At the time of his death, Max Ferdinand Scheler was one of the mostprominent German intellectuals and most sought after philosophers ofhis time. A pioneer in the development of phenomenology in the earlypart of the 20^th century, Scheler broke new ground in manyareas of philosophy and established himself as perhaps the mostcreative of the early phenomenologists. Relative to the attention hiswork received and the attention his contemporaries now enjoy, interestin Scheler’s work and thought has waned considerably. Thisdecrease in attention is in part due to the suppression ofScheler’s work by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945, a suppressionstemming from his Jewish heritage and outspoken denunciation offascism and National Socialism. Nevertheless, his work has survivedand continues to be read and translated throughout the world, servingas evidence of the creative depth and richness of his thought.

• 1. Biographical Sketch
• 2. The Meaning of Philosophy and Phenomenology
• 3. Value Personalism
• 4. Others, Community and Solidarity
• 5. Religious Experience
• 6. Social and Political Theory
• 7. Philosophical Anthropology and Metaphysics
• 8. Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography
  • A. Collected Works
  • B. Current English Translations
  • C. Suggested Secondary Literature
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Biographical Sketch

Max Scheler was born on August 22, 1874. He was raised in awell-respected orthodox Jewish family in Munich. Although he was not aparticularly strong student, Scheler did show early promise andinterest in philosophy, particularly in the works of FriedrichNietzsche. As a youth, he identified himself as a social democrat andenthusiastic Marxist. In the fall of 1894, Scheler started hisuniversity studies in Munich, but by the fall of 1895 had enrolled inBerlin. Although he had applied to study medicine in Berlin, hestudied primarily philosophy and sociology, attending most notably thelectures of Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel.

From Berlin, Scheler moved to Jena in 1896 to finish his studies underthe guidance of Rudolf Eucken. Rudolf Eucken was a tremendouslypopular philosopher at the time, winning the Nobel Prize forliterature in 1908, but it was Eucken’s ideas regarding theinner quest for a spiritual life of every human being that primarilydrew Scheler’s attention. It was in Jena that Scheler completedboth his dissertation and habilitation, and where he began his careerin philosophy. It was also during his time in Jena that he took a tripto Heidelberg in 1898 and met Max Weber, who also had a significantimpact on his thought.

While holding his position as Privatdozent in Jena, Scheler met EdmundHusserl at a party in 1901 and then, a year later, readHusserl’sLogical Investigations. The remainder of hislife would be dedicated to the development and the progress ofphenomenology. During this time, Scheler was also reading much ofFrench philosophy and was a major factor in introducing HenriBergson’s work to Germany’s intellectual circles.

In 1906, Scheler moved his family to Munich and started his positionthere as Privatdozent. With Theodor Lipps, Scheler established acircle of the “Munich Phenomenologists.” The early groupconsisted of Alexander Pfänder, Moritz Geiger and Theodor Conrad,all of whom were students of Lipps. Dietrich von Hildebrand, HedwigMartius, Herbert Leyendecker and Maximillian Beck later joined thegroup.

Due to controversies surrounding the separation from his first wifeand reported affairs with students, Scheler lost his teachingprivileges. From 1910 to 1919, he would have to earn a living as aprivate scholar, lecturer and freelance writer. Despite the economichardships brought about by the loss of his position in Munich, theseyears were some of Scheler’s most productive: he published majorworks such asPhenomenology and Theory of the Feeling of Sympathyand of Love and Hate (1913),Formalism in Ethics andNon-Formal Ethics of Value (Part 1 1913, Part 2 1916),TheGenius of War and the German War (1915).

A major contributing factor to Scheler’s productivity at thistime was his introduction to the Göttingen circle ofphenomenology. Along with the great master, Husserl, this circleincluded such young and promising thinkers as Adolf Reinach, HedwigMartius, Roman Ingarden, Alexandre Koyré and Edith Stein. Hemet and later joined the circle after the invitation in 1912 to giveprivate lectures in Göttingen. Because Scheler was forbidden toteach at a German university his lectures would often have to be heldin hotel rooms rented by his close friend Dietrich von Hildebrand. Itwas also at this time that Scheler became co-editor, along withHusserl, Alexander Pfänder, Moritz Geiger and Adolf Reinach, ofthe greatly influential journal,Jahrbuch für Philosophie undphänomenologische Forschung.

After years of struggling to make ends meet as a private lecturer andfreelance writer, Scheler received an invitation in 1918 from KonradAdenaur to join the faculty of the newly founded research institutefor the social sciences in Cologne. The intent was to have Schelerserve as the Catholic thinker for the institute. Scheler, officiallyjoining the faculty in 1919, was once again allowed to teach at aGerman university. During his time in Cologne, he wrote his major workon religion,On the Eternal in Man (1921).

The circle of influence continued to grow for Scheler. During his timein Berlin and in Cologne, Scheler would meet and correspond regularlywith prominent, German intellectuals such as Max Brod, Franz Werfel,Martin Buber, Arnold Zweig, Ernst Troeltsch, Werner Sombart, AlbertEinstein, Alfred Kerr, Walter Rathenau, Paul Tillich, Romano Guardiniand Ernst Bloch. His circle of collaboration and discussion was notlimited to philosophy. Scheler corresponded with the leadingpsychologists and natural scientists such as Wertheimer, Köhler,Buytendijk, and Wasserman. Musicians, poets and literary scholars suchas Eduard Erdmann, Otto Klemperer, Paul Valéry, Rainer MariaRilke, Romain Rolland, Ernst Robert Curtius were also part of hiscircle of influence. A very close friend of Scheler’s in Cologneup until his death was the painter Otto Dix.

This diverse array of friends and collaborators is reflected in boththe diversity and originality of Scheler’s thought at this time.For example, Scheler’s work,Die Wissenformen und dieGesellschaft (The Forms of Knowledge and Society), wasresponsible for the promulgation of a new field of study, thesociology of knowledge, and was one of the first works in Germany thatprovided an in depth analysis of American pragmatism. As was commonfor Scheler, he wrote many different manuscripts at once. Whilewriting on the sociology of knowledge, he was working on hisphilosophical anthropology (Die Sonderstellung des Menschenand the manuscripts compiled inGesammelte Werke 12),metaphysics (Idealismus und Realismus and manuscriptscompiled inGesammelte Werke 11), politics (Politik undMoral,Die Idee des Ewigen Friedens) and history(Der Mensch im Weltalter des Ausgleichs). During this time,Scheler lectured extensively throughout Germany, focusing much of hiseffort to confront the rise of fascism in Germany and Europe.

Once again, Scheler’s personal life (the divorce from his secondwife and marriage to his third) conflicted with his position at theuniversity as the Catholic philosopher. The restrictions Scheler feltwere not merely personal, but also intellectual. Disappointed by theCatholic Church’s conservatism and political failures in thereconstructive efforts after the war, Scheler became increasinglycritical of religious institutions and dogmas. He made considerableeffort to distance himself from the Catholic Church and characterizehis work as philosophical, not religious, in nature. With the growingtensions at Cologne, Scheler welcomed the offer of a professorialposition in Frankfurt in 1927 and was eager to work with the CriticalTheorists in Frankfurt such as Max Horkeimer and the young TheodorAdorno. During the spring of 1928, Scheler’s health continued toworsen and he suffered from a series of heart attacks most likely dueto the 60–80 cigarettes he smoked each day. His deterioratinghealth forced him to cancel his extensive travel plans abroad, and onMay 19, 1928 Scheler died in a hospital in Frankfurt fromcomplications of a severe heart attack.

