COPYRIGHT BY

REVEREND ERNEST WILLIBALD RANLY, C.PP.S.

1965

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 SCHELER'S PHENOMENOLOGY

OF
COMMUNITY

■J'^7
■(\V°
Reverend Ernest V. Ranly, C.PP.S., B.A., M.A.

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate

School of Saint Louis University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Doctor in Fhilosophy

1964-

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 COMMITTEE IK CHARGE 0? CAITDIDACY:

Professor James D. Collins,

Chairman and Adviser

Associate Professor Richard J. Blackwell

Professor Leonard J • Eslick
Associate Professor Alden L. Fisher
Associate Professor Maurice R. Holloway, S.J.

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 TABUS OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................ v

Chapter
I. SCHELER ON PHILOSOPHY................ 2
1. Life and Writ i n g s .......... 3
2. Meaning and Method of Philosophy. 20
3. Statement of the Question . . . . 36

II. MAN AND METAPHYSICS.................. 38

1. ’’Man's Place in N a t u r e " .... 39

2. Spirit and P e r s o n .......... 52
5. Person and I .............. 63
4. Man the Microcosm.......... 69
III. MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF M A N .......... 84
1. Critical Survey on the Notion
of Sympathy................ 88
2. Questions concerning the
Perception of O t h e r s ...... 107
3. The Perception of Others . . . . 123

IV. MAN AND S O C I E T Y ...................... 137

1. Sociology.................. 138
2. Forms of S o c i a l i t y ........ 14?
3. The Sociology of Knowledge . . . 156

V. MAN AND COMMUNITY.................... 167

1. S y m p a t h y .................. 168
2. S h a m e ...................... 184
3. L o v e .................... 190
4. Person-Community.......... 203

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 Chapter Page

VI. CONCLUSION.......................... 211

1. Attempted S y n t h e s i s ......... 211
2. Critical Summary ............. 217
3. Pinal Comments onCommunity . . 220

B I B L I O G R A P H Y ................................ 225
BIOGRAPHY OP THE A U T H O R ...................... 254-

iv

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 LIST OP ABBREVIATIONS

A. The following abbreviations refer to the chief works

of Scheler and the precise edition we are using in

our own study.

1. Ewigen. Vom Ewigen im Menschen. Vierte
durchgesehene Auflage. Herausgegeben von Maria
Scheler. Bern: Francke, 1954-• Gesammelte
Werke (Ges. ¥ .). Bd.

2. Formalismus. Per Formalismus in der Ethik und

die materiale Vertethik. Neuer Versuch der
Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus.
Yierte durchgesehene Auflage. Herausgegeben
mit einem neuen Sachregister von Maria Scheler.
Bern: Francke, 1954. Ges. W ., Bd. 2.
3. Methode. Die Transszendentale und die
psychologische MethodeT Eine grundsaetzliche
Eroerterung zur philosophischen Methodik.
Leipzig: Duerr, 1900.
4. Nachlass. Schriften aus dem Nachlass. Band I.
Zur Ethik und Erkenntnislehre. Zweite,
durchgesehene und erweiterte Auflage. Mit einem
Anhang. Herausgegeben von Maria Scheler.
Bern: Francke, 1957* Ges. V ., Bd. 10.
5. Soziologie. Schriften zur Soziologie und
Veltanschauungslehre. Zweite, durchgesehene
Auflage. Mit Zusaetzen und kleineren
Yeroeffentlichungen aus der Zeit der Shriften.
Herausgegeben mit einem Anhang von Maria
Scheler. Bern: Francke, 1963* Ges. tf., Bd. 6.
6. Stellung. Die Stellung des Menschen im Koamos.
Fifth edition. Muenchen: Nymphenburger, 1947-
7. Sympathie. Vesen und Formen der Sympathie.
Der "Fhaenomenologie und Theorie der
Symp athi egefuehle" fuenfte Auflage.
Frankfxirt/Main: G. Schulte-Bulmke, 1948.

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 8. TJmsturz. Vom Umsturz der Verte» Abhandlungen.
und Aufsaetze. Vierte durchgesehene Auflage*
Herausgegeben von Maria Scheler* Bern: Francke,
1955* Ges. ¥ .* Bd. 3*
9* Weltanschauung« Phllosophlsche Weltanschauung*
Dalp-Taschenbuecher, Bd* 301* Bern: Francke,
1934. (Paperback•)
10* Wissensf o m e n * M e Wissensformen und die
Gesellsehaft* Zweite, durchgesehene Auflage*
Mit Zusaetzen. Herausgegeben von Maria Scheler.
Bern: Francke, I960. Ges. W .* Bd. 8.

H. The following abbreviations refer to these five

published English translations of Scheler's works.
11. Eternal. On the Eternal in Man. Translated by
Bernard Notile• tendon: SCM Press, Ltd., I960.
12. Man's Place. Man's Place in Nature. Trans-
lated, and with an Introduction, by Hans
Meyerhoff. Boston: Beacon, 1961.
13. Perspectives. Philosophical Perspectives.
Translated from the German by Oscar A. Haac.
Boston: Beacon, 1958.
14. Ressentinent. Ressentinent. Edited, with an
Introduction by Lewis A. Coser. Translated by
William W. Holdheim. New York: The Free Press
of Glencoe, 1961.
15 • Sympathy. The Nature of Sympathy. Translated
from ike German by Peier Heaik. With a general
introduction to Max Scholar's work by W. Stark.
New Haven: Yale, 1954•

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 0. The following abbreviations refer to our own English
titles of Scheler's works not translated into
English. Ve are using the German edition corre­
sponding with the German abbreviation.
16. Formalism. Formalismus.
17. Forms of Knowledge. Wissensformen.

18. Methods. Methode.

19. Overthrow. Umsturz.
20. Posthumous Writings. Nachlass.
21. Sociology. Soziologie.

vii

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 Chapter One

SCHELER ON PHILOSOPHY

Page

1. Life and Writ i n g s ............... 3

2. Meaning and Method of Philosophy • 20
3. Statement of the Question....... 36

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 CHAPTER ONE

SCHELER ON PHILOSOPHY

To study some special theme in Max Scheler, it

is necessary to locate that theme briefly within the

totality of his thought. Scholar's life and works as
a whole are still relatively unknown to English readers.
This first chapter is an introduction: 1) to the life,
works and personality of Scheler; 2) to the method,
spirit and content of his philosophy; and 3) to his
theory of community. Scheler's personality is an im­
portant factor in his total thought. Yet his thought
must he studied carefully and critically in itself to
discover where the real lines of inner unity and con­
sistency lie. Our study of Scheler's phenomenology of

community attempts to understand this topic within the

context of his total philosophy. The detailed exposi­
tion of Scheler's views on man's relatedness to other
men can he given only within the understanding of his
method of philosophy and his meaning of man and meta­
physics. Both the present and the following chapter
give this introductory background to Scheler*s thought.

- 2-

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 -5-

1. Life and Writings

Has Scheler was horn at Munich on August 22,

18?4. His father*s family was Protestant. It traced

hack its lineage several centuries to the Bavarian town
of Cohourg in Upper Franconia. His mother was Jewish.,
hut also from a well established Franconian family.
Religious influence upon the young Scheler was negli­

gible.
Soheler took his humanities at the Luitpold
and the Ludwig Gymnasia of Munich. He received instruc­

tion from a Catholic priest and was baptized at fourteen.

This first religious orientation, however, seemed to lie
dormant within the soul of Scheler: it had little
direct influence upon the intellectual development of

his formative years.

Entering the University of Munich in 1891,

Scheler took up philosophy and the natural sciences.

He continued these studies after his transfer to the
University of Berlin. Here he took courses from William
Dilthey, Carl Stumpf and Georg Simmel. Each of these
men exerted a strong influence upon Scheler* Dilthey
gave him a sense of the history of philosophy and intro­
duced him to the philosophy of vitalism. Stumpf con­
tributed the interest in and technique of descriptive
psychology. Simmel was a combination of a historian,

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 sociologist and philosopher and introduced Scheler to
the study of cultural forms*
After a short stay at Heidelberg, Scheler vent

to Jena where he received his doctorate in 1897 at the

age of twenty-five* His courses included not only
philosophy but also political economy and geography*

Otto Liebmann was the Kantian scholar at Jena, noted

for his insistence for a return "back to Kant 2" and for
his opposition to the neo-Kantians of the late nine­
teenth century* The most important influence upon
Scheler*a intellectual development during his student
years was his major professor at Jena, Budolf Eucken*
Eucken introduced Scheler to Augustine and Pascal and

to the philosophy of spirit* In all his early works

Scheler was very frank about his indebtedness to Eucken*
Scheler*s Jena dissertation of 1897 was pub­
lished two years later as Studies towards the Determi­

nation of the Relations between Logical and Ethical

Principles*1 Scheler*s thesis was that logic and ethics

Scheler, Beitraege sur Feststellung der

Besiehungon swischen den legischen und ethischen
Prinsipien (Jena: Vopeliua. 1899V* ('This is to be
included in Band 1 of the Gesammelte Verke, Future
references to this work will be to logical and Ethical
Principles.) No copy of this work is available* We
are dependent upon the fine study of it made by Dupuy*
M. Damir* La philosophic do Max Scheler: Son evolution
et son unite it vols* Paris: Presses tiniversitaires.
1^59)» continuous pagination* Tome premier: £a
critique de l thonme moderne et la philosophic tEeorique:

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 -5-

are irreducible to each other, that there is a proper

autonomy between the conditions of strict knowledge

and the conditions of the moral life. Moral values
are revealed in affective phenomena; these make up an
independent, objective and permanent realm of moral
reality for moral conscience* He attacked the ration­

alists and the Stoics who reduce the independent area

of emotion and volition to purely rational principles*
Scheler defended the objectivity and the independence

of moral value by distinguishing between being and

value, between the true and the good. In a recent
critical study on Scheler, Dupuy has pointed out that
this first work of Scheler's was not merely a commen­

tary on the ideas of Eucken. Already here Scheler

demonstrated the subtlety and the depth of his moral
and psychological studies. He accepted certain funda­
mental principles and made a few baeic distinctions
- 2
which he will maintain throughout his later works.
In July of 1899 Scheler published a forty-page
study entitled "Work and Ethics," the first of several

tome second: De L'ethique & la demi&re philosophic.

See Vol. 1, ch. I, "I*irreductibilite des principes
ethique aux principes logique," 9-42.
2
Dupuy, op. cit.. Vol. 1, 9*

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 -6-

essays on work.^ In the face of Marxism and the economic

pressures of capitalism and mass production, Scheler
defended the ethical and personal dimensions of work.
Scheler remained at Jena through the years 1897 to 1907.

He remained close to his master, Eucken, while con­

ducting his own courses in philosophy.

Also in 1899 Seheler submitted his Habilita-

tionsschrift to the University of Jena for advancement
to the rank of Privatdozent. This work, openly indebted
to Eucken, was entitled Transcendental and Psychological
A
Methods. After a short historical survey of modern

philosophical methods, Scheler took up first the expo­

sition and critique of Kant1s transcendental method, and

then the exposition and critique of contemporary methods

in psychology. Scheler's criticism of Kant continued
for the next two decades. His own critical reaction to

^M. Scheler, "Arbeit und Ethik," Zeitschrift

fuer Philosophic und philosonhische Kritik. 114 (1899}.
161-202. ( B U . Is to U 'IKeluaWa In Baud'i of the
Gesammelte Werke.) Scheler reedited this article in
1925-24 to include it in the volume, Schriften zur
Soziologie und Weltansehauungslehre. Leipzig: Heue
Geist-Verlag, 19^3-^• (This volume is to be Band 7 of
the Gesammelte Werke: hereafter, references will be to
it aa Soziologie.) ‘"Our study of the original article is
from Dupuy, op. eit.. Vol. 1. ch. II. "Travail et
ethique," 43=577

Seheler, Die transszendentale und die

psychologisehe MethodST Sine gruadsaetzliche Breerterang
zur phlloaophlschen heihodik (Leipzig: fluerr. iqoo).
^An unchanged second edition appeared in 1922; this is
to be included in Band I of ft»«»«melte Werke.
Abbreviated reference to this work will be: He^hode.)

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 -7-

psycholegism paralleled very closely the intellectual

development of Edmund Husserl.^ Scheler concluded this
6
study on method by listing twelve concluding theses*
She proper method of philosophy he called the
"noological method," a term borrowed from Eucken but
which Scheler felt was expendable* "Philosophy is the

study of spirit [die Lehre vom Geiste3*w The noologi-

cal method was to bring the higher rationalism of Kant
into a living philosophy of spirit (die geistiche
Lebensforn) and to combine this with the positivistic-
psychological approach to human experience and culture
(die Arbeitswelt). The former is irreducible to the
latter. Here is a theme which returned at the end of
Scholar's life* Scheler also declared that the philo­
sophical method cannot presume to grant a privileged
position to any single datum, as if anything were valid
before investigation* In this principle Scheler was

^Edmund Husserl ( b o m April 8, 1859) took early

studies in mathematics, science and philosophy* While
at the University of Halle he wrote the Philosophy of
Arithmetic (1891). which gave a psychological explana­
tion for mathematics* Over the next ten years Husserl
continued his study of mathematics and logie, but he
underwent an intellectual conversion in rejecting psy­
chology aus the master science of human disciplines*
Husserl gave public expression of his change of mind in
the publication of the two volumes of Logical Investi-
ations in 1900-01* Volume One contains Husserl1s
famous polemic against psychologism* In the same year
he assumed a teaching position at the University of
Goettingen.
6Methode, 179-81.

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 -8-

already in possession of a basic habit of thought funda­

mental to phenomenology.
In 1901 Scheler met Husserl for the first time
at Halle. Hans Yaihinger had called together the
collaborators of Kantstudien. Scheler himself described
the occasion:
A. philosophical discussion ensued regarding the
concepts of intuition (Anschauung) and perception.
The writer, dissatisfied with Kantian philosophy,
to which he had been close until then (he had for
this reason just withdrawn from the printer a half
completed work on logic), had come to the convic­
tion that what was given to our intuition was
originally much richer in content than what could
be accounted for by the sensuous elements, by
their logical patterns of unification. When he
expressed this opinion to Husserl and remarked
that this insight seemed to him a new and fruitful
principle for the development of theoretical
philosophy, Husserl pointed out at once that in a
new book on logic, to appear presently [i.e., the
Logiache Pnterauchungen. volume II], he had worked
out an analogous enlargement of the concept of
intuition (kategoriale Anschauung)• The intel­
lectual bond between Husserl and the writer, which
has become so extraordinarily fruitful for him,
dates back to this moment.7

?Prom P. Witkop, ed«, Deutsches Leben der

Gegenwart (Berlin: Wegweiser, 1922), 197-9&. As quoted
(and translated) by H. Spiegelberg, The Phenomenological
Movement: A Historical Introduction (2 vols.: The
Hague: Martinus frijhoff, 196b), 229. Cf., Dupuy, op.
cit., Vol. I, 101-02; also Q. Lauer, S.J., "The
Phenomenological Ethics of Max Scheler, * International
Philosophical Quarterly. 1 (1961), 277* $his essay of
Scheler*s on contemporary German philosophy was written
in 1922 (to appear in Band 7 of the Gesammelte Werke.)
It is to be noted, then, that Seheler is writing from
personal memory about an event over twenty years in the
past. One wonders whether Seheler himself in 1901 had
already thought out the detailed implications of his
views on intuition. At the time, Husserl had more to

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 -9-

There was a simultaneous but independent discovery by

Scbeler and Husserl of some of tbe most basic starting

points of phenomenology.
Seheler continued teaching at Jena until 1907
when he moved back to his native city and taught at the
University of Munich for three years. At Munich, since
189^, Theodor Lipps had been teaching a brand of

descriptive psychology. His close circle of students

reacted sharply to Husserl's attack against Lipps and
all forms of psychologism in the Logical Investigations

of 1901. In 1903 one of these students (Johannes

Daubert) bicycled to Goettingen, had a twelve-hour
discussion with Husserl, and returned to Munich, afire

with enthusiasm for phenomenology. The following year

Husserl himself addressed the Munich Circle. Lipps saw
his group turn away from him to phenomenology. When
Seheler joined the Munich Circle in 1907 it already
included Daubert, Alexander Pfsender, Adolph Reinach,
Theodor Conrad, Moritz Geiger, Aloys Fischer and August
Gallinger. (A little later Dietrich von Hildebrand
joined the Circle.) Scheler learned much from the

frequent, enthusiastic meetings of the Munieh Circle.

teach Scheler than vice versa. Also, it seems that

Scheler's anti-Kantianism did not come to full term
until after 1904, for in that year he wrote a centen­
nial pieoe favorable to Kant; cf. Dupuy, op. pit..
Vol. 1, 102, n.2.

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 -10-

He contributed more than his share to the group's

interests in problems of value, ethics and aesthetics.
Meanwhile, a similar group formed around Husserl at

Goettingen. This latter group followed the lead of

their teacher and concentrated more on logical, mathe-
matical and epistemological problems.
In 1910 Scheler lost his position at the
University of Munich.^ For the next nine years he had
no academic position. As a Privatgelehrte Scheler
lived in very difficult material circumstances, but

this was a period of most productive intellectual

activity.*® The first few years he spent at Goettingen

O
A short colorful history of these early
phenomenological groups is given by Spiegelberg, op.
cit.. 168-75* He has also published a most interesting
pEotograph of the Goettingen Circle of 1912 (opposite
p. 170), as well as individual photographs of Pfsender,
Daubert, Beinach and Geiger (opposite p. 173)*
^Dupuy states: "En 1910, des circonstances
personelles eontraignirent Scheler a quitter
1'enseignement," o p . cit.. Vol. 2, 726. Tears before
Scheler had entered a civil marriage' with a divorcee•
Upon his return to Munich he managed to free himself
from this bond, but not without much personal loss and
suffering. See: J. Oesterreicher, "Max Seheler, Critic
of Modern Man," Valle Are Crumbling: Seven Jewish
Philosophers Discover Christ. (New Tort: fke Devin-
Mair"^papyT 1953)
*®See Posselt (Sister Teresia de Spiritu Sancto,
O.D.C.), Edith Stein (Hew York: Sheed and Ward, 1951),
4-3-46, for the reactions of the young Edith Stein to
the genius of Scheler during his Goettingen years. In
charming frankness Edith Stein described Scheler as a
genius, but who "in practical matters was as helpless
as a child."

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 -li­

near Husserl and the Goettingen Circle. Later he lived

at Berlin with the close association of Walter Rathenau

and Werner Sombart.

Scheler*s lectures at Jena from 1901 to 1906
and at Munich from 1907 to 1910 continued his interests
in ethical questions.^" At Goettingen in 1910-11 and
again in 1911 Scheler gave two formal series of lectures
to the Circle of Husserl's students entitled simply
12
"Problems of Ethics." In the meantime he began a
number of independent phenomenological investigations

on death, shame, freedom, the idea of God and epistemol-

ogy.^ These works remained unpublished until 1933 "but

Maria Scheler, "Nachwort der Herausgeberin,"

in M. Scheler, Per formalismus in der Ethik und die
materials Wert ethik; Weuer Versuck der Grundlegung eines
ethlschen' Eersonalismus (6ern: frrancke, 195^0 < 605.
(This is feand 2 of the Gesammelte Werke. Abbreviation:
Formalismus. See infra n. 17 for further bibliographi-
cal details.) Among the titles of these lectures-series
are: "Questions of Ethical Principles," "Introduction
to Contemporary Ethics and Its Historical Foundations,"
"Basic Problems of Ethics with special consideration of
the Biological Trend in Ethics."
12Ibid.
These works remained in manuscript form and
were published only posthumously in one volume in 1933*
The second enlarged edition is Band 10 of the Gesammelte
Werke. M. Scheler, Schriften aus dem Nachlass: feand 1 .
£ur tethik und Erkenntnislehre (Bern: Francke, 1939).
(Abbreviation: hachlassTl fhe contents of this volume
are: 1. "Tod und Fort let)en," 9-64 ("Death and Life
Hereafter")• The first manuscripts of this essay date
back to 1911-12. It was amplified several times and
the editor appends two special additions (Zusaetze) in
this edition. Scheler refers to this work" occasionally
under its original title, "The Idea of Death and Life

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 -12-

much of their significance is lost if they are not

studied in the context of Scheler*s developing thought.

In 1911 Scheler published the short essay M0n Self-

14.
Delusions.” In 1912 he published a longer essay, "On
Ressentiment and the Moral V a l u e - J u d g m e n t . B e c a u s e

Hereafter." (The strict method of phenomenology and

Scheler's close relationship to Husserl is better
brought out if the full titles of his works are employed.
E.g., the idea of this or that, investigations towards
the Phaenonen of this or that.) 2. "Ueber Scham and
Schamgefuehl,” 65-154 ("Concerning Shame and the Peeling
of Shame") • This study, along with the study on sym­
pathy, was to be included in a series of studies on the
emotional life. The earliest manuscript of this essay
dates from 1915* It will be noted later that this study
is significant for its contribution to the study of
man's social life. 5* "Zur Phaenomenologie und
Metaphysik der Preiheit," 155-77 ("Towards the Phenome­
nology and the Metaphysics of Preedom"). Vritten in the
time from 1912 to 1914. 4. "Absolutsphaere und
Realsetzung der Gottesidee," 179-253 ("The Absolute
Sphere and the Real Place of the Idea of God"), 1915 to
1916. 5. "Vorbilder und Fuehrer," 255-343 ("Models and
Leaders"), 1911 to 1914. 6. "Ordo Amoris," 345-76,
1916. 7* "Phaenomenologie und Erkenntnistheorie,"
377-429 ("Phenomenology and Epistemology"), 1916.
8. "Lehre von den drei Tatsachen," 431-502 ("Theory of
the Three Pacts"), 1911 to 1912.
14
"Ueber Selbsttaeuschungen," Zeltschrift fuer
Pathopsychologie« 1 (1911)• This essay was enlarged and
retiilea l,M e Idole der Selbsterkenntnis" ("The Idols of
Self-knowledge") and reprinted in 1915 as part of
Abhandlungen und Aufsaetze (Leipzig: Verlag der Weissen
Buecber. 1915). and in Vom Umaturz der Werte (second
edition; Leipzig: Neue 6eist-Verlag, 1919)» This now is
Band 3 of the Gesammelte Werke. M. Scheler, Vom Umaturz
der Werte: Ab£anAlungen_und Aufsaetze (Bern: J*rancke,
1955). Abbreviation: Umaturz.
■^"Ueber Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil:
Ein Beitrag zur Pathologic der Kultur," Zeltschrift fuer
Pathopsychologie. 1 (1912). This essay was enlarged and
reprinted in umaturz in 1915 and 1919 as "Ressentiment
im Aufbau der Moralen."

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 -13-

of these two studies, several scholars gave Scheler

the titles Critic of M o d e m Man. The first edition
of his work on sympathy also appeared in 1913 under the
title: Towards the Phenomenology and Theory of the
Feeling of Sympathy and on Love and Hatred.1^
At this time Husserl and Scheler worked together
to co-edit and co-found the Jarhbuch fuer Philosophic
und phaenomenologische Forschung. The purpose of the
new journal was to publish the various phenomenological
investigations undertaken by Husserl's students. The
first volume of the Jahrbuch appeared in 1913* This
first issue consisted of nothing else than the first
part of Scheler*s major work, Formalism in Ethics and
Material Value-Ethics.1^ Scheler had Part Two prepared

Zip Phaenomenologie and Theorie der

Sympathiegefuehle und von M e b e und riass: hit einem
A m u m g ueber den Grand sot Annahme derlfexistenz des
fremden Ich (Halle: Max Niemeyer. 1913). (This work
was re-ediied in 1923 as Wesen und Formen der
Sympathie.') Cf. infra, n. 35•
^^"Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die
materiale Wertethik: Mit besonderer Beruecksichtigung
der Ethik I. Kant," Jahrbuch fuer Philosophic und
phaenomenologische Forschung. 1 (.Halle: Msg Niemeyer,
1913)• (Qurtext of Formalismus is Band 2 of the
Gesammelte Werket see supra, n. 11.) The translation
of this title remains disputed. Stark translates the
first half as: "The Formalistic Principle in Ethics."
(W. Stark, "Editor's Introduction," M. Scheler, The
Nature of Sympathy [New Haven: Tale University Press,
195*)• Inglish abbreviation: Sympathy, pp* xiv-xvi.)
Today, however, the Kantian meaning of "formalism" is
generally accepted. The translation of the first half
of Scheler*s work seems most appropriate and intel­
ligible with "Formalism in Ethics." The second half

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 -14-

by 1914 but World War I prevented its publication until

1916 when it appeared as the second volume of the

J ahrbuch. In the same year a special edition re­

printed both parts of Formalism into a single volume.
Scheler threw himself into the war effort with
characteristic enthusiasm. He served in the German

Foreign Office from 1917 to 1918, accepting missions

to Geneva and to The Hague. In 1915 Scheler published

creates greater difficulty. Stark continues: "Die

materiale Wert ethik is translated here as 'the non-
formal ethic of value' in order to bring out the con­
trast, intended by Scheler, to the 'formal principle'
of Kant. It is, of course, totally inadmissible and
absolutely misleading to speak of Scheler's 'Ethics of
Material Values' ...." Ibid., n. 1. Collins translates
this part as "the Ethics of Intrinsic Value" (J. Collins,
"The Moral Philosophy of Max Scheler," Encyclopedia of
Morals [New York: Philosophical Library, 195&J» 518*)
Schutz translates: "the Material Ethics of Value"
(A. Schutz, "Max Scheler's Epistemology and Ethics,"
The Review_of Metaphysics. 11 [1957-58], 486.) Noble
speaks of Hthe ethics of supra-formal values"
(M. Scheler, On the Eternal in Man [London: SCM Press,
Ltd., I960], 458 and n. 2; n. 1 'English abbreviation:
Eternal.) Myerhoff translates this as "an Ethics of
Objective Values" (H. Myerhoff, "Translator's Introduc­
tion," M. Scheler, Man's Place in Nature [Boston:
Beacon Press, 1961], p. xvi. English "abbreviation:
Man's Place.) In our Master's thesis of 1958 we de-
fended the translation "Material Value-Ethics" (1. Ranly,
C.PP.S., Max Seheler: Theory of Value-Ethics: An
Introduction LSi. Louis: Saint Louis University , 1958],
20-22.) We still prefer this rendition. Obviously, it
is the most direct translation. It needs explanation,
but so do all its circumlocutions. The Kantian-Humean
epistemological context of the meaning of form and
matter must be understood. In rejecting the formalistic
ethics of Kant, Scheler devised a theory by which
ethical values are perceived in directly intuiting the
immediately given "matter" of experience. His own title
remains ambiguous to this extent. Does Scheler mean
"the material ethics of value" or "The ethics of mate­
rial value"? We are willing to retain this original am­
biguity with the translation: "Material Value-Ethics."

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 -15-

The Spirit of War and the German War. a piece of German

war propaganda tut which also investigated the phenome-
18
non of the war experience. It is unfair to consider
this work as being nothing more than German propaganda.
War and Reconstruction of 1916 contains several studies
of lasting merit.^ It is here that Scheler gives
expression to the idea of the collective consciousness
not only of a single nation, tut of the whole world, as
being at war. Scheler proceeded to instruct the German
national consciousness with two further works: The
20
Causes of the Hatred for Germany (1917) and Two German

Diseases (1919)
In 1916 Dorn Anselm Manser, O.S.5., Abbot of the
Benedictine Abbey of Beuron, received Scheler back into
the Catholic Church. This second conversion at the age
of forty-two had direct and immediate influence upon
Scheler’s intellectual and literary activity of the
next six years. This period of Scheler*s life is often

18
Per Genius des Krieges und der deutsche Krieg
(Leipzig: terlag der Weissen Buec&er, 1915)*
^grleg und Aufbau (Leipzig: Verlag der Weissen
Buecher, 1916) 7 Most of -these essays were reprinted in
Soziologie in 1923-24.
20
Die Ursache des Deutschenhasses: Eine
nationalpaedagogl3che Eroerterung (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff,

21
Yon Zwei deutsehen Krankheiten. Number 6 of
Per Leuchter (Darmstadt: 0~bto 5eIcKL,1919)• (Reprinted
in Soziologie.)

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 -16-

called the "Catholic Period." Scheler's writings of

the later war years strongly reflected his newly redis­

covered Catholic Faith. The publication of On the

Eternal in Man in 1921 was Scheler1s major work in the
22
philosophy of religion. This work was the fruit and
the climax of his Catholic years.
In 1919 Scheler accepted the Chair of Philos­
ophy and Sociology at the University of Cologne and the
position of Director of the Institute of Social Studies.
He remained at Cologne until 1928. Over the next few

years, academic matters did not prevent Scheler from

publishing Eternal, his major work on religion, writing
several smaller studies, and re-editing his work on
23
sympathy and his early essays in sociology. J He

22
Vom Ewigen im Menschen: Relieioese Emeuerung
(Leipzig: ifeue Geist-Verlag, 1921). tfhls has appeared
as Band 5 of the Gesammelte Werke. M. Scheler, Vom
Ewigen im Menschen (Bern: i*rancke. 1954)• Abbreviation:
Swigen.
'These smaller works included a piece on educa­
tion, "Universitaet und Volkshochsehule" in 1921, a
survey of contemporary German philosophy in 1922 (see
infra, n. 7)* and a tribute to his Berlin associate,
Valter Rathenau in 1922. The second edition of Sympathie
appeared in 1923; the first edition of Soziologie
appeared through 1923-24. The second edition is Band 6
of the Gesammelte Werke which includes all these lesser
works from this period.

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 -17-

continued to develop his theory on the sociology of

knowledge. At the same time Scheler began to give
public evidence of a rather radical shift in metaphysics
and a movement away from traditional theism to an
evolutionary anthropological pantheism. This led to a
24
public repudiation of his Catholic faith. Forms of

Knowledge and Society in 1926 represents Scheler's

25
final detailed statement in sociology. y His long
promised work on anthropology was never fully completed.

The Place of Man in Nature appeared in 1927» a small

book, highly condensed, but Scheler*s last exposition

of his philosophical anthropology and his later views

24
Scheler gave evidence of a shift in thought
already at the end of 1922. This first became explicit
in his preface to Soziologie; cf. Dupuy, op. cit.,
Vol. 2, 728. Scheler's personal life continued to be
troubled with sudden, abrupt changes. His marriage
with Maria Furtwaengler (daughter of Professor Adolph
Furtwaengler of Munich, archaeologist and art collector,
and a niece of Vilhelm Furtwaengler, the noted German
conductor) was solemnly blessed by the Church. However,
several years later, Scheler was annoyed when the
Church refused to annul the marriage to allow him to
marry a former student. He repudiated the Catholic
legislation on marriage and married Maria, the present
editor of the Gesammelte Werke.
^ Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft
(Leipzig: Neue Geist-Verlag, 1926). This is Band 8 of
the Gesammelte Werke. M. Scheler, Die Wissensformen
und die (reaellsctiaft (Bern: Francke, I960). Abbrevia­
tion: Wiasensformen. This volume contains his work
on education (1921) and another study, "The Problems
of a Sociology of Knowledge" (1924) which he had pub­
lished for the Research Institute for Social Science in
Cologne.

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 -18-

26
on the incomplete, evolving deity. In the work
Philosophical Weltanschauung published a year after
his death there is gathered together five of Scheler's
27
last short works. ‘
In the spring of 1928 Max Scheler accepted a
position at the University of Frankfort on the Main.
He died suddenly of a coronary stroke on May 19, 1928,
28
at the age of fifty-four at Cologne.
A mere sketch of Scheler's life shows that he
was no traditional academic philosopher. His interests
were as broad as the horizons. All that he did he did

enthusiastically, enspirited almost with a Platonic

26
Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. Humber 8
of Per Leuchter (fiarmstadt: Otto Heichl, 192?) • We
are using the fourth edition. M. Scheler, Die Stellung
des Menschen im Kosmos (Muenchen: Nymphenburger, 1947) 7
Abbreviati on: Stellung.
^Philosophische■Weltanschauung>(Bonn: Friedr.
Cohen, 19297^ W a r e using the new paperback edition.
M. Scheler, Philosophische Weltanschauung (Dalp-
Taschenbuecher, feana 561;' Sera: Srancke, 1954)• Abbre­
viation: Weltanschauung.
28
Cf. J. Hessen, Max Scheler: Eine kritische
Einfuehrung in seine Philosophie aus Anlass des 20.
Jakrestages^selnes fodes CEssen: hr. Hans V."1Ohamier,
19^8), 126-£6. Hessen reprints in the last chapter
his own testimonial to Scheler upon the occasion of
Scheler's death in 1928. Hessen finds it very appro­
priate that the "God-seeker" of the twentieth century
lies at rest in Cologne, the city of Albert the Great.
Scheler also deserves the title Doctor Universalis,
according to Hessen. The best short description of
Scheler's life and thought in English appeared the year
after his death; cf • P. A. Schilpp, "Max Scheler,
1874-1928," The Philosophical Eeview. XXXVIII (November,
1929), 574-85: :

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 -19-

daimon. Scheler's life, his philosophy and his dynamic

influence cannot he divorced from his personality. His
philosophical interests tended to shift with his per­
sonal involvements. His close friends and associates
universally attest to the dynamic magnetism of his
2Q
person and of his discourses. ^ To read Scheler today

is to catch some spark of the flame that burned in his

heart and head.
In view of the towering strength of Scheler's
personality it is difficult to give a fair assessment
of his philosophy. That personality blinds both his
friends and his enemies to the real intrinsic merits of
his thought. Perhaps now, a generation removed from

Scheler, with the definitive edition of his collected

works in the process of publication, it will be possible
to begin anew the controlled, critical study of Scheler's
thought•

^Por special studies on Scheler's personality

see Dupuy, ©PjjCit., note II, "La Personnalite de
Scheler," Vol. 2, 729-39; H. Luetzler, Per Philosoph
Max Scheler: Eine Einfuehrung (Bonn: H. Souvier u.
(Jo., 1947/s t). von Hildebrand, "Max Scheler als
Persoenlichkeit," Hochiand. 26 (1928-29), 232-65.
(Reprinted in his £eltllc5es im Lichte des Bwipen
[Regensburg: Josepf 'Habbel, 19)521) ; desterreiener,
op. cit. General studies on Scheler almost to a fault
tend to concentrate upon character-description rather
than upon a critical analysis of his writings.

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 -20-

2. Meaning and Method of Philosophy

To over-emphasize the restlessness and the

instability of Scheler’s character is to suggest that

the developments and changes in his thought are little
more than reflections of his basic instability of char­
acter.^® In Husserl's terms, this would be a case of
applying psychologism to analyze the thought of a man.
A genuine critical study of Scheler must examine his
thought carefully, with an awareness of the importance
of chronology, to discover the inner structure and con­
tent of that thought. Changes in thought would then be

^ Much discussion has arisen over the reasons

for and the significance of Scheler's transition from
Catholicism to panthesism. For a brief discussion, see
Eanly, op. cit., 6-10. Von Hildebrand and Oester-
reicher try to explain Scheler's defection from the
Faith (and from theism) by reason of personality faults
that made him rush off heedlessly into contrary direc­
tions. Von Hildebrand personally has never abandoned
his point of view that subjectively and objectively
Scheler was always a Catholic: it was a sense of irra­
tional pride that forced Scheler to defend.theoretically
his opposition to the Church. Haecker in "Geist und
Leben: Zum problem Max Scheler," Hochland, 23 (1926),
states that Scheler never was a Catholic, subjectively
or objectively. Collins in "Scheler's Transition from
Catholicism to Pantheism," Philosophical Studies in
Honor of The Very Reverend Tghailus Smith. 6.?. (West­
minster , Maryland: The Newman Press, 195^5» 179-202;
reprinted in J. Collins, Three Paths in Philosophy
(Chicago: H. Regnery, 1962), "Roots of Scheler^s fevolu-
tionary Pantheism," 106-131* reviews some of the past
discussion and takes a more realistic and critical point
of view on the "problem of Max Scheler." Collins traces
Scheler's line of reasoning to its methodological basis.
He discovers a large amount of common doctrine in the
early and later Scheler, so that Scheler's evolution to
anthropological pantheism is seen to rest upon some
general methodological and metaphysical bases in
Scheler's whole essentialistic approach to philosophy.

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 -21-

seen to be loner organic developments, rather than mere

whims of personality. Criticism will then be revelant

to the intrinsic argument of the man's thought.

To find a basic unity in Scheler's thought it
seems most appropriate to discuss at first his concep­

tion of philosophy itself: its meaning, its spirit,

its method, its content. In his Habilitationsschrift

of 1897* Scheler was critical of both the transcendental

and the psychological methods in philosophy. His con­
clusion at that time was to use the "noological method"
of Eucken in order to combine in philosophy the irre­
ducible function of spirit with the empirical elements
of everyday experience. The nature of Scheler's reflec­
tive mind forced him to place all data under investiga­
tion. By 1901, and surely during his Munich years of
1907 to 1910, Scheler was convinced of the need to
subject the original data of intuition to direct and

thorough scrutiny. During these years he was thoroughly

taken up with the fresh new method of phenomenology,
but for ten years he published nothing.

In 1911 there appeared the essay "On Self-

Delusions."^ This was the first of Scheler's public
studies in phenomenology. He expressed his deep

^Gf. supra, n. 14. It is to be noted that,

from the version of this essay reprinted in Umsturz,
it is not possible to know the extent of the changes
made from 1911 to 1915•

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 -22-

indebtedness to the work of Husserl, while making his

own preliminary investigations into many areas of human

*52
psychology,' The following year Scheler published a
more concentrated phenomenological study on the emotion
zz
of ressentiment. In the Prefatory Remarks, Scheler
briefly distinguished his own method of "analytic and
descriptive psychology" from the method of scientific
psychology. The latter artificially breaks up man's
experiences into simple elements in an effort to give
a causal explanation of psychic facts. His own method
tried to understand (Verstehen) the very meaning of

man's experience in the unified totality of a "phenome-

nologically simple" experience. Thus, the purpose of

this essay was "to examine res sentiment as one such

unity of experience and action."^ His studies on

^ Umsturz, 246-4-7. Scheler notes a change of

mind in Husserl from the Logical Investigati ons of 1900
to the Logos essay of 1910 concerning philosophy as a
strict science. Scheler briefly criticizes Husserl and
suggests that a phenomenology of essences is just as
successful in psychology and the sciences as when
Husserl employs it in logic and mathematics.

» 0 f . supra, n. 15* Umsturz, 33-14-7. This

essay has been translated into ilnglTsh: M. Scheler,
Ressentiment (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe,
1 % 1 ) . Abbreviated reference to this English version
will be: Ressentiment.

^ Ressentiment, 39. (A direct reference to the

English work means that we are quoting literally the
English text from the text as cited.) "Als eine
solche Erlebnis— und Wirkungseinheit sei im folgenden
das Ressentiment einer Untersuchung unterzogen."
Umsturz, 3£>. In a note, Scheler refers to Karl Jasper's

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 -23-

sympathy, love and hatred were further concrete phenom­

enological studies of human emotions The work on

sympathy in 1912-13 was "to provide an example of how

to conduct investigations into the phenomena of the
emotional l i f e . S c h e l e r had completed several other
studies during this time, hut these remained unpublished
until after his death.^

Scheler*s most important work was his major work

on ethics, Formalism.^8 This was both a Summa of his
thought and a concrete application of method. It was

a huge, sprawling book, repetitious at times, and sug­

gestive of many possible developments. In the Foreword

distinctions between causal connections (Kausalzusammen-

haenge) and the understandable context in mental life
(Verstaendniszusammenhaenge). However, the discussion
here is in the tradition of Husserl’s anti-psychologism
of the Logical Investigations of 1900, where those same
distinctions are analyzed ai 'some length.

