scheler, les outils phénoménologiques pour penser l’intentionnalité non pas comme la visée qui aurait toujours déjà disposé d’un donné intuitif, mais comme une instance d’essentialisation constamment contrariée par le processus historique, qui fait écart par rapport à la visée phénoménologique des essences – comme si Scheler faisait usage de ce qu’on pourrait appeler une phénoménologie négative. (shrink)

Despite its formative influence on the subsequent emergence of a supposed ‘divide’ between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ philosophy, the clash between the phenomenological tradition and early analytic philosophy is only a small part of a much broader, complex, and multi-faceted ‘parting of the ways’ between various strands of interwar Germanophone philosophy. It was certainly more than two parties that parted their ways. As Friedman (2000) rightly saw, this ‘parting’ was indeed largely an outcome of the post-war context of Neo-Kantianism’s ‘decline’. The (...) ensuing power vacuum generated clashes between multiple philosophical tendencies vying for the institutionally dominant position previously occupied by the Neo-Kantian schools. This power-struggle included, apart from Cassirer’s last stance in defence of Neo-Kantianism, not only the Logical Empiricists and the various offshoots of the Phenomenological tradition, but also Lebensphilosophie, Philosophical Anthropology, and the Frankfurt School. This paper will trace a path through some of the tendencies involved in the abovementioned ‘parting of the ways’, in an effort to bring some of them back into dialogue. I will focus on exploring one specific facet of Horkheimer’s account of the ‘parting of the ways’, namely his critique of the notion of givenness. The overall goal of the paper will be to set up a dialogue between three parting ways towards givenness: Horkheimer’s polemic against the Logical Empiricist myth of the given, Schlick’s polemic against the Bergsonian myth of the given, and the Bergsonian methodology of intuition. (shrink)

La réflexion sur l’Europe dans la période de l’entre-deux-guerres a surtout été étudiée en tant que préhistoire de la construction européenne vue comme un projet politique et économique. Plus rares ont été les travaux sur les racines philosophiques et intellectuelles des idées d’Europe. Or, il paraît pertinent, en particulier dans le contexte actuel où la construction européenne et la démocratie libérale font l’objet de remises en question, de reconstruire certains termes des débats sur l’Eur...

Die Phänomenologie stellt eine der Hauptströmungen der Gegenwartsphilosophie dar und findet in zahlreichen Wissenschaften sowie in Praxis und Therapeutik starke Resonanz. Nach 120 Jahren Wirkungsgeschichte füllt die Bibliothek phänomenologischer Werke zahllose Bücherregale und selbst für Expert:innen ist die Forschungsliteratur mittlerweile unüberschaubar geworden. An allgemeinen Einführungen sowie spezialisierter Fachliteratur mangelt es dabei keineswegs, wohl aber an einem Handbuch, in dem sowohl der Vielfalt der historischen Entwicklungen als auch dem berechtigten Wunsch nach innerer systematischer Kohärenz Rechnung getragen wird. Das Handbuch Phänomenologie schließt (...) diese Lücke. Ausgewiesene Autor:innen bereiten in eigens für diesen Band verfassten Artikeln komplexe sachliche Zusammenhänge übersichtlich auf. Durch seinen Aufbau eignet sich das Handbuch sowohl für Anfänger:innen als auch für Fortgeschrittene. Anhand bündig präsentierter Grundbegriffe und Verfahren konturiert das Handbuch die Spezifik der phänomenologischen Methode, spart dabei jedoch nicht die Kontroversen und methodologischen Neuausrichtungen aus, die von ihrer Lebendigkeit und Vielstimmigkeit zeugen. Ein umfangreicher Schlussteil ist der Rezeption und Anwendung in einzelnen Wirkfeldern gewidmet. Als Hilfsmittel zur eigenständigen Erschließung der phänomenologischen Denkrichtung und zu ihrer Anwendung auf aktuelle Probleme zeichnet sich das Handbuch durch seine Leser:innenfreundlichkeit und einen stark forschungspraktischen Bezug aus. Ein Kompendium, das sich bald als ABC der Phänomenologie etablieren dürfte. (shrink)