2. The Meaning of Philosophy and Phenomenology

At the end of his life, Scheler wrote that the central issue in histhought and writing was the question regarding the meaning of thehuman being (GW IX, 9). This question not only guided his everexpanding philosophical endeavors, but also defined his approach andunderstanding of philosophy. Like many of the Lebensphilosophen(philosophers of life) who had influenced him, Scheler strove to savephilosophy and thought from the reductive mindset of the positivesciences and to a degree, American pragmatism, a mindset that definedthe human being as merehomo faber (tool-maker). The humanbeing is without a doubt a practical being, seeking to master andmanipulate his or her environment to achieve desired results and avoidfuture suffering. For Scheler, practical knowledge and practicalconsciousness are genetically the first form of knowledge for theindividual. Yet, human beings are not necessarily tied to practicalaffairs and have the ability to comprehend and regard the world interms of its essence or being. Philosophy, for Scheler, is the“loving act of participation by the core of the human beingin the essence of all things” (GW V, 68). Practicalknowledge is only the first of three types of knowledge. In additionto practical or mastery knowledge, Scheler describes two other types,erudition (Bildungswissen) and knowledge of revelation. Allthree types have their own integrity and are irreducible to oneanother. Each knowledge types thus has its own origin and is motivatedby a different feeling. While practical knowledge is motivated byphysical pain or fear of error, erudition is motivated by wonder andknowledge of revelation by awe. Philosophical knowledge belongs to thetype, erudition.

Wonder is a loving concern for the world as it is in itself and marksthe transition from the practical to the philosophical (GW VIII, 208).This “loving participation” of philosophy is, however,distinct from the classical notion of love (eros) as a lack. Love isunderstood by Scheler here in terms of the Christian sense ofagape, loving as giving. The human being as a loving,philosophical being is not motivated to know by a sense of a lack, asis the case with eros, but is rather motivated by the abundance andsurfeit of the meaning of the world (GW VI, 84). Modernity’sethos of control and domination has transformed the world into a mereobject of utility. As a means to reawaken a sense of wonder, Schelercalled for a rehabilitation of virtue, in particular the virtues ofhumility and reverence (GW III, 15). The philosopher lives inreverence of the world, in astonishment of the world’sinexhaustible depth and secrets (GW III, 26).

Philosophical thought attends to the core meaning of knowledge as aSeinsverhältnis, an ontological relation. Knowledge,according to Scheler, is a relation between beings, a relation whereina being ‘participates’ in what another being is in itself(GW VIII, 203). Scheler rejects the idea that knowledge is a an act ofconstruction, as was the case for the neo-Kantians such as ErnstCassirer. Rather knowledge is a form of discovery, a discovery thatrequires a humble divesting of oneself that opens one up to the other(GW VIII, 204) and presupposes the loving willingness to be open tothat which is other.

Following Augustine, Scheler takes the emotional and affective life asfoundational for any form of knowledge (GW VI, 87). Before the worldis known, it is first given. Love is that which opens the human beingup to the world, to that which is other. This openness demonstratesthat there is a moral precondition for knowledge. Knowledge ispossible only for a loving being (GW V, 83). This love is the movementof transcendence, a going beyond oneself, an opening to ever richermeaning. Love is always already directed to the infinite, to absolutevalue and being (GW V, 90). With this understanding of the relation oflove to knowledge, Scheler declares that “knowledge isultimately from the divine and for the divine” (GW VIII,211).

It was not until he read Husserl’sLogicalInvestigations and learned of the idea of phenomenology, however,that Scheler came upon a style of thinking that best captured for himthe loving disposition of philosophy. Although he was greatly indebtedto Husserl’s genius and originality, Scheler was often criticalof Husserl when describing the nature of phenomenology. For Scheler,phenomenology is unequivocally not a method, but an attitude (GW X,380). Grasping the meaning or essence of an object has meant, sincePlato, a type of disengagement from or suspension of an object’simmediate and present existence. The intent of this disengagement isnot to abstract from an object of cognition as it exists, but ratherto look at the object as it is itself. The natural worldview orattitude presupposes the practical and habitual context in which theobject is given and thus uncritically assumes the meaning of theobject in this context. The scientific worldview assumes a particularunderstanding of the natural world in its investigations anddetermination of meaning, an atomistic or mechanistic conception of aliving being. In both cases, there is no reflection regarding themeaning presupposed in the intention. The phenomenological attitudedoes not negate the practical or scientific world and way of being. Itmerely holds them in abeyance, suspending judgment. Such a suspensionis motivated not by a disdain or a devaluation of the practical life,but by a love of the world. It is in this respect that Schelerdescribes phenomenological attitude as a psychic technique comparableto Buddhist techniques of suffering (GW VIII, 139).

Scheler shares the conviction with realist phenomenologists such asAdolf Reinach that there are essential intuitions(Wesensanschauungen) or essential insights(Wesenseinsichten) (GW X, 383), in which we have intuitiveand immediate graspings of the essence of the being of the objects.This grasping of the object is never complete and assumes merely apartial insight into the thing itself (GW V, 199). Modernity, forScheler, suffers from a fundamental mistrust of the world, a mistrustthat the world given in experience is not the world itself, but rathersome construct produced by the human mind. Phenomenology assumes atrust in the world and in experience. It is the world that givesitself to intuition, beckoning us to participate ever more fully inits significance. By virtue of this loving trust, the world itself isgiven. The phenomenological attitude is an expression on this trustand seeks to describe the object as it gives itself, as it is broughtto self-givenness.

3. Value Personalism

Scheler’s first and most influential work in phenomenology washis study of ethics,Formalism in Ethics and a Non-Formal (orMaterial) Ethics of Value. This work was motivated in part by acritique of the highly scientific or formalistic approaches to ethicsintroduced by Immanuel Kant and then later developed by theNeo-Kantians during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.Kant’s influence on Scheler’s thought cannot beunderestimated. With Kant, Scheler rejects both utilitarianism andeudaimonism, and holds that ethics rests upon an a priori, anobligation non-relative to future consequences or happiness. For Kant,the a priori is expressed in the form of a categorical imperative, animperative that is universalizable. For Scheler, such a formulation ofthe a priori is abstract and as a consequence, fails to account forboth the unique obligation one has to another person and the uniquecall to responsibility given in the ethical imperative (GW II, 34).The ethical imperative, Scheler insists, is given as what one ought tonecessarily do, but it is also experienced as what ‘I,’and not merely anyone, ought to do (GW II, 94).

Scheler argues that a material or a non-formal a priori arises inexperience, specifically in the experience of value. All experience isalready value latent (GW II, 35). An object of perception such as anoak tree is not only green or large, but also pleasurable, beautifuland magnificent. Objects of experience are bearers of values.Historical artifacts bear cultural values, religious icons bear thevalue of the “holy.” To suggest that an object bears avalue is not to imply that a value inheres in an object. Just as thecolor red does not inhere in the tricycle, but is only given in theact of perception, the beauty of the painting is only given in the actof valuing. The value an object bears is given intuitively through atype of value-ception. We “see” the beauty of a paintingjust as we “see” its colors. The grasping of value is ourmost original and primordial relation to the world. An object hasvalue for us before it is perceived or known (GW II, 40).

Following Franz Brentano, Scheler conceived of positive and negativevalues as given in a relation to being. Positive values are not onlygiven as that which entices us, but also as that which ought to be.Similarly, negative values are given as that which ought not to be (GWII, 100). In the relation values bear to existence, an ideal ought isgiven. What ought to be is not logically derived or categorical, butis felt, i.e., experienced. Values not only draw our attention to theworld and others, but they also bear an ideal “ought.”