®f. supra, n. 16. We are using the following

edition: M. Scheler, Wesen und Formen der Sympathie.
(Der "Fhaenomenologie und (rheorie der Sympathiegefuehle"
fuenfte Auflage.) (Frankfurt Main: Schulte-Bulmke,
1948)• The abbreviation, Sympathie, refers to this
edition.

^ Sympathy, p . 1. "Gleichzeitig moechte die

kleine Schrlft ein Beispiel dafuer sein, auf welche
Weise Untersuchungen ueber die Fhaenomene des
Gemuetslebens zu fuehren sind." Sympathie. XVII.
*7
" C f . supra, n. 13 for the background, table of
contents and dates of these studies as they are pub­
lished and edited in Hachlass.
*8Cf. supra, n. 11 and n. 17*

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 -24-

to the Third Edition in 1926, Scheler could Justifiably

declare that the basic principles and insights of
Formalism need not be changed to account for his own
intellectual development from theism to evolutionary
pantheism. ^ It would be misleading to classify
Scheler's total thought as comprising a "system," Yet

there was much about the spirit and structure of

Formalism and its continued role in Scheler's thought
that is comparable to Kant's first Critique.
One characteristic feature of Formalism was its
attack on the presuppositions of Kant's formal system
of ethics. Scheler exposed Kant's ethics to the same
mode of criticism that Husserl had employed against
psychologism: an exposition and a detailed refutation
of its unexpressed presuppositions. In 1928 Scheler
declared:
Whoever strives for a Weltanschauung that is philo­
sophically grounded must dare to stand on his own
reason. He must tentatively doubt all previously
accepted opinions and dare to acknowledge nothing
that is not clearly seen and established by him­
self personally.^

^Formalismus, 17.
40
(Translation our own.) "Wer aber eine
philosophisch begruendete Weltanschauung anstrebt, muss
es wagen, sich auf seine eigene Vernunft zu stellen.
Er muss alle hergebrachten Meinungen versuchsweise
bezweifeln und darf nichts anerkennen, was ihm nicht
persoenlich einaichtlg und begruendbar ist." Welt­
anschauung. c m r Scheler, Philosophical Perspec­
tives (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958)* !• (References to
■fchis English work will be: Perspectives.)

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 -25-

Husserl had made these conditions the program for a

fully rigorous and strictly scientific philosophy.

Scheler's aim was to employ the same rigorous method in

the construction of a strictly scientific phenomenology
of ethics. He repeatedly asserted that the primary
purpose of Formalism was not to refute Kant but to

investigate phenomenologically the given data of the

immediate moral experience.
Scheler spoke of the "phenomenological experi­
ence" as an immediate phenomenological intuition into

the essence or form of the direct objective content of

an experience. This content or form is essence or

nature, Was, Wesen or Wesenheit. This pure essence as

directly intuited (by a Wesensschau) is a pure
Hhaenomen. It is an essence that is self-given. As
such, it is neither individual nor universal. For
example, to examine phenomenologically the "essence"
of redness we do not combine many red things into a
common experience, we do not investigate this individual
red thing, but we try to intuit directly the essence of
pure "redness" by actually catching the objective con­
tent of redness within a "red-experiencing" experience.
Such an experiencing act (Tat) contacts the object of

41
E. Husserl, "Philosophic als strenge
Wissenschaft," translated by Q. Lauer, S.J., "Philos­
ophy as a Strict Science," Cross Currents. 6 (1950).
227-46, 325-44.

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 -26-

the experience, a given, a datum (Sache) , Necessarily,

the given is intuited only within the act so that

together they form a phenomenological fact (Tatsache).

Pure essences are further seen to have set relationships
to other essences (Wesenszusammenhaenge) . For example,
"redness” must he further qualified hy some spatial
dimension, with some shape or figure. Such combinations
of given data (Sachverhalte) are not constructed by the
mind, nor are they reasoned to inductively or deduc­
tively. They are simply discovered and acknowledged as
being related in a particular manner. It is in this

sense that phenomenology seeks to unveil the actual

pre-given conditions of things and thus to discover the
a priori order and laws given within the pure essences
themselves. Husserl had begun such a study of pure
logic; Scheler’s prime interest was to investigate the

42
For an explicit discussion by Scheler on the
method of phenomenology as understood and employed by
him, see Formalisms, 68-72. All of chapter II,
"Formalismus and Apriorismus," 66-130, is a fine expo­
sition of Scheler's early phenomenology. It is diffi­
cult to translate Scheler's phenomenological meaning
of Wesen into English. However, Essence is to be
preferred to nature. Nature suggests too positively
the extramental reality of a thing. Essence, too, must
be carefully restricted to its phenomenological meaning.
However, no consistent tradition is being formed in
English phenomenology and the translations as well as
original.discussions use the terms interchangeably.
(E.g. we have the published English translation of The
Nature of Sympathy for the Wesen und Formen der
Sympathy.) In this present study. Wesen is always
translated as essence, unless the English construction
demands otherwise.

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 -27-

a priori essences, the relationships, and the order of

emotional values.
Within Eternal, published in 1921, Scheler
included a forty-page essay entitled "On the Nature of
Philosophy.^ He had written this study in 1916-17.^
Its sub-title was: "The Moral Condition of Philosophi­
cal Knowledge." On the one hand, Scheler disagreed

with Husserl's use of the term science as applied to

philosophy. But the major part of this study was
Scheler's own statement on philosophy as being a total
engagement of the person in the act of philosophizing
and the moral conditions for that act.
Scheler stated again here the requirement that
philosophy be free from all pre-suppositions, that it
be autonomous. "Philosophy must first constitute itself
45
by asking what its own nature may be." ^ Philosophy
"seeks and finds its essence and principle exclusively

^Ewigen, 61-99; Eternal. 66-104.

^ E w i g e n . 453; Eternal. 451. This study
originally appeared in the short-lived periodical Summa.
but all the original copies of the magazine have been
entirely lost in the aftermath of World War II. The
editor of the Collected Works possesses the original
manuscript of this essay from 1916-1917*
^ Eternal. 69• " M e Philosophie dagegen, die
sich durch die frrage nach ihrem Wesen gleichsam selbst
erst zu konstituieren hat." Ewigen. 63*

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 -28-

hf.
through itself, in itself and in its constitution."
He turned to historical instances of philosophers

actually philosophizing to discover what the essence

(Wesen) of philosophy may he. In other words, the act
of philosophizing must itself be phenomenologically
investigated to discover and define the essence of
philosophy. The peculiar sphere of reality accessible
only through a special intellectual attitude
(Geisteshaltung) is a world all its own, constituted
in the very intuiting of it— the philosophical
Weltanschauung. ^ The act of philosophizing is the
very constituting of philosophy itself.
The act of philosophizing is an integral act of
the very core of the human person. It is defined as:
"the love-determined act of participation by the core
of a finite human person towards the essential factors
48
of all possible things." For Scheler there is an
ontological and temporal moment of love, of vitalistic

48
Eternal. 70• "Ihr Wesen und ihre
Gesetzlichkeit ausschliesslich durch sich selbst und
in sich selbst und ihre, Bestande suchende und
findende." Ewigen, 64.
^Scheler's terms here are: geistliche
Grundhaltung. die philosophische Geisieshaltung and
philosophi schelnfeltanschauung.
AO
(Our own translation.) "Liebesbestimmter
Aktus der Teilnahme des Kernes einer endlichen
Menschperson am Wesenhaften aller moeglichen Binge."
Ewigen. 68. Cf. Eternal, 74*

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 -29-

impulse, prior to the act of knowledge. One can know

only what he loves. Philosophy, as a very special type
of activity by the human person, seeks participation in
no lower level of being. Its impulse is towards the
absolute being of Primary-Bssence (eine Teilnahme am
Sein des Urwesens) . But at the same time, philosophy

is always and essentially a cognitive activity. It

seeks participation in being through knowledge. There
is an ambiguity here between "loving participation in
being" and "essential knowledge" which divides Scheler's
meaning of philosophy as well as his theory of being.
There are two fundamental moral conditions for
philosophy. The first demands a sense of asceticism in
order to deny the absolute reality of the lower levels
of being. The basic intellectual attitude of the
philosopher cannot be satisfied with the natural world
nor with the mere probable opinions of the scientists
(Plato's doxa); philosophy seeks the true knowledge of
episteme. Only in this way can philosophy retain its
ancient title of Queen of the Sciences. The second
moral condition for philosophy is the vital commitment
of the whole person to participation with being. This
is a moral elevation, an "upsurge," (Aufsehwung) of the
whole person adhering faithfully to the primary love-act
by the person towards being. Any practical orientation
of knowledge can only follow this perfectly, free

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 -30-

autonomous investigation of being and values. To

reverse the procedure is a primary instance of the

subversion of values. In the essay of 1916-17 Scheler

discussed theoretically the various possible personal
commitments of Plato, Buddha, Fichte and Bergson to
different conceptions of the Primary Being. But at
this time, Scheler's own personal commitment to
Christianity helped to direct and restrain his own
enthusiastic self-dedication in pursuit of Being.
However, his program for philosophy was set. He con­

tinued to throw himself enthusiastically into the

study of values (even the values of war), the study of
the basic biological life-impulse and the study of man.
According to his own program, Scheler could only
abandon himself to the essential realities of things
as he was to discover them for himself. ^
Scheler emphasized the moral conditions for
philosophy, since he understood philosophy to be an
intense personal act of the concrete whole of the human
spirit. Its essentially cognitive activity is possible
only upon the realization of many non-cognitive factors.

He listed three basic moral acts necesshry for phi­

losophizing: 1) love of the whole spiritual person
for absolute value and being; 2) the humbling of the

49Cf. Collins, op. cit., 183-90.

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 -31-

natural self; 3) a mastery over self to achieve true

philosophical insights into self-evident essences.^
Philosophy must rise above the natural world outlook
of the common man (natuerliche Weltanschauung) and
above the positivistic sciences of the day
(wissenschaftliche Veitauffassung) to achieve the
moral-intellectual attitude of the philosopher.
The first self-evident insight for the phe­
nomenological philosopher is that "there is something”
or, negatively, "there is not nothing." The insight
here is into a relative, contingent entity. However,
following upon the phenomenological suspension of
reality ("bracketing"), it is unclear if this is an
insight into real being or merely into ideal (mental)
being. Scheler moved rather recklessly into a second
immediate self-evident insight, that "absolute entity
which simply is must be the ground for all relative

entity." Finally, a third self-evident insight is

that there is a distinction between the qualitative
51
quid est. the essence of a thing, and its existence.
These insights may have been rather arbitrarily
hit upon by Scheler, but they give him the fundamentals

^ E w i g e n . 89-91; Eternal, 94— 97.

^ Ewigen. 92-99; Eternal, 95* See Collins,
op. cit., 196-95, for a careful critique of Scheler
at this point.

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 -32-

for a purely rational conception of metaphysics. In

his later essay on "The Problems of Religion” Scheler
strongly maintained that the intentional object of

metaphysics was a purely theoretical notion. Its

origin, its essence and its meaningful significance for
man are totally independent from a religious knowledge
of God. "The goal of religion is not rational knowledge
of the basis of the world but the salvation of man
through vital communion with God. In other words,
just as he had rejected a bare rationalistic formalism

in ethics, so also Scheler rejected a formally rational

system as the basis for religious knowledge.
Thus we see that when Scheler was doing a
philosophy of religion, he seemed to deny the dynamic
vital participation element which he originally demanded
of philosophy. Here he seemed to transfer the personal
moral sphere (the "salvation of man") into the religious

dimension exclusively. The term philosophy remains

ambiguous, almost ambivalent. A formally rational
philosophy is a purely theoretical, cognitive exercise,
out of contact with the vital and the real. On the

other hand, a living philosophy of personal participa­

tion into being is salvational, religious knowledge.

-^Eternal. 134. "Das Ziel der Religion ist

nicht rationale Erkenntnis des Veltgrundes, sondera
das Heil des Menschen durch Lebensgemeinschaft mit
GottT" Ewigen, 156.

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 -33-

Yet this second type of philosophy almost seems to lose

its essentially cognitive character. This ambiguity
in the meaning of philosophy parallels the tensions that
exist in being between spirit and life. Only at the
end of his life did Scheler attempt to resolve these
difficulties.

On May 5» 1928, Scheler published his last

statement on the nature of philosophy, which he entitled
significantly "Philosophical Weltanschauung. In this
short but tightly condensed essay Scheler synthesized
his last views on philosophy, anthropology and religion.
Again, he established the autonomy of philosophy as
distinct from a purely natural attitude to the world

and from the three nineteenth-century aberrances of

Positivism, Neo-Kantianism and Historicism. He states
that man is not free to choose whether or not he wants
to develop a metaphysical idea and a metaphysical

awareness. Man necessarily and always, consciously or

unconsciously, has such an idea, such a feeling,
acquired by himself or inherited from tradition. It

5 % . supra. n. 27. "Philosophische

Weltanschauung* was first published in Muenchener
Neueste Naehrichten. May 5, 1928. Its title was
used for the small collection of works published in
1929* The English title for the translation of this
volume is Philosophical Perspectives; the title for
this small essay Is rendered "Philosophical Outlook."
It is impossible to have an exact equivalent for the
German Weltanschauung. However, to use different
English terms for what in Scheler is a very technical
notion is quite misleading.

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 -34-

belongs to the very essence of man to have the sphere

of an absolute being before his thinking consciousness.
All that man can actually choose for himself is a good
and reasonable idea of the absolute or a poor and
unreasonable idea. Thus, man can refuse to make for
himself a clear idea of the absolute; he may even fill

up the emptiness of his heart for the infinite with

finite goods— money, country, a loved one. In this
case, he creates an "idol" for himself.
In this short study, Scheler distinguished

three types of knowledge. The first is the knowledge

of achievement and of control, championed by the ex­
perimental, specialized sciences. The second he called
"first philosophy," in the sense of both Aristotle and
of Husserl. This is the discipline of pure phenome­
nology, a study of the direct insight into essences.
While this calls for a "loving attitude," for the most
part it is a rational study, removed from the exis­
tential and the vital. Scheler's categories remained
very fluid. What he called "first philosophy" in 1928
seemed to possess many of the same characteristics as
the "purely philosophical metaphysics" of 1921.
The third type of knowledge, on the other hand,

takes on religious, personal dimensions. It is called

here metaphysical or salvational knowledge. This is

^ Hfeltanschauung. 6-7; Perspectives. 2-3.

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 -35-

no mere theoretical contemplation or "cerebral” exercise.

This third type of knowledge involves the personal act

and active commitment of man to God, to the extreme

degree that God realizes his own essence in the free

spiritual activity of man. The being of man is not only
55
a primary access to God; man himself is a microtheos. ^
Many of the characteristics of this third type of sal­
vational knowledge as explained in 1928 are closely
related to Scheler's first definition of philosophy in
1916-17 as a love-determined act of participation by
the core of an individual human person. In 1928 Scheler
gave us a late synthesis of both his meaning of philos­
ophy and his theory of being as united in the philosophy
of man.
This exposition of Scheler's notion of philos­
ophy is only introductory. Its purpose is primarily to
catch the spirit and method of Scheler's philosophizing

in order to see that his meaning for philosophy will

largely control the content of his philosophy. More
and more, Scheler came to see that all the major philo­
sophical problems met in the problem of man. Vith a

phenomenological starting point in man, Scheler's final

theory of man and being and God found its unity only in
man.

^^Weltanschauung. 12-15; Perspectives. 9-12.

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 -36-

3* Statement of tlie Question

Max Scheler's life and personality, his philo­

sophical background and the meaning and method he

employed in philosophising, all contributed to help
mold his theory of man and man's relatedness to other
men. It is within this context, then, that the ques­
tions about Scheler's phenomenology of community must
be placed.
Scheler was convinced that all philosophizing

must be rooted in a basic metaphysics of being and man.

Therefore, our next chapter will deal with Scheler's
theory of man and metaphysics. Fundamental to all
human living together in community is the problem of
man’s knowledge of other men. This question will be
dealt with in Chapter Three. Chapter Four will treat
of Scheler's theory of sociology, of the various social
forms by which men live together, and Scheler's theory

of the sociology of knowledge. Finally, Chapter Five

will treat of the various social emotions, such as
sympathy, shame and love, and will discuss in detail
Scheler's theory of community. Some final reflective
comments upon Scheler's phenomenology of community
will be made in the concluding chapter.

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 Chapter Two

MAN AND METAPHYSICS

Page

1. "Man's Place in Nature" . . 39

2. Spirit and P e r s o n ....... 52

3. Person and I ........... 63

4. Man the Microcosm. . . . . 69

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 CHAPTER TWO

MAN AND METAPHYSICS

From ancient times man has teen characterized

as a social animal. Yet throughout the history of
thought the problem of solipsism, of human intercom­
munication, of knowing other selves, has not only
remained, but the problem has become more acute in
recent thought. Scheler reflected this preoccupation
by treating at some length the problem of interpersonal
communication. He treated the question directly in a
few of his early works. However, the full understand­
ing of his position is set within his views on man and

on metaphysics.
The present chapter furnishes the direct con­
text of Scheler's phenomenology of community. First,
there is a brief exposition of Scheler's philosophical
anthropology. More and more, he came to locate all
the problems of philosophy in man and in man's place
in the whole of nature. Man is unique in nature only
because in him there appear the phenomena of spirit
and person. The second section of this chapter inves­

tigates Scheler's notions of two key factors: spirit

-38-

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 -39-

and person. Section three distinguishes person from I.

Finally, Scheler's metaphysics is examined, especially
its dualistic principles of life and spirit. Scheler's
metaphysics reaches its climatic tensions in the being
of man to the point where man is not only a microcosm
of the whole (real and ideal) macrocosm: man becomes
the mircotheos, the very locus for the realization of

God.

1. "Man's Place in Nature"

The study of man was always the architectonic

study for Max Scheler. In 1927 he wrote:
The questions "What is man?" and "What is man's
place in the nature of things [was ist seine
Stellung im Sein]?" have occupied me more deeply
than any other"philosophical question since the
first awakening of my philosophical consciousness.
Efforts of many years during which I have attacked
this problem from all possible sides have come
together .... I have had the good fortune to see
that most of the philosophical work I had done
previously has culminated in this study.1
This statement must not be taken to mean that this was
a late discovery for Scheler. In a wide sense, all his

Man's Place. 3. "Die Fragen: Was ist der

Mensch, was 1st seine Stellung im Sein? haben mich seit
dem ersten Erwachen meines philosophischen Bewusstseins
wesentlicher und zentraler beschaeftigt als jede andere
philosophische Frage. Die langjaehhrigen Bemuehungen
in denen ich von alien moeglichen Seiten her das Problem
umringte, haben sich ... zusammengefasst ... , und ich
hatte das zunehmende Glueck, zu sehen, dass der Grossteil
aller Probleme der Philosophic, die ich schon behandelt,
in dieser Frage mehr und mehr koinzidierten. Stellung.
7.

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 -40-

early studies on the emotions and on ethics are not

only descriptive psychological studies: they are
attempts to isolate and identify the very being of
man.
In 1915 Scheler included the essay "Towards
the Idea of Man" in the volume of studies later en­
titled On the Overthrow of Values. Here he stated:
From a certain understanding* all the central
problems of philosophy lead back to the ques­
tion what is man, what metaphysical place and
position does he acquire within the totality
of being, in respect to the world, in respect
to God. With justice a number of older thinkers
made the starting point of all philosophical
questions "the place of man in the all" — an
orientation concerning the metaphysical place
for the essence of "man" and for his existence.
... All contemporary philosophy is filled with
this complex of questions.2
Not only was "contemporary philosophy" concerned with
the problem of man. Psychology, anthropology, history
and biology, all held conflicting views about man.
Scheler announced that now phenomenology itself had

2
In einem gewissen Verstande lassen sich alle
zentralen Problems der Philosophie auf die Frage
zurueckfuehren, was der Mensch sei und welche meta-
physische Stelle und Lage er innerhalb des Ganzen des
Seins, der Veit und Gott einnehme. Nicht mit Unrecht
pflegten eine Beihe aelterer Denker die ’Stellung den
Menschen im All' zum Ausgangspunkt aller philosophischen
Fragestellung zu machen — d.h. eine Orientierung Ueber
den metaphysischen Ort des Wesens 'Hensch' und seiner
Existenz, ... • Die gesamte Philosophie der Gegenwart
ist geradezu durchtraenkt vom Sachverhalt dieser Frage.
Umsturz. 173*

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 -41-

also entered into the conflict over the meaning of

man. His purpose from 1915 through 1928 was to make

a phenomenological study of the "idea," the "essence,"
the "unity" of man, in order to discover the meta­
physical dimensions of man.^
We have stated that Scheler's meaning and
method of philosophy directly influenced the form and
the content of his philosophical studies. We see that
this is the case clearly and explicitly in his study
of man. In the way that Husserl studied logic through

phenomenology, Scheler attempted to make a phenome­

nological study of the "idea” and "essence"of man,
independent from all the natural, social and psycho­
logical sciences. This was Scheler's explicit purpose
A
in 1915 • In the 192? work on man he rediscussed the

^In 1927 Scheler himself instructed his

readers how to follow the stages in his own develop­
ing views on man. In the Foreword to Stellung he
recommended this sequence of readingss’ 1) the essay
"Towards the Idea of Man"; 2) Relevant passages in
Formalism and in Sympathy. 3) "Man and History" (in
Perspectives) and the volume Forms of Knowledge for
the social consequences of this theory; 4) "the Forms
of Knowledge and Culture" (from Perspectives) ; 5) "Man
in the Era of Adjustment" (from Perspectives) . See
Stellung. 7-8* This outline, coming from Scheler
himself! is an invaluable aid in our study. Meyerhoff
in Perspectives rather arbitrarily edits Scheler's
original text; he sees fit to relegate this very in­
formative reflection of Scheler's to a footnote on
page 97*
4
Cf. "Vorbemerkung," Umsturz. 175-75*

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 -42-

techniques of phenomenology. A characteristic act of

spirit is "the act of ideation” (der Akt der Ideierung)
which is the grasping of the essential modes and the
formal structures of the world. Such an insight into
the essences of things is gained independently from
contingently existing things and independently from
an experiment, there is a "suspension of the reality-
character of things” (versuchweise— die Aufhebung des
Wirklichkeitscharakter der Dinge) • Man alone is

capable of such a "spiritual” act.'’ And man's idea

of man is gained only through such a series of reduc­
tions and "bracketings" which lead to an insight into
the formal structure of the essence of man.
Scheler was well read not only in the social
sciences but also in the biological and psychological
6
sciences. Yet he did not use their data in a purely

scientific way. He confirmed these data (and all data)

and employed them only within the total phenomenologi­
cal grasp of man's essential nature.

^Stellung. 44-52; cf. Perspectives. 47-55.

The translation of this phrase is our own.
^This is evident throughout his works, especially
in Man's Place. In the late '20's he was even lecturing
on the "Foundations of Biology" at Cologne. (This is a
pertinent fact that the editor-translator of Perspectives
completely omitted in the Author's Preface.) Cf.
Stellung. 7*

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 -4-3-

The first step in the phenomenological method

is the negative step of isolating a pure Fhaenomen,

both from its purely fortuitous circumstances and from
all other related essential insights. In the study of
man this means we must first clearly define what man

is not. Such an act of isolating man's essence empha­

sizes the unique position of man's place in being and
in nature. Ultimately, such a study will reveal the
metaphysical dimensions of man's being and will show

his relation to the Ground of Being.

In his early essay "Towards the Idea of Man,"
Scheler observed that for centuries the problem of man

was to distinguish him from God, from pure spirits,

from the angels. Modern science has changed the
nature of the problem. Ve now must extricate man's
unique essence from evolutionary modes of life and
from brute animality.^ Moreover, to the extent that
m o d e m science poses as the single, universal mode
of knowledge, the problem of man becomes more crucial.
At no time in history has man been so much of a prob­

lem to himself. Modern man for the first time is

personally aware that he does not know what he is.
Man needs courage to seek out the essential answers
concerning man, while remaining detached from all the

^Umsturz, 175•

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 -44-

previous views of man. The philosophy of man can

accept no untried, "unseen" views of man, however
Q
traditional the view may be.
As we have seen, Scheler's method in the
study of man is linked up with his purpose, namely,
to explicate the idea, the concept, the meaning of
man.^ Many definitions of man are possible; many
definitions of man have been actually devised and
accepted by various cultures, within various stages
of history. In "Man and History" Scheler described

five basicftypes of man's conception of himself. The

first conception of man was the theistic notion of

Jewish-Christian tradition. According to this view,

man was directly created by God, but man sinned and
now must work out his religious salvation. The Greeks

defined man in terms of his reason: man is a "rational

animal," homo sapiens. A third meaning for man
evolved from the naturalistic, positivistic and prag­

matic sciences. Man is here defined as an animal

with mere quantitative superiority in technical

intelligence over the rest of the animal world. Homo
faber in this context does not imply an essential
difference between man and the brutes. The fourth

^Stellung, 7, 10; Man's Place, 4, 6.

Weltanschauung, b2-63; Perspectives, 65-66.
^Umsturz, 173-76. Stellung, 9-11; Man* s
Place, 5-?»

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 -45-

idea of man accepted the biological evolutionists at

their word. Man is then seen to be the dead-end road
to life itself, a Sachgasse, a biological weakling,
a disease within the life process. Everything unique

to man— reason, freedom, spirit— restricts the

Dionysian impulse towards complete vitalistic identi­

fication with life. The last concept of man Scheler

discussed was the definition of man given by postula-
tory atheism. Man's freedom, his responsibility, his
very human existence demand the absence of God.
Nietzsche's Superman is the prime example of this
type of man.1®
"Man and History" is light reading. Scheler
intended it to be little more than a "warming up”
exercise for his own philosophical anthropology. In

Man's Place he retained only two of these five defini­

tions of man as being actually influential in contem­
porary thought: the Jewish-Christian (theological)

meaning of man and the Greek (philosophical) definition

of man as a rational animal. But a new idea for man

was introduced, the idea contributed by modern science

and genetic psychology— the scientific definition of
man as the highest, most complex stage of biological

and psychological evolution.11 Scheler's own

^Weltanschauung, 62-88; Perspectives. 65-93*

11Stellung, 9-11; Man's Place. 5-7*

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 -46-

anthropology has two goals. 1) It must extricate the

unique essence of man within the context of natural

science. 2) It must re-unite and combine the scien­
tific concept of man with the theological and the
philosophical. This second venture involved a corre­

sponding shift in the theory of being* To achieve a

totally unified idea of man Scheler was forced to
express his later views on anthropological pantheism.
Scheler was careful not to limit his definition

of man too narrowly. If the unity of knowledge (and of

being) was to be achieved in man, the definition of

man's essence must be able to include all knowledge and

all being. A general criticism of all previous con­
ceptions of man was that each idea was too narrow and,
in principle, each excluded the possibility of any
further extension in meaning. Scheler's goal was to
achieve a new unity in man through a concept of man

which in principle synthesized all significant knowl­

edge about man. Moreover, Scheler fully acknowledged
the autonomy and the value of the non-human disciplines.
We have seen that, late in life, he was engaged espe­

cially in the study of biology and comparative psy­

chology. Only by acknowledging the full range of animal
activity could the special level of man's being be
appreciated. He loved to tell his students: "It is

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 -47-

difflcult to te man. Learn to know animals so that

12
you will know how difficult it is to he man."

In studying man's place in nature Scheler

replaced man within the context of the material, the
organic and the sentient. The result is that his
study has much in common with Aristotle's study On

the Soul.
Material things below the organic level have
no inner-self-being. Their unity is nothing more than

that of mutually interacting points of energy. Re­

flecting the indeterministic view of physics, Scheler
was willing to accept the revolutionary doctrine that
at the submicroscopic level all is chance and that

natural laws at this level are purely structural laws

of the human understanding (Verstand) . Nevertheless,
the inorganic world is very real. It resists ideal
ob'jectivization. The basic drive (Drang) exists here

in its most primitive manifestation. Here, within

centers of atomic energy lie the most powerful forces
of all nature.^ Scheler's keen appreciation of

12
Perspectives, 26. "Es ist schwer, ein
Mensch zu sein. 'Lernet die Tiere kennen, auf dass
ihr merket, wie Schwer es ist, ein Mensch zu sein.'—
pflege ich meinen Studenten zu sagen.” Weltanschauung«
28.
■^Stellung, 39-40, 61-62; Man's Place, 41-42,
66- 68 .

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 -48-

scientific matters gave him a sense of reverent awe

even before the inorganic world— and a generation

before the first splitting of the atom.

"Psychic life" for Scheler in Man *3 Place
hearkens back to Aristotle's notion of psyche. It
describes the lowest level of organic life. Living

things possess the external, observable qualities of

self-motion, self-formation, self-differentiation and
a spatio-temporal self-limitation. Moreover, living
things possess these qualities along with their own
intrinsic being, an ontic center— a for-and-in-them­
selves being (ein Puersich— und Innesein besitzen) •
A certain inner community of being (Seinsgemeinschaft)

is the most fundamental form of life, the psychic

14
Urphaenomen of life. Inorganic bodies lack this

"inner being" (Innesein) .

A common vital impulse (Gefuehlsdrang) , a
basic inner drive lies at the lowest levels of organic
life. Scheler defended the special vital being of
plants against both the pure mechanists (for whom all

reality is physico-chemical) and against those who

concede life only at the level of sensation and

^Stellung, 11-12. Of. Man's Place, 8. It

is to be remembered that the translator also edited
the text he chose to translate. Here an entire
sentence has been omitted. (On p. vii the editor-
translator explains that he has made a few omissions
"for the sake of simplifying the text and the read­
ing.")

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 -49-

consciousness. The terms "psychisch" and "seelisch"

are used interchangeably in Man’s Place in describing

the inner-structured life of plants. Plants have no

central nervous system, no specific instincts (Trieb) .
There is only a basic drive (Urdrang) towards growth,
reproduction and death. All the plant's needs— food,

fertilization, environmental conditions— are outside

the plant. Scheler described the condition by which
a being's Gefuehlsdrang is orientated to the outside
as "ecstatic," for it lacks all inner-directedness.
This first stage of life is present in its basic form
in all animals and also in man. The basic impulsive
drive of organic life is one of the first objects of

resistance we experience— it resists our objectivizing

it into mere ideal concepts. This mark of resistance

is the chief criterion to assure us of the ultimate

reality of the thing.^
Instinct comprises the second level of the
"ecstatic" life-impulse. Instincts are exclusively
outer-directed without any conscious images. Scheler
described six qualities of instinct very clearly and
16
succintly. Instinct represents an increasing

^Stellung, 12-16; Man's Place. 9-14.

1 fi
These qualities are: 1) An instinct must be
meaningful and purposeful for the whole of the living
organism. 2) It must act according to a definite un­
changing rhythmn. 3) It is rigid and typical in its
responses to a situation; its responses are geared for
the good of the species. 4) An instinct is innate and

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 -50-

specialization of the vital impulse, but it is entirely

and directly engaged with its Umwelt, the immediate

environmental world.
The third state of psychic life is that of rote

habit. This type of habit is learned not by instinct

but through repeated occurrences and retained by associ­
ated memory. Habit is gained either through self­

training or conditioned training by another. The common

method of learning a habit is through a trial-and-error

method. Habit, as a principle, creates a further quali­

tative enrichment of life, but at the purely animal
17
level it can persist only through herd traditions. '
The fourth level of life is that of practical
intelligence. Like Dewey, Scheler defined intelligence

as the power of making a meaningful response in the face

of a new situation. The perception of the interrelated­
ness of the complex of affairs within the situation
results in the experience which Koehler has described
as the "Aha! experience." Scheler strongly defended
Koehler's conclusions that animals are fully capable of

simple, intelligent behavior. Animals are capable of

using simple instruments and of perceiving a cause-effect

hereditary. 5) It is unlearned: it is complete and

perfect with its first use. 6) It acts without repre­
sentations, images, or ideas of any kind. Stellung,
2.6-23; Man's Place. 14-21.
17Stellung. 25-29; Man's Place. 21-29.

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 -51-

phenomenon In its actual dynamic function. The

evolutionist-pragmatist view of man as homo faber never

essentially transcends the level of practical intelli­

gence. For it, man is quantitatively superior in his
intelligence, hut there is not present a genuinely new
phenomenon, an essentially new order of being. The dif­
ference between a clever chimpanzee and Edison (Scheler’s
18
favorite example) is only a difference of degree.
Animals do more than possess the "inner being"

of plants. They also have sensation and consciousness,

along with a central organization by which they receive
and retain reports concerning their situation in the en­
vironmental world. Only with the phenomenon of spirit
do we reach the level that is distinctly and essentially
human. With the presence of spirit in man, man has a
most special place in nature, for spirit is evidence of
a being that is essentially distinct from all forms of

life.

Stellung. 29-36; Man's Place, 29-37* Scheler's

usual word is Intelligenz or praktische Intelligenz.
Very occasionally he will use Intellekt in this sense.
The meaning of these terms must be carefully distin­
guished from his meaning for Geist. For a comparison
of Scheler with Dewey on this point of intelligence,
cf. Intelligence in the M o d e m World: John Dewey's
Philosophy, edited, with an introduction by Joseph.
featner Qfrew York: The Modern Library, 1939)» ch. VII,
"Intelligence in Social Action," 435-66. This is a
series of very carefully selected texts. Also, cf.
W. Koehler, The Mentality of Apes, translated by
E. Winter (New York: Hareourt, Brace and Co., 1926).

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 -52-

2. Spirit and Person

Scheler's most detailed exposition of the mean­

ing and activity of spirit appeared in Han's Place.
This is the main source of our present remarks.
The element of spirit completely transcends
the competence of biology and psychology. It is not
just a higher order of life; it is a genuinely new
phenomenon which cannot be derived from the natural
evolution of life. Spirit possesses two essential

characteristics. 1) It has the power of intentionally

objectifying the real environmental world through
knowledge and symbolic interpretation of that world.

2) In man, it possesses the power of objectifying its

own physiological and psychological states, all of its
psychic experiences and vital functions.19 This, then,
is a consciousness of the I, in which the I is an

object of knowledge. As we shall continue to see,

self-consciousness becomes a technical term for Scheler.
The knowledge of the I, is our knowledge of the Self.
The act of objectifying the pockets of resist­
ance which make up the real world is also called the
act of "ideation.” This was described by Scheler in
Man's Place in phenomenological terms. Ideation is an
act essentially superior to mere practical intelligence.
Ideation means to grasp the essential modes and the

19Stellung. 37-59; Man's Place. 39-40.

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 -53-

formal structures of the world. Ideation allows an

original insight into the essences of things. This

act requires not only a tentative suspension of reality;

it requires an actual opposition to the vitalistic
impulse of the real. Man becomes the "being who can
say 'ITo!,M (Neinsagenkoenner). "the ascetic of life,"
"the eternal protester" against life. This spirit of
denial becomes, in turn, the moral condition for the
upsurge (Aufschwung) of the spirit to true philosophical
knowledge. Therefore, through spirit, man is no longer
caught "ecstatically" within the situational complex
of his environmental world. Man is freed from his

environment. By the act of objectifying the real world,

man creates his own ideal world and remains unlimitedly

open to the world.

These distinctive spiritual acts of man were
described by Scheler as the basis for further aets
specific to man. Man alone develops the permanent,

unifying categories of thing and substance. Only man

lives, from the beginning of his existence, within a
*

unified space dimension. Man can think of empty space

and of abstract quantity. Thus, man has the capacity
for spontaneous movement and action, according to a
definite order, within the infinite emptiness of his
space-time dimension. In science (the scientific

Weltanschauung) man can structurally form the objective

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 -54-

world, impose laws upon it (the "natural laws" of the

physicists) and gain effective control over nature (the

knowledge of control). At the same time, the term

spirit does not refer only to knowledge activities.
Along with the intuition of essences, it also includes
such voluntary acts and emotional acts, as kindness,
20
love, reverence, wonder, bliss.
Spirit transcends space and time. While in­
directly dependent upon and imbedded in the lower vital

impulse, spirit is in no way evolved from the lower

order and cannot be reduced to it. Indeed, spirit
arises only in its opposition to life. It achieves its
higher level of being only by dialectically contra­
dicting the very bases of its own reality. Scheler
compared this process to Freud's theory of sublimation.
At this time, Scheler understood Freud to mean that
through the repression of the lower instinctual drives,
spirit sublimates the lower energy into spiritual
activity. Scheler consistently criticized this theory

of Freud, as he understood it, for its reduction of

spiritual phenomena to the vital and for its failure

^Stellung, 34-52; Man's Place. 35-55* In

the Editor's Introduction in Sympathy, p. xxiv, Stark
seems to overlook Scheler's meaning of "psychic life"
as being co-relative with biological life. At the
"psychic"— biological— level, man is at one with
the rest of nature. Stark correctly interprets
Scheler's theory of spirit and person in the subse­
quent discussion (xxv-xxx).

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 -55-

to account for the essentially distinct phenomena of

spirit. Nevertheless, Scheler continued to employ a
similar explanation of repression and sublimation in

his own descriptions of spiritual phenomena.

The second essential activity of spirit is that
man can reflectively consider his own vital functions
as objects of knowledge and objects of strictly scien­
tific investigation. Man's very inner psychological
and psychic states can become objects of knowledge.
This is man's knowledge of the I. Spiritual acts,
however, cannot be objectified. This is a key doctrine
in Scheler's whole theory of spirit and person. Spirit
is pure actuality, in the sense that its very being is
to be engaged in activity. And, as Scheler stated in
Man's Place, "the center of actions in which spirit
appears within a finite mode of being we call
21
'person.'" A preliminary understanding of Scheler's
definition of person is necessary at this point.
In Man's Place. Scheler's discussion of person
was set within a biological-psychological study and

heavily grounded in metaphysical principles. In con­

trast to this, the entire second half of Formalism
(first published in 1916, but completed by 1914) was

21
Man's Place. 56. "Das Aktzentrum aber, in
dem Greist innerkalb endliches Seinssphaeren erscheint,
bezeichnem wir als 'Person.'" Stellung. 55.

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 -56-

devoted to the phenomenological exposition of the mean­

ing of person within an ethical context. In Formalism,

Scheler defended the ethical value of person against

formal, rationalistic systems (especially, that of
Kant) and against purely scientific, psychological
descriptions of person. For all the differences in
context, the formal definitions of person given in
Kan’s Place agreed favorably with those previously
given in Formalism.