O artigo visa identificar traços da fenomenologia de Max Scheler na obra de Henrique Cláudio de Lima Vaz. Pretende-se aprofundar a compreensão do pensamento deste filósofo brasileiro ainda pouco estudado através da aproximação de outras fontes filosóficas implícitas em sua sua escritura ética. No primeiro passo, trata-se de investigar a influência do personalismo moral de Scheler sobre a questão ética em Lima Vaz. No segundo passo, intenciona-se propugnar o ineditismo da Ética filosófica em relação ao pensamento scheleriano graças ao sistema (...) ético-filosófico do autor que faz com que seu pensamento possa ser situado numa esfera mais elaborada do saber filosófico. (shrink)

Resumen: Husserl propone una teoría sobre la intersubjetividad que parte de la conciencia trascendental como inserta en el mundo de la vida donde están los otros y donde la comunidad se construye bajo una estructura de esencias que garantiza la comunalidad. El mundo de la vida es dado y compartido por todas las conciencias intencionales y trascendentales, es condición para intuiciones empíricas y eidéticas, la epoché y las reducciones eidética y trascendental. Cada momento del método fenomenológico se basa en la (...) existencia de un mundo de la vida independiente de la subjetividad. En este mundo, hay objetos reales y, entre estos, los otros, reconocidos por analogía a través de la empatía. Desde una perspectiva metodológico-epistemológico, el yo es anterior al mundo y a los otros yos. El yo constituye, en sentido fenomenológico, la realidad. La conciencia es el lugar de evidenciación de la realidad. No obstante, en la perspectiva ontológica, es lo contrario. El mundo de la vida es anterior a la conciencia individual. El mundo de la vida está ahí, disponible, existente, independiente del sujeto, funcionando con su propio orden, con sus leyes y reglas. Es el yo el que esta insertado en el mundo de la vida y que se esfuerza por desvendarlo. La realidad se impone y el yo es, sobre todo, miembro de una comunidad de otros yos. Aun así, ¿cómo compartir las experiencias? Las vivencias pueden ser diferentes, pero hay un límite en las variaciones, un límite dado por la esencia del objeto vivido y por las leyes que rigen las relaciones de tal objeto. Así, la constitución del mundo y de sus objetos está permanentemente en progreso. Es posible donarles nuevos sentidos, en los límites de su esencia. Para Husserl, la constitución comunal del mundo es la condición de posibilidad para la existencia de sujetos separados unos de los otros, y este entendimiento recíproco solo es posible a través de la constitución trascendental de la objetividad. Así, no hay una separación entre la intersubjetividad y la constitución del mundo, es la comunidad de yos la que dona sentidos a las objetividades. En el mundo de la vida con los otros en comunidad. Abstract: Husserl proposes a theory on intersubjectivity that starts from transcendental consciousness as inserted in the lifeworld where the others and where the community are built under a structure of essences that guarantees communality. The lifeworld is given and shared by all intentional and transcendental consciousnesses, it is a condition for empirical and eidetic intuitions, the epoché and the eidetic and transcendental reductions. Every moment of the phenomenological method is based on the existence of a lifeworld independent of subjectivity. In this world, there are real objects and, among these, the others, recognized by analogy through empathy. From a methodologicalepistemological perspective, the self is prior to the world and the other selves. The self constitutes, in a phenomenological sense, reality. Consciousness is the locus of evidence of reality. However, from the ontological perspective, it is the opposite. The lifeworld is prior to individual consciousness. The lifeworld is there, available, existing, independent of subjectivity, functioning with its own order, with its laws and rules. It is the self that is inserted in the lifeworld and that strives to unveil it. Reality prevails and the self is, above all, a member of a community of other selves. Even so, how to share the experiences? The experiences can be different, but there is a limit in variations, a limit given by the essence of the lived object and by the laws that govern the relation of the object. Thus, the constitution of the world and its objects is permanently in progress. It is possible to give them new meanings, within the limits of their essence. For Husserl, the communal constitution of the world is the condition of possibility for the existence of subjects separated from each other, and this reciprocal understanding is only possible through the transcendental constitution of objectivity. therefore, there is no separation between intersubjectivity and the constitution of the world, it is the community of selves that gives meaning to objectivities. (shrink)