Valuing is an act of meaning giving or creation and is therefore anintentional act. The act of valuing is not an intellectual act, but anact of the “heart,” i.e., an emotional act. For Scheler,there are two basic emotional acts, the act of love and the act ofhate. These two acts found all value-ception and consciousness (GWVII, 185). Love and hate are further characterized by Scheler asmovements (GW VII, 191). In the act of love, the value of an object ora person is deepened, revealing its highest or most profoundsignificance. Hate, by contrast, is a movement of destruction, amovement wherein the value of an object or a person is demeaned ordegraded.

The feelings of love and hate are the acts in which the world firstcomes to have meaning for us and a preferencing is inherent in thisprocess. We tend toward or are attracted to that which is of greateror positive value, and tend to move away from or are repelled by thatwhich is of lesser or negative value. Present in every experience is aranking of values, a preference of certain values to others (GW II,104). That there is an order of preferencing in experience is perhapsbest demonstrated by the act of sacrifice. For the sake of aparticular life value such as health, we may sacrifice pleasurableexperiences such as an overindulgence of ice-cream. An order of valuepreferencing is present in every experience and every individualpossesses such an ordering, what Scheler calls “anethos.”

It is in the experience of value preferencing that Scheler furtherclarifies the ethical a priori. There is, according to Scheler, anobjective ranking of values, a ranking of the “lower” tothe “higher,” or better expressed, a ranking of the moresuperficial to the deeper. The ranking of value types from lowest tohighest is as follows: pleasure, utility, vitality, culture, andholiness. How the different types of value stand in relation to oneanother is grasped intuitively in the experience of value. Evidence ofthis ranking is felt through experiences like duration (GW II, 108) ordepth of fulfillment (GW II, 113). Claiming that there is an objectiveorder of values, or in Pascal’s terminology, an “ordre ducoeur” (order of the heart), necessarily entails that the highervalues “ought” to be preferred to the lower. We ought toact in such a manner that promotes the higher or positive values. Thisnon-formal or material a priori of value is not given prior toexperience, but it is present in the experience of the particularvalue modalities. A religious icon is given not only as holy, but alsoas that which is to be preferred to the merely useful or vital. Whattypes of value an object has is relative to the individual or culture.A cow certainly has a different value for the Hindu than for therancher. Nonetheless, that the holy is to be preferred to the vital isnot historically or culturally relative.

Both the experience of value and the objective rank ordering of valuesare felt by a distinctive type of being, what Scheler calls“persons.” “Person” is a notion that Kant alsouses and this is one of the reasons why Scheler uses the term. In amanner quite similar to the problem of the a priori, Scheler wants toretain Kant’s understanding of “person” as absolutevalue, an end in itself Scheler is critical of Kant in so far as Kantgrounds the absolute value of the person in the universal category ofreason.

Scheler describes the person as the concrete unity of acts ofdifferent types and nature (GW II, 382). The person is present in eachand every act, but the person is not reducible to any one act.“Unity” here is meant as a particular style, a style ofact execution and being. Every individual has his or her unique styleof loving, of assigning meaning, and necessarily has his or her ownaccess to the world. When a person dies, not only is that unique styleof loving and assigning meaning lost, but so is that world.

Understood as the unity of acts or an act center, the person isnecessarily non-objectifiable (GW II, 386). Objects only take on themeaning as objects through intentional acts. Persons executeintentional acts. The meaning of a person is determined by the way inwhich a particular person brings meaning to the world. It is never aquestion of what a person is, but who a person is. Scheler takes greatpains to distinguish his notion of person from the traditional notionsof subject, ego, mind or psyche. All of these traditional,philosophical notions are objectifications, i.e. names given toparticular states, functions or capacities. Who a person is cannot becaptured by a definition and can only be grasped through valueinsight, an immediate and direct grasping of the other as a person inand through the act of love (GW II, 483)^[1]. The human being is constituted as person most profoundly throughloving.

The imperative that is given in the value a priori, the objective rankorder of values, is only felt by persons and, consequently, personsare the only beings who are ethically responsible. Because everyexperience is value latent, a person is responsible to love the objector a being of that experience most fully, realizing the highest ordeepest value of that being. In relation with other persons, thisresponsibility is ethical. In loving another person, one is calledethically to love ever more fully and deeply. Failing to do so andresponding to this calling through acts of hate is not only ethicallyirresponsible but it is also morally evil. Any act that compromises orreduces the person to a lower value such as mere pleasure or utilityis pernicious and evil.

The good in itself is thus a movement and openness to the higher ordeeper values. In the experience of positive values, we, as persons,are called to love others ever more profoundly. In the experience ofnegative values, we are called to act in such a manner that ends thedestructive acts of hate and consequently brings an end to negativevalues. The call to act for the sake of the good itself is, forScheler, not general or universal, but radically individual or rather,unique. There is no experience of the good in itself in general, butonly the good in itself for me, and this constitutes in part theexperience of vocation peculiar to each unique person as creativelybecoming (GW II, 482). The deeper the value, the more individual, themore personal, the call to act for the sake of the good becomes.Ethical experience, the experience of being called to act for thegood, is a process of individuation (GW II, 501). The call becomesever more personal as the value deepens. In acting ethically, I cometo realize my unique place and contribution, and as a result, I becomemore conscious of my obligation and duties to the world and to others.A material value ethic, in contrast to a formal ethic, reveals boththe radically unique manner by which each person is called to act andthe radically unique value of each and every person.

4. Others, Community and Solidarity

There is, for Scheler, no problem of the other. This is not to saythat he rejects the alterity or difference of the other. What Schelerrejects is the presumed starting point of the so-called other minds, astarting point that posits one mind over and against another, assumingthat we are first alone and then enter into relationships with others.The consciousness of oneself as a self and as a person is alwaysexperienced within the context of a “member of a totality”(GW II, 510). Every experience, in other words, assumes as backgroundthe “experiencing with one another” (Miteinander-erleben)as well as the responsibility for others and the co-responsibility forthe community. All investigations that begin with the problem of theother presuppose this primordial communal background.Phenomenologically, the task is not to take this background forgranted but to clarify the different types of experiences thatconstitute this communal background and those experiences that giverise to a sense of mine-ness and otherness.

Scheler’s investigation into this primordial background beginsat the affective or emotional level of experience. The affective lifeprecedes the intellectual life. In the case of the experience ofothers, there is an affective or emotional understanding of othersprior to any intellectual or rational understanding. The workdedicated to this investigation is Scheler’sThe Nature ofSympathy (original German title,Wesen und Formen derSympathie literally means theEssence and Forms ofSympathy). His main intent in this work was to show that it isimpossible to derive an ethic from merely shared feelings andconsequently to show that ethics assumes as original an intention oflove. In order to demonstrate this point, Scheler provides a detailedanalysis of the different types of shared feelings, which arethemselves irreducible to loving.

There are at least five different types of shared or co-feelings:

1. Feeling with one another (Miteinanderfühlen):
   Two or more people feel thesame feeling together. Schelergives an example of two parents. They share a love for their child andthey also share the pain or joy felt for that child. In the tragicdeath of a child, parents share the same pain, feeling the samesadness and loss together. Certainly, parents of a child will havemany different feelings for their child between them. Scheler is onlydescribing the phenomenon of when parents feel the same feelingtogether.