Thus, in one passage.in Man’s Place Scheler

wrote:

Spirit is the only being incapable of becoming an

object. It is pure actuality. It has being only
in and through the execution of its acts. The
center of spirit, the person, is not an object or
a substantial kind of being, but a continuously
self-executing, ordered structure of acts. The
person is only in and through his acts.22
In Formalism Scheler stated:

Person is. in its own essence, the concrete unity

of being for essentially different kinds of acts;
which [this concrete unity] in itself (not there-
fore in respect to us) precedes all essential
differences in acts (especially, then, the dif­
ferences between outer and inner perception,

22
Man's Place, 47* "Per Geist ist das einzige
Sein, das selbst Gregenstand unfaehig ist, — er ist
reine Aktualitaet, hat sein. Sein nur im freien Vollzug
seiner Akte. Pas Zentrum des Geistes, die 'person,'
ist weder gegenstaendliches, noch dingliches Sein,
sondem nur ein stetig selbst sich vollziehendes
(wesenhaft bestimmtes) Ornungsgefuege von Akten. Pie
Person ist nur in ihrer Akten und durch sie." Stellung,
44-45. -------

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 -57-

outer and inner willing, outer and inner feeling

and loving, hating, etc.)* The being of the person
"is the foundation for" all essentially different
acts.^5
Scheler explained further that person is not merely an
empty "starting point" of acts, hut the concrete being
(das konkrete Sein) in which all acts have their actual,

real connection. Another passage of Formalism reads:

Person can never be thought of as a thing or a
substance, which somehow has faculties or powers,
nor thereby is it a "faculty" or a "power" of
reason, and so on. Bather, person is the immediate
c©-experiencing unity of a living experience ~ not
a bare thing concluded to as being beyond and out­
side the immediate experience. ... Every finite
person is an individual and he himself is this as a
person.24

These are excellent phenomenological descrip­

tions, with all the inherent clarity and weaknesses of

Scheler's bare phenomenological intuition. It will

allow no discussion about notions that are not

"Person ist die konkrete. selbst wesenhafte

Seinseinhei'b von Akten verschiedenariigen Uesens, die
an slcht (nicht also pros emas) alien weseniiaften
Aktdifferenzen (insbesondere auch der Differenz
aeusserer und innerer Wahrnehmung, aeusserem und
innerem Wollen, aeusserem und innerem Fuehlen und
Lieben, Hassen, usw.) vorhergeht. Pas Sein der Person
'fundiert' alle wesenhaft verschiedenen Akte."
Formalismus, 595-94.
24
"Person niemals als ein Ding oder eine
Substanz gedacht werden darf, die irgenwelche Yermoegen
oder kraefte haette, darunter ein 'Yermoegen' oder eine
'Kraft' der Vernunft usw. Person ist vielmehr die
unmittelbar miterlebte Elnheit des Er-lebens — nicht
ein nur gedachtes Ding kinter und ausser dem unmittelbar
Erlebten. ... Jede endliche Person ein Individuum ist
und dies als Person selbst." Formalismus, 582.

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 -58-

immediately experienced. It asks for no further causal

explanation for the intuited essence. Person, then, is
experienced as being the unified, concrete center for

those experiencing-acts that are essentially distinct

from the lower vital functions of the psychophysiologi-

cal organism.
For Scheler, three essential characteristics

were included in the definition of person. 1) Person

appears only as the phenomena of spirit. 2) Person and
its acts cannot he objectified. 3) Persons are indi­

vidualized through their own intrinsic constitution.

We have already discussed spirit and its essential

activities. We have seen that the integration of these

spiritual activities into a centralized unity makes up
the very constitution of the person.
The term act (Akt) was used by Scheler in a

highly specialized sense to refer only to spiritual

acts. As we shall see, acts are sharply distinguished
from functions CFunktionen)« Acts in their most
essential nature transcend the body. They were char­
acterized by Scheler as being "psychophysiologically
indifferent" to the spatio-temporal conditions of the
body. Acts belong to the person, originate from within
the person and are projected into time. "It belongs to

to the essence of the reality of acts that it is itself

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 -59-

experienced only in its performance CVbllzugh " ^ The

full understanding of the meaning and the reality of
an act precludes all possibility of it becoming an

intentional object.
As we. have seen, spirit achieves its essential
transcendence over the lower levels of life through
the acts by which it resists and represses the impulses
of life and objectifies all lower reality in the act of
ideation. This is an act of pure knowledge. Consis­
tent with his views on the meaning of a purely rational
philosophy, Scheler's meaning for ideal knowledge had
almost a pejorative sense. The strict knowledge-act
objectifies reality into its formal, essential struc­
tures, while suspending it from the existential impulse
of things. Scheler's word for object in this context
is the German word Ge gen at and. This term, along with

all its derivatives, preserves its rigidly cognitive-

intentional references. It must be carefully disting­
uished from an objectivity that refers to the real

extra-intentional world.
Scheler declared in Formalism that a spiritual
act itself cannot be objectified in the knowledge act
Cniemals aber ist ein Akt auch ein Gegenstand'). This

^ " E s gehoert zum Vesen des Seins von Akten,

nur in Vollzug selbst erlebt gegeben zu sein." Ibid.,
385. ----

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 -60-

principle is an important link in his whole theory of

man, knowledge and being. Not even by reflection upon
an act can that act be objectified. Reflection upon
an act gives a type of knowledge in "accompanying"
("begleitet") the act and in re-living the experiencing
of the act, but this is not a case of true objectifi­
cation.
Scheler's doctrine here agreed with his views
on epistemology and metaphysics. He firmly refused to
reduce philosophy and reality to mere ideal abstrac­
tions. love and value responses are more immediate and
authentic modes of participation (Teilnehmen) into
reality than abstract knowledge. Scheler's phenomenol­

ogy had as one of its ends to gain insight into the

essences of values and into the content of our emotional
experiences. Therefore, while spiritual acts cannot
be perceived and objectified into idealized structures,
they can be studied through phenomenology. In this
case, we can come to "know" the act by co-performing it
(Mitvollzug), or performing it previous to or subse­
quent to the act itself. This is the only way we know
our own spiritual acts and (as we shall see) this is
the only way in which we can participate in the acts of
other persons. This is by no means a lesser type of
knowledge, but it is an essentially different or non­
objectifying mode of participating in the full reality

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 -61-

of spiritual acts.
If spirit and its acts cannot be objectified,

tben neither can person be converted into an object,

for person is nothing more than the centralized unity

constituted in its own spiritual acts.
But if an act is never an object, so then very
properly the living person in his act-performanee
is also never an object. The only and the exclu­
sive kind of its "being-given" is only in its
very performance itself (also even in the perform­
ance of the reflection upon its own acts)— its
performance, in which it experiences itself in an
immediate, living way. Or, where one deals with
other persons: a co-performance, re-performance
or a pre-performance of their acts. Also in such
cases ... the acts of the other persons have not
been objectified.26

26
"1st aber schon ein Akt niemals Gegenstand,
so ist erst recht niemals Gegenstand del in ihrem
Aktvollzug lebende Person. Die einzige und
aesschliessliche Art ihrer Gegebenheit ist vielmehr
allein ihr Aktvollzug selbst (auch noch der Aktvollzug
ihrer Reflexion auf Ihrer Akte)— ihr Aktvollzug, in dem
lebend sie gliechzeitig sich erlebt. Oder, wo es sich
um andere Personen handelt: Hit— oder Nachvollzug
oder Vorvollzug ihrer Akte. Auch in solchem— reap.
Nachvollzug und Vorvollzug der Akte einer anderen Person
steckt nichts von Vergegenstaendlichung." Ibid., 397*
Parallel to this thought is the following passage in
Man’s Place: (Our own translation.) "To the being of
our own Person we can only collect ourselves, to it we
can only concentrate ourselves— but we cannot objectify
it. Also other persons, as persons, are not able to be
objectified. ... Ve can win a knowing participation
with them only in so far as we perform their free acts
after and with them, which is called by the poor term
"discipleship"; or through a possible "understanding"
in the attitude of spiritual love, which is the total
opposite of all objectification, that is, as we are
accustomed to say, that we identify ourselves with the
willing, with the love of a person— and thereby with
him himself." Stellung, 45; cf. Man's Place. 47-48.
(This is another instance where the translator-editor
of Man's Place has obscured the original meaning and
significance of a passage.)

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 -62-

It is evident that the application of the principle of

non-objectification of other persons and their acts
will have important bearing upon much of our later
discussion on the problem of persons living in community.
The third essential characteristic of person
for Scheler which we have singled out was that each
person contained within itself its own principle of

individuation. Since person in the essential consti­

tution of its own essence transcends the body, then the
body in its space-time dimensions cannot account for
the individuation of the person. The concrete center
of spiritual acts which makes up the person is already

individualized through itself and in itself. We shall

see how this discussion over the principle of indi­

viduation returns frequently in the social problems

considered in Sympathy. The very fact of the multi­
plicity of individual spirits (persons) will allow the
possibility for community relations to develop among
persons.27r
In Formalism. Scheler defended the true moral
autonomy of the person against Kant's "law-rule"
28
(Logonomie) by pure reason. The moral person is more
than a mere "being of reason" (Yernunftwesen) or a

^Weltanschauung, 54, 126, n. 19; Perspectives.

33, 132, n. 19.
^Formalismus. 582-85.

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 -63-

"person of reason” (Vernunftperson.) Person can

neither be objectified nor can it serve as the mere

logical subject of a proposition. The full meaning of

Scheler's teaching on person becomes clearer when
person is contrasted with the I.

3. Person and I

Spirit, its acts, and the person can never

become objects. The I (Ich) , on the other hand, is by
definition always an object (Gegenstand) • The indi­

vidual I is the object of inner perception.^0 In this

case, we speak of someone perceiving his own I.^1 The

^The term Vernunft for Scheler implied a bare

theoretical power of abstract thought. It had its im­
mediate source in Kant's doctrine on reason, but also
has reference to the homo sapiens of the Greeks. Most
of Scheler's references to Vernunft are made in a de­
preciating sense. Formalismus. 393 ff.
-*°Scheler also distinguished between the indi­
vidual I and a general I (Ichheit)• The latter is the
object of a "formless intuition* (formloser Anschauung) .
This term recurs very infrequently! It seems to refer
to a type of unspecified knowledge about the I in
general• “

^1It is to be noted that we retain the English

term I as the literal translation of Scheler's use of
Ich here in Formalism. Ve avoid the term Ego because
of its psychological and psychoanalytic connotations.
Ve also avoid a reverting to a more common idiom in
English whereby the reflexive case of I is rendered as
me or self; for example, we may speak of someone per-
ceiving H m s e l f or of someone perceiving his Self (cf.
infra n. 34). German has the same usage. ?et Scheler
deliberately speaks of perceiving the I (Ich) , not of
perceiving the Self (Selbst). Therefore, for clarity
and precision of thought !“we will abide exactly by the

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 -64-

I, its appearances (Er scheinungen), and its contents

(Tnhalte) fall under the observation of science and
psychology as common objects of knowledge. This class

of objects are called functions (Funktionen) , and we

have remarked that functions must be carefully distin­

guished from acts.

All functions are functions of the psycho-
physiological unity which constitutes the I. Functions
necessarily entail a body and the environmental world.
Functions are facts which occur in the phenomenal
space-time sphere: they are observable and measurable
in space-time quantities. Seeing, hearing, tasting,
zp
vital feelings are examples of functions.
Scheler placed much importance upon the contrast
between person and I, between acts and functions. The
I and its functions fall within the competence of modern

experimental psychology. In this context, Scheler was

prepared to discuss at great length the findings of
psychology. But since person:‘and acts cannot be con­
verted into objects of knowledge, they can be known only

through the peculiar investigations of phenomenology

by which one can "accompany" his inner acts in order to

"intuit" the real "essence" of that act.

Schelerian terms. As we shall see in the following

chapter, further difficulties will arise in the study
of Sympathy.
^ Formalismus. 597-98.

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 -65-

Functions can be related to acts in two ways.

A function can become the object of an act; e.g., a

person can reflectively consider what "seeing” is.
Also, functions can serve as the means by which acts

are directed to other objects. For instance, when a

man sees the beating of a drum and hears the sound of
the drum, he makes the act of judgment that this com­
plex state of affairs (Sachverhalt) is really a single
fact, that what he sees and what he hears is the same

thing.
Functions are immediately complete and perfect;
acts carry with them a meaning, an intentionality and a
type of symbolic reference that demand further inter­

pretation. For example, every personal act has a past

and a future. What is "past” and what is "future," as

experienced within a personal act, has an "essence"

knowable only through phenomenological investigations.
However, one can relive the past and plan the future

only through a series of psychophysiological functions

that take place in the present. These functions, in
turn, can become the object of scientific study; e.g.,
for instance, science can study the amount of electrical
energy discharged in the brain while a subject plans
the future. But science can never uncover the personal

dimensions of acts themselves, science can never know

XX
what "the future" means to a person.

55Ibid., 424-•

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 66-

The I for Scheler is always the experienced I

(Erlebnis-ich) . that is, it is always an object of
thought or of feeling. Only a person can be the subject
which performs acts (handelt)• This led Scheler to
reconstruct our common language. It is not entirely
correct to say that "I go for a walk.” Only a person

can initiate the activity of walking. In this case,

the I in the sentence stands for both the grammatical
meaning of "first person," and also for the singular
concrete human being who is performing the act. Hence,

the same is true when I say, "I am perceiving myself."

Here, again, the I does not designate the psychical

I; it merely designates a man (Mensch) , who has an I

and who is conscious of his I as the same person in the

performance of his outer and inner perceptions. Myself

remains ambiguous. Does it refer to an inner perception
of the psychical I, or does it merely refer to an outer
perception of the body-I (Leib-ich)? On the other hand,

when I say, "I am perceiving my I," then I clearly

announce that I have an inner perception of the psychical
34
I as the object of my perception.

^ I b i d . , 400; also, 97* In itself, spirit

transcends tike human situation. The definition of
person as the center of spiritual acts can be applied
to God and angels as well as to man. Man is a human
person, a person-in-body, a person who experiences his
own I. The I, then, is experienced, objectified knowl-
edge7 i*e., reflective and scientific knowledge about
man.

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 -67-

The "body is always perceived within its envi­

ronmental world (Umwelt). The I is necessarily related
to the outer world. One part of the outer world for

the I is its own body (Leib) , In the fully unified

experience of the I and its body there is constituted
in all its intrinsic, essential relatedness a single
unity which Scheler called the body-I (Leib-ich) . He
further distinguished between the living body (Leib)
and the body as an inanimate thing (Koerper) , He
denied that we first become aware of our own body
through external perception, as if it were an inanimate
object (Koerper) , detached and separate from us.
Rather, the living body (Leib) is intrinsically and

essentially related to all the I-functions as an essen­

tial component of all the body-I experiences. Functions
such as hearing, tasting, touching take place within

the total living body experiences. Tet if I touch the

smoothness of silk, it is not necessary for me to per­
ceive beforehand my own finger, as if it were an inani­
mate object touching silk. I merely feel the smoothness
of silk through the unified body-I experience. All
subsequent learning of a human person continues within
the background of the most basic intentional constitu-
35
tion of its body-I relation.

55Ibid., 408-15.

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 -68-

These distinctions in respect to the primary

objects of our experience will play a crucial role in

the discussion concerning our perception of the alien

I. At the same time, they allowed Scheler to discuss
in great detail the relevant psychological studies
dealing with man, consciousness, perception, sensation
and the emotions.^ But all the while, he preserved
the transcendence of the person. Most important to
the context of Formalism, he defended the role of per­

son as being the only bearer of genuine ethical values.

The I is also distinguished from person by way
of its relatedness to the world. While the I is in­
trinsically and essentially related to the outer envi­

ronmental world, especially in its body-I constitution,

person constitutes its own world and stands endlessly
open before its world. Person is, by definition,

individual and concrete, so that the corresponding

world for each person is equally individual and concrete.
As every spiritual act belongs to an individual person,
so also every intentional object (Gegenstand) is essen­

tially constituted as "belonging" to an individual

world. Person is not a part of a world, not even part

of its own world; the person is merely the correlate

(Korrelate) of a "world"— the world in which it fulfills

^ T h e pages from 4-13 through 485 contain a close

study of contemporary psychological studies.

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 -69-

its own experiences. In this sense, both the person

and its corresponding world is something absolute; they
have no intrinsic relation to an outside world or to an

alien I. God, for example, the Person of Persons,

essentially has no outside world and no intrinsic re­
latedness to some other I in community. The I, however,
as we have seen, is necessarily related to both the

outside world and to an alien I»^7

These principles are stated in Formalism.
Scheler was forced to discuss them again at more length
in the second edition of Sympathy. We have briefly

noted these distinctions here to complete our discussion

on the person and the I. Our further study of man's
community relations will continue this discussion.

4. Han the Microcosm

The major questions of metaphysics were never

far from Scheler's active mind. Not only questions of

epistemology, but also all the questions of ethics, of
values, of work, of sociology and of religion found
their basic ground in the answers concerning the Ground

of Being. In the most general sense Scheler* s meta­

physics can be described as realistic, but non-causal.
The most crucial questions for Scheler involved the

57Ibid., 403-05.

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 -70-

resolution of the dualism "between life and spirit.

More and more Scheler came to realize that his meta­

physics was inseparably intertwined with his philosophy

(his phenomenology) of man. In short, the aim of his
late philosophical anthropology was to combine the

scientific, philosophical and theological definitions

of man into a single, unified meaning, consonant with
his definition of being itself. Man became a microcosm
not only of the scientific and philosophical world;
man also contained within himself the whole of the
theological world: man became the microtheos.
A statement of Scheler's metaphysics is diffi­
cult. First of all, there is some ambiguity inherent
in the very meaning and use of the term metaphysics.
Metaphysics, for Scheler, suffered the same fate of
fluctuating in meaning as we have seen in his definition
of philosophy. Also, it is precisely within the realm
of the metaphysics of being that Scheler's most radical

intellectual development took place.

In general, there are within being the two most
basic categories of the real and the ideal. The real

is the contingently existential (Dasein), with its

underlying ground of dynamic, vital impulse. Its

reality is verified epistemologically by its crude re­

sistance to ideal objectivization. In referring to
reality, Scheler makes no distinction between the German

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 -71-

words Bealitaet and Wirklichkeit. Ideal being is the

realm of intentional being, the realm of essences, tbe

realm of intentional objects— Gegenstaende. Ideal

being is accessible only to spirit. Spirit, therefore,
must deny and withstand the impulses of the real to
consider objectively— in knowledge— the pure essences
of things. This is a more refined statement of the
first moral condition— asceticism— for philosophical

knowledge.
A pure, abstract study of metaphysics would
consider the formal, essential structure of bare onto­
logical being, a neutral being which in itself need be
neither real nor ideal. For Scheler, this is a phe­

nomenological study that begins with the first essential

insight that something is— is in an ontological sense.
Complete investigation of this insight will unveil the

further essential relations and complexes within being.

For example, in "The Nature of Philosophy" Scheler
explained that our first insight into limited being
leads— in thought— to the necessity that there be a
final ground in Absolute Being.^ Ten years later in

58Cf. Ewigen, 93-99; Eternal, 98-104. We

understand these pages to be nothing more than a
phenomenological exercise into the related series of
insights that follow upon the first knowledge of a
limited essence. As such, this investigation remains
perfectly neutral in respect to the reality of a cor­
responding world. ,

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 -72-

Man's Place Scheler was involved in the same phenome­

nological exercise. Here he stated that consciousness
of the world, self-consciousness, and the (formal)
consciousness of God are essentially, necessarily
related. These three form "an inseparable structural

unity.However, in 192? Scheler's intellectual

development made him see a new significance and rele­
vance for these insights. He then declared that the
unity and relatedness of mental being must be predicated

°* reality itself.
Scheler's first philosophical interests dealt
with ethics and methodology. As we have seen, from his
first work on Logical and Ethical Principles, he de­

clared that ethical values are derived by man through

a separate intentional experience from that by which
we discover logical principles. In Formalism he
vigorously attacked Kant's ethics (and all rational­
istic systems) which in principle derive ethical values
exclusively from formal, intellectual considerations.
Scheler's defense of Pascal's "order of the heart" in

describing the a priori hierarchy of emotional values

is to give proper credit to the world of emotions, of
drives and impulses. Life-and-emotional values put man
in direct contact with the real, with the vital and the

390f. Man's Place, 89-90. "Welt,— Selbst,— und

Gottesbewusstsein bilden eine unzerreisbare
Struktureinheit." Stellung, 82.

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 -73-

concrete. A philosophical study of this dimension of

man (in the sense of phenomenology) seeks to gain
insight into the pure "essences" of values. Such a
study does not abstract the realm of values into pure

cognitive idealizations; its goal is to describe the

intentional content within the concrete experiencing

act as it responds to its own intrinsic ends (Ziel)•

Response to material values puts man into direct con­
tact with the vital, the real. This impulsive vital
drive, for Scheler, is the basic core of reality. The
different levels of reality, the inorganic, the vegeta­
tive, the sensitive and spiritual, all respond to this
vital drive according to their own degree of being.
But each level of being must remain in vital communion

with this basic drive. The fault of rationalism is

that by an act of super-intellectualization it loses
contact with the material and the vital. Scheler
proposes a "re-sublimation" to allow man a rational
AO
return to the vital sources of his being.

We have already noted Scheler's changes of mind

in defining the meaning of philosophy. In 1916-17 lie
made the act of philosophizing a love-impelled activity

of the whole person. However, in 1921, while writing

on the philosophy of religion, Scheler carefully

«°0f. "Man in the Era of Adjustment" in Per­

spectives, 94— 126; Weltanschauung, 89-118.

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 -74-

restricted formal metaphysical knowledge to a purely

abstract body of theoretical truths as proposed by the
rationalists. Such a "metaphysical" knowledge is only

in possession of cognitive, ideal being. It gives

only rational knowledge of the basis of the world; it

reveals the "cerebral god of the intellectuals." On

the other hand, it is religious experience (originally
a group experience) that puts one into vital communion
with Absolute Being in its real, dynamic dimension.
This involves a personal commitment to and active par­

ticipation with Absolute Being. This type of knowledge

is "salvational."^ At the end of his life, Scheler
(having lost his Faith) re-united metaphysics itself
42
with salvational knowledge. The reasons for this
transition in thought is twofold. In the realm of
being itself he had to resolve the idealism-realism
problem within the context of his own devising. Sec­
ondly, at this time, he sought explicitly to synthesize
the major philosophical questions within the philosophy

of man.

^Ewigen, 129-30; Eternal, 133-34-.

4?
Cf. the 1925 address, "The Forms of Knowledge
and Culture" for a definition of knowledge identical
with the 1916-17 definition. Knowledge is a "love," a
relation of being (ein Seinsverhaeltnis), a participa­
tion of one being into the circumstantial existence of
another (das Verhaeltnis des Teilhabens eines Seienden
am Sosein eines anderes Seienden). Cf. Perspectives,
39-40; Weltanschauung, 40.

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 -75-

In man, the problem of realism-idealism is not

the relation between body and soul, between matter and
form, between extension and thought. It is the relation

of the most basic vital impulse as opposed to spirit.

Scheler speaks of Drang. Lebensdrang or Gefuehlsdrang
to describe this most basic reality in things. The
inorganic world possesses this inherent dynamism in its
resistance to destruction and in all its forms of
physical and chemical power (kinetic and potential).
Vegetative life, the brutes, men are individualized
centers of this same basic impulse. The higher grades
of life possess more highly centralized and organized
centers of activity.

In the most basic sense of bare existence, the

material and the organic are the most elemental and
most powerful forces in man and in being. The primitive
drives for self-preservation, towards nourishment and
reproduction form the rock-bottom foundation for all
43
the higher phenomena of spirit. ^ Scheler agrees with

^Scheler's reaction to Freud is very interest­

ing. He understands Freud to describe the origin of
higher cultural and humanistic ideals in man— elements
spirit— through a special type of repression of the
lower drives through the process of sublimation,
Scheler criticizes this theory of Freud on two counts.
1) Scheler asks: what converts an unhealthy repression
into a healthy sublimation unless there is admitted a
prior spiritual element which does the "sublimating" in
the first place? 2) Freud would have spirit to evolve
automatically from the lower levels of being. Scheler*s
"ascetic" denial of the impulsive is very similar to

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 -76-

Nicolai Hartmann that the higher values are weaker than

the lower values and that the higher levels of life and
spirit are dependent upon the lower. Spirit in its
objectifying activity totally transcends the temporal
and the spatial. Yet it subsists in and depends on
the more basic life forces for bare survival. The
spirit's relationship to life is similar to some
spiritualistic explanation of the soul's dependence

upon the body.

The spiritual act is indirectly dependent in so
far as it requires energy, upon the temporal
processes of life and is, as it were, embedded
in them. 44-
Pure spirit without this life-impulse may be
conceivable theoretically, but it would literally be

lifeless and unreal. Therefore, Scheler is forced to

reject all forms of theistic creationism which hold
pure spirit, as spirit. to be omnipotently effective.

Only the reverse is true. The life-impulse itself is

power, thrust, drive. This is absolutely primary and
basic. Only within this life-drive does spirit emerge

his own interpretation of Freud's theory of sublima­

tion. But Scheler will vigorously defend the prior
independent realm of spirit and will deny that the
higher (spirit) can ever evolve from the lower.
Man's Place. 81. "Nur indirekt ist der
geistige Akt, sofern er Taetigkeit beansprucht, auch
abhaengig von einem zeitlichen Lebenvordrang und
gleichsam in ihm eingebetett." Stellung, 74.

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 -77-

and develop by an activity which dialectically receives

its impulse only from the life-force it opposes.
The phenomenon of spirit arises originally only
in the experience of man. Scheler is merely giving us

a phenomenological description of man's experience of

himself and the world.

The process of becoming human represents the

highest sublimation known to us and, at the same
time, the most intimate fusion of all the essen­
tial stages of nature. For man unifies within
himself all the essential stages of existence
[des Daseins] . especially of life.45
From this starting point (man is a microcosm) ,
Scheler builds his own theory of being. He is conscious
of the disastrous results of a Cartesian dualism both in
man and in being. From man's experience of himself as
a perfectly unified being, Scheler declares that the
ultimate metaphysical Ground is also one. Though man
experiences within himself the tugs and pulls of vital

drives, along with the higher activity of spirit (the

eternal conflict of the two "laws" within us), man is
one being, with the two attributes irreducible to each
other— impulse and spirit. From this evidence Scheler
declares that the ultimate Ground of being is also one,

^ M a n ' s Place. 69-70. "Die Menschwerdung, wie

ich schon sagie, dieuns bekannte hoechste Sublimierung
— und zugleich die innigste Einigung aller Wesensregionen
der Natur dar. Denn der Mensch fasst alle wesensstufen
des Daseins ueberhaupt, insbesondere des Lebens in sich
zusammen." Stellung, 64.

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 -78-

but one that has two distinct attributes, two distinct

lines of progress, two dimensions of being, accessible
and describable by man, only by two distinct intentional
modes of description.
Scheler’s final theory of being emerges slowly.
The need for unity forced him to combine the vitalistic

and spiritual elements. Many isolated statements are

extreme and seem to maintain a pan-vitalistie monism,

with the realm of spirit being a late and superfluous

appendage. The category of the real seems more basic
than that of the ideal. But the realm of spirit, of
higher values, of freedom remains an intrinsic component

of man's experience and an essential factor of being

itself. Ultimately, these factors must be united in
the World-ground.
In our metaphysics [there is] in the spirit of
the one substantial divine World-ground the two
attributes known to us, "Spirit” and "Drive."46
Here Scheler declares that there is one World-ground
with two known attributes, spirit and drive, Geist and
Drang.

(Our own translation.) "In unserer Meta-

physik ... im Geiste des gotthaften einen substantialen
Weltgrundes mit den zwei uns bekannten Attributen,
’Geist' und 'Drang.'" Weltanschauung* 123, 15*
Cf. Perspectives, 130. 4?he long footnotes to this
essay on Knowledge and Culture in this work contain
very valuable, technical metaphysical points. Unfor­
tunately, the translation in Perspectives does not
handle these technical passages very successfully.

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 -79-

According to our metaphysics the realization of

the Spirit in the divine sub st anc e , eternally
positing itself through drive, the second attri­
bute of divinity known to us, and the ideation of
drive ("the spiritualization of life") are both
the same metaphysically identical process, viewed
one time from the point of view of "Spirit" and
"Essence" and the second time from the point of
view of "Drive" and "Concrete Existence (Dasein)."
Vorld history is for us the cultural, temporal
manifestation of the relaxed tension between the
basic opposition of Spirit and Drive (natura
naturans) in a functional unity of the World-
ground and thus also the mutual interpenetration
of Spirit and Power. 4-7
Spirit and drive, the two attributes of being,
apart from their growing mutual interpenetration—
their intrinsic end (Ziel)— are not complete in
themselves. They grow' within themselves in their
manifestation in the history of the human spirit
and in the evolution of life in the world. 4-8

? ( O u r own translation.) "Nach unserer Meta-

physik sind Realisierung des Geistes in der goettlichen,
sich ewig selitest setzenden Substanz durch das Zweite uns
bekannte Attribut der Gottheit, durch den Drang, und
Ideierung des Dranges ('Vergeisterung des Lebens') nur
ein metapfaysisch-iaentischer Progress, das eine Mai von
*Geist' und 'Wesen,' das zweite Mai von 'Drang' und
'Dasein' aus gesehen. Die Weltgeschichte ist uns die
bildschafte zeitliche Manifestation der Entspannung des
Urgegenstazes von Geist und Drang (natura naturans) im
funktionell einheitlichen Weltgrund, und damit auch die
gegenseitige Durchdringung von Geist und Macht. Weltan-
anschauungl 1S4, n. 1€>* Cf, Perspectives, 131. Q?lais is
a fine summary-statement of Scheler*s recognition of a
basic dualism in being— Urgegensatz von Geist und
Drang— and its resolut 1 on--Entspannung— tterougte the
mutual interpenetration— Durchdringung— of the two
opposite principles.
HQ
(Our own translation.) "Geist und Drang, die
beiden Attribute des Seins, sie sind, abgesehen von
ihrer erst werdenden gegenseitigen Durchdringung— als
Ziel— , aber auch in sich nicht fertig; sie wachsen an
sich selbst eben in diesen ihren Manifestationen in der
Geschichte des Lebens der Welt." Stellung, 85; cf.,
Man's Place, 93-94-* It is to be noted that Scheler
consistently states that life and spirit are the two

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 -80-

This, then, is the statement of the real state

of affairs in being itself. The result is that God

himself emerges only in the spiritual acts of man. God
must continue to realize himself (to become real) within
the evolving vitalistic impulse of nature as spirit

more and more transcends life by its own activity.

For us the basic relationship of man to the World-
ground lies in this, that in man— who, as such,
both as spirit and as organism is only a partial
centralizing of the spirit and drive of the Being
er se— I say, in man himself this World-ground
Sirectly comprehends and realizes itself.49
The original Being [das IJrseiende] becomes con­
scious of itself in man in t!he same act by which
man sees himself grounded in this being. We need
but transform this thought, previously presented
too intellectualistically, so that man’s knowledge
of being so grounded is the result of the active
commitment of our being to the ideal demands of
deitas and the attempt to fulfill this demand.
In and through this fulfillment, man co-operates

attributes known to us. He deliberately leaves open

the possibility of further unknown attributes that may
eventually evolve in spirit’s (being's) more complete
realization of itself. This parallels Spinoza's
theory that extension and thought are the two essential
attributes of Being known to us from among an infinity
of such attributes.
^ ( O u r own translation.) "Fuer Tins liegt das
Grundverhaeltnis des Menschen zum Weltgrund darin,
dass dieser Grund sich im Menschen— der als solcher
sowohl als Geist— wie als Lebewesen nur je ein
Teilzentrum des Geistes und Dranges des ’Durch-sich-
Seienden* ist— ich sage: sich in Menschen selbst
unmittelbar erfasst und verwirklicht." Stellung. 84;
cf., Man's Place, 92.

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 -81-

in the creation of God, who emerges from the

Ground of Being in a process whereby spirit and
drive interpenetrate increasingly.50

The final synthesis of man and being is achieved

in the continuing spiritual evolution of God within the

dynamics of the life-impulse.^ Scheler concludes by

appealing to man to have the courage to accept the fact
of an "unfinished God." His appeal carries with it the
tone of Nietzsche's description of the Superman.

^ Man's Place, 92-93. "Das Urseiende wird

sich im Menschen seiner selbst inne in dem selben Akte,
in dem der Mensch sich in ihm gegruendet schaut. Wir
muessen nur diesen bisher viel zu einseitig
intellectualistisch vertretenen, Gedanken dahin umge-
stalten, dass dieses Sichgegruendet-wissen erst fuer
die ideale Forderung der Deltas und des Versuches,
sie zu vollstrecken, und in dieser Vollstreckung der
aus dem Urgrunde werdenden 'Gott' als die steigende
Durch-dringung von Geist und Drang allererst
mitzuerzeugen." Stelluag, 84. For Scheler, Deltas
comprises the purely spiritual attributes of the
highest Ground of Being. Cf. Man's Place, 70.
•^Ernst Cassirer has a very clear description
of the problem of life and spirit in Max Scheler.
E. Cassirer, '"Spirit' and 'life' in Contemporary
Philosophy," The Philosophy of Egast Cassirer (Evanston,
Illinois: The Library of living Philosophers, Inc.,
1949), VI, 857-880. (From the original German essay,
"'Geist' und 'Leben' in der Philosophie der Gegenwart,"
Die Neue Rundschau, 1 [1950], 244-64. Translated by
Robert Ualter iBre-kall and Paul Arthur Schilpp.)
Cassirer uses Scheler's final position on life and
spirit as the most forceful presentation of these
tensions in being. Cassirer's own resolution of the
tension is through the symbol-making function of man.

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 -82-

Scheler's metaphysics of man and of being is

based upon bis theory of man's place in nature and his
understanding of spirit and person. This theory of
being was meant to resolve the age-old tensions of
realism-idealism, of the Dionysian and Apollonian
elements in man, of the "natural" and the "humanistic"

factors in culture, society and history. Scheler

hoped that his "meta-anthropological" theory of being
would give a fitting climax to all scientific theories

of evolution by allowing the evolution of life to

develop into the self-realization of spirit within the
Godhead itself. This theory of being remained the
basis for Schelerfs views on man, on nature, on soci­
ology, on history and upon the forms of knowledge. It
agreed well with his early views on person and, as we
shall see, with his whole phenomenology of community.
Man lives not only in community with other men, but
man also lives in communion with all the levels of

being.

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 Chapter Three

M M ’S KNOWLEDGE OF M M
Page

1. Critical Survey on the Notion

of Sympathy............ 88
2. Questions concerning the
Perception of Others ............ 10?
3. The Perception of Others .... 123

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 CHAPTER THREE

MAN'S KNOWLEDGE OP MAN

The study of Scheler's phenomenology of com­

munity includes his theory of interpersonal relations,

and obviously entails his whole theory of man. There­
fore, the last chapter studied what Scheler preferred

to call philosophical anthropology. The present chapter

advances to a special problem in the theory of man,
namely, the problem concerning man's knowledge of man.
Scheler himself arrived at this problem indirectly. In

working out his theory of ethics, he discovered that

he should expand his theory of sympathy. But sympathy

presupposed man's knowledge of other men. Therefore,

Scheler's explicit discussion on mutuality and community

in human knowledge occurred in his two editions of

Sympathy.
Our study shall follow Scheler's own context
very closely. We shall thus be able to appreciate his
treatment of human knowledge as only a part of the
larger context of how man is related in many different

ways to other men. For Scheler, this was not a mere

problem of epistemology; it involved his whole theory

of man, metaphysics and ethics. A brief critical survey

-84-

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 -85-

of various past and present philosophers on the meaning

and explanation of sympathy will show us the immediate
context in which Scheler located the problem of human
knowledge. Then we list in order his own questions
concerning the problem of perceiving others. Finally,
we give a brief exposition of Scheler*s own solution to
the question of how we perceive others.
The chief source of study for the present chapter
is Scheler's major work on sympathy. Scheler had com­
pleted the first edition of Sympathy in 1912, but he
published it simultaneously with Formalism in 1913^
The former work was to serve two ends. It was "to pro­
vide an example of how to conduct investigations into
p
the phenomena of the emotional life." As such, it was
the first of a projected series of studies tentatively
entitled, "The Laws of Meaning within Emotional Life.”
This series was never actually realized by Scheler
himself. The second more important reason for a study

■^"Preface to the First Edition," Sympathie,

XVIII; cf. Sympathy, 1. This Preface is dated at
Munich, October, 1912.
p
Sympathy, 1. "Moechte die kleine Schrift ein
Beispiel dafuer sein, auf welche Weise Untersuchungen
ueber die Phaenomen des Gemuetslebens zu fuehren sind."
Sympathie, XVTI. Cf. supra, Ch, I, n. 36.
^The German title for this projected series was:
Die Sinngesetze des emotionalen Lebens. It was to in­
clude studies on shame, honor, fear and reverence.
Scheler's work "Concerning Shame and the Feeling of
Shame" (Nachlass, 65-15z0 was to be part of this series.
Cf. Maria Scheler's introduction to the fifth edition:

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 -86-

on sympathy was "to provide a phenomenological basis

to.
for a philosophical ethics." Thus, the first edition
of Sympathy was meant to be a companion volume to
Formalism. The exposition of the meaning and function

of sympathy touched upon ethics and psychology, as well

as sociology, epistemology and metaphysics.-'
The sequence of topics in the revised edition
of Sympathy is quite disorganized. However, two very

general directions of thought are constantly present.

The first is a negative criticism against false theories
of sympathy. The second is a positive phenomenological
exposition of the "essence and forms" of sympathy
itself. The present chapter will emphasize the first
of these two aspects. It will delineate the historical

Sympathie, VI; Sympathy, xliv. As late as August, 1922,

Scheler (in his Preface to the second edition: Sympathie,
IX; Sympathy, xlv) spoke of this series. The JanrbucS
continued to allow other phenomenologists to publish
their independent studies on the emotions; e.g., Edith
Stein's studies on empathy. One should not overlook
the phenomenological import of the title: The Laws of
Meaning within Emotional Life. The end of phenome-
nological investigation is to interpret the significance
of emotional phenomena and to discover their inner laws
and forms of meaning.
ft,

Sympathy, 1. "Der philosophischen Ethik eine

phenomenoTogiscEe Basis zu geben." Sympathie, XVII.

^In his Preface to the second edition (1922)

Scheler cites in turn how the areas of axiology, ethics,
esthetics, psychology, sociology, history, epistemology,
metaphysics and psychiatry are all effected by the
theory of sympathy. Sympathie, IX-XVI; Sympathy.
xlv-1.

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 -87-

and critical background of Scheler's thought, as it

touched upon the problems of sympathy and the percep­
tion of others. Then Scheler's own statement of the

proper questions concerning the perception of others

will be studied, along with his own solution to the
problem. A subsequent chapter will take up the posi­
tive study of sympathy itself, as well as other par­
ticular modes by which men live together.

Scheler felt strongly that a fresh, deliberate

reconsideration of the whole problem concerning the

knowledge of others must be made. Such a study must

carefully study its own presuppositions, its metaphysi­

cal underpinnings and its practical applications. The

problem is crucial in the history of human thought.

With approval he quoted the words of Ernst Troeltsch:

The main problem here is the question of our
knowledge of other minds; for this is the peculiar
presupposition of history, and in general a central
issue for all philosophy, since the possibilities
and difficulties of any common thought and philoso­
phizing all depend upon it.6

Sympathy, xlix. "Im Mittelpumkt steht hier die

Frage nachder irkenntnis des Fremdseelischen, die die
eigentliche Erkenntnistheorie der Geschichte ist, ueber-
haupt ein Zentralpunkt aller Philosophic ist, weil auf
ihr die Moegliehkeiten und Schwierigkeiten gemeinsamen
Denkens und Philosophierens ueberhaupt beruhen."
Sympathie. XIV. This quotation is from E. Troeltsch,
HI)ie Logik des historischen Entwicklungsbegriffs,”
Kantstudien. 27 (1922), 286. Much of Scheler's long
preface to the second edition of Sympathy was to justify
his decision to amplify the Appendix of the first edi­
tion ("On our ground for assuming the existence of other
selves") into a new and independent part (Part Three)
in the second edition. Part Three is entitled simply:

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 -88-

The phenomenology of community must begin with the

question of our knowledge of others.