In this article I present the phenomenological tradition as a new grounding for human rights as universal rights. The hypothesis defended is to conciliate Husserl’s phenomenological method and Reinach’s a priori law in order to offer a new grounding to human rights. In order to combine Husserl and Reinach’s ideas, I propose to expand the comprehension of a priori. It would be present as eidos of each object and I name it as material a priori; it also be present in (...) the eidetic relations and I name it as formal a priori. Yet the object would have an essence, a necessary content, a material a priori, and necessary states of affairs, necessary relations and connections, a formal a priori. Reinach, in The A priori Foundations of the Civil Law, describes eidetic relations, such as, the relation between promise, claim and obligation. I propose three eidetic universalities to ground law, these are what I will call human rights. I also face a few difficulties presented by DuBois and De Vecchi derived from the amoral approach of a priori laws. Then, I highlight the difference between this proposition and Albert’s. Finally, I defend the proposition that a priori laws are beyond natural and positive laws. (shrink)

Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986) is worldwide renowned as the principal author (with Ernesto Rossi) of the Ventotene Manifesto (1941), whose second edition (1944), prefaced by Eugenio Colorni, is one of the founding documents of the European Union. Less known is the width and depth of Spinelli's thought, not only as a political theorist of supra-national democracy and institutional designer of a possible European Federation but also as a philosopher of civilization and history. While the sources of his federalism have been largely (...) investigated, much less have those of his more comprehensive philosophy. This paper discusses, on a philological basis, the dialogue Spinelli certainly has with some of Max Scheler's writings while going into this dialogue more in-depth, in a philosophical more than philological attitude. (shrink)

O mundo das afeições e das emoções ocupa um posto certamente secundário na história da filosofia. Seu caráter difuso e ambíguo não se enquadra no modelo clássico de filosofia inspirado na certeza do conhecimento matemático. De mãos dadas à irrupção da fenomenologia, tratamos de mostrar como se produz uma reabilitação do componente afetivo e corporal da existência humana; a tal afeto, tomamos em conta o significado filosófico que Heidegger e Scheler outorgam respectivamente aos sentimentos da angustia e do amor ao (...) momento de abrir e compreender o mundo. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

La literatura especializada ha solido reproducir la distinción scheleriana entre “actos” y “funciones” sin aventurar, por lo general, una justificación teórica satisfactoria de la misma; la cual tampoco es ofrecida con claridad por el fenomenólogo muniqués. En este artículo propongo una interpretación de dichos conceptos que ayude a clarificarlos y que haga comprensible su diferenciación. Se comprobará que la distinción entre acto y función es de importancia decisiva para la antropología filosófica y, en particular, para el contraste entre el “mundo” (...) (Welt) de la persona humana y el “entorno” (Umwelt) del animal. Como contribución al tratamiento de tales cuestiones, plenamente vigentes un siglo después de la muerte de Scheler, me permito introducir el concepto adicional de “mera función”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, the author wishes to defend a naturalistic version of phenomenology rooted in and expropriated from William James’s radical empiricism against Max Scheler’s non-naturalistic phenomenology. By drawing from Jack Reynolds’s arguments for a minimal phenomenology, the author posits that radical empiricism is a middle way between the misguided self-sufficiency of transcendental phenomenology and the misguided self-sufficiency of ontological naturalism. The orthodox reading of Scheler as a dualist is found problematic, and in outlining four propositions characteristic of Scheler’s (...) positions, the author motivates resources from Jamesian thought to argue for the superiority of a naturalistic phenomenology. (shrink)