2. Vicarious feeling (Nachfühlen):
   Scheler refers to this type of shared feeling throughout his analysis,but does not include it in his discussion of the specific types ofco-feelings. In vicarious feeling, there is no genuine sharing orco-experiencing of a feeling. It is a type of grasping a feeling inthe other without any subsequent feeling of the grasped pain or joy, afeeling at a distance. This grasping is not necessarily anintellectual comprehension, but an emotional or bodily comprehension.Any recognition of the feeling of others, including empathy, assumessome form of vicarious feelings.

3. Fellow feeling (Mitgefühl):
   This form of co-feeling is often referred to as sympathy or pity. Herethere is the intention of the other, a feeling for the other. When afriend is in pain, not only do I share his or her pain, but I feel formy friend. The shared feeling is not the same and there remains aclear distinction between me and the other. To distinguish fellowfeeling from vicarious feeling, Scheler uses the example of cruelty(GW VII, 25). The reason why human beings are so good at torture isthat we can vicariously feel and comprehend what it would be like tobe harmed in such a manner. In vicarious feeling, we do not feel theother’s pain. In genuine cases of fellow feeling, we not onlyshare in the suffering the other feels, but we also feel for theperson who suffers, often motivated to act to end thesuffering.

4. Psychic Contagion (Gefühlansteckung):
   Experiences in which a person is overtaken by a feeling to such anextent that he or she gets lost in it with others is the phenomenon ofpsychic contagion. Scheler uses the example of being taken over by thejoyous atmosphere in a bar to make his point. After a difficult day“at the office,” you walk into a bar and are immediatelyovertaken by the celebratory atmosphere, completely forgetting yourday and troubles. In contrast to the other types of co-feeling,psychic contagion is the experience of losing yourself in the feelingor mood of the group. The “I” and “you” becomea “we.” In the midst of this experience, we do things wewould not necessarily do in a different setting. Psychic contagioncan, thus, be quite dangerous, as is the case with mob violence, forinstance.

5. Identification (Einsfühlung):
   Not to be confused withEinfühlung (empathy),identification is a limit case of psychic contagion. Inidentification, the “I” is lost and literally becomes theother. I no longer feel the pain in me, but only in the other. Thereis no distance between the I and you and I am transported, so tospeak, into the other, inhabiting his or her body as if it were mine.I may identify with the experience so deeply that I live it in theother. The experiences Scheler has in mind here are mysticalexperiences where a person “becomes” the god or hypnoticexperiences where the individual thinks and wills according to thehypnotist. (GW VII, 31)

All of these experiences of co-feeling are involuntary and take placeregardless of whether we want to experience them. We become consciousof them only after the fact, realizing perhaps that we are alreadylaughing or crying. They demonstrate that at the most basic level, weare drawn to others and are inclined to participate in the lives andfeelings of others (GW VII, 241). This is most clearly evident incases of self-deception or confusion, cases when two or more personsconfuse their ideas and experiences with each other’s,forgetting whose experiences or ideas they were originally.

InFormalism in Ethics and a Non-Formal Ethics of Value,Scheler builds upon these analyses to describe the distinctive typesof communities in which human beings participate. This descriptionfalls under the heading of “Collective Person”(Gesamtperson). Persons are act-centers, the unity in theexecution of acts. “Collective Person” refers to adistinctive unity of the execution, what Scheler calls “socialacts.” Social acts are inherently directed at other persons andare only fully executed in relation to others. Examples of social actsare acts of promising, commanding, and obeying. A promise is not apromise until the other accepts it; a command is not a command if theother does not hear it, etc. These acts are distinct from the intimateor singularizing acts, acts such as self-consciousness, self-love,self-respect, etc. (GW II, 511) They are directed at the self and arefulfilled with reference only to the self. These different types ofacts show that the person is both an individual and a member of acommunity or collectivity. Distinguishing between different types ofacts does not entail that we are many different persons. It means,rather, that our person, our style of being, is expressed both as anindividual and as a member of a community.

Scheler identifies four different types of communities or socialunities.

1. The Herd or Mass:
   This community type refers to a group formed through psychic contagionand other forms of involuntary repetition. As a member of a herd, onehas no self-consciousness. In the herd, one’s actions aredictated by the whims and the irrationality of the masses. Caught upin the excitement or throes of the herd, one is no longer fullyresponsible for his or her actions. For this reason, mass movementsare potentially liberating as well as dangerous and susceptible todictatorship.

2. Life-Community (Lebensgemeinschaft):
   This community type is formed through genuine acts of co-feeling andco-living. The subject of these shared feelings and experiences is,however, the community and not the individual. There is a sense of theself and a sense of belonging to a community with the others. But thisself is not radically distinct from the community and the others.One’s striving is the striving of the community, a sharedpreferencing and valuing developed through traditions, rites, norms,etc. In a life-community, there is a sense of solidarity, a sense ofbeing responsible for others and for the group. This responsibilityis, however, not fully moral and the solidarity is a“representable solidarity.” By“representable,” Scheler means that anyone in the groupcan represent the others, can take responsibility for the others inthe same manner.

3. Society (Gesellschaft):
   All communal bonds in a society are formed artificially andconsciously by each member (in contrast to the organic and unconsciousbonds of a life-community). A society is made up of individuals whochoose to form relations for the sake of personal welfare,particularly at the level of pleasure and utility. It has no realitybeyond the individuals who make up the collectivity; the whole isequal to the sum of its parts (whereas a life-community is a wholethat is greater than the sum of its parts). The formation of societyis motivated by a fundamental mistrust in others, creating bonds forthe sake of security.

   Much of Scheler’s characterization of society has a negativering, particularly in comparison to what he says of thelife-community. He does make clear that society is the introduction ofthe mature individual and the self-conscious human being. A member ofthe life-community, by contrast, is not yet an individual and is, inthis respect, immature (unmündig). For Scheler, the riseof society is a genuine development in history. Nonetheless, thelife-community is foundational for society. This is shown by virtue ofthe contracts forming the bonds of society. Contracts are grounded inthe promise and assume a level of trust, a trust that is firstcultivated in the life-community.

4. Collective Person:
   “Collective Person” is the deepest and the most profoundlevel of community. To a certain extent, it is the evolutionaryoutcome of both the life-community and society. But“ontologically” speaking, the loving community(Liebesgemeinschaft) is foundational for the other formslisted above. What most distinctively characterizes the collectiveperson is its sense of solidarity. Each member of the community is notonly fully responsible for his or her actions, but is alsoco-responsible for the actions of others and of the community. Incontrast to the life-community, each member is self-aware of him orherself as an individual, as a fully realized person. Yet, in contrastto society, the individual is caught up in a network of relations withothers. The sense of solidarity in the collective person is that of an“unrepresentable” solidarity. Every member of thecollective person is absolutely unique. No one can stand in for anyoneelse and each bears responsibility for others and for thegroup.

Within the notion of the collective person, Scheler describes threedifferent types: the state (or nation), culture (or people) and thechurch. The main difference between these three types is the range orextent of responsibility. Every citizen of the state is co-responsiblefor every other citizen, a limit defined by state or national borders(as well as recognized members of the citizenry). A culture isdemarcated by the borders created by shared values, beliefs, andideas. These borders are often more expansive than a state, but manydifferent cultures can be found in a state. The church is the mostexpansive of the types of collective persons and includes all finitepersons. It is the fullest realization of what Scheler calls“the love community” (Liebesgemeinschaft). Thesense of solidarity concerns the salvation of all finite persons,past, present and future. Although these different types of collectivepersons can be ranked with respect to their related values (life,spirit, holy), they enjoy their own autonomy and Scheler insists upona clear divide between not only church and state, but also culture andstate.