1. Critical Survey on the Notion

of Sympathy

In the introductory paragraph to the First Part

of Sympathy. Scheler restated explicitly that it was

primarily ethical considerations that prompted him to
undertake a thorough study of sympathy. The ethical
systems of the British moralists, Rousseau, Schopen­
hauer and Nietzsche rested upon particular theories of
sympathy.^ Scheler felt that his own theory of value-
ethics must be able to rest upon a fundamental meta­
physics and to supply a completely consistent and
meaningful theory of how man lives together with other

men.
Scheler consistently maintained his own, posi­
tive definition of the essence of sympathy. He achieved

this definition only through a carefully controlled

phenomenological investigation of the sympathy phenome­
non. The essence of sympathy includes two fundamental

"Other Minds" ("Vom fremden Ich") . The second part of

this chapter will make a detailed study of the three
chapters contained here.
^Sympathie, 1; Sympathy, 5. The translator
isolates this paragraph from the body of the text and
supplies a separate "Preface" to title it.

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 — 89“ *

elements. First of all, the one who sympathizes with

another must consciously perceive the emotional state
of the other individual. Secondly, he must feel that
same emotion, not necessarily in himself, hut as
emanating from the other. Therefore, the one who
sympathizes, literally, Mfeels with" the other self;
he participates in the emotional state of the other.
As we shall see, Scheler employed especially these two
basic elements of the essence of sympathy in his criti­
cism of all past and present theories of sympathy.
A primary concern of Scheler was to distinguish

his phenomenological investigations from all empirical

psychological studies which he loosely labeled a

"descriptive and genetic psychology." By this term he

wanted to include the schools of associationist psy­
chologists, biological evolutionists and the contem­
porary, scientific, experimental psychologists. Here
he included all the men from Hume, Darwin and Spencer,
to Wundt, Lipps, Bergson and Koehler. According to
Scheler, all these "psychologists" attempted to give a
"genetic" description of man through an analysis of
Q

man’s purely physical causal origins. In the biological

O
Cf. Sympathie, XI-XII; Sympathy, xlvi-xlvii for
one brief discussion on "genetic psychology." The ex­
tension of its meaning for Scheler and of the men
included within it becomes clear through many scattered
references in the book. Ch. Ill of Part One, "Genetic
Theories of Fellow-Feeling," is the longest extended

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 -90-

sciences, the causes of man and of his individual and

group behavior were sought in man's physical, organic
environment. In strictly psychological experimentation,

the genetic scientific method artificially isolated

various elements of a total psychological experience
in order to explain the objective origin and causes of
the composite experience. In Ressentiment Scheler
described this method as "a synthetic-constructive
psychology which wants to explain."-7 In any event, the
various genetic theories as grouped together by Scheler,
attempted to describe the origin of man's feeling for
his fellow-man along various lines of causal explana­

tion.
Since the time of Hume, the associationist psy­
chologists have artificially dissolved our unified
experiences into isolated sense data which, in turn,
must be reconstructed and synthesized in man's final

treatment of this topic: Sympathie, 38-54; Sympathy,

37-50. Scheler can be justified in including these men
and their systems in a single class of "genetic psychol­
ogy" only by his own very broad understanding of
"genetic-causal-explanations."
% n contrast to a phenomenological investigation
that tries to understand (not explain) the meaning of
the total, unified experience. Of. supra. Ch. I,n. 34,
and its reference to the "Prefatory Remarks to Ressenti-
ment" where Scheler describes briefly the contrast
between a scientific psychology and phenomenology. For
a good study by a psychologist see R. H. Williams, "The
Method of Understanding as Applied to the Problem of
Suffering." The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psy­
chology, 35 U940), 36*7-85.

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 -91-

perception of things. In such a case we would first

know only the sensible, bodily characteristics of
another man. By a second act, "the argument from
analogy," we compare the bodily actions of our neighbor
(which we perceive through external perception) with

our own bodily reactions to our own interior psychic

states (as perceived in inner perception). Finally,
by an act of inference we conclude to the actual inner
emotional state of the other. For example, we see an

individual's face is tight and drawn; we know we look

this way (by both outer and inner perception) when we
are in pain; therefore, we infer that his bodily con­

dition must be evidence of his own feeling of pain.

It is to be noted that, up to this point, we would have
gained only knowledge (apprehension) of the other's
states we have not felt his emotion, understood it, or

responded to it in any way.

Scheler rejected the argument from analogy com­
pletely. It failed to consider phenomenologically what
is genuinely and originally given in the unified human

experience— "given in the sense of an originary 'per­

ception' " (gegeben im Sinne originaeren "Wahrnehmens").10

10
The word originaer is a key term in phenome­
nological analysis. What is originaer in an experience
is not only those elements that are immediately and
directly seen upon our first reflection upon an experi­
ence. Further phenomenological investigation may be
necessary, with careful acts of reduction and "bracket­
ing," to unveil dimensions of meaning within the same

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 -92-

Only doctors and scientists, in a totally artificial

situation, are permitted "by their method to make the

abstraction by which the body of the individual is

accepted as the initial datum. Scheler's strong con­
tention was that the body of another is never given in
itself as a primary datum: what we experience is the
total meaningful expression of the other. In the very
blush of another we perceive his shame, in his laughter
we perceive his ooy. We perceive these inner emotional
states of the other directly, and not by a mediate act
of analogy and inference. In our perception of others,

their bodies become, as it were, a "field of expres­

sion" (als Ausdruckfeld) , symbolical of the meaning
immediately perceived by us. In other words, the ele­
ments of the experiencing act must be analyzed for
their meaningful and symbolic relations, and not in
11
terms of causal relations. The method of phenomenology

experience. These deeper elements are intuited to be

as equally "originary" data within the first experience
as are the simpler elements. This continuing analysis
of the experience-act, to reveal within it all its
levels of meaning, is the peculiar activity of phenome­
nology. The aim is not to discover the causes of the
various elements in that act; nor is there any act of
inference to anything outside of that act.
•^Sympathie, 5-8; Sympathy, 9-11• Cf. n. 10
immediately above.Tor a preliminary description of the
phenomenological method on this point. In the present
context Scheler used both the terms Ausdrucksfeld and
Symbolbeziehung to describe the original content of the
phenomenological experience of others. Symbol must not
be taken so that a second mental act is required to
uncover its further meaning. Scheler himself added this

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 -93-

is sharply contrasted here with all genetic, scientific

methods which seek to know the physical origins and the

causes of things.
An alternate solution to the associationist
starting point is that of "protective empathy"
(pro.lektive Einfuehlung) or the "mimic (imitative)
impulse" (Nachahmungsimpulse) . Having sensibly per­
ceived the bodily condition of another, through
"mimicry" or "imitation" we automatically and spon­

taneously reproduce in ourselves the emotion portrayed

on the bodily features of the other. We then "project"
our feeling into the other in order to perceive and
"to feel" his emotion.
This explanation (accredited to Lipps) was
attacked by Scheler in the first place as being a cir­
cular argument. As a psychological explanation, the

theory of projective empathy attempted to give the

footnote: "We might also say that it is not the mere

relation of a 'sign' to the presence of 'something,1
whereby the latter is subsequently inferred; rather it
is the relation of a genuine original being of the sign
itself [die Beziehung eines echten urspruenglich
*Zeichenseins'3.w Sympathy, 10, n .; Sympathie. 6, n.
A fceickenseln is taken as a pure sign, a formal sign.
Its very being is to be "expressive" of meaning.
Scheler stated that the perception of a sensible thing
entailed the fact of the thing's inner and back side
(a common phenomenological example). Also, then, the
perception of another's bodily expression immediately
entailed our knowledge of the inner emotional state of
the other. This did hot involve a separate mental move­
ment from sign to thing signified.

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 -94-

causal-temporal sequence of steps involved in the per­

ception of, and the emotional response to, the emotional
states of others. Scheler asked: how can we respond
with the same quality of emotion which is in the other,
unless we have actually perceived that very emotion

in him beforehand? How can I ’’imitate" what I do not

know? Scheler noted that while the analogical argument
had at least some rational support, the argument from
empathy proceeded on blind faith in the assumption that
"my feeling" corresponds to the feeling of the other.
This is a prime instance of a strictly circular argu­
ment. Scheler's criticism met the genetic explanation
on its own ground and found it inadequate.
Scheler did admit the phenomenon of reproductive
or imitative emotion as one type of emotional experi­
ence. The facts in this case are these: upon observing

externally the emotional state of another self, e.g. in

grief, we recall some of our own experiences similar to
his. We use this occasion to remember our own- past

experiences. Already, then, at this point (contrary to

the strict theory of projective empathy) we must have
had a true perception of the actual emotional state of
the other. But in the feeling-experience itself, we
never transcend our own selves and our own experiences.
We never reach out to feel the other self in his own
individual situation. This is not a case of true

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 -95-

sympathy. In. fact, if this were the total experience,

we would he unjustified in projecting the very exist­

ence of the other self. Esthetic empathy is an example

of reproduced emotion without accepting actual exist­

ence of the other. In other words, with the case of
esthetic empathy we become emotionally involved with
the situation of another, e.g. the plight of the heroine
in a fictionalized account, but we do not project the

actual existence of the other.

In many instances empathy can supply the actual
causal explanation for our emotional moods. But Scheler

maintained his criticism against projective empathy.

He denied that this theory can supply the basic and
fundamental explanation for the very origin and fact
of our knowledge of, and our emotional feeling for, the
emotional state of another. Furthermore, underlying
this whole discussion was Scheler’s more general criti­
cism against all scientific attempts to explain the
causal factors of sympathy, instead of trying to under­

stand its meaningful-expressive elements and to gain a

proper insight into the true essence of sympathy as a

12
feeling— a feeling with someone else.

^ Sympathie. 7-8; 50-54; Sympathy, 10-11, 45-50.

In all discussions, the terms "before," T'prior," "sub­
sequent," "dependence," etc., must always be taken
strictly within each particular context. In some dis­
cussions, as here in the genetic explanation of the
argument from analogy and from empathy, there is refer­
ence to a causal sequence in which there is an actual

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 -96-

Another type of "genetic" theory for sympathy

described our feeling with another as being the result

of self-reflection and comparison (Ueberlegung)

"How would it be if this had happened to me?" Scheler

ascribed this position to those psychologists and

ethicians who follow Rousseau and the French Enlighten­
ment thinkers in their theory of the natural egoism of

man. Scheler1s criticism of this view is that it

remains totally egoistic. All references to the actual
states of the other person are perceived by me only to

the extent that I hypothetically delude myself with the

14-
illusion that I am the other individual.
Another type of egoism is evidenced in the case
where someone is affected with different emotional
states through his contact with others. He is sad with
the sad, happy with the happy. Scheler carefully
pointed out that this is not necessarily a case of
feeling with the other through genuine sympathy. In a

temporal sequence passing from a "before" to a "subse­

quent" state. Scheler's own statement of phenomenologi­
cal laws also often refer to a "prior" condition, but
in this case there is reference to a strictly essential
dependence and relationship between concepts, e.g., the
insight into the essence of the cube demands the "sub­
sequent" insight into the backside of the three-dimen­
sional figure.
^ H eath translates Ueberlegung in this context
simply and exclusively as "comparisonT" In itself, the
word means "reflection," "deliberation."
^Sympathie, 41-4-2; Sympathy. 39-41.

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 -97-

case of true sympathy we actually perceive the objec­

tive emotional state of the other self, but there need
15
not be an identical emotional response on our part. '
Otherwise, the case is merely an isolated instance of

“emotional infection."
By "emotional infection" (Gefuehlsansteckung)
Scheler referred to those phenomena by which emotional
states become "contageous" to others. He cited the
examples of giggling girls, of mourning women, of a
party in a pub where newcomers are immediately infected
with the prevailing atmosphere. The process of infec­
tion presupposes no knowledge of the cause or the origin
of the emotional mood. It is an involuntary process
and, as such, is irresponsible, which fact accounts for

the violence of mobs. Darwin, Spencer and many posi­

tivists have mistaken this herd-consciousness in man as

the result of some more basic social instinct and as

the source of much of man's social nature, his ethos
16
and his political institutions. Scheler accepted the
wealth of interesting factual, empirical details that

Darwin and Spencer have contributed to our knowledge of

the phylogenetic origin and extension of sympathy in
man. But Scheler insisted that the phenomenon of

"fellow-feeling" of true sympathy is itself primary

•^Sympathie, 42-43; Sympathy. 41-42.

^ Sympathie. 11-15; Sympathy. 14-18.

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 -98-

and basic and irreducible to anything else.^ Scheler

would not admit that sympathy is a late epiphenomenon,
consequent upon some "social instinct." All social
18
life presupposes a prior fact of living with others.
By emotional identification (Einsfuehlung) an
individual is so infected with the situation in which

he discovers someone else that the former identifies

himself totally with the latter. This can be purely
fictional and temporary, as in the case of a spectator
watching an acrobat. This, then, is a case of empathy
(Einfuehlung) rather than of true identification. Or
it can become permanent and ineontrollable, as in severe
cases of hysteria. Some primitives identify themselves
with a totem, a hypnotist-subject is identified with
the hypnotist, weak personalities may allow themselves
to be identified with the whims and wishes of the

strong. These are only a few of the many forms of emo­

tional identification. The vain man (and men suffering
from some forms of hysteria) lives only in the image he
creates in the eyes of others: he becomes a spectator
to himself in identifying himself with the onlooking

^ C f . infra. Ch. IV, section one, for a dis­

cussion on the use of terms for sympathy.
18Ch. VIII of Part One, "The Phylogenetic
Origin and Extension of Fellow-Feeling," continues this
discussion. Sympathie, 14-3-4-8; Sympathy, 130-34-. This
is one example of the lack of strict order in the work
as a whole.

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 -99-

public. Emotional identification is the complete

reversal of the various forms of egoism, but it is
just as vulnerable to criticism when it purports to

explain the phenomenon of sympathy. I do not really

know or sympathize with someone else, e.g., when I

lose my own self-identity to a hypnotist, if I com­

pletely lose myself within the power of the other
individual. True sympathy functions within the poles
of two completely individual selves who, literally,
19
"feel with" each other. y
Along with the criticism of genetic theories
of sympathy, Scheler considered a group of theories he
described as metaphysical. He thought that the meta­
physical theories of sympathy were closer to the true
understanding of sympathy than the genetic theories.
His reasoning here is interesting.

At all events, metaphysical theories of fellow-

feeling have a considerable advantage, in their
approach to the problem, over empirical theories
of the psychological and genetic type with which
we have been dealing. They accept, in principle,
what our analysis has confirmed and what our
criticism and rejection of the empirico-genetic
theories has reinforced from the other side,
namely that vicarious and companionate feelings
are basic phenomena, which can only be exhibited
as they actually are, without being derivable
from more elementary facts on psycho-genetic
lines. Irreducible elementary phenomena— in so
far as their real existence [Dasein] is explicable

•^sympathie. 15-38, 44-46; Sympathy. 18-36,

42-44.

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 -100-

at all— can "be explained only metaphysically,

i.e., in reference to the really existing [real
Seienden] and to its order.20

Thus, Scheler meant to say that the meaning of human

experience, e.g., the phenomena of sympathy, can he

understood only through phenomenology. Empirical

studies give only a causal analysis of the origin and

development of these experiences. But, Scheler held,
it is still another question to inquire about the
ultimate metaphysical basis of the phenomena in the

really existing order.

Scheler himself deliberately avoided a syste­
matic treatment of metaphysics in Sympathy. Such a
discussion would have been out of place. But there

were constantly present the two underlying themes of

life and spirit (die Metaphysik des organischen Lebens
21
zusammen mit der Metaphysik des Geistes) . We shall

20
Sympathy, 55-56• (The last sentence is our
own translation.) "Auf alle Faelle haben die meta-
physischen Theorien des Mitgefuehls schon in ihrer
Fragestellung etwas Wichtiges vor den oben behandelten
empirisch-psychologischen und— genetischen Theorien
voraus. Sie sitzen prinzipiell als richtig eben das
an, was auch unsere Analyse erwiesen und unsere Kritik
und Ablehnung der empirisch— genetischen Theorien auf
negativen Wege erhaertet haben: dass Nachfuehlen und
Mitgefuehl Urphaenomen sind, die nur in ihrem Wesen
aufgewiesen werden koennen. nicht aber psychogenetisch
aus einfackeren Tatsachen ableitbare Erscheinungen.
Unableitbare Urphaenomene aber sind— soweit ihr Dasein
noch erklaerbar ist— eben auch nur metaphysik erklaerbar,
d.h. mit Heranziehung desjenigen real Seienden und
seiner Ordnung." Sympathie, 60.
21
Sympathie, 59-60; Sympathy, 55*

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 -101-

see how these two principles function as the most basic

metaphysical ground of most of the subsequent discus­
sion. It should also be noted that the so-called
"metaphysical” theories are discussed in this work only
to the extent that those theories are relevant to the

problem of sympathy.
Schopenhauer's theory of universal pity was of
great interest to Scheler both for its relevance to
ethics and for its basis in a metaphysics of will.
Scheler praised Schopenhauer for his reintroduction of

emotion into ethics (against the bare formalism of Kant)

and for his recognition that in pity we commiserate
immediately with others. Moreover, Schopenhauer cor­

rectly grounded the phenomenon of pity in some more

basic unit of life. However, Scheler criticized
Schopenhauer on several points. Schopenhauer's meta­

physics was a life-monism, identified as blind-will,

and, as such, was subject to the general criticism
against all metaphysical monisms. This criticism will
be developed below. Furthermore, Schopenhauer falsely

accepted fellow-suffering (Mitleid) as the primary

phenomenon, whereas for Scheler it was only a special
instance of a more general fellow-feeling (Mitgefuehl) .
Also, Schopenhauer false ascribed the principle of
individuation between men to their place in the space­
time continuum. Finally, Schopenhauer's pessimism was

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 -102-

evidence enough, that his ethical theory based on uni­

versal pity involved a fundamental subversion of
22
values.
Theories of metaphysical monism were of two
types: the one held for a •unity of organic life among
all things in the cosmos, the other held a monism of
spirit among spirits. Scheler rejected all forms of
monism by insisting that authentic fellow-feeling
necessarily entailed a '’distance'* between individuals

and an explicit awareness of this separateness. The

argument here was based almost exclusively upon the
proper phenomenological investigation of the phenomena
of sympathy.

A monism of spirit arises from different forms

of egocentrism, of solipsism and of a universal con­
sciousness. In every instance there is the illusion

that a person's subjective environment is the objective

world itself. For a "spiritual monist" others existed
only to the extent that they were a part of the sub­
ject's own consciousness: all reality was reduced to

its unified spiritualized idea. Scheler declared that

such a view failed to grasp the full meaning of our
"feeling with" another as with a distinct individual­

ized mind. Our fellow-man is experienced as equal in

22Sympathie. 54— 59 ; Sympathy. 51- 55 *

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 -103-

worth., equal in reality to ourselves, but as distinct

from ourselves. Full phenomenological investigation
discovers ample evidence for the unique individuality
of the other and for a realm of his absolute privacy,
without destroying the intrinsic teleological rela­

tionship of mutual, social communication between our-

23
selves and him. ^
The monistic metaphysics of life defines sym­
pathy in terms of emotional identification with some
basic vital impulse. Thus, man's social nature was
the effect of some instinctive drives (sexual, herd
instinct, types of hypnotism), so that all men are
enveloped in a single sphere of vital activity.
Buddhist thinkers were included with Schopenhauer,
Bergson and Simmel as leading proponents of this
24-
theory.
Scheler defended a genuine Christian optimism

about the goodness of life. St. Francis of Assisi

served as an ideal for him. He opposed his optimism
to the pessimism of Indian thinkers and of Schopenhauer

who preached a mystical identification in suffering

25
with the cosmos which is essentially evil. ^ Moreover,

^ Sympathie, 60-74; Sympathy, 56-68.

Oh.
Sympathie, 59-61; Sympathy, 56-57*
25Cf. chapter five of Part One, "The Sense of
Unity with the Cosmos in Some Representative Tempera­
ments of the Past." Sympathie, 84-104; Sympathy,

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 -104-

we have seen that at the organic level, Scheler recog­

nized not only a simple monistic life impulse. He also

defended the reality of the individually existing

things. These he defined as distinct centers of vital
26
activity, each with its own in-and-for-itself being.
Such a doctrine was meant to resolve a pure organic
monism by admitting a multiplicity of living things.
Actually, it was only later that Scheler worked
out in better detail the main formulae by which he
could speak meaningfully of the multiplicity of organic
beings. However, the exact reality of this multi­
plicity of beings remained ambiguous. Scheler allowed
no ontological principle, such as a substantial form
or of some basic entlechy, to serve as the real, in­
trinsic principle unifying and centralizing the activ­
ities of living things. Living things are experienced

as dynamically unified in field and function. Scheler’s

type of phenomenology could proceed no further in
27
defining or explaining this unity. '

77-95* Scheler discussed here the meaning of mysticism

and vitalism in nature from the point of view of Chris­
tian Faith. Underlying the whole discussion remain the
basic unresolved metaphysical tensions between life and
spirit.
26
Cf. supra, Ch. II, part one.

2?Cf. Sympathie, 84; Sympathy, 76. Scheler him­

self recognized this difficulty. In a footnote (n. 2)
on this page in Sympathy he stated that he planned to
publish soon a study on the system of the "unity of
life" in which there would be combined the data of

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 -105-

How ever, Scheler's chief criticism against a

strict monism of organic life was that it also reduced

all the phenomena of spirit to mere lower life pro­

cesses. We have seen that Scheler repeatedly and
vigorously stated that the full phenomenon of spirit

cannot he reduced to a single, biological principle.

Spirit, for Scheler, was not an accidental evolution,
not a mere increase in quantitative perfection, not a
"sublimation" of some lower life. Life and spirit were
irreducible to each other. Moreover, within the realm
of spirit itself, persons are immediately individual­
ized in their original constitution. Thus, there is

also multiplicity at the level of spirit.

In short, Scheler outlined two metaphysical
theories of monism, the one holding for a monism of
life, the other for a monism of spirit. Scheler re­

solved this situation by accepting both principles in

a basic metaphysical dualism of life and spirit.
Within each sphere there are individualized centers
of vital and spiritual activity.
Scheler was left with the problem of the unity
of man. How is man's person (the concrete center of

spiritual acts) united to his vital center? Scheler's

answer was elliptical but consistent. "No substantial

science (morphology) and phenomenology. This work was

never published, although much of the material was
included in Man's Place.

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 -106-

bond of unity exists between spirit and life, between

person and life-center, but only a dynamic causal bond
28
of unity." "It is the same concrete, unified person
to whom I know belong, both the I as well as the body

(the animate as well as the inanimate body). The I

as well as the body finds its last individualization
in its experienced state of belonging to a unified
29
person." Spirit is dependent upon and imbedded in
the lower life processes. But the type of unity between
an individualized spirit (person) and its concrete
center of life activities is merely an experienced unity
of dynamic relations.

28
(Our own translation.) "Kein substantiales,
ein nur dynamisch kausales Einheitsband besteht uns
zwischen Geist und Leben, Person und Lebenszentrum."
Sympathie. 85. (Cf. Sympathy, 76.) The fact that
Scheler introduced causal £n this description is
interesting. Perhaps he was hard pressed to discover
a proper term which would describe the dynamic rela­
tions which exist here. However loose his use of
this term, its introduction seems to indicate that
he was casting around for a better formula and a better
understanding of man's unity.

^ ( O u r own translation.) "Da es dieselbe

konkrete einheitliche Person ist, der ich Beides, das
Ich und den Leib (als Seelen— und Koerperleib),
zugehoerig weiss. Sowohl das Ich wie der Leib findet
in der erlebbaren Zugehoerigkeit zur einheitliche
Person seine letzte Individual!sierung." Sympathie,
262; cf. Sympathy, 243.

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 -107-

2. Questions concerning the Perception

of Others

Scheler's theory of sympathy presupposed the

perception of others. Obviously, I cannot respond

sympathetically to another without being aware that

he is someone different from and outside of me.

Scheler constructed his theory of sympathy on two
fundamental principles. Both of these principles are
basic to a full discussion on man's knowledge of man.
a) Persons are individualized in the very acts by
which they are constituted persons, i.e., concrete

centers of spiritual acts, b) The actual perception

of others is a fundamental experience, a primary given
phenomenon, not reducible to anything else. Ve will

briefly discuss these two principles as preliminary to

our listing of Scheler's series of questions dealing

with the problem of perceiving others.
a) The individuation of persons is a recurring

theme in Sympathy. We have already seen that Scheler's

theory of person and of the I demanded that the prin­

ciple of individuation between persons could not reside
in the body or in any space-time reference. These

arguments are repeated at some length here. However,

there is a certain ambiguity and circularity in the
arguments. On the one hand, the phenomena of sympathy,

5°Cf. supra. Ch. II, n. 34.

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 -108-

of perceiving others, of love, etc., at the personal

level would be inexplicable without an actual indi­

viduation of persons and the consequent community

between them. On the other hand, since persons by

essence are described as concrete individuals (a

rejection of a simple type of monism), their knowledge
of and affective response to one another require
further explanation. In the second case, a theory of
metaphysics and of person would require substantiation
through the explanation of everyday phenomena. In the
first case, the most common experiences of everyday
life are examined to establish a theory of person and
of being originally. Scheler's strict phenomenological
method would demand the full investigation of human
experiences without a previous metaphysical commitment
of any kind. Professedly, this is the approach in

Sympathy. But it is questionable how successful and

how "pure" it is.
We cite the following passage as one example
of Scheler's method of approach.
If we abstract from the bodies of persons and from
those differences of a spatio-temporal order, if
we further abstract from everything which possibly
distinguishes the content of their consciousness
(from all possible levels of consciousness of both
the inner and outer environmental world), even
then, persons differ through their very own quali­
fied being [durch das Sosein ihrer selbst] as
concrete act centers. 771 Indeed, they are the
only examples of "independently existing beings"

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 -109-

(substances) ["selbststaendigen Daseins" (sub-

stanzen)3 which are individualized exclusively
in themselves. Since persons cannot be indi­
vidualized , like inorganic bodies which are
otherwise identical in their qualified being,
through space and time and through number and
mass, because as pure act-centers persons tran­
scend space and time (however much they may
operate in the objective spatio-temporal world
through the mediation of that life-force
[Lebenskraft] in itsconstruction of the body
from dead matter), persons can and must be
individualized through their own simple being
[durch ihr pures Sosein selbst] , through their
own personal "essence". Inorganic bodies
[Koerper] and even men's bodies [Leiber] can be
identical in their qualified being [soseinidentisch]
and still be really different through their dif-
ferent positions in the spatio-temporal order.
"Persons" are really distinct in the last instance
only because they differ in their own qualified
being [soseinverschieden] , because they are
absolute individuals. Schopenhauer's theory
that the only principium individuationis is in
the spatio-temporal order is therefore a com­
pletely false theory.31

^ (Our own translation.) "Personen sind, auch

wenn wir von ihren L e i b e m und deren Verschiedenheiten
im Raumzeitsystem absehen, ferner absehen von allem,
was ihren moeglichen Bewusstseinsinhalt (alien
moeglichen Bewusstseinsspaeren der Innen— Aussen—
Mitwelt) in sich verschieden macht, immer noch durch
das Sosein ihrer selbst als konkrete Aktzentren
verschieden. 77", Ja, sie sind die einzigen Paelle
'selhststaendigen Daseins' (Substanzen), die aus-
schliesslich in sich individuiert sind. Gerade weil
sie nicht durch Raum und Zeit, noch Zahl und Menge
(bei sonstiger Identitaet des Soseins) individuiert
sein koennen — wie Koerper, z.B. — , sondern als pure
Aktzentren ueber Raum und Zeit erhaben sind (wie immer
sie durch die Vermittlung der den Leib aus totem
Material aufbauenden Lebenskraft in die objektive
raumszeitliche Veit hieinwirken koennen), muessen und
koennen sie nur durch ihr pures Sosein selbst (ihr
personales 'Wesen') verschieden sein. Koerper und
auch noch Leiber koennen soseinidentisch sein und doch
realiter verschieden durch ihre verschiedene Lage im
Raumzeitsystem. 'Personen' sind real verschieden in

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 -1 1 0 -

This rather long passage is one of several

explicit discussions on the problem of individuation.^
We see here, first of all, the consistency of Scheler*s
doctrine on the philosophy of person with that of
Formalism. Person was always defined as the concrete

center of spiritual acts which totally transcend the

spatio-temporal world of matter. This consistency per­
sists through Sympathy and throughout all his later
works. But our main point here is to study Scheler's
methodological treatment of the problem. He seems
satisfied to rest his case upon accepted principles
and definitions. These, in turn, take on all the force
of basic, irrefutable metaphysical principles. But as
a matter of fact, these principles themselves are no
stronger than the original arguments by which they
were established. This involves the phenomenological

investigation of the knowledge of ourselves and of our

perception of others. Furthermore, since the core of

lezter Instanz nur, weil sie soseinverschieden, d.h.

weil sie absolute Individuen sind. Die lehre Schopen­
hauers, dass dieraumzeitliche Ordnung das einige
principium individuationis bilde, ist daher eine ganz
irrige Lehre.” Sympathie, 71; cf. Sympathy. 65 • It
might be noted thatScheler also criticized St. Thomas’s
use of the principle of individuation. Scheler recog­
nized that his own definition of person was very
similar to the scholastic definitions of separated soul
and pure form.
32
^ For other examples, see Sympathie, 82-83,
134-37 > Sympathy. 75, 120, 122-23.

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 -1 1 1 -

the discussion centers around the problem of person,

our study should transcend the body-self level by a
series of reductions until we reach the level of
transcendental psychology and study the phenomena of

pure spirit and of pure person. The real validity

and strength of Scheler's whole position depend upon
a series of prior phenomenological studies which he

does not actually supply for us.

b) The second basic principle for Scheler was
his position on the actual, inner perception of others.

Between 1913 and 1925, he came to realize more force-

ably the crucial importance in his thought of the
theory of the perception of other selves. That we
know others is not just a social fact which we can
explain according to its causal origins. It is a very
meaningful phenomenon whose full understanding gives

insight into a general metaphysics of man and of

being. ^ For these reasons, Scheler felt it necessary
to expand what was only an Appendix of Sympathy in 1913
into a whole new part, Part Three, in the second edi­

tion of Sympathy in 1923*

A detailed discussion of Part Three of Sympathy
is essential for understanding Scheler's theory about

53Cf. his refreshing discussion of this problem

in the opening pages of Part Three, especially the last
page, Sympathie, 228-31; Sympathy, 213-15• He calls
the problem a "metaphysics of man's knowledge of man.”

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 -1 1 2 -

man‘s knowledge of man. The discussion becomes diffi­

cult already at the level of language itself. From our
study of Scheler's meaning of Person and I we have seen
that these terms take on a very technical meaning for
Scheler. Since Schelerian vocabulary has not yet been
set in English, it is difficult to assess either English
translations or English studies until some definite
34-
consistency in the use of terms is established.
Heath's translation of Sympathy, is accurate enough,
on the whole, but it cannot be trusted fully within a
closely restricted study of very technical details.
The very title of Part Three is: "Vom fremden
Ich." Heath translates this: "Other Minds"; literally,

it is: "Concerning the Alien I." Obviously, this

whole discussion must be kept within the context of the

^Perhaps the best studies on Scheler in English

are those by Alfred Schutz. (Towards the end of his
life, Schutz dropped the u-umlaut in his name.) But
Schutz was not always too“successful in his choice of
English vocabulary. He consistently used "principally"
as the equivalent of the German principiel, which should
mean, "in principle." But more to the point here,
Schutz chose to translate Geist as Mind. Thus he
states: "Mind and its correlate, Person, is principally
not objectifiable." We would state: "Spirit and its
correlate Person, is, in principle, not objectifiable."
A. Schutz, "Scheler*s Theory of Intersub;)activity and
the General Thesis of the Alter Ego," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research. 2 (194-1-4-2), £25* see
from the title of this article Schutz translates Ich as
Ego. Ve prefer I to avoid confusion with all psycho­
logical and psychoanalytic literature on the Ego. But
with these very minor reservations in respect to termi­
nology, this long article is an excellent study on
Scheler's theory on the perception of others.

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 -113-

person and the I. Our own discussion will adhere as

closely to Scheler’s terminology as is practicable in

English. Geist will continue to be translated consis­

tently as spirit, Person as person. Ich and all its
derivatives (Ichheit) as I, Selbst as the inner psychic

Self in contrast to the loose reflective use of self,

such as "hearing oneself talk." Seele and its deriva­
tives will be translated as anima or soul, but as we
shall see, this is a particularly ambivalent term. In

some discussions, to avoid any specification about

individual persons or other I's, we will speak simply
of others or of other individuals.

The main purpose of Scheler’s new discussion on

the problem concerning the perception of others was to
distinguish clearly the separate questions involved in
the problem, to put the questions in proper order and,

in this way, to work out their solutions systematically*

Scheler distinguished six separate questions.
1. Under the first question Scheler made three
short enigmatic queries. Our own discussion will list
these three questions and then also supply Scheler's

answers to the questions as given elsewhere within the

context of his thought.
What essential relationship exists between I
and community in general, both in the ontic sense and

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 =114=

zc
in our knowledge of essences?-
^ Scheler immediately

reworded this question by asking again: does there

exist here an essential relationship of evident connec­

tion, or is this association always a merely factual

and contingent one? Scheler's answer, of course, was

that phenomenology has as its purpose to investigate

the essential relationships between intuited essences.

Does the full phenomenological investigation of the

essence of the I entail its inclusion within a com­

munity? This question is to be strictly separated from

all factual, historical questions about the real exist­

ence of some definite, contingent I or of some definite,
contingent community.

Finally, Scheler asked here a third question,

which has new implications. Do there exist different

kinds of genuine essential connections between "men” as

vital beings and between "men" as beings of spirit and

reason, or is one of these two relations purely con­

tingent? Scheler's answer here was that the full

essence of man included not only his spiritual-reasonable

nature, but also his vitalistic nature. Therefore, man
must be essentially related to other men within the full

^"Qntic" here is the German word ontisch.

Both Heath and Schutz translates it as "ontological."
We prefer ontic since its reference is to the concrete,
real existence.

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 -115-

dimensions of his being; this includes both the vital-

36
istic and the spiritual levels of man.-'
2. The second question dealt with the strictly
epistemological questions concerning the criteria

necessary to judge the actual reality of things. Two

questions are pertinent to the immediate discussion:
How do I (the writer of these lines) know that a par­
ticular, definite community really exists? How do I
judge that any definite alien I really exists? It is
evident that while these questions depend upon a pre­
vious total epistemology, yet each question must be

answered with great care.

Scheler further sub-distinguished three ques­

tions of epistemology. a) What is the general reality-

moment for an object (Gegenstand) and how is it given
37
in an essential way to a spiritual subject?^' Scheler's
answer here as given consistently in all his works was
that the fact of “resistance to objectification" is
the criterion for reality. Only spirit can objectify
such pockets of resistence into ideal essences,
b) What is the mark of the psychic or spiritual reality

^ Sympathie. 231-32; Sympathy. 216.

^Heath,translates geistiges Subjekt— spiritual
subject— as "conscious subject,*1 a poor choice of terms,
for it loses the strict distinction between person and
lower forms of consciousness. Cf. Sympathy, 232.

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 -116-

of a conscious I, either of my own I or of an alien I,

in contrast to the mere consciousness "of11 this
reality? How is this reality given?' This question,
then, is directly involved in the problem of man's
knowledge of man. c) In what way and by what means is
the reality of an alien animate-spiritual center
(Realitaet eines seelisch-geistiges Zentrums) originally
given, over and beyond the mere knowledge of an alien
ZQ
conscious I and its content?" As we have seen, strict

spiritual acts and persons (who are the unified centers

of acts) cannot be objectified into knowledge. There­
fore the criterion concerning the reality of other
40
persons must be had through some other means.

38
' In this passage Heath translates psychisch as
"mental" and Bewusstseinich as a "conscious self1* and
Selbstbewusstsein as hself-consciousness." If one reads
only his translation the ambiguity of these terms is
intensified.

^ A s we have noted, Scheler's use of Seele is

difficult to assess. Does it mean anima or soul, does
it mean mind, referring to mental operations, or does
it mean soul? The word psychisch is Just as ambiguous.
For example, we have seen that In Man* s Place where
Scheler discusses the basic vital functions of plant
life, Seelisch and psychisch are used interchangeably
to refer to Aristotle's meaning of psyche as the most
basic life-principle. In some passages of Formalism
and Sympathy this use of terms is present. In other
contexts, the terms take on wider meanings. Each con­
text must be studied carefully. After this, we will
make no more detailed criticism of Heath's translation
of terms. Our point has been made that the German must
be consulted for a precise understanding of Scheler's
meaning in each context.
^ Sympathie, 232-33; Sympathy, 216-17• Also
cf. infra, n. 43.

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 -117-

J. The third question inquired into the origin

of social consciousness. This discussion, for Scheler,

was not a question about the empirical facts surround­
ing a child's temporal advancement to an explicit
knowledge of others. Scheler here sought the phenome­
nological order of dependence between essential insights.
His questions dealt with the foundation CFundierung)
for the various cognitive intentions at the level of
transcendental psychology. The order of dependence
and all references to a before and an after are made
within the strictly essential order; they do not refer

to an actual, temporal sequence as such.

For example, does knowledge of an alien I

generally presuppose an acquired consciousness of one's

own I? Scheler replied: yes. Does such knowledge
originally presuppose a consciousness of the Self?
Scheler replied: no. Does knowledge of an alien I
presuppose a consciousness of God. Scheler replied:
yes. Does knowledge of others presuppose a knowledge
of nature and a knowledge of the reality of the outer

world or is there an opposite dependence? Scheler made

further distinctions at this point. Given the general
universal condition that there is given to our con­
sciousness "ideal meanings of signs," then our knowl­

edge of an alien I in its activity as a spiritual

subject is immediate and direct and presupposes nothing

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 -1 1 8 -

41
else. However, if reference is made to the vital,
animate life of human subjects, there must be pre­
supposed the whole area of expressive meaningfulness
of living things in general. Scheler insisted strongly
that originally (e.g. children and primitives) we

perceive all of nature as living, and only subsequently

can we distinguish the non-living from the living.
Finally, Scheler asked, is our knowledge of the alien
I before, simultaneous with, or subsequent to our

knowledge of him as an organic form, as a living body

within an environmental world? He answered: this

knowledge is simultaneous.
These answers gave Scheler a preliminary out­
line according to which he worked out his detailed
theories about man's knowledge of man and the forms by
which man lived in community and society. His study

was a purely philosophical study, as only phenomenology

could be. Its investigations dealt only with pure
essences (the essence of the I and the I's relatedness
to community). His final theory was elevated above

41
Scheler used the term here— in quotation
marks— "a spiritual I." As we come to know the I, it
becomes an object, but we come to know it precisely
as a subject performing spiritual acts. In reality,
this is a person, but Scheler's theory will not allow
for the objectification of the person. Sympathie,
233* Cf. sugra, n. 10 and its discussion for the full
phenomenological significance of the "meaning of signs"
(Zeichensinn) as original data given in experience.