According to a common prejudice in ethical theory, morality cannot be grounded in emotional experience unless we are to forfeit an a priori foundation for ethics. This prejudice in ethics is often buttressed by a formalist assumption about the a priori in general, according to which all a priori truth must ultimately redound to formal reason. Upon this view, even if we were to grant intentional directedness to certain affective experiential contents, the epistemic relevance of such contents would be limited (...) to disclosing empirically contingent facts. In this paper, I aim to make some headway in over- coming this prejudice through an appropriation of Max Scheler’s material a priori account of values. On the Schelerian account I defend, law-like constraints on evaluative truths are grounded in emotionally given value essences, which constitute a unique domain of a priori experiential facts alongside those pertaining to all experiential modalities (e. g. color, tone, space, etc.). (shrink)

Cet article analyse les emplois schelérien et heideggérien de l’expression « logique du coeur ». Il revient sur l’origine de cette expression – forgée par Scheler, qui l’attribue à tort à Pascal en soulignant son opposition à la raison cartésienne – avant de reconstruire l’usage qu’en fait Heidegger. Trois phases sont mises au jour : Heidegger fait l’économie de cette expression dans ses jeunes années afin de prendre ses distances avec la doctrine schelérienne et pascalienne des sentiments ; il y (...) recourt dans les années trente et quarante pour signaler que cette doctrine est déterminée par la « logique » métaphysique cartésienne, qu’il oppose à deux logiques du coeur non métaphysiques (celles du λόγος grec héraclitéen et parménidien et du Λόγος johannique) ; dans les années cinquante, Heidegger abandonne pourtant cette expression au motif que toute logique – moderne (cartésienne) comme grecque et biblique – demeure métaphysique. (shrink)

Tradução de Willian Kuhn e Ademir Menin.

Drawing on Max Scheler’s political-programmatic writings produced during and after World War I, this contribution intends to examine the content and consistency of the ideal of a cultural-spiritual unity of Europe (as distinct from its political, legal, or economic unity), and to provide a basis for discussing its plausibility and fruitfulness for the present time. About 100 years ago, the philosopher thought about the future of Europe, and claimed to be able to infer concrete orientations for political action from fundamental (...) philosophical insights. Thus, the paper proceeds from conceptual foundations to their application to concrete practical problems. The first section intends to outline the concept of cultural unity and the principle of solidarity between cultural unities; this makes it possible, in the second part, to distinguish the European cultural sphere from others; the final section gives a positive determination of the specific unity of European culture, including some educational consequences. (shrink)

In his The Nature of Sympathy, Max Scheler (2007 [1923]) offers an intriguing, if puzzling, account of empathy. According to this account, empathy is a specific kind of feeling through which we are immediately aware of others’ emotions but which is not itself an emotion and doesn’t require us to have those emotions ourselves. Moreover, qua immediate awareness of others’ emotions empathy is supposed to afford understanding why they feel those emotions. Although having echoes with ordinary discourse and experience, Scheler's (...) proposal has met with some scepticism. In this chapter, the author defends Scheler's conception against two key objections, which target its coherence. According to the first, it is difficult to see how one could feel another's emotion without having her emotion oneself. The second objection focuses on the claim that feeling-after is a form of understanding. Since feeling-after is a direct awareness of another's emotion and, as such, does not seem to provide access to the reasons for which she feels it, it is hard to see how it could make her emotion intelligible to us. The author argues that these objections fail since they confuse different forms of feeling and do not appreciate the constitutive connection between emotions and reasons, respectively. (shrink)

There are several problems in conceiving of value experience in early phenomenology. What exactly does the experience of a value consist in? How are we to determine the morality of an action that is based on a value which is, as a reality in and of itself, imposed on us from without? How is the experience of values related to the person and in what way can an intuitive value response be reconciled with the application of acquired, personal value stances? (...) In a joint reading of the early works of Max Scheler and Dietrich von Hildebrand, I propose a systematic solution to these various problems which revolve around the non-reflective self-awareness that a value experience entails: we cannot experience the real, material value quality without changing as persons. Rather than reflecting on an object, we experience the value as ourselves, dynamically reacting to it in the context of a given situation. (shrink)