The most crucial notion that arises from Scheler’s analysis ofthe collective person is that of solidarity. Solidarity assumes twodistinct types of responsibility: a responsibility for one’s ownactions and a co-responsibility for the actions of others.Co-responsibility does not compromise the autonomy of the individual.Every person is fully responsible for his or her actions. For Scheler,co-responsibility is a radical form of questioning. When anotherperson commits an act of hate or violence, the questions implied insolidarity are how such acts are possible and how I have participatedin creating a world wherein such acts are possible. The act of hatecommitted by another person signals that I (and each member of thegiven community) have not loved deeply enough and that we as acommunity have failed to bring about a world wherein hate does notexist (GW II, 526). Solidarity assumes the manner in which we haveshared our lives and feelings with one another in a community, butalso the necessity for a person to act to end evil and injustice. Thepresence of evil in one’s community demonstrates that everymember ought to love more fully and act so that evil is not possible.At the level of the collective person, this call to responsibility isfelt uniquely by each person, revealing the uniqueness of one’srole in and for the community.

Sharing a community with others and sharing the responsibility for thecommunity with others is the context in which the person is formed andrealized. It is not the answer to the epistemological questionregarding the knowledge of the other or of other minds. In hisrelatively brief analysis of this question, Scheler agrees that thecore of the person is not given in perception, at least not in thesense that his or her physical body is given as an object ofperception (GW VII, 238). Perception, however, is only one means ofgivenness and hence only one means of access to the other. It is onlyin the act of love that the other person is given (GW II, 483). Thegivenness of the other is irreducible to any physical or psychiccharacteristics. In the act of love, there is an immediate intuitionof the person, an “ungrounded” plus (GW VII, 168).Evidence of this plus is our inability to state the reasons and provewhy we love the other even though we are certain of our love.

Love, therefore, does not afford us a rational understanding of theother person. What it offers is a means by which to participate in theway of being and loving of the other. In order to“understand” the other, we have to love like the other (GWII, 169). Afforded in this experience of loving is access to the worldof the other and the moral (or ideal) value of the other. It is not amatter of reading the other’s mind, of knowing what the other isthinking. Rather, love grants us an understanding of who the other is.The deepest experiences of love for the other reveals the absolute orholy value of the other, grasping who the other could be or ought tobecome. For Scheler, it is possible that another person may know mebetter than I know myself and he or she may be able to direct me to myideal way of being (GW II, 483). The understanding of the otherthrough love is a value comprehension. This is not a full disclosureof the other, but a deepening of appreciation of who the other is, anappreciation that calls me to love the other ever more profoundly.

5. Religious Experience

Scheler’s work on the phenomenology of religious experience isone of his most significant contributions to the phenomenologicaltradition. Contrary to his contemporaries such as Husserl andHeidegger who persist on bracketing out the question of God or theholy, Scheler examines the experience in a direct and explicit manner.Scheler’s insistence on the possibility of a phenomenology ofreligious experience, an insistence that it is possible to provide adescription of the essential qualities and conditions of theexperience of the holy, is itself a critique of modernity and of thepositivistic tendencies growing in philosophical and scientificthought.

According to Scheler, the modern worldview harbors a prejudice withrespect to what counts as an experience or what is evidential. For themodern thinker, only those experiences that can be proven in arational or logical manner are true or evidential experiences (GW V,104). The prejudice is not that matters of faith or religiousexperience are not meaningful, but that they are not subject torigorous scientific or critical investigation. Because they lieoutside the bounds of reason, we are, as Wittgenstein would say, toremain silent. For Scheler, the problem in modernity is that only onetype or form of evidence is regarded as objective or true, the mode ofrational proof. Inherent to the practice of phenomenology is theopenness to distinctive modes of evidence. Any presupposition aboutwhat counts as objective or subjective, as true or merelypsychological must be held in abeyance. For Scheler, the experience ofthe holy or of the absolute is not given through rational proof, butin the distinctive evidential mode of revelation (GW V, 150). Allrational proofs already assume the experience or the revelation of Godand thus come too late in the attempt to grasp how the holy or theabsolute is experienced (GW V, 249). Scheler’s approach is togrant revelation its own integrity and to treat it as a meaningfulexperience subject to philosophical investigation.

It is important to note at the outset of a discussion ofScheler’s work on religious experience that he prefaces hismajor work on religious experience,Vom Ewigen des Menschens(On the Eternal in Man), with a description of the religiousand existential crisis that humanity faced at the end of World War I.Many, including Scheler, had hoped that the Great War would reawaken asense of dignity both in one’s culture and in humanity ingeneral. The war failed miserably in this respect and has lefthumanity only “drunk” with suffering, death and tears (GWV, 103). In this moment of despair comes the call to a religiousrenewal, a call that concerns the very meaning and purpose of humanexistence. For Scheler, World War I was the first collectiveexperience of humanity as such, i.e., an experience shared by all (GWV, 104). Consequently, the call to renewal, the desperate seeking ofthe meaning of existence, is a call experienced by all of humanity. Ithas thus never been so crucial to understand the meaning of revelationand the experience of the absolute, for the danger of the rise of anidol or a false god has never been so imminent. Whoever or whatevermay step in to answer this call to renewal during these times ofcrisis potentially has the power to determine the meaning and courseof humanity.

A phenomenology of religious experience is, for Scheler, a descriptionof the essential characteristics and the meaning of revelation.Scheler defines revelation simply as the specific type of givennesswherein the divine or the holy is given (GW V, 249).“Givenness” is a term used by Scheler and otherphenomenologists to name that which is experienced in a particularact. It is, more precisely, the objective correlate of the intentionalact. There is the intending on the part of the person and that whichis given, the object or meaning. To suggest that revelation is apeculiar mode of givenness is to say that the divine or the holy isgiven to the person in a unique manner that is wholly distinct fromperceived objects or rational judgments. The attempt to describe theessential characteristics of revelation, characteristics that show howrevelation is distinct from other modes of givenness, assumes thatrevelation has its own particular sense of lawfulness (GW V, 242).This means that the investigation into the nature of revelation mustfollow the logic demonstrated in the revelatory experience itself andon its own accord.

Scheler distinguishes three essential characteristics of the act ofrevelation that are unique to the religious act.

1. The intention of the religious act is world transcendence. Scheler iscommitted to the idea that the religious act is an intentional act.The intention is the so-called subject correlate of the act ofintentionality. In the case of revelation, this intention is atranscendence of anything finite (i.e.of this world) (GW V, 245). Thisis not to say that revelation is not of this world or does not takeplace in this world, nor does it mean that the holy is not experiencedin a finite object such as a religious icon or a finite person.Rather, it means that what is posited in the act of revelation isalways other than this world, a meaning transcending the finite or therelative.

2. The objective correlate of the religious intention is also infinite inits meaning and value. Only the divine or the holy fulfills theintention of the religious act. No finite thing of any kind, no finitegood or object of love can fulfill the religious act. This is not tosay that we are not at times mistaken and erringly take a finiteobject as infinite, as in the case of idolatry. What is sought in thereligious act is precisely that which in principle could not beexperienced in this world. We are seeking a happiness that would neverbe possible on earth and we are hoping in the religious act for thatwhich is impossible and unimaginable (GW V, 246).