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 -1 1 9 -

pur ely contingent, historical conditions, even above

the provincial conditions and attitudes of Western
civilization. Such a phenomenological investigation
of the universal essential social laws of man-living-

in-community is sharply contrasted with both empirical-

explanatory psychology and with socio-historical
psychology. In this sense Scheler described his study
42
as a "transcendental psychology."
4. The fourth series of questions discussed
the competence and relevance of empirical psychology
for the problem over man's knowledge of man. For all

the value of empirical data, scientific psychology

contributes very little to the philosophical issues at
hand. Science presumes without investigation the very

answers which philosophy seeks to know. Such truths

include the real existence of fellow-men, the real
flow of experiences in a temporal sequence, the reten­
tion of experiences in memory and the actual communica­

tion between men at many different levels. A tran­

scendental psychology, according to Scheler's method
of phenomenology, must hold in suspension all these

facts until they become verified at some post-reductive

level.

^2Sympathie, 233-37; Sympathy, 217-20.

Cf. supra, n. 8 an? n. 9 for a snort discussion on
"explanatory psychology."

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 -1 2 0 -

Scientific psychology must objectify its objects

of study. Since person and its spiritual acts are non­

objectifiable, they fall outside of the competence of

science. Scheler rejected the formula by which think­

ing, willing, etc., are called "higher functions."

These activities are spiritual acts, essentially tran­
scending the level of mere functions.
Everything which can be accessible to experimenta­
tion lies exclusively in the limits of vital-
psychic being and becoming, which has its own
automatic, intrinsic teleology, that is, below
the realm of 'free* spiritual acts of the person.^3
Scheler1s study on sympathy was an extended analysis of
some forms of human participation in the spiritual acts
of other persons.
The spiritual person as such is intrinsically
incapable of being treated as an object. The question
then remains: how can one person in any way know or

get inside another person? This is Scheler's key point

in the whole discussion. His answer is that persons
actually do communicate with one another through a
participation in the being of another (Seinsteilnahme) .

Such participation presupposes the fact that a

^ ( O u r own translation.) "Alles, was experi­

ment el zugaenglich sein kann, liegt ausschliesslich
in den Grenzen des vitalpsychischen zielmaessig
automatischen Seins und Geschehens, d.h. unterhalb
des Reiches der 'freien' geistischen Personakte."'
Sympathie, 240; cf. Sympathy. 223.

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 -1 2 1 -

particular person is free to decide whether he will

make himself available to the other person or not.
Persons can be silent; they can actively conceal their

inner being.
What is the nature of this participation in the
spiritual acts of other persons? Very definitely, it
is not knowledge in the ordinary meaning of the word,
as being objectified or in any way accessible through
experimental scientific psychology. A participates in

the spiritual acts of B by co-performing those same

acts with B, by re-living and re-executing B's personal
acts. Therefore, A can make will-acts along with B;
A can "feel with," or "sympathize with," B; A can

subsequently re-live in thought and feeling other per­

sonal acts of B. Scheler1s description of this active

participation between persons was a key doctrine of
/I/i
Formalism. This theory was basic to his theory of
man’s relation to others in person-community and to
his philosophy of religion in describing man's rela­
tionship to G o d . ^ His phenomenological method was

)\ / i
Cf. supra, Ch. II, section three.
^ Sympathie, 237-42; Sympathy, 221-25. In a
footnote he adds: "If God is thought of as a Person,
it is equally inconceivable that there should be ob­
jective knowledge of Him; it is only by a cogitare,
velle, amare in Deo, i.e., by a reliving of the divine
life and the reception of His word, through which He
first reveals His existence as a Person, that such
knowledge is obtained.” Sympathy, 224; Sympathie, 241.

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 - 122
-

especially helpful in devising this theory of partici­

pation. This theory remains one of Scheler's most

important contributions to contemporary thought.
5. The fifth question demanded the proper
metaphysical orientation of the whole discussion. The
theory of man's knowledge of man must he consistent
with a definite type of metaphysics and epistemology.
Thus, the theory of analogy fits within one type of
metaphysics; a metaphysics of monism or of idealism
will have other theories. Scheler demanded a logical
consistency in each case between metaphysics, the solu­
tion of the mind-body problem, and the problem of
knowing other men.
Scheler, therefore, called for the proper
ordering of the questions according to his own method
of phenomenological insights into pure essences. He
wanted to know, prescinding from all actual existence,
the essential relationship between the I and community
in general. He demanded the critical justification of
our knowledge of others within the context of our
46
whole natural Weltanschauung.
6. The last question sought the relationship
between our knowledge of others and the question of
moral values. Scheler denied that all ethical values

^ Sympathie, 242-44; Sympathy, 225-27.

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depended exclusively upon our social duty to others.

An absolutely single individual could still respond

to some authentic moral values. On the other hand,
person itself is given to us in the first instance as
a value, and only subsequently, as an existing being
(Dasein) and as an individually qualified being
(Sosein) . Further, such moral acts as love, responsi­
bility, duty, gratitude, have a necessary reference to
the existence of other persons— to other persons within

community, bound together through moral solidarity.

Intrinsic to this co-union of finite persons with one
another is their relation with the Person of Persons,

God. These are strictly spiritual dimensions of

persons. This discussion leads immediately into the

heart of the question about the basic social nature of
man. Our own discussion of this matter will appear in
tin
the chapter in our study of man in community. '

3. The Perception of Others

Scheler's purpose in distinguishing the above

six questions was to establish the proper order of the

questions and to treat their solutions in a systematic
way. Accordingly, in the second chapter of Part Three
of Sympathy he proceeded to place the whole discussion

^Sympathie, 244-51; Sympathy, 221-33*

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 -124-

in a very general context by defining the most general

48
evidence of our experience of another. According to
the strict requirements of the phenomenological method,
this was not an empirical or historical study of the
causal origin of our knowledge of others. Scheler*s
study dealt only with the order and inter-relatedness
of the essential insights into our social experiences
and our social consciousness.
Chapter two is a short chapter which discusses

only the most general background for defining the proper

49
evidence for an alien I, a Thou. J These pages are

48
Chapter two is entitled, "The General Evi­
dence for the 'Thou'" (Die Du-Evidenz ueberhaupt) ,
Sympathie, 252-55; Sympathy, 2 5^-37^
49
■'The I-Thou language has become rather uni­
versally associated with the dialogic philosophy of
Martin Buber. Buber's first publication of his small
book entitled I and Thou appeared in 1925? the same
year as Scheler's second edition of Sympathy. Both
Buber and Scheler reflect the more general Interests of
philosophers and sociologists in man's relatedness to
other men. The I-Thou categories must not be restricted
to the thought of even so influential a man as Buber.
Buber and Scheler were personally acquainted.
Their philosophical paths crossed directly in the area
of metaphysics and natural theology, as well as in
anthropology. In a study on "The Philosophical Anthro­
pology of Max Scheler" (Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research. 6 (1945-46], 307-^1), Bufeer recounts how
Scheler confessed that his own metaphysics of God no
longer rested upon some basic absolute, but that it now
stood upon a "narrow ridge" of a theory that proposed a
"becoming God." In the meantime, Buber had moved away
from the evolving God of Eckhart ot the absolute God
of-Hasidism. (This study is one part of eight lectures
delivered by Buber at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
in 1938 under the title Y/hat is Man? This whole series
of essays was included in the volume, Between Man and

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quit e confused, because of tbe many elliptical refer­

ences to, and criticisms of, other positions. The
more positive exposition of Scheler's own position was
made in chapter three, "The Perception of Others."^
Scheler repeated here in the 1923 edition of
Sympathy the example of Robinson Crusoe from Formalism.
This time, however, he added some critical comments to
clarify the exact meaning of his example. Scheler's
Crusoe was neither the Crusoe of Defoe nor any actual

historical person. For Scheler, Crusoe awoke on his

desert island, mature and rational, but physically
alone and completely unconscious of any past life with
other people. This epistemologically described Crusoe

had absolutely no empirical acquaintance with, no

evidence of, any kind of an actual individual man— no
footprints— with whom he could say: "We are in com­
munity! " Would such a Crusoe still be a social animal,
a community being?
Scheler declared emphatically and consistently

that a radical solipsist is impossible. His Crusoe

would not say: "I am alone in the world; there is no

community." Rather, he would say: "I know there is

Man. translated by Ronald Gregor Smith [Boston: Beacon

tress, 1955— originally published in 194-7•] Pp* 181-99
contain the lecture on Scheler.)
-^The title is "Die Fremdwahrnehmung." Heath
translates it as: "The Perception of Other Minds."

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a community, I know I belong to one, but I haven't

yet discovered empirically any individuals who make up

the community.” What is the source of such knowledge?

Scheler denied that any knowledge is innate:

all knowledge is derived from experience. But knowl­

edge need not be purely sensistic and factual, as the
empiricists maintain. Scheler's Crusoe would experi­
ence within the dimensions of his being a sense of
loneliness and a feeling of emptiness towards others.
His emotional acts, such as love and sympathy, would
remain unfulfilled, without a social response from an
actual other being. Therefore, because of the emptiness
within the intentionality of his performance-acts, this
Crusoe would gain certain, objective, a priori and
intuitional evidence (in the strict phenomenological
meaning of all these terms) for the existence of some
general Thou, evidence for some general community.
Phenomenology is the investigation of pure
essences. Concrete examples for clear exposition are
difficult to discover. Scheler's use of Robinson Crusoe

is a valuable example, if it is used carefully. Knowl­

edge is derived from experience (Erlebnis) but not from
empirical data (Erfahrung) . As much as possible, the
body-world-environment is abstracted away. Intuition
into an essence is possible even when beginning from
an "empty” experience. Subsequent essential relations

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are then immediately subjoined to the primary essences.

Employing this method, Scheler made his con­

clusions. Man essentially possesses social feelings;

an ever-present element of man's consciousness is a
reference to community. This is man's most general
evidence for the existence of a Thou in community.

We say (in our terminology) nothing else than

that the world of the Thou or the world of com­
munity is an independent essential sphere of
being, like the outer sphere, the inner world
sphere, the body-environmental world sphere, the
sphere of the divine.51
The world of the Thou and of community is irreducible
to any other order of being.^
The primacy of the consciousness concerning
others as an original datum ofour experience was the

single most important item for Scheler to establish.

Therefore, he marshalled together all the arguments he

could find.^ Throughout this discussion he was still

engaged in the refutation of the two alternate theories

^ (Our own translation.) "Wir sagen (in

serer Terminologie) nichts Anderes, als dass die Duwelt
oder die Gemeinschaftswelt genaue so eine selbstaendige
Wesensphaere des Seienden ist wie die Aussenweltsphaere,
die Innenweltsphaere, die leib-Umweltspaere, die
Sphaere des Goettlichen. Sympathie* 254; cf. Sympathy,
256.
comparison of this sketch of the various
spheres of being as given here in the 1925 edition of
Sympathy agrees in substance with the many discussions
in Formalism. Cf. especially, Formalismus* 162-65»
n. TT
^ T h i s is the bulk of the discussion in chapter
three, Sympathie * 256-87; Sympathy* 258-64.

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proposed to explain our perception of others: the

analogical argument and the argument of projected
empathy. His critique in this place, however, was a
more carefully controlled phenomenological study of
the whole problem.
At the lowest level, Scheler appealed to the
data of comparative psychology to demonstrate that
animals as well as men have an original, natural
awareness of others. Apes respond automatically to
group situations. Scheler also accepted the data of
child psychology as evidence for his own position. A
child apprehends various emotional states in others,
such as "friendliness'* or "unfriendliness." This is
an immediate apprehension, directly intuited in the
"expression" of those around the child: there is no
question here of an analogical reference. Finally,
children and primitives originally perceive all things

to be living; only subsequently do they distinguish

dead things from living things. However, the theory

of projective empathy would have us believe that first

there is a sensible perception of things as dead, and,
only then, do we empathetically project our own sense
of livingness upon the dead world. On the other hand,

at the level of the I, a mere projection of the con­

sciousness of my own I would not in itself give concrete
knowledge of the alien I as other.

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The two alternate solutions to the problem of

perceiving others accepted two presuppositions.
1) Each presumed that one's own I is the primary datum
of experience. 2) Each presumed that the body of the
other, the appearance (Erscheinung) of his body, was
the first datum in our experience of others. These
two truths were accepted as self-evident, but Scheler
examined both and rejected both.
Is it phenomenologically accurate to say that
it is one's own I that is first given in experience?

As a matter of fact, we can think the thoughts of

others, we can feel his feelings in the act of genuine
sympathy. It sometimes is a separate task for us to
distinguish our own thoughts, our own feelings, our
own will, from the entire world of thought surrounding
us. At this point, Scheler reversed completely the
starting points from which the other two arguments
began.
Scheler declared that what is immediately given
in the human experience is a stream of conscious experi­
ences at first undifferentiated between I and Thou.
What is first experienced is the general sphere of the
"we." To be sure, every experience ultimately pertains

•^Sympathie, 263; Sympathy. 244. The exami­

nation of these two presuppositions take up the last
pages of the book.

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 - 130-

to an individual I. But it is only a late discovery

within the emerging experience that fully determines

for us whether a particular experience belongs to my

I or to an alien I or is one that is shared mutually
between us. It is in this sense that children and
primitives at first tend to identify themselves with
others. Only as a late phenomenon can they isolate
themselves and identify their own Selves as individuals
separate from the rest of the family-community. In
- man’s most primitive state of consciousness he lives
’’in” other people’s experiences, rather than in his

own.
Another consideration Scheler employed in his
argumentation involved the distinction between outer

and inner perception. The distinction here was not

so much in respect to the subjective organs of per­

ception, but in reference to the level of penetration

into the object perceived. An outer perception of
myself supplies a knowledge only of my external,
bodily features; I touch myself, I see myself in a
mirror, I hear myself talk. An inner perception
achieves the awareness of the inner conscious states,
of either my own Self or the Self of another. Animals
can convey emotional states to one another, such as
fear, without having an awareness of the center of
consciousness, the Self itself. Hen can know themselves

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 -131-

and one another in a more intimate and interior way.

Does an act of external perception— of the
body— necessarily precede 0>oth in time and in essential

dependence) the act of inner perception? An affirma­

tive answer was the second self-evident assumption of
the analogy and the empathy arguments. Scheler1s

examination of this presupposition led him to reject

it also. The question is: can I have an inner per­
ception of the alien I? I see a man smiling with joy.

Do I "feel his joy," only by first "feeling joy within

me" and then ascribing "joy-feeling" to him? In this
case, inner perception is possible only within me.
All analogous conclusions and empathetic projections
in respect to an alien I are, for Scheler, fictions
and delusions.
To establish his point that we have direct,

immediate perception into the inner state of the alien

I, Scheler proposed two counter arguments. The first
argument was the continuation of his phenomenological

description of man's primary experience. As we have

just seen, Scheler maintained that man is first im­
mersed in a stream of consciousness undifferentiated
into an alien I and his own I. The primary given is

a general consciousness of a ^we." The perception of

one's own Self is the most difficult of achievements—
surely not the first.

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 - 132-

Secondly, and more to the immediate point,

there was Scheler1s own phenomenological description

of the body of the other. The other’s body is a "field
of expression" immediately intuited to reveal the
inner psychic state of the other. It was in this con­

text that Scheler repeated the former examples: in

the blush we immediately perceive the shame of the

other, in his smile, friendliness, in his folded hands,
a plea for mercy. A child responds to the warm love

and friendliness of its mother long before its sense

of sight is developed to the degree that it can dis­
tinguish colors, patterns and faces in the environmental
world.
Scheler’s prime principle was that we do per­
ceive other people’s experiences by inner perception.
Everyone can apprehend the experiences of his fellow-

men just as directly (or indirectly) as he can his own.

Obviously, the body-perception is the condition under
which our inner perception takes place, but neither my
body nor the other's perceived body actually controls

the total content of the experience itself. An ex­

perience must be accepted in its totality, within which

there are external, sensible elements, as well as

direct perception of the other's inner state. Eor
example, I do see the smiling face of the other as I
perceive his joy. However, the complete meaningfulness

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 -155-

of the total experience must not be reduced to the

purely sensibly perceived elements.
Two final points should be kept in mind. By

the "perception of others" Scheler did not restrict

the discussion to mere cognitive awareness of others.

There is a more basic and genuine perception of others

also at the level of the emotions. Thus, we "feel
with" others, or respond affectively to the emotional
states of the other, and we feel a moral responsibility

for the value of others. Secondly, this whole discus­

sion must be related to Scheler's theory of the person.
The bulk of the present discussion concerns the rela­
tionship of the body-I to life community, the body-

soul-essence of man in his relation to other men.

Therefore, this is the sphere of the I and of life
community.
Scheler*s theory of person remained outside
this discussion, but is closely connected to it. Per­
son and its acts cannot be objectified in knowledge;
in this sense, alien persons are not directly perceived.

However, while the alien person stands outside of and

beyond the functions of his body-I (in Scheler's special
meaning of function), it is precisely his person that
is dynamically connected in field and function to his
own body-I. We can participate in the being of the
other person by co-achieving, pre-performing and

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 -134-

re-executing our own spiritual acts along side those

of the alien person in person-community.

It is only the person "beyond the body-I who can

reflect upon his own functions and objects to discover

there the center of his inner consciousness. This

center is his own Self. This is the strict description
of man's unique prerogative in possessing "Self con­
sciousness." Animals are conscious, but they are not
conscious of their Self. The person does not reflect

directly upon his own person, but upon his I or Self.

In this sense, the I is always an object and never the
subject of perception.
Many difficulties remain in trying to resolve

the full meaning of Scheler's full doctrine. The

distinctions between "acts" and "functions" is hard to
maintain. While the I is defined as always an object,

language itself will hardly permit this use. Scheler

was carefully employing a type of phenomenological
reduction, when he attempted to perform a complete
analysis of the essence of the I. No reduction could
ever isolate the person itself. Acts continue to

emanate from the person— almost all the activities

under discussion, perception, sympathy, love, etc., are,

in source, spiritual acts of the person— but the person

itself remains inaccessible. It is as if we have rays
of light from a star which is outside our realm of

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 -135-

observation. In this way, the ethical integrity of

the person was preserved and the person of God (Who

has no I, no Thou, no community) was preserved in His

essential dignity. However, the understanding of the
unity and the meaning of man remained more difficult
55
than ever.-'-'
The next two chapters on Scheler's theory of
man in society, of man in community and on the social
forms of knowledge are little more than detailed

applications of these basic principles on the meaning

of person and I in his philosophy of man.

^Husserl re-examined the problem of the knowl­

edge of others in Cartesianische Meditationen und
Pariser Vortraege (Haag: harfcinus Nijhoff, 1950),
Husserliana, Band I. Cartesian Meditations: An
Introduction to Phenomenology. Translated by Dorion
Cairns. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, I960). This
work was an elaboration of two lectures which Husserl
delivered at the Sorbonne in February of 1929. It
does not seem to be accidental that Husserl made no
public study of the problem of inter subjectivity until
after the death of Scheler. In these lectures of 1929?
however (especially in the Fifth Meditation), it is
evident how radically different in spirit and method
was Husserl's treatment of the problem from Scheler's.
Husserl contained the discussion at the level of strict
transcendental phenomenology and allowed its solution
only within the context of a post-reductive transcen­
dental ego re-establishing contact with the objective
world.

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 Chapter Pour

MAN AND SOCIETY

Page

1. Sociology.................. 138

2. Forms of S o c i a l i t y ........ 147

3. The Sociology of Knowledge . 156

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 CHAPTER FOUR

MAN AMD SOCIETY

For Scheler, the line between philosophical

anthropology and sociology was very thin. Since man
is other-orientated in his most original experiences,

since man is social prior to being individual, the

study of man necessarily and intrinsically includes

the study of the social nature of man. Furthermore,

both anthropology and sociology must be renovated

according to the phenomenological criteria demanded

for all strict sciences. To pursue our study of
Scheler's theory of community it is necessary at this

point to understand his notion of sociology, his

division of man into various social forms and his
sociology of knowledge. These are outlined by Scheler

in the most general, universal forms. The subsequent

chapter will study in more detail some of the par­
ticular forms by which men live in relationship with

other men, such as sympathy, shame and love.

-137-

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 -138-

1. Sociology

The pioneering spirit of Scheler was especially

evident in those works he titled "Problems ... ." The

major part of Eternal dealt with "problems” in the

philosophy of religion; the major part of Forms of
Knowledge was titled "Problems of a Sociology of Knowl­

edge." These works were written through the years 1920

to 1923 and they reflected the instability and transi­
tional character of his thought during these years.
Scheler’s opening lines of Forms of Knowledge
announced his purpose in writing this book. Primarily,
he wanted to show that a sociology of knowledge was a

unified part of the sociology of culture (Kultur-

soziologie) • Within this context he wanted to show

the systematic ordering of the various problems and

the general direction that their solution would take.
Perhaps the most important contribution Scheler offered
was to demonstrate the relationship of the sociology
of knowledge with all the other social, humane and

scientific disciplines. He disclaimed all attempts

at actually solving the individual problems themselves.

^Wissensformen, 1?. Scheler's place in contem­

porary sociology is hardly acknowledged by the common
textbooks and the histories of sociology; cf. M. Vine,
An Introduction to Sociological Theory (New York:
Longmans, Green and! Co., 1959)» and N. Temasheff,
Sociological Theory: Its Nature and Growth (Garden
dity, N.Y.: ftoubleaay & Company, Inc.,.1955)• As we

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 -139-

Sociology was defined by Scheler as possessing

two essential characteristics. 1. As a science, soci­
ology is not concerned with individual facts and events

occurring in time. Such a study would be history.

Sociology deals with universal rules, types and laws
of man's social life according to some average or
logical ideal types. 2. On the other hand, sociology

is not a normative science, either in a moral sense or

in the sense of setting up some ideal social order.
Sociology merely analyzes and describes the predominant
objective and subjective social activities of man in

respect to the purely factual data of the case (nach

o
seiner tatsaechlichen Former.) In other words, both
of these formal elements maintain that the science of
sociology must correspond to the strict phenomenologi­

cal criteria demanded for all the sciences.

Scheler distinguished between cultural soci­

ology (Kultursoziologie) and realistic sociology

(Realsoziologie) . This distinction was fundamental
for Scheler and persisted consistently in all his
social thought. The distinction was grounded in
Scheler's metaphysical dualism of spirit and life.

shall see, Scheler accepted much sociological theory

from Comte, Toennies and Durkheim, was responsive to
Simmel and Weber in his own day, and was, in turn, an
influence upon Mannheim.
2
Wissensformen. 17»

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 -1 4 0 -

Its application to the many areas of anthropology and

sociology is another instance of a radical unity in

Scheler*s thought as a whole.
All the elements of civilization which are
exclusively reducible to the peculiar genius of man

are elements derived from spirit in man. Thus,

language, law, the arts— all the elements which set

man's social life above the animals— all the elements

which make up civilization or culture as such are
studied by cultural sociology. These elements are
called ideal factors (Idealfaktoren). On the other

hand, the components of civilization which are re­

ducible to the purely physical and natural elements
are derived from life. These include all the geo­
graphical factors, such as climate and local natural

resources, as well as all biological factors, such as

evolution and instinctive drives. These elements com­
prise the real factors (Realfaktoren) of civilization.
The three chief groups of real factors are blood,
power and hunger. Their study is taken up by realistic
sociology.
The ideal factors make up the superstructure
(Ueberbau) of civilization; the real factors make up
the substructure (Unterbau) of civilization. These
are the two poles within which man has actually con­
structed a particular civilization in a particular

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 - 141-

hist orical time and place. It is within the province

of sociology to study the essential and universal laws
of the ordering of effective reality (das Gesetz der
Ordnung der Wirksnrnkeit) between these ideal and real
factors.^
We can understand Scheler when he declared that
this fundamental distinction between ideal and real
factors in civilization was not just a methodological
division: this distinction had its roots sunk deep in
lL
Scheler's whole metaphysics and anthropology. Just
as spirit (Geist) and the most basic impulse of life
(Drang) are unified as attributes of being itself, so
also both the ideal and real factors are combined into
a single civilization. Spirit of itself is originally
lacking all energy and all drive; analogously, the pure
rational ideas of logic, of law and of religion, with
all their projected ends (Zwecke) , will never construct
a civilization. These are the empty dreams of Utopia;
by themselves, they form the facade of dandyism. On

the other hand, the purely natural factors without the

restraint and guidance of spirit will lead to utter

chaos.

5Ibid., 18-20.
4
Ibid.,20. In the Foreword to Wissensformen
Scheler declared in italics: "You can understand the
metaphysics of the author only if you have read this
bookJ"

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 -1 4 2 -

Spirit 's control over life is twofold: the

first control is negative in character. This is the
activity of restraint, of inhibition, of repression
(Lenkung) . The second control is positive in char­
acter. Through ideas and values, spirit positively
guides and directs (Leitung) the impulsive drives of
life. The actual realization of such ideas is brought
about only to the extent that they are incorporated
within the real order of life processes.-' Thus, again,
the final reality of things is brought about through
the mutual interplay of spirit and life, of ideal and

real factors.
In describing the mutual interaction of spirit
and life as component factors of civilization, Scheler
possessed a functional schema to discuss other phi­

losophies of civilization and of history. Hegel's

idealism was criticized for accepting only the ideal
factors of history without admitting that these ideas
are realized only in the dynamic energy of real factors.

On the other hand, all naturalistic and deterministic

^Ibid., 21-23; cf. also Man's Place. 62, 68-69;

St el lung. 57-58. 63 • In a footnote on another page of
Wissensformen (p. 40) Scheler explained further:
"Restraint LLenkung] is the primary function of spirit,
direction [Lelstung] is the secondary function. Direc­
tion is the holding up of an idea of value, restraint
is the repression and non-repression [Hemmung und
Enthemmung] o£ the instinctive impulse, whose ordered
motions realize the ideas. Direction conditions the
kind of restraint."

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 -143-

theories of history were criticized for failing to see

the restrictive and directional control which spirit
in man imposes upon the purely natural factors in his

environment.
Among the naturalistic theories was Comte's
sociology. Scheler accepted many terms and categories

from Comte. Thus, the ideal superstructure of civili­

zation was compared to Comte's notion of liberte
modifiable. The real substructure of civilization was
related to Comte's fatalite modifiable. Scheler
accepted the notion that social laws were composed of

static and dynamic elements. The basic categories of

Comte's three stages of human progress— the religious,
the metaphysical, the sociological— were accepted by
Scheler. However, Scheler denied that these were

temporal stages of successive development. Scheler

accepted these three categories as three separate,
irreducible, but simultaneous classes of human experi­
ence. Every man in the various dimensions of his being
is at all times a religious, a philosophical and a
6
social being.
Within this context, Scheler defined two gen­
eral laws to describe the possible types of interaction

g
Wissensformen, 23; cf. the essay "Ueber die
positivistische Gesciiichtsphilosophie des Wissens
(Dreistadiengesetz)," Soziologie, 27-35*

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 -1 4 4 -

between the ideal and the real factors of civilization.

The first law admitted the necessary interaction

between the two classes of factors and then described

the precise character which each type of factor con­
tributed to the final full reality of a civilization.

The actual existence (Dasein) of a civilization is a

result of real factors; the qualified condition of that
civilization (its Sosein) is the result of ideal
factors. Spirit is the determining factor of civiliza­

tion; natural causes and factors such as blood, power

and economic factors, are the realization factors of a
civilization. The examples used were those of Raphael,
who needed his paint and brush in order to realize his

imaginative figures in real art, and of Luther, who

needed the cooperation of the German princes to spread

his theory of "faith alone."

The second general law described the various

types of relations that exist between all the factors

of civilization. 1. The ideal factors are related to
one another as static and dynamic, so that each con­

crete civilization exists in a third state which is a

particular stratified arrangement of static and dynamic
ideal factors. 2. The real factors are also related
to one another as static and dynamic and as concretely
existing in a particular combination. 5. Finally, the

three modes of relationship both within the class of

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 -145-

real factors are transcendentally related to one

another in so far as the two classes of factors mutu-
7
ally interpenetrate each other.'
Admittedly, these laws satisfy the requirements
of being universal and necessary, but they are so gen­

eral that in themselves they are practically useless

for detailed application in sociology. Scheler, how­

ever, felt that with these laws he could criticize most

past theories of civilization by dividing them into
'‘idealistic" and "naturalistic" theories. At the same
time, he could sift through the many facts of history
to isolate particular instances which exemplified the
universal truth of what he called a "sociological fact"
(soziologische Tatsache) • Within this discussion he
explained in more detail the three chief types of real
factors: blood, power and economy (hunger). Prom one
point of view, these three factors represent a temporal
development in civilization: from tribal associations,
to political states, to economic control. From another
point of view, each factor is the social counterpart of
individual human drives: blood and tribal relations
are the fulfillment of the sex drive, political organi­
zations fulfill man’s drive for power, economic organi­

zations supply man's need for food.

^Wissensformen, 22-25•

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 -146-

In every case, the spiritual-personal nature

of man can restrain and direct the real factors of
history to determine them according to strictly ideal
concepts and values. The value of a particular civil­
ization is judged by the order of values preferred in
that civilization. By this principle, Scheler could
criticize Marxism, economic liberalism and pure "power

politics," because these theories chose a lower grade

of values over the higher spiritual values of art,
Q
religion and ethics.
From this brief description we see that Scheler

had a very strict theory of sociology. It was closely

connected with his theory of man and of metaphysics.

At the same time, he was able to apply it to many

detailed problems of history and of civilization.
In Forms of Knowledge and Sociology, Scheler
accepted many truths discussed at length elsewhere in
his writings. He called these truths axioms and
accepted them without new discussion. One of the most
basic axioms dealt with the various universal social
forms in which men live together. This had been dis­
cussed in some detail in Formalism and formed the
q
background for much of Scheler's other writings. We

8Ibid., 25-51.
^Cf. Wissensformen, 33-4-4-» where the four forms
of human society are 'briefly described.

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 - 147-

discus s this question here in order to show its rele­

vance to Scheler's whole theory of sociology and to
appreciate the applications which Scheler made in his

theory on the sociology of knowledge.

2. Forms of Sociality

At the very core of Scheler's sociology lay his

theory of person as originally developed in Formalism.
He strongly maintained that the "being (Sein) of the
person was the very intrinsic end (Ziel) of all com­
munity and of all historical evolution. Therefore,
while he was forced to modify Kant's "Person of Reason"
and Nietzsche's theory of "Great Men," he accepted
their emphasis upon persons as ultimate bearers of the
highest values. Scheler opposed all types of posi-
rivism, historicism, capitalism and Marxism which

sacrificed the higher ethical values of the person for

some other supposed end (Zweck) of pure progress or of
an ideal state.'1'® This was a common critique for
Scheler; we have already seen one place in Forms of

Knowledge where it appeared.^

In describing in finer detail the ethical

dimensions of the person, Scheler made capital point

^°Formalismus, 507-10.
11
Of. supra, n. 7»

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 -14-8-

of the individuality of the person. The individual

person, as a pure individualistic spirit, is the
ultimate hearer of ethical values. In his most inti­

mate being the person is a moral being. Essentially,

therefore, a person must be an ethical being before

he can possess legal, political and economic rights.

This proposition must not be isolated from the rest

of Scheler*s social theory, for as it stands, the

statement may sound like a thesis from modern theories

of political and economic liberalism. There is a

definite distinction between Scheler's theory of the
individuality of persons and modern theories of indi­
vidualism.
In the last chapter we discussed in some detail
12
Scheler's theory of the individuation of persons.

The important point here is to note the close interplay

between man's individuality and his social nature.
Scheler contended that man's primary experience went
out towards others, towards social groups, and only
subsequently could man isolate his own Self from the we
of the community. The strict individuation of persons
as concrete centers of spiritual activity in no way
contradicted the social nature of man. The state or an
economic society could never arise by contract if man

12Cf. Ch. Ill, section 2.

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 -149-

were not a social being originally and essentially.

It was in this sense that Scheler opposed Hobbes and
1*5
Housseau and theories of modern liberalism. ^
The collective unity of the communal we in all
its collective togetherness was defined by Scheler as
being a collective social person (Gesamtperson) . Just
as the being of an individualized person (das Sein der
Person) and his world is constituted in its own indi­
vidual acts, so is the being of the collective person
(das Sein der Gesamtperson) and its world constituted

in its own special essential class of social acts.

Such a joint person (Verbandsperson) and its world is
an experienced reality of people living together within

a unified social group. The collective person is not

just a mental construct, it is not just a world created
by the compilation of individual worlds. The collective
person is a unified experience of the whole social
group living together as a single unit, as a family,
14
a tribe or a nation.
The most basic bond of unity within the collec­

tive person is the moral solidarity which the whole

group experiences. Through moral solidarity each per­
son feels a moral responsibility for its own particular

•^Formalismus, 512-23.

14Ibid., 524-27.

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 - 150-

collective group as such, as well as a co-responsibility

for all the individual persons within that group.
Therefore, not only is the collective person individ­

ualized in the very acts by which it is essentially

constituted a Gesamtperson in the first place, but also,
through the principle of moral solidarity, the collec­
tive person itself becomes a bearer of genuine moral
values. In other words, just as the single person

(Einzelperson) is totally individualized in itself and

is the ultimate bearer of value, so the collective per­
son (Gesamtperson) is also individualized through its

own constituting act and is itself a bearer of genuine

ethical values.
The spirit and method of Scheler's phenomenology
controlled his whole approach to the question concerning

the sociality of man. Therefore, this was not a mere

study of the contingent, historical order of things,

but a study of the universal, a priori objective order

of social facts. Scheler1s own version of Robinson
Crusoe returned repeatedly as an example of a man who
was essentially a being-in-community, but who had not
experienced a particular, concrete member of his com­
munity. In this spirit, Scheler defined four basic
forms of man's sociality. These were described in
universal terms as four essentially different types of
social groups or collective persons according to which

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 -151-

men gather together into groups. These are four dif­

ferent forms which the interaction between the indi­
vidual person (Einzelperson) and the collective person
(Gesamtperson) can take.
1. The first and lowest social unity is that
of the herd among animals and that of the mass among
men. As Scheler explained in Sympathy, the mass is
constituted through emotional infection with an invol­
untary following of a particular emotional movement.^
The mass is a social group lower than community. Yet
it has an individual constitution of its own and its
own particular reality. While the bond of strict moral

solidarity does not exist in the mass, it does possess

its own degree of legal and moral responsibility. Some
naturalistic theories of man's social nature are so
dependent upon evolutionary biological principles that
they consider man's life in community to be nothing

more than a difference in degree from the emotional,

impulsive society in the mass. Scheler's anthropology
demanded a higher and an essentially different, type of
community for man, due to the fact that the presence

of spirit in man makes man an essentially different

being from brutes. Therefore, in Formalism, the dis-
16
cussion on the social form of the mass is very short.

15Cf. Ch. Ill, section 1.

•^Formalismus, 529*

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 - 152-

2. The second type of social unity outlined

"by Scheler is that of life-community (Lehensgemein-

schaft) . This he called the "pure" community: it is
the first consciously experienced social group around
us. We immediately find ourselves living with one
another. All our common acts of seeing, hearing,
loving, hating are naturally unified in their consti­

tution of this basic life community. The common

examples of life-community are the family, the tribe,

and the nation.

The life-community cherishes its own values

and strives immediately for its own intrinsic ends

(Ziele)• This is the primary instance of a collective
person (Gesamtperson) joined by the bond of moral
solidarity. The life-community is completely automatic
and unreflective in its choice of values and ends. The
values and ends of life-community, which are authentic
personal values, are realized throughout the entire
social group as a single unity. Life-community is
essentially antecedent to all social or economic con-
17
tracts and to all deliberately planned societies. '
5. In contrast to life-community, Scheler
carefully defined his meaning of society (Gesellschaft).
The social unity of society is deliberately planned,
an association; in this sense, it is an artificial

17Ibid., 529-31.

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 -153-

unity. The end (Zweck) of society is consciously known

and sought after hy the individual persons who join
together hy contract to achieve the particular goal of
that society. Society seeks sub-personal values; for
example, society as a social unity seeks pleasant

values for its members, society as the bearer of civil­

ization seeks useful values.

As we have seen, in the essential order of
essences, society is based upon community. While there

can be no society without an antecedent community, com­

munity is possible without the deliberate association
of society. Only through moral solidarity in community
do promises and contracts become meaningful in the

first place. Therefore, every contractual society

depends upon community. Society functions through its

own devised rules. It is ruled by the numerical vote

18
of the majority of the individuals within the society.

Ibid., 531-36. The fundamental difference

between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft was the chief
contribution ot sociology by Ferdinand Toennies in his
book entitled Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. originally
published in 1887 (eighth edition appeared in 1935);
cf. Toennies, Community and Association, translated and
supplemented by Charles jP. Loomis (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd., 1955); see especially the Foreword by
Pitrim Sorokin and the Translator's Introduction,
v-xxvii. It is to be noted that Loomis translates
Gesellschaft as association, instead of society, but he,
too, is apologetical about the terms (xviii), and
throughout the work retains the German terms Gemein­
schaft and Gesellschaft within the text itselTT Eor
Toennies, "natural will" (Weaenwille) , a spontaneous,
creative impulse, predominates in Gemeinschaft, while

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 -154-

h. The fourth form of social groups is that

of the person-community (Persongemeinschaft) , the

religious group, which is united hy a solidarity of
salvation. This principle is the basic article for
the world of finite moral persons in the realm of

finite persons. Within the religious community, re­

sponsibility is not so much for the individual members
of the community, but there exists a co-responsibility
for the total group as a unit, in the sense of a common

salvation, a common good, a common evil, a common

guilt. Just as some common social life, in the wide

sense of the term, is the basis for life-community, so

a spiritual love at the strictly personal level is the

foundation for person-community. This love and the

whole salvational community find their total fulfill-
19
ment only in God, the Person of Persons. We will
discuss this most perfect type of community after our
20
study on Scheler's theory of love.
The terms community, collective person and
solidarity seem slightly ambiguous for Scheler. On the

"rational will" (Kurwille) , deliberate will made by

"forging plans," making "machinations as fabrications,"
predominate in Gesellschaft.
•^Formalismus, 556-42. Scheler's description
of Persongemeinschaft as distinct from, and essentially
superior, to Lebensgemeinschaft is a further elabora­
tion upon the (jemeinschaft-theory of Toennies.

^®Cf. Ch. V, section 4.

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 -155-

one hand, his general definitions of community and

collective person included the essential notion of

some moral solidarity. But on the other hand, only

person-community the most perfect type of community,
fulfills the original definition of community and
moral person. We have already noted that the mass in
itself does not fulfill the strict requirements of
either community or collective person. Furthermore,
life-community is only an inchoative community; it is

not strictly a collective person, it does not possess

a strictly moral solidarity at the personal-salvational

level. Life-community corresponds to the body-I, as

the person-community corresponds to the person. Only

at the strictly spiritual level does the true tran­

scendence of the person stand out. Only at this point
is the collective group a collective person (Gesamt­

person) and is the bond of solidarity between them a

strictly moral solidarity of love and salvation. As
a matter of fact, human society is never a mere life-

community and never a purely formalistic society, but

always a group of persons living together. The ulti­

mate bond of unity between men (and, essentially, the
most basic foundation for all sociality) is the bond
of salvational solidarity in person-community.
These four forms of sociality re-appeared
frequently in Scheler's thought, and, especially, of

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 -156-

course, in his sociological writings. One prime in­

stance of this was his theory concerning the sociology

of knowledge.