Recently there has been a spate of interest in Max Scheler’s social phenomenology (Schloßberger, 2016; Szanto & Moran, 2016; Cusinato, 2018). In this paper I aim to show that his philosophical contribution on Europe and Europeanism has its focal point on the concepts of rebuilding (Wiederaufbau) and rebirth (Wiedergeburt). My idea is that, for Scheler, the essential condition of any attitude towards socio-cultural change (Umkehr) have its center in the idea of the formation and the development of the personal singularity (...) (Personbildung) (Scheler, 2009a; Scheler, 2010a; Scheler, 2013). And this means the growth and the expression, in a solidaristic perspective, of one’s own ethical singularity (An-sich-Gutes für mich) and of one’s own vocations. The idea of solidarity declined in terms of Bildung is therefore strictly interdependent on the testimony coming from Otherness-exemplar (Vorbild) (Scheler, 2009f). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for the necessity of including what I call “categorical norms” in Thomas Aquinas’s account of the ground of obligation (normativity theory) by drawing on the value phenomenology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. A categorical norm is one conceptually irreducible to any non-normative concept and which obligates us irrespective of pre-existing aims, goals, or desires. I show that Thomistic normativity theory on any plausible reading of Aquinas lacks categorical norms and then raise two serious objections which constitute (...) master arguments against it. The upshot is that this theory requires reform. I end by proposing work remaining for such reform, namely, an expansion of the Thomistic metaphysic and anthropology. (shrink)

Some of the contemporary ethical debates have put in value the rational feature of feelings because of the estimative intentionality that is implied in them. In this context, some claim that the intentionality of emotions is a kind of value perception, as Phenomenology stressed at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly Max Scheler, by analysing emotional Feeling [_Fühlen_] in the frame of emotional life. In order to extend the context of this philosophical debate, and after describing Scheler’s phenomenology of (...) feelings of the intentional and non-intentional emotional life, firstly, we defend _the_ _axiological_ _and_ _emotional_ _intentionality_ _as_ _double_ _intentionality_ that—in our understanding—Scheler analyses phenomenologically, while taking distance from Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl’s intentional structure of estimative emotions. And, secondly, we propose a tentative interpretation of _the link_ between estimative and emotional double intentionality _as living_ _structure_ _of_ _ethical_ _life_, in the light of Martin Heidegger’s Hermeneutical Phenomenology. (shrink)

This chapter explores the early phenomenological accounts of Ressentiment provided by Else Voigtländer, Max Scheler, and Adolf Reinach. In particular, it examines the self-deceptive processes that lead to the “inversion of values” inherent to Ressentiment, i.e., how an object previously felt as valuable is denuded of its worth when the subject realizes that she cannot achieve it. For the comparative analysis of the three accounts, attention is paid to three crucial issues: 1) the origins of Ressentiment (etiology); 2) its place (...) in the taxonomy of the affective mind (ontology); and 3) the psychological mechanisms responsible for the inversion of value (psychology). The early phenomenological accounts are then analyzed in the light of recent accounts of Ressentiment elaborated by authors close to the phenomenological tradition. It is argued that the early phenomenological accounts provide central insights on the interrelation between affectivity and value. (shrink)

This paper explores Max Scheler’s (1874–1928) essay “On Shame and Feelings of Modesty” (Über Scham und Schamgefühl) (1913). It analyzes Scheler’s view on shame as a specifically human self-conscious emotion in which the subject becomes aware of the positive values of the self, i.e., her self-worth. It is argued that, in the context of current research, Scheler should be regarded as defending a radical revisionary approach to this emotion. First, against today’s widespread view that shame is an intrinsically social emotion (...) that requires real or imagined others to take place and which emerges to guarantee compliance with social norms, Scheler argues that shame is an emotion about the self which requires neither a relation with others nor internalized social norms. Second, rather than regarding shame as having a negative impact on the individual and her interpersonal relations, for Scheler, shame accomplishes the valuable function of disclosing and protecting positive values of the self, even if this self is not one’s own. With both claims, Scheler challenges what Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni (2011) have labeled respectively “shame socialism” and “shame pessimism,” and offers an alternative to understand the nature, functions, and varieties of shame which remains as innovative today as it was in his own time. -/- . (shrink)