3. Finally, the religious act is only fulfilled through a reception(Aufnahme) of the divine that reveals itself to anotherbeing. (GW V, 245). In revelation, something is given, i.e.,experienced. Scheler rejects the idea that the experience of thedivine is wholly immanent and could be explained through anobjectivization of an immanent experience, an experience motivated byand in the person. For this reason, the religious act is notsubjective. It is a response to that which is given, a response to thedivine that gives itself. The essential difference between so-callednatural religion (where the world is given as God’s creation)and positive religion (where the experience of the divine is personal)lies in the way that the divine reveals itself. The revelation foundin natural religion is generic: God is given in nature for all to see.Revelation in positive religion is the experience of a wholly uniquerelation. God gives him or herself to me in a manner that isparticular to me (GW V, 249).

It is this third and final aspect of the religious act that marksScheler’s contribution to the investigation of revelation.Scheler’s claim is that for there to be a religious act, thedivine must be given in experience. The question that immediatelyarises, particularly within the context of the modern worldview, ishow we know that this experience is real and not imaginary or merelysubjective. Scheler agrees that there is no way to prove deductivelyor rationally that this experience was indeed real or that the divineexists. The givenness of the divine is its demonstration. Scheler usesthe German termAufweis to distinguish the particular way inwhich the reality or truth of the experience is given in revelation.AnAufweis is a pointing out or a showing of. The divineshows itself in such a manner that its existence cannot be proven bythe use of reason. In the experience of the divine, the existence ofthe divine is given. For this reason, it is impossible to prove toanyone who has not had a religious experience that God or a godexists.

As with much of his research, Scheler’s investigation into thereligious act is ultimately rooted in a a study of the meaning of thehuman being. For Scheler, the religious act is a fundamental andessential aspect of being human (GW V, 261). Each and every humanbeing executes the intending of the absolute or the divine and isalways a response to the givenness of the absolute. A human being is aGod-seeker. This is not to say that everyone believes that there is aGod, but only that each and every one of us executes the religiousintention, an intending of the absolute.

Atheism is not a disproof of Scheler’s claim; it is only arejection of God’s existence. That there is a negation of thedivine in atheism only demonstrates that even the atheist executes thereligious act. The negation of the divine only makes sense in thecontext of the religious act. For the atheist, one may very wellintend the divine, but such intentions are only met with greatdisappointment. The agnostic, on the other hand, holds open thepossibility that the divine exists. For Scheler, the agnostic is ametaphysical nihilist, a person who rejects that we could ever knowwith certainty that there is a God.

Scheler’s claim that the human being is a God seeker allows forthe beliefs of atheists and agnostics, but it leads him to a muchstronger claim: “Every finite spirit believes either in a God orin an idol” (GW V, 261). An idol is a finite object that istreated as if it were infinite, as if it were God (GW V, 263). Theatheist is not really, according to Scheler, a non-believer. Rather,the atheist believes in a no-God, that there is no absolute value ormeaning. This is still a religious act and a religious belief.Scheler’s point is that there is always an intending of theabsolute, a seeking of a God. What is in question is necessarily theobject intended as absolute. In the act of idolatry, this God is afinite object or a good such as wealth, fame or power. The risk ofidolatry is ever present, a risk entailed in the radical openness ofthe human being to absolute value. Whether God exists or not isirrelevant here. What the investigation of the religious act andreligious experience demonstrates is that being human is an opening; ahuman being is open to the absolute and the divine.

A final note and a useful transition into the next subject headingconcerns the relation between religions themselves and the questionconcerning the diversity or variety of religious experience. The imageScheler uses to depict the relation that different religions andcultures bear to one another is that of a tributary all flowing intothe same river toward the same end point (GW XIII, 92). Religiousexperience yields only a glimpse of the holy and provides only apartial, but original insight. Although all religious insight yieldssuch a partial glimpse, not all insights are of the same depth. Someof the deepest insights into the holy have formed and led to the majorreligions of the world. These rivers may intersect, divide or sharecertain pathways, but none serves or can serve as the disproof of theother. Religious faith and beliefs are of the most deeply rooted andsignificant, and consequently can often lead to great conflict withother faiths. In his more hopeful moments, Scheler thought that theincreasingly shrinking world promised the opportunity to understandthe different religious insights and form a greater understanding ofthe divine. Yet, he also warned that these conflicts of faith maycontinue to lead to the bloodiest of wars. Acknowledging a genuinereligious diversity does not commit one to the view that all religiousideas or beliefs are of the same value, but rather to the realizationthat there are genuine and irreconcilable differences between them.How we reconcile and live in a smaller world with these differenceswill determine whether the future will be one of war or one ofpeace.

6. Social and Political Theory

Scheler’s social and political thought matures in the fertileintellectual ground of the sociological and political debates of theearly 20^th century. The context of Scheler’s thoughtis the creation of sociology as a discipline and Scheler seeks toplace himself in the critical exchange with the major players of thistime in sociology and politics, such as Max Weber, Emile Durkheim,Wilhelm Dilthey, Oswald Spengler, Herbert Spencer, FerdinandTönnies and Karl Schmitt. Scheler’s socio-political thoughtwas born from within the cultural crisis experienced in Germany bothpreceding and most emphatically following World War I.

Early in his writings, Scheler represents the Christian voice of theleft. The central question for Scheler and for socio-political thoughtat this time in Germany was whether an alternative to eitherliberalism or socialism was possible. Scheler argues early thatChristian democracy is the most profound and viable alternative,showing how the resource for a cultural and political renewal is theChristian notion of love and solidarity. The explicitly religiousaspect of Scheler’s socio-political thought lessens to a degreein the latter stages of his thought, but he never abandons the idea ofsolidarity as the basis for a more just and peaceful future, a futurewhere the people collectively and in solidarity take up the task oftransforming the world in which we live.

Scheler’s premature death would prevent him from experiencingfirsthand the unthinkable and horrific consequences of the social andpolitical crises Germany faced during the early 20^thcentury. The crisis was for him not merely a German problem, but theproblem of modernity in general. Scheler did not hesitate to speak ingeneral and singularizing terms like “the German culture,”“the European culture” or even “the West.”With such generalities as “the modern worldview,” Schelercould identify the underlying ethos, i.e., the order of valuing, of aculture and describe the dominant tendencies responsible for thesocial and cultural crisis. However, Scheler used the terms “theGerman culture” or “the European culture” as a meansto preserve a unique and irreplaceable spiritual development of apeople. The attempt to defend the meaning and culture of a peoplecontinued to be a cause for tension in Scheler’s thought, atension that would lead him to defend German aggression at the outsetof World War I and a tension that motivated his critique of fascismand his support for the necessity of the ideal of peace.

The crisis of modernity was, for Scheler, the result of three centralfactors or mindsets: (1) the rise of late capitalism, (2) themechanization of nature, and (3) liberal individualism.Scheler’s description of these three as “mindsets”(Denkformen) is purposeful. Particularly in respect tocapitalism, he wants to distinguish his work from that of Weber andSombart, specifically from their work on the “spirit” ofcapitalism. On the other hand, he wants to retain an understanding ofcapitalism, for instance, as not merely an economic system, but as anapproach and a way of configuring the world.

Capitalism, the mechanization of nature and liberal individualism arereductive mindsets. A reductive mindset is a way of viewing the worldthat devalues all other possible views. The mechanization of nature,for example, becomes not merely one form of knowledge of nature, butthe only way in which to know it. All reductive mindsets are, forScheler, ultimately rooted in a value reversal. The value reversalthat all three of these mindsets share is the promotion of utilityover the value of life. As a consequence, a living being only hasvalue in so far as it is useful. Late capitalism is the economicexpression of the value reversal. All goods, objects and beings arevaluable only in so far as they are able to generate more wealth. Themechanization of nature is the reduction of a living being to amechanism or a machine for the purposes of manipulation and controland for achieving some useful end for human beings. Liberalindividualism is the reduction of all forms of community to society.As a result, all interpersonal relations are regarded as artificialand contractual, relations formed for the benefit of theindividual’s interests.