3. The Sociology of Knowledge

The terms themselves about the sociology of

knowledge as well as the original theory were a special
21
contribution to contemporary thought by Max Scheler.
Scheler’s understanding of the science of sociology

and his classification of man into various social

groups led him to the further investigation of the
sociology of knowledge. Man's activity of knowing is
obviously an outcome of spirit in man. Moreover,

21
Of. J. Macquet, The Sociology of Knowledge:
Its Structure and Its Relation to the Philosophy of
Knowledge: A Critical Analysis of the Systems of Karl
Mannheim and Petrim A. Sorokin. Translated by John #.
Locke, with a Preface *by K. S. C. Northrop (Boston:
The Beacon Press, 1951), Chapter One, "Introduction,"
9, 19-28; K. Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of
Knowledge, edited by Paul Kecskemeti (London: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1952) , 1-2?. Here in the
"Introduction," Kecskemeti declares: "That he
[Scheler] became the first proponent of a sociological
theory of knowledge is something of a freak of German
intellectual history in the ’twenties'" (16). Kecskemeti
finds it difficult to understand how Scheler retains a
scale of absolute values, while also admitting a soci­
ological relativism in knowledge itself. It is to be
noted that Mannheim's first essay on this topic,
Sociology of Knowledge. appeared in 1925 and is pri-
marily a discussion of Scheler's earlier work
"Problems for a Sociology of Knowledge" of 1924. This
essay of Mannheim's is reprinted in the present volume,
Ch. IV, "The Problem of a Sociology of Knowledge," 134—
190. Part Three, 154-179 discusses Scheler's theory.

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 -157-

knowing is not just an individual activity; the com­

munity in which man lives influences the very mode and

content of his knowledge. Therefore, just as there are

universal classes of essential social groups, so also
each individual group will have its own distinct essen­
tial type of knowledge. Once Scheler had defined
sociology in terms of a phenomenological investigation,
then the sociology of knowledge was necessarily a part

of cultural sociology.
Scheler divided the problems of a sociology of
knowledge into two classes: formal problems and mate­
rial problems. Among the formal problems there were
the questions about the relationship of the sociology
of knowledge to logic and epistemology, the relationship
of man's knowledge to his social nature and the original
classification of social knowledge into its predominant
kinds. The material problems of a sociology of knowl­
edge dealt directly with the major types of knowledge
(religious, metaphysical and scientific) and a number
of more detailed problems within these classes.
Our own study cannot give a detailed exposition

of Scheler's sociology of knowledge. We will merely

sketch the outlines of Scheler's theory in order to
see here the consistency in the application of many of

his dominant ideas. This is one area of Scheler's

thought in which he deliberately sought a general

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 -158-

synthesis between the many diverse directions his

studies of man, metaphysics, history and science had
taken. At times, it seems, Scheler forced his own
categories upon the available evidence. let many of
his isolated ideas become clearer and more meaningful
when they are compared by way of agreement or disagree­
ment with the rest of his thought. We cannot fail but
to be impressed with the breadth of the comprehension

of Scheler's thought.
Scheler's sociology of knowledge rested upon

three chief axioms. These axioms were not proved here

but merely taken over from other studies. The first
axiom was the phenomenologically established truth that
man is genetically and consciously a member of com­

munity before he is conscious of his own Self as an I.

I know myself to be a member of a we before I know my

22
Self as an individual I. This was the fundamental
truth discussed in Part Three of Sympathy. This was
the most basic truth of man's social nature.
The second axiom held that participation in the

experiences of others occurred in different ways with

different groups, but that these different "ways" could
be classified according to certain ideal types. Refer­
ence here was to the four various forms of social

^ Wissensformen. 52. Cf. Part Three of

Sympathy and much of our discussion above in Ch. III.

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 -159-

structure: the mass, life-community, society and

person-community. Man shows his essential superiority
to lower animals hy his ability to understand

(verstehen) the meaning of his social experience and

to translate and communicate his understanding through

language.^
At this point, Scheler distinguished between

the spirit (Geist) and the soul (Seele) of a group as

two sociologically significant principles. The group
soul is, as it were, an organic development. Spon­

taneously but unconsciously, it expresses itself by

working from within the group to such external expres­
sions as myths, fairy tales, folk songs and group
mores. The group soul is anonymous and impersonal in

its creation. The group spirit also works spontane­

ously, but it is conscious of its intentional objects.

Personal representatives are responsible for the group

spirit; while only a small number, the elite, they

become the exemplars, the leaders of the group spirit

and work from above to influence the group. The
results of the group spirit are art, science, philos-

ophy, the state, a cultural language.

24-

^^Vissensformen. 53*
PA
Ibid., 53-55* "Group soul" is closely assoc­
iated with both "life and person community," carrying
with it the dynamism of the vital impulse into "we"
community. "Group spirit" also has the note of spon­
taneity and authenticity about it; it is not the mere
artificial creations of society.

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 -160-

The third basic principle for the sociology of

knowledge involved a basic epistemological theory con­
cerning the relationship and the ordering of our knowl­

edge with reality. To clarify this point, Scheler

undertook a short schematic review of the various
spheres of intentionality and their order of inten­

tional dependence. The spheres of being and objects

(Seins - und Gegenstandsphaere) are fivefold: 1. The
absolute sphere of reality, values and of the holy;
2 . the sphere of a co-world (Mitwelt), a world shared
with others, the sphere of society and history; 3 « the
spheres of the outer and inner world, i.e., of one's

own body and of his environmental world; 4. the sphere

of the living; the sphere of the inorganic and of
the seemingly dead world. These spheres are irre­
ducible to one another; all are equally and originally
given in human consciousness. There is, however, an
essential order in the givenness of these spheres.

This order Scheler described through his five "laws of

pre-givenness"; by this, he meant to describe the order
in which these various essential spheres are consciously
entertained in intentionality. 1. The outer world is

pre-given to the inner world. 2. The living world is

pre-given to the dead world. 3* The outer world of the
co-subjects of my social world is pre-given to the
inner world of my own social world. 4. The inner world

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 -161-

of the social world is pre-given to my own inner world.

5. My own body and every alien body is pre-given as a
field of expression (not a body-object [Koerpergegen-
standj) to all subsequent distinctions between body
and soul.

These laws are nothing more than a continuation

of many of the principles discussed in Part Three of
Sympathy. Immediately relevant to the sociology of
knowledge is the fundamental proposition that the
social sphere, the world of togetherness shared with

others (Mitwelt), is historically the world pre-given

to all the other spheres. The social world, therefore,
is antecedent to the basic reality of life itself or
to any other general or definite intentional content.
The first and most general application of these
laws for the sociology of knowledge was to emphasize
the social character of all knowledge. Not only the
content of knowledge and the very choice of objects are
conditioned by the dominating social interests, but the
forms of the spiritual acts of knowledge themselves are
necessarily sociological and are mutually conditioned
in and through the structure of the society in which
OCL
they occur.

25Ibid., 55- 57.

26
Ibid., 58. For a very accurate exposition of
this matter cf. P. A. Schilpp, "The ’Formal Problem’ of
Scheler's Sociology of Knowledge," The Philosophical
Review, 36 (March, 1927)» 101-20.

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 -162-

With these principles Scheler could discuss how

the chief kinds of knowledge are related to their
social context and social background. Space allows
here only a general description of Scheler's detailed
discussions on "the sociology of religion," "the soci­
ology of metaphysics" and "the sociology of the posi­
tive sciences." Basic to these more specialized kinds
of knowledge was the more general knowledge of the
common man, the natural attitude or the natural
Veitanschauung. Scheler adopted a position he described
as a theory of a "relative natural Weltanschauung."
Whatever is accepted as validly given without question
in a particular group is part of that group's Welt­
anschauung. This, then becomes part of the group soul.
Scheler held that there was no absolute, unchanging
natural Weltanschauung of man in some state of pure
nature. Every civilization creates its own world out­
look.^
Distinct from the more general natural attitude
of the common man are the specialized knowledges of
religion, metaphysics and scientific technology. Each

^Scheler accepted the natural attitude of the

common man without depreciating it, as Husserl had
done. Scheler also accepted from Dilthey a "relative
natural Weltanschauung," without subjecting it to
Husserl's rigorous investigation. Cf. Husserl's Logos
essay, of 1910, "Philosophy as a Strict Science,"
translated by Q. Lauer, S.J., Cross Currents, 6 ,
227-46, 325-44.

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 -163-

type of knowledge has its social origin and social

development in historical time and place. But the

three types of knowledge are the result of the essen­

tial, permanent essence of the human spirit; they are
not three stages of a single historical-temporal
sequential evolution of human development as Comte
28
thought. The three types of knowledge are distin­
guished by the different motives from which they spring,
by different knowing acts, by different intrinsic ends,
by different types of models and exemplars and by the
different social groups in which the form of knowledge
29
occurs. '
The sociology of knowledge studies in detail
the last point; namely, a study of the three different
social forms of knowledge as related to distinct social
groups. Scheler listed six points in this study.
1. The different ideal types of leaders or models in
each type of knowledge: the homo religiosus, the wise
man, the scientific researcher. 2. The different

original sources and methods of each type of knowledge:

through immediate contact with the divine, through

essential-ideal modes of philosophic thought, through

the inductive and deductive conclusions of science.

28Cf. Soziologie, 30-31.

2% b i d . , 33-34-. Cf. also "Yorbilder und
Fuehrer,'1 Nachlass, 255-34-3•

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 -164-

3 . The different forms of development: this is a soci­

ological study of the essential forms of intrinsic
development within a science, and not a mere historical
study of concrete facts. 4. The different basic social

forms in which the knowledges present themselves:

e.g., as incorporated in the traditions of the people,
inscribed in ceremonies or rites, or written down in

books and taught by the schools. 5 « The different

functions of the various types of knowledge in human
society. 6 . The different sociological classes from
30
which the various kinds of knowledge have sprung.
Most of Scheler's major works on religion,

sociology, epistemology and education were written

within this schema as devised by the sociology of
knowledge. But while the schema purported to be all-
encompassing, it failed to be completely satisfactory.

Not only was it inadequate to explain all the relevant

data, but Scheler continued to modify some of the basic
divisions in the schema. Thus, by 1928 he stated that

the three basic kinds of knowledge were: the knowledge

of control and achievement (technology), the knowledge

of essence or culture (philosophy) and the knowledge of

31
metaphysical reality or salvation. This denoted a

30
^ Vissensformen, 68.
^ Perspectives. 1-12; Weltanschauung, 5-15°

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 -165-

change not only in the general outline for a sociology

of knowledge, hut a more radical change in the meaning

of philosophy, metaphysics and religion.^
32

This chapter has high-lighted only the most

general principles of Scheler's sociology. The essen­
tially social nature of man gave Scheler a theory on
the sociology of knowledge and a classification of four
different forms of man's sociality— the mass, life-
community, society and person-community. However the
study of man's togetherness can he studied scientifi­

cally and phenomenologically in another way. We can

study in an essential way the individual ways or modes
hy which men live together. As a matter of fact
Scheler first made his phenomenological studies on such

social "feelings" as sympathy, shame, love and hatred,

and only later expanded his views on sociology itself.

We have reversed the chronology of Scheler's studies

to show the inner consistency of his thought and to

explain better the meaning and significance of Scheler's

phenomenology of community.

*0 f . supra, Ch. I, section 3 .

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 Chapter Five

MAN AND COMMUNITY

Page

1. Sympathy............... 168

2. S h a m e ................. 184

3. L o v e ................... 190
4. Person-Community . . . . 203

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 CHAPTER FIVE

MAN AND COMMUNITY

In Chapter Three we treated of Scheler1s theory

of the perception of others* Chapter Four discussed

the most general principles of sociology, the essential
forms by which men live together and the sociology of

knowledge. According to Scheler's epistemology, per­

ception also includes affective and emotional "feel­

ings," so that the perception of others includes the

affective "feelings" we experience in our living to­
gether with others. Scheler's early phenomenology was

directed especially to the investigation of the essen­

tial a priori structures of emotional experiences.
Therefore, it was natural that he was interested in the
social emotions of man and that he attempted to weave

them into his whole theory of sociology.

This chapter will briefly explore Schelerfs

teaching on some of the more important "social feel­

ings," those of sympathy, shame and love. But love
occurs only at the strictly transcendental level of
persons who live together in person-community. Hence
a study of Scheler's theory of person-community makes
up the last part of this chapter. Scheler's entire

-167-

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 -168-

theory of man, sociology and religion reaches its

climax in his description of person-community living
together with love and within salvational solidarity.

1. Sympathy

Although Scheler used the Greek-stemmed term,

Sympathie, in the title of his study, his most common
term is the strictly German equivalent, Mitgefuehl.1

The 1913 title, ’’The Phenomenology and Theory of the

Peeling of Sympathy,” more explicitly stated the method

of procedure; namely, that this was a phenomenological

investigation into the feeling of sympathy. The 1923
title emphasized the outline-result of the study: a

description of the ”essence and forms of sympathy.”

The aim of our exposition of Scheler's theory of sym­
pathy is to distinguish clearly this emotion from all
its mistaken alternates, to describe the inner laws and

interactions of sympathetic functions and to explain

its relation to moral value. Prom such a study we will
see how Scheler -understood sympathy to be a basic
emotion of man's social life.
Mitgefuehl is literally a "feeling with" some­
one else. In the English translation by Heath, this

^Sympathy in Greek is composed of syn, "with,"

and pathos, ^suffering, passion"; therefore, it means
literally a "feeling with" someone. Compassion in its
Latin stems has the same basic meaning. The German is
Mit-gefuehl. There is no immediate English equivalent.

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 -169-

term is consistently translated as ''fellow-feeling.”

Fellow-feeling involves two poles of intentional
reference. There is first of all a reference to the
actual emotional state of the individualized other

Self. But this other-reference can take place only

within the "background of the consciousness of my own
Self as individualized. I sympathize with another in
the perception of his own emotional state and in my
co-responding with him and his emotions and not to
mine. Both his Self and mine are recognized to "be
2
individualized centers of self-consciousness.
For example, A is in grief over the death of
his mother. Brcommiserates with A— literally, is
"sorry with" A. Phenomenologically speaking, these
are two distinct facts. A's grief is not B's; B need
not (indeed, cannot) experience A's own individual
emotion. But B does genuinely sympathize with A when
B feels in A the grief that A himself feels. In the
response of authentic sympathy, B in some real way

^Sympathie. 9-11; Sympathy. 13-14. It is

interesting uo note that Scheler*s description of
sympathy (and of love at the personal level) as
involving two distinct poles of intentional reference
accepts a formula very similar to a key principle of
Thomistic epistemology. St. Thomas speaks of knowl­
edge as the union with the other as other. Scheler
speaks of sympathizing with and loving tlie other as
other. Both use this experience as primary in theTr
refutation of monism and in the acceptance of reality.

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 - 170-

actually participates in, "takes a part with," the

grief of A.
It is false to say that B cannot sympathize
with A unless he actually knows "what it is to lose
your mother." It would he unrealistic and selfish of
A to demand that B must first lose his own mother
before he can feel the sorrow of B's loss. It is true
that somehow, somewhere in B's past, he has identified
himself with the feeling of grief-over-mother's death,
so that he can reproduce this feeling in his sympathy
with A. But in B's fellow-feeling with A, B feels
this grief as suffered by A. In another case, C may
arrive and say: "Ah, yes, I remember when mjr mother

died!" C may shed copious tears— but he is emotionally

reliving his own loss and in no way is he suffering
with A in A's grief.^
Scheler carefully distinguished true fellow-
feeling from "community of feeling" (Mit-einanderfuehlen) .

^English words by which we "want to esqpress our

sympathy" limp badly in conveying the depths of feeling
we actually feel in such a situation. If "condolences"
retained its Latin stem meaning it would be the equiva­
lent of the German Mitleid. a "sorrowing with." We
say: "With deepest sympathy1" A common German phrase
is: mit innigster ttiefster) Teilnahme. A literal
rendering of these phrases would be: ""Deep within my­
self I take part in (I feel) the sorrow you feelI" As
Heidegger has reworked the etymology of language to re­
discover the language of metaphysics, a similar study
could be made to bring life and meaning back to our
common terms about the emotions and especially about
the social emotions.

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 -171-

If a father and mother have lost a child in death, they

both feel the same sorrow and the same painful loss.
They share a feeling in common, but in this loss they
do not actually sympathize with each other. A-third

party may arrive to express compassion with both par­

ents in true sympathy. A community feeling, one in
essence but shared in together equally by several
persons, is possible only at the mental (seelisch)
level. Bodily pain and physically pleasant feelings
are exclusively individual. No two men suffer the same
identical physical pain or feeling of sense pleasure.
The second man can only suffer with the first man's
physical pain or rejoice over the first man's good
4
bodily feelings.
Sympathy, both as a meaningful term and as an
actual emotional experience, must not be taken to mean
only a "feeling with another in pain." Sympathy is a
generic thing. It includes not only the two sub-species
of a "sorrowing with" and a "rejoicing with" but also
any number of actual emotional responses between two
people.^ When F inflicts an act of cruelty upon G,

4
Sympathie, 9; Sympathy, 12-13.
^Cf. Ch. IX. of Part One, "Pity and Rejoicing
and its Typical Modes," Sympathie, 14-9-51; Sympathy,
135-37* Here, again, Scheler undertook a piece of
etymology to get his meaning across. Mitgefuehle
includes both Mitleid (pity, "suffer witir) and
Mitfreude ("rejoicing with"). German regularly employs
only the former term; Scheler was forced to coin the

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 -172-

P takes pleasure in the pain of G. Here is a genuine

case of fellow-feeling in which P is wholly aware of
and responsive to the emotional state of G. In cases of
brutality, in spite of the fact that P is sensitive to
the suffering of G, P continues the particular brutal
activity. One cannot be cruel or brutal to a stone or

to any "dead" object. He must perceive a vital emo-

6
tional response on the part of the object. Scheler
held that a man can be cruel and brutal (in a strictly
immoral way) to plants and animals, for in them is
life.
In this context Scheler was able to distinguish

genuine fellow-feeling from emotional infection

(Gefuehlsansteckung) and from emotional identification
(Einsfuehlung). These two explanations were proposed
by various scientific, genetic theories to account for

man's social nature. We have already seen Scheler's

general criticism against them.^ Both theories failed

word meaning "rejoicing with." One of Schopenhauer's

mistakes was to take pity (Mitleid) as the generic emo­
tion instead of seeing that both fellow-pity and
fellow-rejoicing are sub-species of fellow-feeling.
^Sympathie, 10-11; Sympathy, 14.
^Cf. supra, Ch. Ill, n. 16 to n. 19. H. Becker,
"Some Porms of Sympathy: A Phenomenological Analysis,"
The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 6
(193^-52), is a brief but good exposition of the
core of Scheler's positive theory of sympathy. Becker's
original attempt to translate Scheler's ideas into
English is quite satisfactory, but the terms that Heath
employed in the published translation of Sympathy are

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 -173-

to give proper credit to the twofold polarity "between

the I and the Thou which is an essential element of the
phenomenological understanding of the emotion of true

sympathy. Emotional infection (e.g., of a mob) does

not allow me to know the other and sympathize with him
in his situation: I am simply swept into the other's
situation. In emotional identification (e.g., with a
hypnotist), I again lose my one self individuality.
True sympathy must retain both the individuality of
myself and the other, as I "take part in" his emotional

state of soul.
Scheler asked if there was an essential order
of dependence between the various social emotions con-
8
nected with sympathy. This is a question of strict
phenomenology in which there is analyzed the relation­
ship, the essential laws (ein wesengesetzliches Ver-

haeltnis) , of the connections between the various

emotions. Scheler attempted to define the a priori

beginning to be adopted as standard. V. J. McGill's

essay, "Scheler's Theory of Sympathy and Love,” Philos­
ophy and Phenomenological Research, 2 (1942), 173-91»
is hardly a study of Scheler's theory of sympathy. It
is little more than a series of disconnected remarks
on political, social and moral questions, occasioned
by a rapid reading of some few parts of Scheler. Much
of McGill's criticism is not only shallow but very
unfair to the real thought and goals of Scheler.
O
Sympathie, 105; Sympathy, 96. This, then, is
the study of the next two chapters of the work.

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 - 174
-

order and dependence of the various emotional func­

tions. His own discussion is very sketchy and unsatis­

factory. We will attempt to fill in the details of his

outline.
1)A common social response is to repeat and
reproduce in oneself the emotion he perceives in

another. Scheler described such an emotional response

as Nachfuehlen or Nachleben, a "feeling or living
after” one has experienced a particular emotion in
another. This is a case of vicarious feeling.^ It is
to be distinguished from both empathy and genuine
sympathy. In reproduced feeling we sense the quality
of another’s feeling, e.g., his sorrow, without par­
ticipating in his sorrow (as in the case of true fellow-
feeling) or without being infected with it. We may
say: "I know how you feel, but I cannot sympathize

with you.” A novelist possesses to a high degree the

ability to visualize and reproduce the feelings of

others, without in any way sharing those emotions with

others.^

The first law of dependence between emotional

functions is that reproduced feeling can only follow

Q
7Heath translates these two terms in various
ways: ’’vicarious feeling," "reproduction of feeling
or experience," "reproduced emotion."

^ Sympathie, 3-5; Sympathy, 8-10.

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 -175-

up on some antecedent identification with, that feeling.

At some previous time, I must have felt the quality of
sorrow before I can reproduce this feeling, either by
memory of myself or through some response to the sorrow
of others. Thus, children and primitives first live at
the level of emotional identification before they ad­
vance to the stage of vicarious feeling. A young child
at play with her doll feels herself to be a mother;
an older child will only reproduce vicariously the role
of mother. Primitives first are one with their
ancestors before they develop a cult of them. Esthetic
empathy of the theater (which is a feeling whereby one

puts himself along side of another) is a further

development of reproduced feeling, a distance removed
from the total emotional identification employed in
early mystic rites or by children.

Obviously, for Scheler, there is no such thing

as innate knowledge of emotional states. All of our
knowledge of feelings is gathered only from the actual
experience of those feelings. We must become one with

a feeling, be identified with it, consciously or uncon­

sciously, before we can ever recognize or reproduce

this feeling either in ourselves or in others. Quite

literally, a child is a mother through emotional iden­

tification before it can feel like one. The mystery

religions and the myths of the primitives are rich in

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 -176-

meaning for the ontogenetic understanding of man as

well as for the study of phylogenesis. By 1922
Scheler was somewhat acquainted with Jung’s works.
In theory and spirit, Scheler was prepared to enter­

tain the chief hypothesis of Jung.11

2)
A second law is that vicarious feeling is
12
an antecedent foundation for true fellow-feeling.
I cannot "feel with” another unless I reproduce the
emotion I perceive in him. It is to he noted that

this is not a conscious series of steps. In an act

of true sympathy I respond spontaneously to the
peculiar emotional state of the other person. However,
in the final phenomenological analysis that act of
sympathy rests upon some prior act of reproduced
emotion.
3) The third law of dependence is that fellow-

feeling is a necessary condition for the possible

Sympathie, 105-07; Sympathy, 96-98. In

Sympathy Scheler accepted Jung’s extension of Freud's
•bneory of libido to include any striving whatsoever.
Scheler did not, however, elaborate upon Jung's use of
popular myths as sources of information for the under­
standing of the full meaning of man. But here in the
study of emotional identification, Scheler's thought
is similar to Jung's and may have been influenced by
the reading of Die Wandlungsform der Libido to which
Scheler has reference in footnotes. See C. J. Jung,
Psychology of the Unconscious (New York: Moffat, Yard
and Company, 1917)•
IP
Sympathie, 107; Sympathy, 98. At this point
of his study Scheler merely stated this law of depend­
ence and referred back to Ch. II for its full explana­
tion.

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 -177-

emergence of benevolence.^ To explain this law

Scheler revealed some more keen insights into the

essence of fellow-feeling itself. We can sympathize

only with a real subject. It is the act of fellow-
feeling that perceives the reality of the subject.
Therefore, while we can reproduce a vicarious emotion
for a fictional hero, we can have no true sympathy for
that hero. Also, in the pure act of fellow-feeling we
do not advert to any special values of the other sub­
ject. Indeed, we can sympathize with non-human sub­
jects.
Scheler1s meaning for benevolence shifted with

the context. In polemical passages (e.g., in most of

Ressentiment) , benevolence was equated with humani-
tarianism and philanthropy. By this Scheler meant a
condescending attitude of a man towards the whole of
mankind as a species and which looked out especially
for the material welfare of mankind. As a more common
and better definition for benevolence Scheler under­
stood it to mean a genuine movement of love towards
all of mankind in view of a common humanity. The
former (exaggerated) idea of benevolence arose from
ressentiment: the latter Scheler conceded to be a
genuine human sentiment but essentially inferior to

■^Sympathie, 107-08; Sympathy, 98-99*

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 -178-

Christian love.
The meaning of Scheler's third law is this.

The unity of mankind as a species must be first real­

ized emotionally through fellow-feeling in all its
concreteness as a felt intentional act, before true

benevolence is possible.
4) The fourth law of dependence is that
benevolence is the basis for all personal love and for
the love of God. This means that one must feel a
generalized love for the total species of mankind (and
not just one's friends, one's countrymen, etc.) before
he can have the individualized spiritual love of per­
sons. The Christian love of persons, historically,
was built upon the humanitas of the ancient classical
ethos. Scheler called this a "non-cosmic" love of
persons and of God, to distinguish it from the strictly
vitalistic theories of love and from the many forms of
Oriental cosmic mysticism.
This fourth law transcends the order of merely
sympathetic feelings, for it entails necessarily the
spirituality of person and the fact of persons living
in community. This, in turn, entails further laws of
dependence. Real personal love depends upon benevolence,

14
One of the sections of this present chapter
will treat of Scheler's theory of love. His essay
Ressentiment is an extended study on the false values
of humanitarianism.

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 -179-

but at the same time, love is possible only through a

15
prior condition of love for God and a love in God.
The full meaning of this statement will become clear
only after we understand Scheler's theory of love and
his theory of a spiritual-personal community.
Scheler felt that all this discussion about

emotions, their metaphysical significance and their

laws of dependence gave him ample foundation to
"moralize" about the ideal normative order of values.
This would be a distinct contribution to ethics, to
education and to civilization in general. Thus, one
ideal norm he proposed is that man must cultivate all
his various emotional powers, if he is to achieve the
16
full realization of his ideal capacities.
Scheler's prime concern was that man must re­
unite himself in an intrinsic living way with the lower
powers of life and of nature itself. The vital values
are the lowest in the scale of values, but they are the
most powerful, the most real. Man would undermine his
own being if he cultivated only the spiritual and
intellectual powers at the expense of his lower, vital-
istic, emotional nature.^ Scheler's criticism here

^ Sympathie, 108-12; Sympathy, 99-102.

•^Sympathie, 112-13; Sympathy, 103-04.
•^Sympathie, 113-16; Sympathy, 104-06.

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 -1 8 0 -

was directed against the rationalists and the natural

scientists: both groups artificially cut themselves
18
off from nature, to study nature and to control it.
Historically, the first "scientist" was always the
enthusiastic amateur who began his study of nature in
an emotional state whereby he identified himself with
nature. The mystic astrologist preceded the astronomer.
The "esqoert" only arrives late and he debases his
humanity if he lose living contact with the "enthusi-

1 ft
This discussion integrates much of Scheler's
thought on man, nature, the different types of knowl­
edge and philosophy. He states here in anticipation
of Man's Place: "It is man the microcosm, an actual
embodiment of the reality of existence in all its
forms, who is himself cosmomorphic, and as such the
possessor of sources of insight into all that is com­
prised in the nature of the cosmos." Sympathy, 105*
If man so intellectualizes nature to lose his emotional
identification with it, he cuts himself off from the
living sources of his own vitality. This idea returns
in Scheler's fluctuating definitions of philosophy and
in his final definition of metaphysics that includes
this vital "salvational" unity with the life-impulse
in nature. Further applications in the areas of edu­
cation and culture are made in his 1925 address, "The
Forms of Knowledge and Culture," Perspectives, 13-4-9;
Weltanschauung, 16-4-8.
■^A continuation of this theme is Scheler's
studies on models and leaders in human history— the
hero, the genius, the saint. These are not studied as
abstract models. Their real import is carried by the
fact that historically they have realized in themselves
— they have made real within the context of the living
concrete details of actual history— the military, intel­
lectual and religious ideals of man. See "Vorbilder
und Fuehrer" in Nachlass, 253-343.

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 -1 8 1 -

As we have seen, Scheler did not assent to the

Oriental ethos to the extent of advocating total emo­

tional identity with the living universe. He sought
a reciprocal adjustment between the ethos of the East
with that of the West. The Oriental ethos should be
counter-balanced with the western ideals of benevolence
and humanitas. We of the West should learn from the
East how to cultivate in ourselves a love for Mother
20
Nature.
In pleading for man’s return to cosmis unity
with nature Scheler criticized the effects of indus­
trialization and technology (a consequence of science’s
knowledge of domination) which seek only production of

material goods at the sacrifice of not only organic

values (destruction of natural resources) but also at
21
the sacrifice of human, personal values. Life and

20
This general idea of adjustment was taken as
a topic of another address, "Man in the Era of Adjust­
ment," delivered in 1927* See Perspectives, 94— 125;
Weltanschauung. 89-118. It is here that Scheler speaks
of human higher culture as a "re-sublimation" in order
to renew its contacts with the living and the real.
21
In Scheler’s plea for man and civilization to
return to an emotional identification with all of
cosmic life ("for there is ultimately one life only,
and one vital value which comprehends all living
things." Sympathy, 106) he comes very close to the
pure, simple principle of Albert Schweitzer, who in his
"Reverence for Life" principle proposed to build a
genuinely ethical civilization. Cf. A. Schweitzer, The
Philosophy of Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1966),
especially chapters 26 and 27* 307-44- • Neither Scheler
nor Schweitzer make any explicit reference to each

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 -182-

its immediate values can be sacrificed for higher

spiritual and religious values, but Scheler considered
a "martyr to science" as being ridiculous. Wealth and
material goods are to be put to the service of the
physical and mental health of the whole human family.
The third and fourth laws of the dependence of

emotional functions were invoked to describe how man

was to effect his immersion into the total stream of
life. Man can first enter into such an identification

with life only at that point where life is in closest

affinity to his own, namely, in another person and,
ultimately, only in God. Only if man has experienced
the emotional union between man and man will he be able
22
to find the living, dynamic side of Nature. The full
phenomenological understanding of infancy, childhood
and youth would reveal the true meanings involved in
the totality of human experience. Scheler himself
undertook a detailed phenomenological study of the
sexual act in all its intrinsic, vital and personal

other, but there is a kindred spirit between them.

H. Marcuse, in Eros and Civilization (New York: Vintage
Books, 1962), advocates a similar return of man's
natural and spontaneous allignment with the primitive
drives of his nature through a type of civilization he
calls (in Freudian terms) a non-repressive civilization
in which sublimation is attained, not in the repression
of the lower drives, but by having Eros attain its
objectives, transcend its immediate lower level and
search for its fuller gratification at higher levels.

^ Sympathie, 117-18; Sympathy, 107-08.

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 -183-

ends (Ziele) , to restore the idea of the sexual act to

its true metaphysical significance as a personal act
23
of man in contact with and in union with cosmic life.
In this context, Scheler discussed the sexual act as a
part of man's sympathetic function with the living

cosmos, and not as a special part of personal love.

A final consideration is the study of the moral
value of fellow-feeling. Scheler declared that all
genuine acts of sympathy have positive moral values in

their own right. He approved the common adage: "A

sorrow shared is a sorrow halved; a joy shared is a
joy doubled." A mark of genuine sympathy is that it

leads to acts of true benevolence.

The degree of moral value of an act of sympathy
is relative to the four following conditions. 1) The
moral value is relative to the level of the sympathetic

emotion; e.g., sympathy with a sensory, vital, mental

(seelisch) or spiritual emotion. 2) Sympathy, in the

sense of community of feeling with someone, or through

emotional infection, only increases quantitatively the
particular emotion present. This, as such, has no

^ Sympathie, 120-43; Sympathy, 109-29. Another

study on tkis topic, with all the insights of phenome­
nology but with a Catholic theological point of view,
is the work by Scheler's student, Dietrich Yon Hilde­
brand, In Defense of Purity: An Analysis of the
Catholic Ideals of Purity and Virginity (Hew York:
Longman*s, Green and Co., 1951)•

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 -184-

positive moral value. 3) The moral value of fellow-

feeling increases to the extent that it is directed to
the very center of the person's personality and not
towards some merely external circumstances. 4) The
moral value varies according to the worth of the whole
situation; e.g., it is better to sympathize with a
person of superior values. Scheler accreditied impor­
tant moral value to fellow-feeling, but consistently
24
denied that it alone was the source of moral value.

2. Shame

The sense of shame is one of man's social char­

acteristics. A study of Scheler's theory of shame and

the feeling of shame makes a fine transition between a

study of man in his body-self dimension (where occur
the sympathetic functions) and the study of man as

person (at which level occur the genuine acts of love).

The different forms of shame encompass both these
levels in man. The sense of shame is unique in man.
Neither brutes nor pure spirits suffer shame. Man's
place in nature can be accurately determined by a
study of the role that shame plays in his life-spirit
composite. Shame, in turn, is related to a number of

24
Ch. X of Part One, only two pages, treats of
"The Moral Value of Fellow-Feeling," Sympathie, 151-52;
Sympathy, 138-39.

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 -185-

other emotional responses closely linked to man's

social nature. ^
25

From references in Formalism we know that

Scheler's study on shame was completed as early as

1915. As late as 1921 he hoped to include this essay
among his studies on the emotional life. But as we
have seen, the series of works on the meaning of the
emotions and their laws was never published.
26 As a

result, Scheler's essay, "On Shame and the Feeling of

Shame," was first published among the Posthumous

Writings of 1933
Again, the meaning and use of terms becomes a

problem. To translate Scheler's term, Scham, into its

immediate English equivalent, shame, is far too simple
(though in identifying titles there is little alterna­
tive) . In English, shame connotes too much the meaning

of guilt. The term, a sense of modesty, as used in

discussions of chastity, comes very close to Scheler's
meaning of Scham. But modesty, then, is a virtue, part
of the larger virtue of temperance, and does not refer

^ Nachlass, 68, 76-77*

^®Cf. supra, Ch. Ill, n. 5*
270f. "Bemerkungen zu den Manuskripten,"
Nachlass, 510-11, for bibliographical and textual
details. This essay takes up eighty pages of Nachlass,
65-14-7» with another seven additional pages of
"Zusaetze" added by the editor from other Schelerian
manuscripts.

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 -186-

directly to the primitive emotional response of

Scheler's discussion. Furthermore, a modest man in

English more generally means an unpretentious man.

For Scheler, Scham refers to both a bodily and a
spiritual emotional embarrassment. Such a generic
emotional response can be described as "a defensive
feeling of one's self-integrity.”
The most essential element of the shame-
experience is the reflective awareness of one's own
individual self-identity, either in his bodily char­
acteristics or as a person. One feels himself to be
an individualized instance within a general situa-
28
tion. Thus a child before its parents, a wife
before her husband or a model before an artist feels
no self-embarrassment unless and until, through some
deliberate or indeliberate act, the individual is

made to feel that his (or her) individual self, in all

its individual bodily parts, is under direct scrutiny.
There is no feeling of shame as long as one loses
himself within the immediacy of the present, living

situation; e.g., a husband and wife together. There

is no feeling of shame as long as one considers him­
self as part of a general class: e.g., as long as

28
Dupuy, op. cit., 29-30, points out that this
notion of shame was already elaborated upon by Scheler
in Logical and Ethical Principles of 1897 •

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 -187-

the model is a general model and not this model. But

at the very moment of withdrawal from the situational
moment, one is not only directly conscious of himself,
but he suffers emotionally some feeling, some sense of
the need to protect his own self-integrity. This can
happen to one who is entirely alone; this can happen
to one at the higher level of the spiritual person.
Scheler's study of this feeling is directed to an
understanding of its expressional, symbolic meaning,

not its empirical causes or its goal.

The first (lower) form of the sense of shame
is that associated with the body and its parts at the
vitalistic level of the basic life impulses. This is

the sense (or feeling) of one's own physical self­

integrity. The emotional responses here center around
29
the sex organs and their proper covering. 7 While

sexuality is one of the primary instances of shame, it

is not in itself the origin or cause of shame nor the
most basic element in the understanding of the expres-
sionable meaning of shame.
Traditions and customs control and modify the
modes (Arten) of the external occasions of shame, but

^ T h e easy association of shame with sex is

very natural in German, since many of the common terms
for the genitalia are compounded with Scham. The term
privates contains some of the meaning of the individ­
uality of sexuality.

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 -1 8 8 -

they do not effect the "basic emotion itself. Thus, the

use of clothes is only one social reaction to the sense
of shame, hut by no means the only one. Primitives may
be unclothed, but not "naked," not "ashamed"— unless
the shame arises from another source. Only certain
types of cultures associate "being unclothed" with
•50
nakedness and shame. A sense of shame and modesty
is as much a part of the essential emotional make-up
of a man as it is of a woman, but the degree of in-
31
tensity of the emotion is greater with the woman.^
These are but a few of the insights that Scheler ex­
pounded as belonging to the essence of shame.
The second form of a sense of self-integrity

(of shame) is at the mental or spiritual level

(Seelenscham oder das geistige Schamgefuehl) . This is
not merely the result of education. It is a primary
experience. But neither is it the sole source of
morality. In so far as education may control the
external occasions of shame (which is something very
different from the genuine feeling itself), the sense
of shame tends to be converted into prudery. The prude
is excessively concerned about the projected purpose

^°Nachlass, 75. Scheler said that, when a man

wears a nightshirt to bed, that man considers nakedness
to be more in the disrobing of his clothes than con­
sidering clothes as the covering for his nakedness.
51Hachlass, 145-47*

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 -189-

(Zweck) of his "purity'* and about its external execu­

tion. The "pure and modest man," with a proper sense
of shame, experiences the intrinsic ends (Ziele) of
the feeling and automatically and spontaneously per-
*2
forms "pure" actions in all their full integrity.
A number of other positive personal responses
are closely associated with a "spiritual sense of
shame." These include the sense of awe and reverence
and the virtue of humility. A person finds himself
within all of life, or before other persons, or before
God, and, conscious of the fact that other values
exist outside of and independent from himself, he
withdraws with a fearful respect.^ Present in this

experience is the element essential to all shame:

the reflective look upon oneself as being distinct
from the universal generality of things. Of course,
the opposite moral response is possible. In this case,
having considered his own Self in relation to the
totality of things, a person becomes vain and proud
of his own individuality.
At this point it is not possible to make a
7.1L
complete study of Scheler's theory of virtues. We

^ Nachlass, 93 • ^ Nachlass, 88-90.

^ T h e complete study of Scheler's anthropology
would include the study of the virtues. A fine essay
on humility and reverence is "Towards the Rehabilita­
tion of Virtue," Umsturz, 15-31.

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 -190-

only want to understand this theory within the context

of man's place in the metaphysics of life and spirit.

Virtues (and moral values) do not arise originally
and exclusively from the social factors in man's
nature. Paradoxically, their origin is understood by
the fact that man experiences himself as non-social,
as an individual within life and among other persons,
but as having some relation to the rest of life and to
other persons. Virtues, like values, are originally

individual: they presuppose man's awareness of his

own self-integrity. This consciousness is nothing
more than a general feeling of "shame."