Together these different but related mindsets create a worldview, themodernWeltanschauung, and succeed in transforming the worldinto an object of utility. The value reduction to utility poses notonly a threat to the life and the welfare of living beings, but alsoto the cultural and spiritual values. Utility, as the dominant value,does not destroy the higher values. It cultivates, rather, a type ofvalue blindness. People lose sight of the value of spiritual pursuitssuch as the arts, philosophy and religion. Spiritual values are onlynoticed through their usefulness. When a culture becomes blind to thehigher values, it also loses sight of its uniqueness as a culture andas a people. At the level of utility, people are more alike. Culturaldifferences matter very little when the goals become efficiency andproductivity. It is the higher, spiritual values that reveal theuniqueness of a specific culture. The end of the modern worldview,Scheler maintains, is an internationalization of all cultures, amaking of all peoples and cultures one and the same (GW IV, 600).

Scheler has little interest in merely remaining a spectator to thecrisis and his writing offers the means to overcome it. While heanalyzes the main factors responsible for the crisis of modernity,Scheler’s suggestions for overcoming it change dramatically. Hisfirst and most troublesome response to the crisis was war. During histime earning a living as a freelance writer, Scheler worked for thestate’s office of propaganda during the year leading up to andimmediately following the outbreak of World War I. Like manyintellectuals at the time, Scheler was a vociferous defender of Germanaggression and thought that the war could function as a means toawaken the German people from cultural slumber and value blindness. Inhis major work on the war,Der Genius des Krieges und der deutscheKrieg (The Genius of War and the German War) Schelerdistinguishes three different levels on which war functions as acultural renewal.

1. Scheler argues that war is quite natural to life as it is a naturalconsequence of the organism’s growth. More importantly, theseconflicts among living beings function as an important reminder of thevalue of life and the types of trusting and communal relations thatemerge through a sharing of life with other human beings.

2. War is also a significant factor in the growth of a culture. The GreatWar was a war of culture and lifestyles. Through this conflict,Germany would be reminded of its uniqueness. Conflict serves as anincredibly stark reminder of how one’s own culture differs fromsomeone else’s. This must not necessarily be a judgment of whichculture is better, but rather functions as an awakening to one’sown particular culture and one’s particular role in preservingand promoting one’s own culture.

3. Finally, Scheler discusses the value level of the holy and it is atthis level that the war finds its greatest significance. Schelerbegins this analysis by showing first how war and violence are notanti-religious acts, but are very much a part of religious belief,attempting to make sense of loving one’s enemy on thebattlefield. These remarks are only preparatory. The genuine holysignificance of the war for Germany comes from the realization thatthe war is a battle for justice. Scheler is not pro-war and arguesthat the only justified war is a defensive war that defends againstthe annihilation of the significant values of a culture (GW IV, 101).For Scheler, Germany is not the aggressor, but England is. Thisaggression is only made explicit through the type of worldview andmindset analysis that Scheler gives. At stake is the annihilation ofthe German people, a wholly unjust act. Hence, when Germany rises tobattle, it is defending not only itself, but also justice, fightingagainst tyrannical forces aiming to destroy a culture and apeople.

Scheler’s analysis and justification of German aggressionleading to the war is confused for many reasons, many of which Schelerhimself acknowledges in his later writings. A central confusionScheler recognizes concerns the meaning and the possibility ofrenewal. Renewal, as Scheler writes later, only takes place through anact of repentance and thus can never be motivated by hatred. Schelerwrites specifically with respect to the possibility of a politicalreconstruction that what is necessary is a collective proclamation ofguilt, not merely for the war, but also for the cultural depressionand value degradation for which every member of the German andEuropean community is responsible (GW V, 416). Acts of repentance,individual or collective, assume a moral transformation. Whereas warfinds its resource for renewal through the violent conflict with theenemy, repentance grounds its renewal in the ethical insight into theperson I ought to be. The act of repentance and the expression ofguilt are acts of disclosure, revealing what kind of person one oughtto be in contrast to the kind of person one has been. These actsdemonstrate that the person has become a more loving human being.Transformation, either for the individual or for a people, ismotivated by this moral ideal disclosed in the act of repentance.

Scheler describes this sense of transformation as a transformation“from above” (GW IV, 397). It is a rejection of whatScheler takes to be the socialist form of transformation, atransformation from below. What Scheler thinks is lacking in socialismand Marxism is a sense of the absolute value of the person. Atransformation from below, a transformation fueled by class conflictor other economic factors, fails to recognize the uniqueness and thevalue of each person. Such recognition is possible only at thespiritual or ideal level of insight. Socialism, according to Scheler,regards the person only in terms of the basic life values andconsequently seeks only to transform the given social and politicalcontext from this perspective, a perspective which treats all personas if they were the same.. A transformation from above takes theperson as the highest value and transforms the given conditions inaccord with uniqueness of each and every individual.

Scheler is not interested in a revolution and at no time speaks of apossible overthrow of the existing governments in Germany or inEurope. The revolutionary act comes in the form of an act ofresurgence in the community and the specific sense of responsibilitydeveloped through the bonds of solidarity. Solidarity is the principlethat guides the generation of a Christian community and it is on thisform of community that Scheler hopes to found a new Germany and Europe(GW VI, 264). In this second phase of Scheler’s social andpolitical thought, he was attracted to the manner by which the personas absolute value was realized in the bonds of solidarity. Insolidarity, a person comes to realize not only his or herco-responsibility for every member of the group, but also his or herunique calling to act on behalf of the good and the just. The bonds ofsolidarity not only overcome the individualism of liberalism and thevalue reduction of socialism, but they also reveal the call to act andthus to participate in the social and political reconstruction.

“Christian democracy” is the title Scheler gives to thepolitical expression of the sense of solidarity he develops in thesecond phase of his social and political thought (GW IV,676–687). Scheler does not return to this notion again, but itdoes isolate the three basic aspects of his political thought thatgrew out of this period of his thought and that informed his laterthought as well. These three aspects of Christian democracy are asfollows: (1) Each and every member is called to act by virtue of asense of co-responsibility for every other member and for the group asa whole, an expression of collective self-governance, (2) the basicvital needs and goods are provided to all, preserving thelife-community of a people, and (3) dignity and humility are thecentral virtues that preserve the radical uniqueness of each and everyperson. A Christian democracy is a model of collective governancewherein each person is concerned about the basic welfare of all whilepromoting what makes each person unique. Or, in Scheler’s words,it maintains an aristocracy “in the heavens” and ademocracy “on earth” (GW II, 500).

The beginning of the third phase in Scheler’s social andpolitical thought is marked by the publication of his work,Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge. Although this idea of asociology of knowledge is a new approach for Scheler, it does notraise a new question. In this work, Scheler investigates the manner inwhich values and ideals determine the course of history, i.e., what isboth possible and actual for a culture. This is the same concern thatScheler raised in his work on value theory. What is novel about hislater approach is an understanding of history as an interplay betweentwo wholly distinct factors, real and ideal. Whereas Scheler’searlier work focused primarily on the ideal or on the role of valuesin history, the later work places much greater emphasis on theso-called “real” factors or drives of life. This change ofemphasis was motivated in part by his disappointment with thereconstructive efforts immediately after the war and the recognitionthat ideals and values are incapable on their own of institutingchange.