3. Love

Love at its highest level is a distinct

experience-act between persons. Our study of Scheler's
theory of love will proceed in three stages. First,
we will study how this theory has inter-connections
within the body of his thought. Then the relations
between love and sympathy and the naturalistic theories

of love will be examined. Finally, the unique value

and dignity of love in human life will be studied.
Scheler's theory of love agreed with his phi­
losophy of man, his general metaphysics and with his
ethical theory concerning intrinsic "material" values.
Affective responses are made to values given within

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 -191-

the emotional experience. Love is an act that is

directed not to values as such or to their realization,
but to the bearer of values. Primarily, human love,
^hen it is moral love, is directed to the person of

the other.
Scheler distinguished various forms of love.
These forms of love corresponded to the fourfold hier­
archy of values which he had delineated in Formalism.
The lowest values are the sensory feelings of the
pleasant and the unpleasant. Scheler declared that
there could be no genuine love of the merely pleasant;
we cannot really "love apple pie." The affective re­
sponse to sense pleasures gives evidence of some
feeling or interest in the sensibly pleasant object,
but there is no love towards the object which is the
bearer of that value, there is no desire to have the
bearer of values fulfill its own higher potentialities.
Feelings of pleasantness may accompany some forms of
love. But if these feelings begin to dominate, love
disappears and the pleasant merely becomes a means to
our own self-satisfaction.
Vital or passionate love, corresponding to the
vital values of health, vigor and nobility, is the
first instance of real love. Sexual love, love of the
noble, authentic friendship, married love and love
within the family are examples of vital love. Vital

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 - 192-

love is the bond of union within life-community.

Scheler's respect for life and for all living things

led him to declare that living things are real bearers
of values and, as such, deserve our respectful con­

sideration— our love. To abuse living things is evil

in itself without any further reference to man or to

persons. Man's love and reverence for his own body

has its source in vital love. Sexual love, another
type of vital love, is not a mere response to sensible

pleasure; as we have seen, Scheler's lengthy discourses

on the sexual act was to emphasize its role in man's
vital union with the totality of life-processes.^

Spiritual values include aesthetic values, the

juridical values of the just and the unjust and pure
knowledge. Corresponding to the spiritual values is
mental love (die seelische Liebe) . Mental love re­
sults in intelligent ties, in cultural and educational

relationships. Mental love is the bond of union in

society.
The fourth and highest type of values in the

scale of values are the religious values of the holy

and the unholy which effect such responses as bliss,

awe and worship. Corresponding to this class of values

"^Much of the essay on shame and most of

Ch. YII in Part Two in Sympathy is discussion of the
full meaning of the sexual act.

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 -193-

is the spiritual love of persons which is a strictly

moral love between persons. Personal love, a sense

of moral solidarity and the knowledge of common salva­

tion is the bond of unity in the person-community.
Between men there can be present all the forms
of love: personal love, mental love and vital love
(and also a sensible, passionate attraction by way of
sense pleasure). These loves can be present in a
number of ways. I can have close intellectual ties
(mental love) with someone who is physically repulsive
to me and at the same time I can have (or have not)
personal love for him. A common plight of the artist

(as depicted) is to fall in real passionate love with

someone who is degrading to him both in mind and in

person. Scheler maintained that these forms of love

are essentially separable, despite the fact that in

actuality they usually occur together. The same term

love is used to designate all three forms of love.
Moral love in the full sense of the term is
related immediately to the value of the person as such.

Personal love is directed immediately to the other

concrete individual person. Here, again, Scheler's
theory on the individuation of persons is paramount.
The other person whom we encounter is irreducible to

anything else except as being himself an absolute,

ultimate concrete center of spiritual acts. Our love

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 -194-

for him goes out exclusively to his unique person.

Love of persons is not only the highest love, hut it
is the basis and the model of all other forms of love.
Love of persons is the primary instance of love, and,
as it were, the primary analogate for all our other

discussions of love. It is on this basis that Scheler

distinguished love from sympathy and from all natural­
istic explanations of love.
First of all, Scheler distinguished love from
benevolence, especially from that benevolence based
upon pity. Benevolence in this sense involves our
exerting ourselves for the material benefit of others,
our wishing others well, as we stand a distance above
them. Through our good works we become satisfied with
our neighbor’s improved welfare. Love, however, is an
act that springs spontaneously between persons. Love
is directed to the very person of the other. While

our neighbor's material welfare may be improved, it

is his very spiritual person that is the subject of

our love.
Scheler1s phenomenological analysis of love
dealt immediately with the concrete acts of love-

experiencings. Therefore, love is no mere disposition

or tendency or habit; love is no abstract theoretical
principle associated with a universal finality. It
is defined in its essence as an act or movement. It

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 -195-

is a spontaneous movement, with, a necessary reference

to values, hut the motion of love itself is directed

to the hearer of values and not to the values them­
selves. A love-act is so directed to the value-hearing
subject that that subject may obtain the highest pos­
sible values suitable to its nature. Thus, if I love
a plant, an animal or a person, I desire for that
individual thing the highest ideal values compatible
with it. This is the meaning of Scheler*s formal

definition of love.
Love is that movement in which every concrete
individual object which is a bearer of values
successfully achieves the highest values pos­
sible for that object according to its ideal
determination. Again, Clove is that movement]
in which it [a concrete individual subject]
attains the ideal value-essence proper to it.56
Hatred, of course, is an act diametrically
opposed to love, but identical with love in its in­
trinsic act-essence. Hatred is not directed to non­

values (I do not properly hate a person's vulgarity)

but to the bearer of values (I hate the person him­
self). In love, I love a person with or without high
values— I love him so that in my loving him he can

^ (Our own translation.) "Liebe ist die

Bewegung, in der jeder konkrete individuelle Gegenstand,
der Werte traegt, zu den fuer ihn und nach seiner
Bestimmung moeglichen hoechsten Werten gelangt; oder
in der er sein ideales Wertwesen, das ihm eigentuemlich
ist, erreicht." Sympathie, 1?4; cf. Sympathy, 161.

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 -196-

achieve the higher values. So also, in hatred, I hate

a person with or without values, but I hate him to
despoil him of his values. If a person be vulgar or

noble I can either love him or hate him.

Scheler completely rejected the common aphorism

that love is blind. Love is not blind: it instills

vision and knowledge where otherwise they are lacking.
If a man seems such that only his mother could love
him, his mother has real love for him only because she
sees in him the dignity of a person who does possess
or can possess the highest of values. Only love can
produce such knowledge. A Christian loves the weak
and the poor, not out of pity or motives of ressenti-
ment, but because he sees that each person is capable

of new and higher types of values.

Scheler's definition of love as an act must be

taken very strictly according to his distinction

between act and function. Act belongs exclusively
within the realm of the spiritual and the personal:
it is not a composite function of the I-body or of
the self.^7 This, then, sharply distinguishes love

from fellow-feeling. Love is a spontaneous act; sym­

pathy is a responsive function. Sympathy involves an

affective reaction to another I: it is, literally, a

57Cf. supra, Ch. II, n. 28.

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 -197-

feeling-with the other I. In German and especially in

English, vocabulary begins to falter. Feelings
(Gefuehle) and affections (Affekte) in this context

refer only to those human activities that necessarily

involve the responsive resonance of the body. Love as
a spiritual act is a "movement of the heart," a
"spiritual emotion." Scheler was satisfied to include

love within the generic term Gemuetsbewegung, but the

normal English translation for this term as emotion
would not resolve the ambiguity. "Love is a movement
of the heart and a spiritual act." (Liebe ist eine
Bewegung des Gemuets und ein geistigen Akt.)^ This
is Scheler*s statement, and his meaning is clear, but
we grope for words to express it. The scholastic mean­
ing of appetite and appetition can be employed in this
generic sense, so that we can speak meaningfully of a
"spiritual act of appetition." This would convey
Scheler's thought fairly well, but in a vocabulary far
removed from his. Most words are contrived to convey
strictly cognitive meaning. It is difficult to define
and describe such non-cognitive acts as acts of love,
acts of reverence, of beauty-appreciation, etc., all

of which belong essentially to the core of person.

Love and fellow-feeling complement each other
in a number of ways. Fellow-feeling is based upon love

^Sympathie, 154; cf. Sympathy. 142.

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 -198-

and varies according to the measure and depth of our

love. Therefore, our sympathy is nobler and of greater
ethical significance if it is feeling based upon vital,

mental or spiritual love. As a matter of fact, we

can sympathize with an individual we do not love, but
even in this case our sympathy rests essentially upon
love, but upon a more generic love, i.e., we love this
man's family, his country, the human race. If we love

some one, we will necessarily feel sympathy for him.

We cannot have hatred and sympathy towards the same
person.
On the other hand, if we sympathize with some­
one, especially if we "feel sorry with" (Mitleid)
someone, without loving that person, we insult him, we

shame him and humiliate him. Nietzsche was correct

when he spoke out against a loveless pity. Schopen­
hauer and others who try to construct a theory of love
based upon pity were surely wrong. All forms of
humanitarianism teach a love for mankind, but a pure
philanthropist has only pity for the individual in­

stances of real people.^ In the 1913 essay of

Ressentiment, Scheler struck out against the subversion

^ T h e last chapter (Ch. XI) of Part One of

Sympathy, "The Relationship of Love and Fellow-Felling,"
is a transition to Part Two, on Love and Hatred.
Sympathie, 152-57; Sympathy, 140-44.

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 -1 9 9 -

of values that this attitude entailed. His 1917

address, "Christian Love and the Twentieth Century,"
continued the defense of love against its false
41
counterfeits.
Among the naturalistic theories of-love,
Scheler classified these four. 1) Those theories that
base sympathy upon imitation, reproduction and empathy,
and, hy way of benevolence, derive love from sympathy.
2) The phylogenetic and positivistic theories that
explain sympathy by reference to the social instinct
and impulse. 3) Theories based upon a special philos­
ophy of history. 4) Freud's then recent ontogenetic
theory of love which Scheler understands as holding
that love is derived wholly from sexuality. Scheler
considered Freud's contribution to be the main buttress
supporting all the other naturalistic theories of
love.42
Much of Scheler's critique employed against
the genetic theories of sympathy could be applied here,
for many of these theories of love were based upon a
theory of sympathy. Very characteristically, Scheler

40
Umsturz, 33-14-7* It is this essay that is
published in theEnglish translation as Ressentiment.
^Ewigen, 357-401; Eternal, 357-402.
42Cf. Ch. V of Part Two of Sympathy. "The
Limitations of the Naturalistic Theory of Love."
Sympathie, 188-92; Sympathy, 175-79*

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 -200-

refused to reduce the purely spiritual phenomenon of

personal love to mere naturalistic, vital instincts.
Naturalists remain blind to values of a personal and
sacred love that transcend their own realm. ”Sublima­

tion" can have no meaning unless a realm of higher

values is posited antecedently to and independently
from, the vital instincts themselves. The "theories
of transference," by which the same love-instincts are

directed to a number of successive objects, fail again

to perceive the essentially spiritual aspects of love,
the various forms of love and how the act of love in
the first instance is necessarily directed exclusively
to a single subject. ^
Scheler vigorously defended the essential
transcendence of love as a spiritual act and its pre­
eminent dignity in its personal and moral dimensions.
Interpersonal love takes on a still deeper dimension
in so far as it touches upon the holy and the sacred.
Love that is directed to another person is in con­
frontation with an ultimate, irreducible factor, an
absolute— and the absolute is one of the qualities of
the holy. Person cannot be objectified in knowledge.

the greater part of Ch. VI of Part Two

of Sympathy for Scheler*s critique of the naturalistic
theories of love. Sympathy. 192-227; Sympathy, 180-
209* Here, again, is revealed Scheler's own under-
standing of Freud.

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 -201-

No more can person be objectified in love. The purely

moral value of a person can be "known" in the ultimate
sense only by the act by which we love him. Love

gives understanding. It is not the scholar or the

theoretical theologian who know the moral worth of the
person of Christ, but his loving disciple who walks in
/[
his Master's footsteps.
Man's love of God is love directed to a person,
the Person of Persons. Therefore, this love does not
follow a conceptualization of God, it is not a benevo­
lent love for God (as if we could improve God's
welfare). Our love of God participates in, is co­
executive with (Mitvollzug) , God's own love of the

world and His love of Himself. Only in the loving of

God do we begin to understand the meaning of His in­
finite essence which is Love. At this point Scheler
introduced the phrases of mystic theology: am are
mundum in Deo, amare Deum in Deo, or simply, amare in

!\ h
Sympathie, 180-81; Sympathy, 167-68. Erich
Fromm, in jhe Art"of Loving: An Inquiry into the
Nature of Love (Hew York: Harper Colophon Books, 1962)
reveals many close ties with Scheler's theory of love.
Martin D'Arcy, S.J., in The Mind and Heart of Love
(New York: Meridian Books, 1956) devotes a whole
chapter (Ch. IX, 251-262) to "Love and Sympathy." He
identifies the two principles of anima and animus
(key terms in his whole exposition of love) with
Scheler's life and spirit. D'Arcy's short descrip­
tions of Scheler's theories are good and his critical
reactions are sound.

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 -202-

Deo. lor him, these phrases describe the full reality

of things.^
The religious dimension of man is not a mere
epiphenomenon or a late evolutionary development. In

the very core of their being, all finite persons neces­

sarily are orientated towards God. In God, each finite
person is to realize the ideal of his own eternal voca­
tion. Nor is this the sole concern of the individual.
In God we become conscious of a common unity among all
persons for salvation (Heilssolidaeritaetsbewusstsein) .
"The individual responsibility of persons stands or
falls along with their collective responsibility (which

they have from the beginning, and, cannot spontaneously

\ 46
assume)." "To love in God" effects a non-cosmic love
of persons in a manner the Oriental mystics never
attained. By "loving in God," the Christian can love

all men individually and collectively, but without the

cold universality of humanitarian benevolence. Through
this "love in God" there results the principle for the
solidarity of all moral being, a moral love between
47
persons, which is the basis for person-community. 1

^Sympathie, 177-78; Sympathy, 164— 65*

46
Sympathy, 129. "Selbstverantwortlichkeit und
urspruengliche (nlcht erst frei selbstverantwortlich
uebemommene) Mitverantwortlichkeit der Person stehen
eben und fallen zusammen.11 Sympathie, 143.

^Sympathie, 178; Sympathy, 165*

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 -203-

4. Person-Community

Scheler's theory of person-community is the

capstone of his philosophy of man and of person. One
explicit discussion on community appeared in Eternal,
in the address "Christian Love and the (Twentieth
Century." This address was delivered in 1917; it
synthesized many isolated discussions on community
scattered through Formalism, Sympathy and Ressentiment.
Scheler's study of community was, of course, a
phenomenological investigation. He sought to know the
essence (Wesen) of community and its intrinsic ends
(Ziel). The eternal, ideal essence of a rational per­
son includes not only that person's self-conscious
responsibility for himself, but also his co-responsi­
bility for and with others in so far as they are, live

and act together as members of person-community. All

possible finite spiritual beings (including the angels
and the souls of the dead) by their essence are members
of this community.
There is a consciousness of community-member-
ship, a "spiritual intention" (geistige Intention)
directed towards community, independently from the
contingent fact whether a man actually lives in com­

munity or is a solitary recluse. Robinson Crusoe is

the recurring example of a man without actual fellows,

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 -2 0 4 -

but who remains essentially a community-being. In

other words the definition of man as a social animal

(Aristotle's "political animal") is not gained by a

historical, sociological or evolutionary study.
Through a series of phenomenological reductions, the
full meaning of man, in the sense of transcendental
psychology, is that the essence of man includes man's
intentional-community-orientation. "As certainly as
48
I am is there a 'we,'" or "I belong to a 'we.'"
Therefore, man is not a communal being only
in reference to his body-animal nature. The many facts
of physical birth, of infantile helplessness, of the
two sexes and of various gregarious instincts support
this obvious truth. But man is a member of community

also in his rational and spiritual nature.

The spiritual and personal community of man exists
in its own right and has its own origin. In both
right and origin it is superior to the biological
community.49

Scheler defended the transcendence of spiritual com­

munity by employing the same line of argument which he

used in defending the whole realm of spirit as irre­

ducible to the lower levels of being.

HR
Eternal. 373-74. "So wahr Ich bin, so wahr
sind wir, oder gehoere ich zu einem *wir.'" Ewigen,
3?l-72.
^Ete r n a l , 374. "Des Menschen Geistes— und
Persongemeinschaft ist vielmehr eigenen und hoeheren
Rechts und eigenen, und zwar hoeheren TJrsprungs als
diese 'Lebensgemainschaft.'" Ewigen, 373*

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 -205-

Scheler continued tlie phenomenological investi­

gation of man's consciousness of his membership in a

spiritual community. This consciousness does not

depend upon our concrete historical circumstances.
Furthermore, the more we consider the visible communi­
ties to which we belong (family, city, nation, circle
of friends), the more we come to understand that not
one of these earthly communities can ever satisfy the
full demands of our reason and heart for a more perfect

spiritual-personal community. In this yearning there

is a supreme kind of love of God, long before we con­

ceive of the idea of God. Scheler accepted this

"sociological proof" for God" as genuine evidence

(Erweis) for God's existence. The evidence here,

rising exclusively from our idea of the community of
personal, spiritual beings, is original evidence, inde­
pendent from other proofs, but it leads to the same
intrinsic end (Ziel) in its discovery of God.^
The community-experience of persons leads them

to the knowledge of the perfect community they experi­

ence in their relation to the Person of God. Not only
is this the real matter of the case, but Scheler made
the next step. All community-experience is incomplete

until it is had within the background consciousness of

God, in Whom the supreme and final community of all

5°Ewigen. 573-74; Eternal. 575-76.

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 -206-

spiritual beings receive its fulfillment. "It is in

and through God that for the first time we are truly
51
bound in spirit to one another."-'
It is this principle that functions in many
key parts of Sympathy and through all of Ressentiment.
This is the case of amare in Deo as applied to personal
community. Persons love one another fully only to the
extent that their love is orientated to their common

locus in the Godhead. It is here that we become con­

scious of a common salvation. It is here that a non-
cosmic love of persons is first possible. Christian
love is the perfect embodiment of such a real love of
concrete individual persons, because in each person
we recognize our fellowship with him in God.
Such a line of reasoning was by no means an

empty piece of sentimental moralizing for Scheler.

That persons possess a mutual community-consciousness
in God was an integral part of his metaphysics. His
theory for the individuation of persons left itself

open to the attack that this was a theory of absolute

metaphysical individualism, in which each person is a

type of Leibnizian monad, complete in itself. On the

other hand, strict -vitalism and forms of Oriental

^Eternal, 375* "In Ikm und durch Ihn sind

wir wahrhaftig geistig auch erst under uns verbunden."
Ewigen, 374-.

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 -207-

pantheism taught a pure monism, in which the indi­

vidual persons lost all concrete substantiality
(Daseinssubstantialitaet der geistigen Person).
Scheler's theory of sympathy and of love retained
both elements: the individuality of persons but a
mutual living together between them. His theory of
personal community bases man's ultimate community­
consciousness upon the essential metaphysical union
52
between all individual persons in the Person of God.x
One aspect of this communal unity which we
have already seen is the sense of collective respon­
sibility men feel for one another and for their whole
social group. Individually, man is responsible for

his own vocation which he finds only in God. But,

further, man's sense of community in God makes him

originally responsible for all men. Collective re­

sponsibility carries with it a sense of collective
merit and collective guilt. We feel ourselves truly
co-responsible before God for the entire moral and

religious condition of the collective moral group.^

The world of finite moral persons rests upon
an intrinsically solidary unity which Scheler called

"the principle of solidarity." In Formalism, Scheler

^ Sympathie, 142-43; Sympathy, 128-29.

^ Ewigen, 375-75; Eternal, 376-77.

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 -2 0 8 -

declared that the most basic -unifying principle of the

Gesamtperson (of all finite persons) is this intrinsic
moral-religious bond of unity which all persons feel
towards one another. The principle of moral solidarity
among persons is an essential and a priori factor of
54
all personal relatedness in community.
For Scheler, person-community serves as the
fundamental basis for all later social relations. The
various political theories of social contract, the
social-economic schemes of classes, guilds and estates,
the religious theories concerning man's relationship
to God, are so many instances of empty theorizing if
they do not accept the original communal nature of man.

Theories of man's radical individualism fail totally

to account for man's social nature.
Moral solidarity of finite persons in community
becomes for Scheler, in his phenomenological investiga­
tion, a basic principle arrived at through natural
reason. But in his theistic-Catholic period, he also
declared that this became the fundamental idea for the
Christian teaching of original sin, of collective re­
demption in Christ and of the unity of the people of
God in the Church as members of Christ's body.^

^Formalismus, 537-4-0.

^ Ewigen, 377; Eternal, 378» Perhaps the most

obvious cases where Schelerrs thoughts have been in­
corporated within the thought of a Catholic theologian

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 -2 0 9 -

Scheler's study of the social emotions of

sympathy, shame and love found its fulfillment in

his description of personal love through moral soli­
darity in person-community. Person-community tran­

scends the purely biological and vitalistic community.

But neither is it the bare intellectual association
of society. All the best elements of spirit, in its

transcendence and in its affective involvement in

being and salvation, are included in Scheler’s theory

of person-community.

are the two small works of Guardini, Vom Sinn der

Kirche (Mainz: Matthias-Gruenewald, 1933) and Yom
Geist der Liturgie (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder,
193*0 • These two works were translated as one volume,
The Church and the Catholic and the Spirit of the
Liturgy (New lork: Sheed & Vard, 194-0;.

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 Chapter Six

CONCLUSION
Page

1. Attempted Synthesis.............211 •
2. Critical Summary ............ 217

3. Pinal Comments on Community . . 220

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 CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

This concluding chapter will have three parts.

The first part will attempt to give a unified, sys­

tematized schema of most of the fundamental principles
functioning in Scheler's thought. Because of the
diffusiveness of his work and the shifts of thought

during his lifetime, a simple schema of Scheler's

thought is highly problematic at best. Part Two will

briefly summarize the major parts of our study on

Scheler's phenomenology of community and add a number

of reflective comments. The last part will comment

upon Scheler's thought as a whole and give suggested

lines for future study on Scheler.

1. Attempted Synthesis

Most of Scheler's writings are diffuse both in

style and in content. At times, however, he attempted

in a few brief strokes to unite and outline vast

amounts of material in a few simple schemata. At
first sight, it would seem that most of these schemata
coincided with and complemented one another. But upon
closer investigation many difficulties arise. Scheler

- 211-

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 -212-

himself must have known that some of these brief out­

lines could not be easily reconciled with one another.
One of the most fundamental and lasting prin­
ciples in all of Scheler1s thought is his contention
that values are Immediately given in an objective,
permanent, hierarchical scale. This teaching from
Formalism underwent no appreciable change throughout
his life. The scale of values was fourfold, ranking
from the lowest to the highest.
1. Sensory feelings of the pleasant and the
unpleasant and of the useful.
2. Vital values— health, vigor, nobility.
3. Spiritual values.

a. esthetic values.
b. juridical values of just and unjust.
c. pure knowledge.

4. Seligious values of the holy and the

unholy. Bliss, awe, worship.

According to Scheler1s metaphysics, the two

attributes of being are the vital impulse (Drang) and
spirit (Geist) , the real and ideal factors of being.
The two lower values (the pleasant and vital values)
are reducible to the life-impulse; the phenomena of
spirit arises with the two higher values (the spiritual
and religious values).

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 -215-

In Sympathy Scheler defined the four forms of

love according to this same hierarchy of values.
1. No genuine "love” of the pleasant. A mere
affective response to value: a feeling

or interest.
2. Vital or passionate love. Sexual love.
Love of the noble, friendship, marriage,
family.
3. Mental love. Intellectual ties. Cultural
and educational relationships.

4. Spiritual love of persons. Only love of

persons is moral love.

This is parallel with the four forms of social life.

1. Herd or Mass. United by emotional infec­
tion and unconscious and unwilling

following.
2. Life-community. A conscious living and
feeling together. A natural unity,

' achieving spontaneously the goals of

the group.
3. Society. An artificial, deliberate and

purposefully constructed group, with

laws and statements of its goals. Indi­
viduals create society by contracts and

laws.

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 -214-

4. Person-community. Collective person.

Moral solidarity -under God.

Co-responsibility, co-merit, co-guilt.

In the study on shame in 1913 Scheler made a

similar division of the forms of shame.

1. There is no form of shame at the inorganic

level.
2. Feeling of shame over one's own physical
self-integrity, over one's own body and

sexual organs.
5. Feeling of self-integrity at the mental or
spiritual level. Feeling of intellectual
inferiority before experts.
4. Personal or spiritual sense of shame— awe,
reverence and humility— before values,
being, God and other persons.

Also in Models and Leaders, written at about the same

time, Scheler made a fourfold division of ideal types

of persons.
1. The Producer, the Provider, who makes
things pleasant for life or directs to
what is useful for life.
2. Hero. Protector of noble values.
3. The Genius. Holding high spiritual values.
4. The Holy Person, the founder of religion,

the saint.

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 -215-

These five schemata all appear in the early

works of Scheler and quite simply complement one
another. However, they all contain the slightly

ambiguous division between spiritual values and reli­

gious values. At the level of spiritual values
(mental love, society, the genius) there occur phe­
nomena that are genuine expressions of spirit, but
which seem to lack all affective and emotional dimen­
sions. We saw this ambiguity in Scheler's definition
of philosophy. If philosophy is a purely mental,
intellectual activity, it is not yet a totally personal
involvement in being, it is not yet salvational, it is

not yet the activity of a full person.

In Man's Place, a late work, Scheler made this

simple division.
1. The inorganic.
2. The organic.
3. The sentient: sensation and consciousness.

4. The Person.

The basic drive (Drang) exists at the inorganic level

as unorganized within centers of atomic energy. Only

at the organic level is there an inner being, a for-

and-in-themselves being (ein Fuersich— und Innesein) ,
where the common vital impulse (Gefuehlsdrang) occurs.

Man participates in this biological drive towards

growth and reproduction at the vegetative level of

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 -216-

his "being. At the sentient level occur instincts,

habits (through association and conditioned reflex)

and practical intelligence. Brute animals are capable

of these activities, and, therefore, this class of
phenomena is not to be ascribed to spirit. With

spirit there is the intellectual objectification of

reality and a consciousness of Self. The center of

spiritual acts is the Person.

At this point, Scheler's clearly defined cate­

gories tend to disintegrate. Another division of the

phenomena within man occurs in Man's Place.
1. The inorganic. Man's participation in the
chemical and physical properties of
material things.
2. The organic. Man's vegetative, biological

life.
J. The I, the body-I, the experienced I. The

I-functions as intrinsically and essen­

tially related to body-I-experiences.

4. Person. Center of spiritual acts. Can

objectify reality and have consciousness

of the I. Acts occur here which tran­
scend body-space-time dimensions. Also

affective acts such as love, bliss, awe.

This last schema cannot be simply super-imposed

upon the former ones. The body-I, as such, is not the

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 -217-

source of spiritual values, of mental love, or that

which is guided by genius. Yet, there is a sense in
which the person of man (as distinct from that of the
angels or of God) confronts his own Self and his
fellow spirit-in-body-men only at the body-I level.
All the difficulties in understanding Scheler*s doc­
trine on spirit, person and I meet at this point,
along with his definitions of philosophy, metaphysics
and the salvational knowledge of religion. It may be
asked whether Scheler ever successfully resolved the
difficulties of a Cartesian dualism, of a Kantian
phenomenal self and noumenal soul, by all his maneu­
vering. These difficulties were inherent in Scheler's
thought and remained unresolved at the end.

2. Critical Summary

Scheler's personality was injected into his

thought, not only during his life, but also by his

students after his death. A study of his personality
is a necessary part of the study of his thought.
Nevertheless, the controlled, critical study of his
writings reveals a strong line of inner consistency
and strength. If his late meta-anthropological
pantheism seems to be an extreme position, it was well
prepared for by his early choice of principles and

methodology in philosophy.

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 -2 1 8 -

Similar to most of the phenomenologists,

Scheler was pre-occupied with genuine metaphysical

questions. He ascribed to being the two attributes

of life and. spirit. For Scheler, these metaphysical

questions were centered in the problem of man and, as
a result, man himself became bifurcated in and through

these two dualistic principles. The final unity of

man in its person-I, person-body-I relationship

remained open to question.

Scheler took up the traditional phenomenologi­
cal attack against psychologism in setting forth his
theories of sympathy and of man's knowledge of other
men. He sought to understand the meaningfulness of

man's social emotions, rather than to explain these

emotions scientifically in their causal genesis.
According to Scheler, our primary awareness of others
is an originary given of consciousness; the world of
the communal "we" is essentially given prior to the
knowledge of my own individualized Self or the knowl­
edge of other contingent factual I's. This is a bold
and refreshing answer to the question concerning the

perception of others. Variations of such a theory are

being accepted today by some psychologists, as well as

by many phenomenologists.
In principle, according to Scheler, person and
its spiritual acts cannot be objectified in knowledge.

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 - 219
-

A knowledge of and a living together with other per­

sons is achieved only by participating in the being of
the other person by co-achieving, pre-performing and
re-executing our own spiritual acts along side those

of the alien person in person-community. The non-

object ifiable character of person is a particularly
valuable and influential contribution by Scheler to
contemporary thought.
Scheler's phenomenology also led to studies in
sociology where his formulation of the sociology of
knowledge became very influential. He described four
forms of sociality (the mass, life-community, society
and person-community) in an attempt to synthesize his

dualistic metaphysical principles of life and spirit

into a social anthropology. This division is somewhat
contrived and artificial; the individually divided

categories are extremely difficult to verify.

Scheler's study on sympathy remains a genuinely

worthwhile contribution to our knowledge of man. His

theories of love and shame are not only consistent with

his own thought, but also reveal some fine insights

into the understanding of these social feelings. His

description of person-community is a gallant effort at

synthesizing all the better elements of life and spirit,
of intellect and heart, of knowledge and love between
finite persons and with God, the Person of Persons.

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 -220-

Nevertheless, the theory speaks more from the heart

than from the mind; it is more of a wish conjecture,
than a philosophical description of reality. Surely
one must question the ontological status of such a
"collective person" (Gesamtperson) . One wonders if
Scheler seriously proposed to show that the unity of
all the spiritual acts in a person-community was such
that they constituted a real person. In what way is

such a collective person in its unified constitution

analogous to the unified constitution of a single
person? If Scheler held both types of persons to
possess an identical ontological status, one wonders
all the more about the final unity and metaphysical
ground for person itself.

3. Final Comments on Community

Scheler's study of community is a phenome­

nological study of the very essence of community, to

discover its essential forms and intrinsic ends. The
community most proper to man is person-community, which
results from the essential activity of spirit in man.
It is inherent in the eternal, ideal essence of man

that he is outwardly conscious of community relations

to others. According to Scheler, man's intentional
relatedness to others is more fundamental, is a more
originary given datum of consciousness, than the

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 -221-

knowledge of his own individuality. Therefore, the

"we" of community is prior to my individual "I." This

description of person-community is made independently
from all considerations of man's biological needs, his

evolutionary origins, or his factual, historical

situation. As spirit is essentially superior to and

independent of life, so is person-community above and

free from life-community.

Person-community finds its fulfillment in the

Person of God. It is in and through God that for the
first time we are truly bound in spirit to one another.
Here is the source of the principle of moral solidarity,
the principle that we live together in community
through reciprocal moral-religious obligations towards
one another, as well as a co-responsibility for the
moral good of the whole collective group before God.

There is a reciprocity of love between persons, accord­

ing to Scheler*s theory of love, wherein there is not

love for another person as an object of knowledge, but
in loving another we participate in the being of
another. In this way, all finite persons in community

participate in the being of God. This is a. primary

application of Augustine's phrase, so loved by Scheler,
that we are to love the world and to love one another
"in God" (amare mundum in Deo).

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 -222-

One question forcibly presents itself.

Scheler's theory of community was devised during his

early Catholic period. It has explicit dependence

upon Christian faith in creation and redemption and,

in the very least, was based upon theistic principles.

Scheler's later development in metaphysics denied
theism in favor of the idea of a meta-anthropological
emergence of the Deity. How did this new theory of
God-becoming-God-in-man affect Scheler's theory of

community?
Scheler himself, of course, did not live to
re-work all his earlier philosophy into the schema of

his new metaphysics. He published no later views on

community explicitly. However, we have seen that his

later metaphysical views had many earlier roots and

that the development in thought was not nearly as
revolutionary as it may seem. A careful restudy of
this teaching of amare in Deo and the moral-religious

solidarity of man in God may show that not only is

this view compatible with an emergent God, but
Scheler's early theory of community may have served as
one of the stepping stones to a restatement of his whole

metaphysics.
Man essentially is a religious animal. Reli­
gion is no late phenomenon in the natural evolution of

man, but as soon as man is conscious of himself, he is

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 -223-

conscious of his dependence on God. Nor is the reli­

gious experience an exclusively individual experience.
In its essence it is originally a group experience:

primitive tribes as a single person undertake the wor­

ship of their deities. This is simply another aspect
of the solidarity principle, emphasizing the religious
implications of our moral solidarity of the community
in God. All religious phenomena are spiritual in
essence. This is another concrete instance of the
spirit transcending space-time material conditions and
even the limitations of our own bodies. Scheler was
propounding all this throughout his Catholic years.
It would seem that, after 1923» Scheler would say that
man’s experience as a moral community in God is nothing
more than one of the concrete instances where God
begins to be realized within the living experiences
of man.

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 B I B U OGRAPHY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Primary Sources

Each volume of the carefully edited Gesammelte

Verke of Max Scheler includes the complete list of

Scheler's works, along with the proposed outline for

their eventual complete publication in the Collected
Works. The latest volumes of this set contain some
minor corrections in the bibliography as Schelerian
scholarship continues to perfect itself and as minor
changes in the outline of publication occur. Noble
(Eternal, 457) made a literal translation but an
incomplete presentation of this bibliography as it
had been published in Ewigen in 1954. Noble included
English translations of Scheler published before I960.
Our purpose is to correct Noble's deficiencies,
to make a more complete study of Schelerian bibliog­
raphy and to bring it up to date (Spring, 1964) • All
the English titles given within the entry are our own
translations of the German title under immediate con­
sideration. The titles of published English transla­
tions may differs these are cited in full in their
proper place. If the particular volume of the
Gesammelte Werke has already appeared, full bibliog­
raphical reference is made to the volume. If no date

-225-

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 -2 2 6 -

of publication or further bibliographical details are

given about a volume, that particular volume of the
Gesammelte Werke has not been published to date. The
dates of original writing of many of the smaller
places are gathered from the Editor's (Maria Scheler)
enlightening Postwords to each volume. Various other
annotations are our own.

1. Beitraege zur Eeststellung der Beziehung zwischen

den logischen und ethischen Prinzipien. Jena: Vopelius,
1899* Gesammelte Werke. Bd. 1.
Studies towards the Determination of the Relations
between Logical and Ethical Principles.
Doctoral dissertation for the University of
Jena in 1897*

2. "Arbeit und Ethik," Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie

und philosophische Eritikl 114 (Heft 2), 1899*
Ges. W ., Bd. 1.
"Work and Ethics"
See #19i this was reprinted in unchanged form in
the first edition of Soziologie in 1923-24.

3. Die transszendentale und die psychologische

Methode. Jena: Duerr, 1900. Second, unrevised edi­
tion: Leipzig: Pelix Meiner, 1922. Ges. W ., Bd. 1.

The Transcendental and Psychological Methods.

Habilitationsschrift for the University of
Jena in 1899*

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 -227-

4. "Ueber Selbsttaeuschungen," Zeitschrift fuer

Pathopsychologie. 1 (Heft 1). Leipzig: Engelmann,
1911. Ges. W .. Bd. 3 - Umsturz.
"On Self-Delusions"
See #10: this essay was enlarged and re­
titled "Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis" -
"The Idols of Self-Knowledge" — and re­
printed in Umsturz in 1915 &Q-d 1919*

5. "Ueber Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil.

Ein Beitrag zur Pathologie der Kultur," Zeitschrift
fuer Pathopsychologie. 1 (Heft 2, 3)• Leipzig:
Engelmann, 1912. Ges.W., Bd. 3 - Umsturz.
"On Ressentiment and Moral Value-Judgment. A
study in the Pathology of Culture."
See #10: this work was enlarged and re­
titled "Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der
Moralen" — "Ressentiment in the Construc­
tion of Morals" — and re-printed in
Umsturz in 1915 aud 1919*
M. Scheler, Ressentiment. Edited, with
an Introduction by Lewis A. Coser.
Translated by William A. Holdheim.
New York: The Free Press of Glencoe,
1961. 201 pp.

This is a translation of the

Umsturz article as it appeared in
Band 3 of the Gesammelte Werke.
It is admittedly a free transla-
tion, but faithful to the thought
of Scheler.
— — , L'homme du ressentiment.
Traduction P. J. de Menasce. Paris:
Gallemaid, 1955*

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 -2 2 8 -

6. Zur Phaenomenologie und Theorie der Sympathie-

gefuehle mad von Liebe und Hass. Mit einem Anhang
ueber den Grund zur Annahme der Existenz des fremden
Ich. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1913. Ges. W ., Bd. 1.
Towards the Phenomenology and Theory of the Feel­
ing of Sympathy and on Love and Hatred. With an
appendix concerning the basis for the assumption
of the existence of the alien self.
See #18: this was enlarged under a new
title in 1925.

7. "Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale

Wertethik. Mit besonderer Beruecksichtigung der Ethik
I . Kant." Jahrbuch fuer Philosophie und phenome-
nologische Forschung. Part One: volume One of
JahrbucEI Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1913* Part Two:
volume $wo of Jahrbuch, 1916.
"Formalism in Ethics and Material Value-Ethics.
With Special Reference to the Ethics of I. Kant."
(The translation of materiale is highly con­
tested.)

First edition of parts One and Two together,

same title, with a Foreword. Halle: Max
Niemeyer, 1916. Second unrevised edition,
with sub-title: Neuer Versuch der
Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus,"
and a second Foreword. Halle: Max Niemeyer,
1921.
"New Attempt for the foundation of an
ethical personalism." Third unrevised edi­
tion, with a third Foreword and an index.
Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1927*
This work was the first to be published
in the Gesammelte Werke (Band 2). It
appeared as the fourth edition, based
upon the second.

M. Scheler, Per Formalismus in der Ethik und

die materiale Werteth£ET isfeuer Versuch der
Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus.
Vierte durchgesehene Auflage. Herausgegeben
mit einem neuen Sachregister von Maria
Scheler. Bern: Francke* 1954-• 676 pp.

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 -2 2 9 -

This edition reprinted all three Fore­

words. Within its appendices it
included a Postword by the editor,
Maria Scheler (Scheler1s wife), a list
of textual emendations, a series of
annotations and footnotes, a bibliog­
raphy and a new index of topics and an
index of persons. A similar set of
appendices is included in each of the
separate volumes of the Gesammelte Werke.
M. Scheler, Le Formalisme en
ethique et l'ethique materiale des
valeursl traduction &e (randillacT
Paris: Gallimard, 1955*
Spanish translation in 1940.

8. "Ethik. Ein Forschungsbericht." Jahrbuecher der

Philosophie. Eine kritische Uebersicht der S’hilosopiiie
der Gegenwart. Edited by Max Frischeisen-Koehler.
Vol. II. Berlin, 1914. Ges. W ., Bd. 1.
"Ethics. A Research Report."

9» Per Genius des Kriegesund der deutsche Krieg.

Leipzig: Verlag der Weissen Buecher, l9l5»Second and
third editions, ibid., 1916 and 1917* Ges. W ., Bd. 4.
The Spirit of War and the German War.

10. Abhandlungen und Aufsaetze. In two volumes.

Leipzig: Verlag der Weissen Buecher, 1915*

Essays and Articles.

Second edition under the title: Vom Umsturz
der Werte. Leipzig: Neue Geist-Verlag, 19l9«
On the Overthrow of Values
Third edition, ibid.. 1923.
The fourth edition appeared as volume three
of the Gesammelte Werke.
M. Scheler, Vom Umsturz der Werte.
Abhandlungen~und Aufsaetze. Vierte
durchgesehene Auflage. Herausgegeben
von Maria Scheler. Bern: Francke, 1955*
450 pp•

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 - 230-

This edition reprints the three

Forewords from the first three
editions. The work is published
as one volume and contains the
usual appendices. The contents
are:
1. "Zur Rehabilitierung der Tugend,"
13-31• "Towards the rehabilita­
tion of virtue." This article
first appeared under a pseudonym
in die Weissen Blaetter, 1 (Nr. 4),
Dec., l^IFI
2. "Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der
Moralen," 33-147. "Ressentiment
in the construction of morals."
See #5 for full bibliographical
details.
3 . "Zum Phaenomen des Tragischen,"
149-69. "Towards the phenomenon
of the tragic." Appeared in Die
Veissen Blaetter, 1 (Nr. 8),
April, 1914 as "tTeber das
Tragische."
English translation: "On the
Tragic," translated by Bernard
Stambler. Cross Currents, 4
(Winter, 1 9 W 7 ’ITS-91^
4. "Zur Idee des Menschen," 171-95*
"Towards the idea of man." Its
first appearance was in the 1915
edition.
5 . "Zum Sinn der Frauenbewegung,"
197-211. "Towards the meaning of
feminism." Originally published
in Per Panther, 2. Leipzig:
Panther-Verlag, 1913.
6. "Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis,"
213-92. "The idols of self-
knowledge." See #4.

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 -231-

7. "Die Psychologie der sogenannten

Rentenhysterie und der rechte Kampf
gegen das Uebel," 293-309. "The
psychology of the so-called
hysteria for security and the true
fight against evil." First
appeared in Archiv fuer Sozial-
wissenschaft und SozialpoIltiE,
Bd. 3? (Heft 2)7 Sept. 1913.
8. "Versuche einer Philosophie des
Lehens, Nietsche-Dilthey-Bergson,"
311-39• "Attempts towards a
philosophy of life. Nietsche-
Dilthey-Bergson." First appeared
in Die Weissen Blaetter, 1 (Nr. 6),
N o v r ' i g i y : ----------------

9. "Der Bourgeois — Der Bourgeois

und die religioesen Maechte — Die
Zukunft des Kapitalismus," 341-95*
"The Bourgeois — the Bourgeois
and the forces of religion — The
future of capitalism." These three
essays appeared in Die Weissen
Blaetter during 1915^ ‘

11. Krieg und Aufbau. Leipzig: Verlag der Weissen

Buecher, 1916. Ges. W ., Bd. 6. War and Reconstruc-
tion.
See #19: almost all these essays were re-published
in Soziologie in 1923-24. Bach essay must be
checked separately. Since this volume (Band 6)
of the Gesammelte Werke has not been published
yet, the many bibliographical details are still
not available.
1. "Der Krieg als Gesamterlebnis." The war as
a collective experience.
2. "Ueber oestliches und westliches Christentum."
"Concerning Eastern and Western Christianity."
Reprinted in Soziologie; see #19*
3. "Das Nationals im Denken Frankreichs."
"Military nationalism in the thinking of
France." Reprinted in Soziologie; see #19*

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 -232-

4. "Ueber die Nationideen der grossen Nationen."

On. the national ideas of the great nations."
Reprinted; see #19•
5. "Bemerkungen zum Geiste und den ideelen
Grundlagen der Demokratien der grossen
Nationen." "Remarks on the spirit and the
ideal bases of democracy of the great
nations." Reprinted in the first edition
of Soziologie.
6. "Ueber Gesinnungs und Zweckmilitarismus.
Eine Studie zur Psychologie des
Militarismus." "On the dispositions and
goals of militarism. A study in the
psychology of militarism." Reprinted in
the first edition of Soziologie.
7. "Soziologische Neuorientierung und die
Aufgabe der deutschen Katholiken nach dem
Kriege." "Sociological reorientation and
the task of German Catholics after the war."
Reprinted in the first edition of Soziologie.
8. "Vom Sinn des leides." "On the meaning of
suffering." Reprinted and amplified; see
#19 — also for French translation.
9. "Liebe und Erkenntnis." "Love and Knowl­
edge." Reprinted; see #19 — also for
French translation.

12. Die Ursache des Deutschenhasses. Eine national-

paedagogische Eroerterung. Leipzig: Kurt Wolff, 1917*
Second edition: Leipzig: Neue Geist-Verlag,
1919* Ges. W ., Bd, 4.
The Causes of the Hatred of Germany. A dis­
cussion for national instruction.

13• Von Zwei deutschen Krankheiten. Number 6 of

Der Leuchter.

Two German Diseases

Reprinted in Soziologie; see #19*

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 -233-

14. Vom Ewigen im Menschen. Heligioese Erneuerung.

First edition (in one volume): Leipzig: Neue Geist-
Verlag, 1921.
On the Eternal in Man. Religious Renewal.
Second edition (in two half-volumes) , with
a larger Foreword: Leipzig: Neue Geist-
Verlag, 1923*
Third edition (popular edition, abridged,
in one volume): Berlin: Neue Geist-Verlag,
1933-
Fourth edition appeared as one volume,
Volume Five, of the Gesammelte Werke.
M. Scheler, Vom Ewigen im Menschen.
Vierte durchgesehene Auflage.
Herausgegeben von Maria Scheler.
Bern: Franeke, 1954-•
1. "Reue und Wiedergeburt,11 27-59*
"Repentance and Rebirth." First
appeared entitled "Zur Apologetik
der Reue" in Summa. 1 (Nr. lj,
Hellerauer Verlag, 1917* but all
the copies of this short-lived
periodical have been lost.
Translated into French:
"Repentir et renaissance."
M. Scheler, Le Sens de la
Souffranee. Suivi de deux
autres essai. Traduit de
l'allemand par Pierre
Klossowski. Paris: Aubier,
1936. Editions Montaigne.
73-135-
2. "Vom Wesen der Philosophie und die
moralischen Bedingungen des
philosophischen Erkennens," 61-99.
"The Nature of Philosophy and the
moral conditions for philosophical
knowledge." Also appeared in
Summa in 1917*

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 -234-

3. "Probleme der Religion," 101-354.

"Problems of Religion." The in­
troductory section appeared in
Hochland in October, 1918. The
rest of study was printed in
Ewigen for the first time.
4. "Die christliche Liebesidee und
die gegenwaertige Welt," 355-401.
"The Christian idea of love and
the contemporary world." The
manuscript of this essay dates
from 1917*
5. "Vom kulturellen Wiederaufbau
Europas," 403-47. "The cultural
reconstruction of Europe." This
is a revised and expanded form of
an essay from Hochland, 1918.

M. Scheler, On the Eternal in Man.

Translated by Bernard Noble. London:
SCM Press, Ltd., I960. 480 pp.
Contains a Foreword by August Brunner,
a Note on the Author by I. M. Bochenski
and a translation of all the appendices
from Band 5 of the Gesammelte Werke.
The translation is uniformly good. The
contents are as in Ewigen but some of
the titles are more loosely translated
in the body of the text.

15 • "Universitaet und Volkhochschule." A contribution

to the anthology Zur Soziologie des Volksbildungswesens,
edited by Leopold v. Wiese. This was Volume One of
the Publications for the Research Institute for Social
Science in Cologne (See #20). Muenchen: Ducker u.
Humbolt, 1921, Ges. W ., Bd. 6.

"The University and the People's College."

Reprinted in Wissensformen; see #22.

16. "Die deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart,"

Deutsches Leben der Gegenwart. Edited by P. Witkop.
Berlin: Verlag der Bueckerfreunde, 1922. Ges. W ., Bd. 7«
"German Philosophy Today."

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 -235-

17* Valter Rathenau, Eine Vuerdigung. Koeln: Morcan-

Block, 1922. Collaborated with. Eduard Heimann and
Arthur Baumgarten in this tribute to the thought of
his friend. Ges. V., Bd. 6 , Soziologie, 361-76.
Cf. # 19.
Valter Rathenau, A Tribute.

18. Vesen und Formen der Sympathie. 2. vermehrte

Auflage der "Sympathiegefuenle." Bonn: Friedr. Cohen,
1923, Ges. V .. Bd. 7 .
The Nature and Forms of Sympathy. Second, en­
larged edition of ''The Feeling of Sympathy.”
This, then, is the second edition of the
1913 work on sympathy. (See #6 above.)
This is now accepted as the working edition.

Third and fourth editions, ibid., 1926 and 1929*

Fifth edition: Frankfurt/Main: Schulte-Bulmke,
1948.

M. Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy. Trans­

lated from the German by Peter Heath. Vith
a general introduction to Max Scheler's Vork
by V. Stark. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1954. i-liv; 1-274. This work in­
cludes Scheler's prefaces to the first,
second and third editions, as well as Maria
Scheler's Introductory Note to the fifth
edition. Index topics and of names.
This is a translation of the fifth edi­
tion; a rather free translation, but
faithful to the meaning.
, Nature et forme de la sympathie.
Traduction Lefebvre.
Paris: Payot, 1928.

A Spanish translation appeared in 1943.

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 -236-

19. Schriften zur Soziologie und Weltanschuungslehre.

In four small volumes. Leipzig: Neue Geist-Verlag,
1923-24.

The second edition appeared as volume six of the

Gesammelte Werke. M. Scheler, Shriften zur
Soziologie und~V?eltanschauungslehre. Zweite,
durchgesehene Auflage. Hit Zusaetzen und
Kleineren veroeffentlichungen aus der Zeit der
"Shriften” herauggegehen mit einem Anhang von
Maria Scheler. Bern: Francke, 1963. 455 PP.
Contributions to Sociology and the Theory of
"Veit anschauungT”
This is a compilation of many previously published
articles (especially those during the War) and a
few new articles.
I. "Moralia"

1. "Weltanschauungslehre, Soziologie und

Weltanschauungssetzung," 13-26. "Sociology
and the theory and the plane of
Weltanschauung."

2. "Ueber die positivistische Geschichts-

philosophie des Wissens," 27-35*
"Concerning the historical philosophy of
knowledge of the Positivists."

3. "Vom Sinn des Leides," 36-72. "On the mean­

ing of suffering."
An expanded reprinting of the essay of
1916; see #11. M. Scheler, "Le Sens de
la Souffrance.” La Sens de la
Souffrance. Suive de deux autres essai.
Traduit de l'allemand par Pierre
Klossowski. Paris: Aubier, 1936.
Editions Montaigne, pp. 1-71.
4. "Vom Verrat der Freude," 73-76. "On the
betrayal of joy."

5* "Llebe und Erkenntnis," 77-98* "Love and

knowledge." A r e p r i n t s e e #11.
, "Armour et connaissance."
Klossowski, op. cit.. 137-81.

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 -237-

6. "Ueber oestliches und westlich.es Christen-

tum," 99-114. "Concerning Eastern and
Western Christianity.” A reprint; see #11.
II. "Nation und Weltanschauung”
1. "Ueber die Nationalidee der grossen
Nationen," 121-130. "On the national ideas
of the great nations." A reprint; see #11.
2. "Das Nationale im Dehken Frankreichs,"
131-157* "Military nationalism in the
thinking of France." Reprint; see #11.

3. "Der Geist und die ideelen Grundlagen der

Demokratien der grossen Nationen," 158-186.
"The spirit and the ideal bases of democracy
of the great nations." Reprint; see #11.
4. "Ueber Gesinnings- und Zweckmilitarismus.
Eine Studie zur Psychologie des Militarismus,"
187-203. "On the dispositions and goals of
militarism. A study in the psychology of
militarism." Reprint; see #11.
5. "Von Zwei deutschen Krankheiten," 204-219.
"Two German diseases." A reprint from 1919;
see # 13.
III. "Christentum und Gesellschaft"
1. "Der Friede unter den Konfessionen," 227-258.
"Peace among the denominations." A lecture
of 1920.
2. "Prophetischer oder marxistischer
Sozialismus?" 259-272. "Prophetic or
Marxist socialism?" A lecture of 1919*
3. "Arbeit und Weltanschauung," 273-289. "Work
and Weltanschauung." A lecture of 1920.

4. "Bevoelkerungsprobleme als Weltanschauungs-

fragen," 290-324. "Population problems as
questions of Weltanschauung." A talk of

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 -238-

17. Zusaetze, 325-358. Short supplementary

pieces.
V. Kleine Veroeffentlichungen aus der Seit der
"Shriften." Short publications from the time
of Soziologie.
1. ''Walter Rathenau: Eine Wuerdigung zu senem
Gedaechtnis," 359-376- "Walter Rathenau: A
Tribute to hi’s Memory." Cf. #17.
2. "Ernst Troeltsch als Soziologe," 377-90.
"Ernst Troeltsch as a Sociologist." Origi­
nally appeared in Koelner Viertel.jahrsheften
fuer Soziologie und Sozialwissenschaften, 3
U 9Z W - ------ :
------

3. "Jugendbewegung," 391-96. "The Youth Move­

ment." Appeared in Berliner Tageblattes, 1
(1923).

20. "Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens." Contri­

bution to the collected studies, Versuche zu einer
Soziologie des Wissens, edited by Max Scheler. IDEis
is volume Two of the Publications for the Research
Institute for Social Science in Cologne (see #15).
Muenchen: Duncker & Humbolt, 1924. Ges. W ., Bd. 8 -
Wissensformen.
"Problems for a Sociology of Knowledge."

This is amplified and reprinted in 1926 in

Wissensformen, see #22,

21. Die Formen des Wissens und die Bildung. Bonn:

Friedr. Cohen, 1925.
Forms of Knowledge and Culture.
Reprinted in Weltanschauung; see #27.

22. Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft. Leipzig:

Neue Geist-Verlag, 1926.
Forms of Knowledge and Society.
Second edition published in I960 as Volume Eight
of the Gesammelte Werke.

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 -239-

M. Scheler, Die Wissensformen und die

Gesellschaft" Zweite, durchgesehene
Auflage. Hit Zusaetzen. Herausgegeben
von Maria Scheler. Bern: Francke, I960.
1. "Probleme einer Soziologie des Wissens,”
15-190. "Problems of a sociology of
knowledge." This is an expanded reprint
of #20.
2. "Erkenntnis und Arbeit. Eine Studie
ueber Wert und Grenzen des pragmatischen
Motive in der Erkenntnis der Welt,"
191-382. "Knowledge and work. A study
concerning value and the limitations of
the pragmatic motive in the knowledge
of value."
%

3. "Universitaet und Volkshochschule,"

383-4-20. "The University and the
People’s College." A reprint from
1921; see # 15.
4-. "Zusaetze aus den nachgelassenen
Manuskripten," 4-21-69. "Supplements
from remaining manuscripts."

23. Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos. Number 8 of

Der Leuchter. Darmstadt: Otto Eeicbl, 1927. Ges. W.,
Bd. 9.
The Place of Man in the Cosmos.
First, second and third editions were off-
printed in 1928, 1929 and 1931*
Fourth and fifth editions: Muenchen:
Nymphenburger, 194-7 and 194-9*
M. Scheler, Man’s Place in Nature.
Translated with an Introduction, by
Hans Meyerhoff. Boston: Beacon Press,
1961.
The translator has edited the work,
changed notes, added headings and
was very free with the text itself.
Exact reimpression of this work
was made in paperback by The Noon­
day Press, 1962,

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 -2 4 0 -

, La Situation de l'homme dans le

Monde. Traduit et Preface par M. Dupuy.
Paris: Aubier, 1951*
Spanish translation in 1929*

24. "Mensch und Gesehichte." Neue Rundschau 27

(Nov., 1926). Also published in Neuen Schweizer
Rundschau: Jurich, 1929. Ges. W ., Bd. 9.
"Man and history."
Reprinted in Weltanschauung; see #27.
M. Scheler, L'homme et l'histoire.
Traduction M. Dupuy. Paris: Aubier, 1953-

25* "Idealismus-Realismus." Philosophischer Anzeiger,

2. Bonn: Friedr. Cohen, 1927* Ges. W ., Bd. 9«

26. "Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs." Pub­

lished as "Ausgleich als Schicksal und Aufgabe" in
Politische Wissenschaft, Berlin, 1929? the publication
of the German College for Politics. Ges. W ., Bd. 9»
"Man in the Era of Adjustment." "Adjustment as
Destiny and Task." Reprinted in Weltanschauung;
see # 27*

After Scheler's death the following work was published:

27 . Philosophische Weltanschauung. Bonn: Friedr.

Cohen, 1929* New paperback edition: Dalp-Taschen-
buecher, Band 301. Bern: Francke, 1954. Ges. W .,
Bd. 9.
Philosophical "Weltanschauung."
1. "Fhilosophisehe Weltanschauung." First pub­
lished in Muenchener Neueste Nachrichten,
May 5, 192F:
"Philosophical Weltanschauung."

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 -241-

2. "Die Formen des Wissens und die Bildung."

A reprint from 1925; see #21.
"The forms of knowledge and culture."
3. "Spinoza. Eine Bede." A speech delivered
at Amsterdam to commemorate the 250th
anniversary of Spinoza's death, February,
1927.
"Spinoza. An Address."
4. "Mensch und Gesehichte." A reprint from
1926; see #24.
"Man and history."
5. "Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs."
A reprint from 1929; see $26.
"Man in the era of adjustment."

M. Scheler, Philosophical Perspec­

tives. Translated from the German
by Oscar A. Haac. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1958.
The translation of the title
itself (and the first essay
"Philosopher's Outlook") is
highly misleading. This is
a fair literary translation
but very inadequate for tech­
nical and philosophical
phrases.

From Scheler's papers there has been published post­

humously the following works:
28. Die Idee des Ewigen Friedens und der Pazifismus.
Berlin: tfeue Geist-Verlag, 19^1*
The Idea of Eternal Peace and Pacificism.
M. Scheler, L'idee de paix et la yacifisme.
Traduction Tandonnet. Paris: Aubier, 19555.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
 -2 4 2 -

29. Schriften aus dem Nachlass. Band I. Zur Ethik

und Erkenntnisiehre. Mit einem Anhang. Herausgegeben
von Maria Scheler. Berlin: Neue Geist-Verlag, 1933•
Posthumous Writings. Vol. I. Towards Ethics and
Epistemology. Edited with an appendix by Maria
Scheler.
The second enlarged edition of this work is
Volume Ten of the Gesammelte Werke.
M. Scheler, Schriften aus dem Nachlass.
Band I Zur Ethik und Erkenntnislehre.
Zweite, durchgesehene und erweiterte
Auflage. Mit einem Anhang herausgegeben
von Maria Scheler. Bern: Francke, 1957*
1. "Tod und Fortleben," 9-64. From
manuscripts dating back to 1913-14.
"Death and life hereafter."

M. Scheler, Mort et survie.

Traduction M. Dupuy. Paris:
Aubier, 1951*
2. "Ueber Scham und Schamgefuehl,11
65-154. From 1913.
"Concerning shame and the
feeling of shame."
M. Scheler, La Pudeur.
Traduction M. Dupuy. Paris:
Aubier, 1953•
3. "Zur Phaenomenologie und Metaphysik
der Freiheit," 155-77* From 1912-
14.
"Towards the phenomenology and
the metaphysics of freedom."
4. "Absolutsphaere und Realsetzung
der Gottesidee," 179-253. From
1915-16.
"The Absolute sphere and the
real place of the idea of
God."

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 - 243
- -

5. "Vorbilder und Fuehrer,” 255-34-3.

From 1911-14-.
"Models and Leaders."
M. Scheler, Le saint, le
genie, le heros. Traduction
E. Manny. Freibourg: Marmy,
1944.

6. "Ordo Amoris," 345-76. 1916.

7. "Phaenomenologie und Erkenntnis-
theorie," 377-4-29. 1913-14-.
"Phenomenology and Episte-
mology.11
8. "Lehre von drei Tatsachen," 4-31-
502. 1911-12.
"Theory of the three facts."

B. Secondary Works: Books

Barrett, W . , Irrational Man: A Study in Existential

Philosophy. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor
Books, Inc., 1962.
Bergson, H., Creative Evolution. In the authorized
translation by Arthur Mitchell. With a foreword
by Irwin Edman. New York: The Modern Library.
________, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion.
Translated by R. Ashley Andra and Claudesley
Brereton, with the assistance of W. Harsfall
Carter. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor
Books, 1954.
Bochenski, I. M., Contemporary European Philosophy.
Translated from the German by Donald Nicholl and
Karl Aschenbrenner. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1957*
Buber, M., Between Man and Man. Translated by Ronald
Gregor Smith. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
 -2 4 4 -

________ , I and Thou, Second Edition. With, a Post-

script by the Author added. Translated by Ronald
Gregor Smith. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1958.
Cassirer, E., An Essay on Man. New Haven: Yale Uni­
versity Press, 1941.
Collins, J., Three Paths in Philosophy. Chicago:
H. Regnery"C'oTri9627 --------
Comte, A., The Positive Philosophy of Augusti Comte.
Fre ely translated and condensed by Harriet ~
Martineau. In two volumes. London: John Chapman,
1938.
D'Arcy, M. C., S.J., The Mind and Heart of Love. Lion
and Unicorn. A Study in Eros and Agape. New York:
Meridian Books, 1956.
Dewey, J ., Intelligence in the Modern World: John
Dewey's Philosophy. Edited, with an introduction
by JosephHatner. New York: The Modern Library,
1939.
Dupuy, M . , La philosophie de la religion chez Max
Scheler. Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1959 *

, La philosophie de Max Scheler: Son

evaluation.at son uniteT 2 vols. Paris: Presses
Universitaires, 1959• Tome premier: La critique
de l'homme moderae et la philosophie theorique:
tome second: De l'ethique a la derniere
philosophie.
Durkheim, E., Sociology and Philosophy. Translated by
D. F. Polock. Wltii an Introduction by
J. G. Peristiany. Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press,
1953.
Farber, M., The Foundation of Phenomenology: Edmund
Husserl and the Quest for a Rigorous Science of
Philosophy. Cambridge, l4ass.: Harvard University
tress, I943.
Frankl, Y. E., Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduc-
tion to Logathorapy. New York: Washington Square
Press, Inc., 1965*
Freud, S., The Ego and The Id. New York: The Modern
Library, 1955:----------

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
 -245-

Pries, H . , Die Katholische Religionsphilosophie der

Gegenwairt. Der Einfluss Max Schelers auf ihre
Formen und Gestalten. line problemgeschichtliche
Studie. Heidelberg: P. H. Kerle, 194-9 •
Fromm, E., The Art of Loving* New York: Harper & Row,
1962. Harper Colophon Books *
Grabam, A., Zen Catholicism: A Suggestion. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.,1963•
Guardini, R . The Church and the Catholic and the
Spirit of the Liturgy. Translated by Ada Lane.
New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940. (Translation of
Vom Sinn der Kirche and Vom Geist der Liturgie.)
Gurvitch, G., LesTendencesActuelles de la Philosophie
Allemandel Paris: J. Yrin, 1^49 •
Haering, B., C.SS.R., Das Heilige und das Gute.
Religion und Sittlichkeit in ihrem gegenseitigen
Bezug. Krai1ling von huenchen: Erich Wewel,
1950.
, Das Gesetz Christi, Moraltheologie.
Dargestellt fuer Priester und Laien. Preiburg
im Breisgau: Wewel, 1959* Pifth Edition.
_______ , The Law of Christ. Moral Theology for Priests
and Laity. Translated by Edwin G. Kaiser, C.PP.S.
Volume One: General Moral Theology. Volume Two:
Special Moral Theology: Life in Fellowship with
God and Fellow Man, 1 9 Westminster, Maryland:
The Newman I’ress, 1961.
Hessen, J., Max Scheler. Eine kritische Einfuehrung
in sein Philosophie aus Anlass des 20.
Jahrestages seines Todes. Essen: Dr. Hans v.
Chamier, 1948. 134 pp.
Husserl, E., Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser
Vortraege. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von
Prof.Dr. L. Strasser. Husserliana, Band I.
Haag: Martinus Nyhoff, l950. ’
| Cartesian
v C U . v w S rJ L a i l Meditations:
ilCUX UClUJLWHO • An
A +i Introduction
A ii to
menology. Translated by Dorian
Phenomenology. Dori Cairns.
The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, I960.

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 -246-

_______ , Die Idee der Phaenomenologie. Puenf

Vorlesungen. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von
Walter Biemel. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950*
Husserliana, Band. II.
_______ , Logische Untersuchungen. Dritte
unveraenderte Auflage. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1922.
Brster Band. Prologmena zur Reinen Logik, 257 PP»
Zweiter Band: tintersuchungen zur Phaenomenologie
und Theorie der ErkenntnisT I. Tell, 508 pp.
Elemente einer PhaenomencTogischen Aufklaerung
der ErkenntnisT ll. Teil. 244 pp!
Jaspers, K., Man in the Modern Age. Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Anchor Books, 195/*
Johann, H. 0., S.J., The Meaning of Love: An essay
towards the metaphysics of intersubjectivity.
Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1955*
Jones, Tudor W . , Contemporary Thought of Germany.
Vol. I. London: William & Morgate, Ltd., 1930.
Jung, C. J., Psychology of the Unconscious. A study
of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the
Libido. A Contribution to the History of the
Evaluation of Thought. Authorized translation,
with introduction by Beatrice M. Hinkle.
New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917*
Koehler, W . , The Mentality of Apes. Translated by
E. Winter! New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1926.
Lauer, Q., S.J., The Triumph of Subjectivity: An
Introduction to Transcendental Phenomenology.
New York: Pordham University Press, 1958*

Luetzeler, H., Der Philosoph Max Scheler. Eine

Einfuehrung! Bonn: M . Bouvier Co., 1947*
Macquet, J.. The Sociology of Knowledge: Its Structure
and Its Relation" 'to the Philosophy of 'Knowledge':.
A Critical Analysis of the Systems of Karl
Mannheim and Pitrim A. Soroklnu Translated by
John P. Locke. With a Preface by P.S.G. Northrop.
Boston: The Beacon Press, 1951•

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 -247-

Mannheim, K . , Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge.

Edited ‘by Paul Kecskemeti. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul Ltd., 1952.
, Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology.
Edited by Paul Kecskemeti. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1953*
Marcel, G., Man Against Man Society. Chicago:
H. Regnery, 1952.
, The Philosophy of Existentialism. New York:
The Citadel Press, 19^1.
Marcuse, H . , Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical
Inquiry into Preud. With a Wew Preface by the
Author. New York: Random House, 1962.

Maritain, J., Man and the State. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1951*
________, The Person and the Common Good. New York:
Scribner, 194?.
Mouroux, J., The Meaning of Man. Garden City, N.Y.:
Image Books, 1961.
Muller, P . , De la Psychologie aL*anthropologie. A
Travers L'oeuvre de Max Scheler. Neuckatel:
Editions de la Baconniere, 1946.
Natanson, M . , Literature, Philosophy^and the Social
Sciences: Essays in Existentialism and Phenome­
nology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962.
Otto, R., The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the
non-rational factor in tne idea or the divine Jaud
its relation to the rational. Translated by John
W. Harvey. New York: Oxford University Press,,
1958.
Posselt, Teresia Renata de Spiritu Sancto, Sister,
Edith Stein. Translated by Cecily Hastings and
i)onald ifictioll. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952.
Ruitenbeek, H. M. (ed.), Psychoanalysis and Existential
Philosophy. New York: A Dutton Paperback, 1962.
Schweitzer, A., The Philosophy of Civilization. Trans­
lated by C. T. Campion. Part 1: The Decay and the
Restoration of Civilization. Part il: Civiliza-
tion and Ethics. New York: The Macmillan Company,
v & s : ------------

Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
 -2 4 8 -

Spiegelberg, H., The Phenomenological Movement: A

Historical Introduction. The Hague: Martinus
Nijkoff, 19^6.
The Search for Being: Essays from Kierkegaard to
Sartre on the Problem of Existence. Translated
and Edited by Jean It. Wilde and William Kimmel.
Introduction by William Kimmel. Preface by
Martin C. D'Arcy, S.J. New York: The Noonday
Press, 1962.
Stark, W., The Fundamental Forms of Social Thought.
London: Routledge fe fcegan Paul, 1962.
Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man. New York:
Harper, 1959•
Timasheff, N., Sociological Theory: Its Nature and
Growth. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company,
Inc., 1955.
Toennies, P., Community and Association. Translated
and supplemented by Charles P. Loomis. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1955*
Urs von Balthasar, H., Science, Religion and Chris­
tianity. Translated by Hilda C7 Craef.
Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1958.

Vann. G., O.P., The Heart of Man. New York: Longmans,

Green & Co., 1955':---------
Vine, M. W . , An Introduction to Sociological Theory.
New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1*59 •
Von Hildebrand, D., Christian Ethics. New York: David
McKay Company, Inc., 1953.
, In Defense of Purity: An Analysis of the
Catholic Ideals of Purity and Virginity".
New York: Longmans, Green & do., 1931•
_ , Fundamental Moral Attitudes. Translated
from the German by Alice M . Jourdain. New York:
Longmans, Green & Co., 1950.
______ , Liturgy and Personality. Baltimore: Helicon
Press, i960.
, with Alice Jourdain, True Morality and Its
Counterfeits. New York: David McKay Company,
Inc.,, 1955.“

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 -249-

Weber, M., On the Methodology of the Social Sciences*

Translated and edited by Edward A. Shils and
Henry A. Finch. With a Foreword by Edward A.
Shils. Glencoe, 111*: The Free Press, 1949.
________ , Essays in Sociology. Translated, edited and
with an introduction by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright
Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946.
Wolff, P. (ed.), Christliche Philosophie in Deutsch-
land, 1920 bis 194-5• Regensburg: Josef Hahbel,
TWT-

C. Secondary Works: Articles

Baumgardt, D., "Rationalism and the Philosophy of

Despair: Pre-Nazi German Ethics, 1913-1933
Sewanee Review, 55 (April, 1947), 223-37•
Becker, H., "Some Forms of Sympathy: A Phenomeologi-
cal Analysis," The Journal of Abnormal and Social
Psychology. 26 (1931-22), 58-66.
Becker, H., and Dahlke, H. 0., "Max Scheler's Sociology
of Knowledge," Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 2 (March, 1942), So. 3* 309-322.
Buber, M . , "The Philosophical Anthropology of Max
Scheler," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
6 (1945-46), 307-21.
Cassirer, E., "'Spirit' and 'Life' in Contemporary
Philosophy," The Philosophy of Ernst Casirer.
Edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp. Evanston, 111.:
The Library of Living Philosophers, Inc., 1949*
(Vol. VI), 857-880.
Clarke, M . , "The Contribution of Max Scheler to the
Philosophy of Religion," The Philosophical Review,
43 (1934), 577-97.
Collins, J., "Catholic Estimates of Scheler's Catholic
Period," Thought, 19 (December, 1944), 671-704.
, "The Moral Philosophy of Max Scheler,"
Encyclopedia of Morals. Edited by Vergilius Ferm.
New York: Philosophical Library, 1956, 517-24.

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 - 250-

, "Scheler's Transition from Catholicism to

” Pantheism," Philosophical Studies in Honor of
The Very Reverend Ignatius Smith, t).P. Edited
by John K. RyanT Westminster, Maryland: The
Newman Press, 1952. Pp. 179-207.
Parber, M . , "Max Scheler on the Place of Man in the
Cosmos," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research,
14 (1953-3577 y & W . ---
Parre, L., "El sistema de valores de Max Scheler
comparado con Aristoteles," Kant-Studien, 48
(1956-57), 399-405.
Guthrie, H., "Max Scheler's Epistemology of the Emo­
tions," The Modern Schoolman, 16 (March, 1939),
No. 3, 51=35:---------------
Hafkesbrink, H. "The Meaning of Objectivism and
Realism in Max Scheler's Philosophy of Religion:
A Contribution to the Understanding of Max
Scheler's Catholic Period," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, 2 (March, 1942),
n o :"3 ,"5 9 2 ‘
-i 6 s '.------------

Hartmann, N., "Max Scheler," Kantstudien, 33 (1928),

VI-XVI.
de Havre, P., "Masters of Contemporary Catholic Educa­
tion," Catholic School Journal, 39 (1939), 11.
Husserl, E., "Phenomenology," Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1954“
Vol. 17.
________, "Philosophy as a Strict Science." Translated
by 4. Lauer, S.J., Cross Currents, 6, 227-46;
525-44.

Kuhn, H., "Max Scheler im Rueckblick," Hochland, 51

(April, 1959), 324-338.
Lauer, Q., "Pour Phenomenologists," Thought, 33
(Summer, 1958), 183-204. A chapter from his book,
The Triumph of Subjectivity: An Introduction to
Transcendental Phenomenology.
, "The Phenomenological Ethics of Max Scheler,"
International Philosophical Quarterly, 1 (May,
195T)7"Z73=30&..---------- -------

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 -251-

McGill, V. J., "Scheler's Theory of Sympathy and Love,"

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2
(MarcVI§32), R o . 1 T 2?3-231.----------
Merleau-Ponty, M., "What is Phenomenology?" Cross
Currents, 6 (1956), 59-70.
Huelder, W. G., "Person and Community," The Philo­
sophical Forum, 20 (1962-63), 35-59*
Negley, G., "Recent Schools of Ethics," A History of
Philosophical Systems, edited by Vergilius Ferm.
New ifork: tfhe Philosophical Library, 1950, 563-
573*
Oesterreicher, J., "Max Scheler. Critic of Modern
Man," Walls Are Crumbling. Seven Jewish
Philosophers Discover Christ. Foreword by
Jacques Maritain. New York: The Benin-Adair
Company, 1953i 135-198. Part of this reprinted
as "Max Scheler and the Faith. Excerpt from
Walls are Crumbling," Thomist, 13 (April, 1950),
135-203.
Penckaers, S., "The Revival of Moral Theology," Cross
Currents, 7 (Winter, 1957), 56-67*
Pepper, S.C., "A Brief History of General Theory of
Value," A History of Philosophical Systems,
edited by Vergilius Ferm. tiew York: The Ehi1o-
sophical Library, 1950. Pp. 4-93-503•
Rohner, A., O.P., "Natur und Person in der Ethik,"
Divus Thomas, 3, Serie (Freiburg, Schweiz), 9
(1953), 52=52.
, "Thomas von Aquin oder Max Scheler," Divus
Thomas, 3. Serie (Freiburg, Schweiz). "I Ethik
JeFTorbilder," 1 (1923), 250-274. "II Das
Ebenbild Gottes," 1, 329-355. " H I Die Wertethik
und die Seinsphilosophie," 2 (1924), 55-83;
257-269. "IV Individium und Gemeinsehaft," 3
(1925), 129-144; 282-298.
Schilpp, P. A., "The Formal Problems of Scheler's
Sociology of Knowledge," The Philosophical Review,
36 (March, 1927), 101-20.
________, "Max Scheler, 1874-1928," The Philosophical
Review, 38 (November, 1929), 574-881.

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 -252-

Schutz, A., "Scheler's Theory of Inter subjectivity and

the General Thesis of the Alter Ego," Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 2 (19*2),
323- 3* 7.
, "Max Scheler's Epistemology and Ethics," The
Review of Metaphysics, 11, First part (December,
1957), 304-514; Second part (March, 1958)> 486-
501.
Shuster, G., "Introductory Statement for a Symposium
on the Significance of Max Scheler for Philosophy
and Social Sciences," Philosophy and Phenome­
nological Research, 2 (19*2), 2b9-272.
Spiegelberg, H/, "Phenomenology of Direct Evidence,"
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2
ri9*277 *27--*55"r -------------
Stark, W . , "General Introduction to Max Scheler's
Work," M. Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy.
Translated from the German by "Peter Reath.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954, 9-13*
Williams, R. H., "The Method of Understanding as
Applied to the Problem of Suffering,H The Journal
of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 35 (1940),
367-85.
______ , "Scheler's Contribution to the Sociology of
Affective Action with Special Attention to the
Problem of Shame," Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, 2 (1942), 348-358*

D. Dissertations
Koehle, E. J., Personality: A Study According to the
Philosophies of Value and Spirit of Max Scheler
and Ricolai Hartmann, rfewbon, N.J.: Catholic
Protectory Rress, 1941. Doctoral Dissertation
for Columbia University.
Ranly, E., C.PP.S., Max Scheler: Theory of Value-Ethics.
An Introduction^ Saint Louis University, 1958.
Master*s Thesis.

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 -255-

Schneider, M., The Phenomenological Ethics of Max

Scheler. Washington, B.C.: Catholic University
of America, 1951* Dissertation.
Sweeney, R. D., A Study of Max Scheler’s Philosophy
of Value. New York: Fordham University, 1962.
Dissertation.

1. Bibliographies
Der Grosse Brockhaus. 17th edition. Wiesbaden:
t. A. Brockhaus, 1956. Vol. 10, 34-5.
Kosch, W . , Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon. Biograph.isch.es
und bibliographisches Handbuch. Second edition.
Bern: Francke, 1956. Vol. 3> 24-36.
Philosophen-Lexikon. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.,
Vol. 3 * 4-21-27.
Schweizer Lexikon. Zuerich: Encyclios-Verlag Ag.,
1^5 : VoT7~6, 906-07.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
 BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR

Reverend Ernest W. Ranly, C.PP.S. was Born on

February 19, 1930, at Cassella, Ohio. He received his
primary education at the local grade school and all

his secondary education under the direction of the

Society of the Most Precious Blood, graduating from
St. Joseph's Academy, Rensselaer, Indiana, on June 3,
19-4-8. He took his first two years of college human­

ities at St. Joseph's College, entered St. Charles

Seminary, Carthagena, Ohio in September, 1950, and
received a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from
the University of Dayton (Carthagena Division) on

June 7, 1952. On December 3, 1952 he entered the

Society of the Most Precious Blood, making his final
profession on December 3, 1955* Father Ranly was
ordained priest on June 2, 1956.
In September of 1956 he was assigned to the
Department of Philosophy at St. Joseph's College,
Rensselaer, Indiana. In 1958 he received a Masters
of Arts degree in Philosophy from Saint Louis Univer­

sity, submitting a thesis on the value-ethics of Max

Scheler. He spent the Summer Quarter, 1958, studying
German at the University of Chicago and in September

- 254 -

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 -255-

of 1958 returned to teaching philosophy at St. Joseph's

College. In January 1961 he returned to Saint Louis
University for further graduate work in philosophy and
is, at present, a doctoral candidate. In September,
1963, he resumed his teaching position at St. Joseph's
College as an Assistant Professor in Philosophy.
Besides the publication of several non-technical
essays, Father Ranly is a frequent book reviewer for
The Catholic Messenger, Davenport, Iowa, has translated
several articles from the German for Philosophy Today
and has made a study on Albert Schweitzer's philosophy

of civilization in Thought (Summer, 1963)*

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.