There are, for a human society, three basic real factors: family,politics and economics. These three factors are rooted in the basiclife-drive structure of the human being. The family is rooted in thesex drive, politics – in the power drive and economics –in the appetitive or the acquisition drive (GW VIII, 19). Life orexistence is a basic urge to be (Drang) and in the humanbeing, this urge to be is expressed in terms of the three basicdrives. These drives are what makes all that is possible and in termsof the development of history, the drives are what makes historypossible.

Ideal factors are activities such as art, philosophy, science andreligion. These factors are rooted in spirit, a movement expressed ineach human being that discloses the higher values and ideals. Theideal factors enjoy a development independent of the real and havetheir own logic of development. The real or actual does not determinewhat is or what can be thought. Culture is the arena in which spiritunfolds, but this unfolding is particular to each and every culture.Scheler adamantly rejects any idea of a world-spirit or eternalobjective logos directing the course of human history and of everyculture (GW VIII, 27). There is, by the very nature of spirit itself,a diversity of cultures, each having its own organizational structureand function (GW VIII, 25). The development of a culture rests on theparticular insights of its people and proceeds along the courseparticular to that culture.

With respect to existence, however, the ideal factors are powerless.They cannot on their own accord realize any idea or value. Their powerlies in their ability to direct and channel the real factors ofhistory. They are parasitic in this manner upon the real factors,having power only in so far as they are able to determine the courseof the real factors. The life drives are what gives spirit its powerto exist. History, therefore, takes place through the interplay of thereal and the ideal factors. Its course is determined by which ideasand values become dominant in directing the life drives.

This process of determining the real factors and realizing the idealis the process of spiritualization and it defines the task of beinghuman. A sociology of knowledge is an examination of how certain ideasand values have shaped the real factors, giving rise to diverseexpressions of the family, politics and economics. Politically,spiritualization is not only the process by which the drive to poweris directed by the higher values of spirit, the transformation ofphysical power into political power, but also an understanding thatideas alone do not change the course of history. Politics is anactivity that engages the real and thus must unfold through action.The loving bonds of solidarity may give rise to deeper insightsregarding the value of a person, but these insights only come to havean effective force if they are realized in the acts of persons.

Throughout his political writings, Scheler was prone to raisingultimatums for Germany and Europe. During the events leading up toWorld War I, either Germany would fight for its and Europe’scultural dignity, or Europe would cease to exist. Immediately afterthe war, it was once again an “either/or” frame in termsof the existence of Europe: either Europe would generate itself againfrom the loving bonds of community and solidarity, or it wouldcollapse under the pressures of capitalism, liberalism and themechanization of nature. Scheler never stopped fearing the destructiveideals and values inherent to modernity. Yet, his greatest politicalfear was political indifference (GW XIII, 72). Indifference leads onlyto despotism, he writes, and with the looming threat of fascismthroughout Europe it was more important than ever for the people ofEurope to act. Despite a history that only knows violence and war,peace remains a possibility. In his essay on the eternal ideal ofpeace, Scheler writes that peace is always a future possibility, butthat this eternal ideal will not realize itself. The realization ofpeace requires direct political action that must spring collectivelyfrom each and every member (GW XIII, 121). Scheler’s maturesocial and political thought demonstrates the necessity of action andthe possible terror that will ensue when indifference and apathybecome the cultural norm.

7. Philosophical Anthropology and Metaphysics

In the Preface to the volume,The Forms of Knowledge andSociety, Scheler remarks that the works contained in the volume,The Sociology of Knowledge andCognition and Work,are a means to understand both his philosophical anthropology andmetaphysics (GW VIII, 11). Many of the themes present in this volumeare developed in a more speculative manner. Scheler has been oftencriticized for taking this metaphysical turn, a turn apparentlydefying his earlier phenomenological investigations and a turn takenat a time that many were declaring to be the end of the metaphysicsand metaphysical systems. For Scheler, the move was necessary tocounteract the forces found in the mindsets that underpin thosepositive sciences that render metaphysical and philosophicalinvestigations meaningless. More importantly, this metaphysical turnwas also necessary to grasp more profoundly the crisis hauntingmodernity.

The social and political tensions erupting in Germany and Europe,tensions Scheler feared would lead to a second and even bloodier WorldWar, had their roots in a much deeper crisis, an ontological crisis, acrisis of the human being. This crisis is perhaps best captured byScheler in his essay,The Human Being and History. Schelerwrites, “In our ten-thousand year history, we are the first timeperiod in which the human being has become fully and totally‘problematic’; the first time period in which the humanbeing no longer knows who he or she is, but alsoknows thathe or she does not know” (GW IX, 120). The purpose of the laterspeculative work was not merely to clarify the nature of the crisis,but also to problematize what had become unproblematic, to show thatthe human being is a question that ought to be considered.

Philosophical anthropology is an attempt to provide a unified accountof the meaning of the human being. In a much earlier work,TheIdea of the Human Being, Scheler writes that the human being isundefinable (GW III, 186). The human being is no thing, but rather a“becoming,” a “between,” a“self-transcending being.” An attempt at a unified accountis thus not a search for a definition, but rather an attempt toclarify exactly that which makes the human being undefinable, thatwhich reveals human being as a human becoming. A philosophicalanthropology is historical in as much as it investigates the dominantworldviews that harbor a basic insight into the meaning of beinghuman. The three dominant insights that Scheler wishes to unify are(1) the human being as “tool maker” (homo faber), theinsight of Darwinian evolution and science, (2) the human being asrational animal, the insight directing the ancient Greek worldview,and (3) the human being as child of God, the insight of theJudeo-Christian worldview. Each insight, for Scheler, reveals apeculiar aspect of the human being. The problem is that no one has yetshown how these insights are united to form a singular whole, theunity that is the human being.

A rejection of any attempt to define the human being is a rejection ofthe traditional attempt in philosophy to think of the human being as asubstance. Scheler describes the human being not as a substance, butas the meeting point of two distinct movements (GW IX, 70). Thesemovements are life-urge (Lebensdrang) and spirit(Geist). The distinction between these two movements followsthe distinction between the real and the ideal factors introduced inthe sociology of knowledge. It is only in the human being that lifeand spirit find themselves in a process of becoming unified. In thehuman being, life becomes spiritualized and spirit becomes vitalizedand embodied. Every act of the human being participates in this dualprocess, a process that is never completed, but is recreated in everynew act. Either this process participates in the realization of thedeeper, spiritual values, or it is a movement toward bestialization, arealization of the more shallow and superficial values.

Life-urge is the movement found in every living being, the movement ordrive to seek the greatest amount of fulfillment and vivacity with theleast amount of resistance. This urge can be found in the distinctstages of evolution, whether in the most basic living organism or inthe higher primates and human beings. It expresses itself in theinstinctual drives as well as in the highly sophisticated intelligenceneeded to solve problems related to survival in an environment.Scheler argues inCognition and Work that pragmatism hasoffered to date the best and the most robust account of the humanbeing as a living being who interacts with and learns from his or herenvironment.

Living beings relate to their environment and to other living beingserotically, through a type of cosmic love disclosed most emphaticallyin the person of Saint Francis of Assisi (GW VIII, 274). Aserotic-vital beings, humans seek the most vivacious and beautiful oflives. A living being desires not merely to live, but to live mostfully. As living beings, we bear an erotic relation to the naturalworld. This loving relation to other living beings affords us aconnection to others as fellow living beings, an understanding of theother as living, as sharing in an environment. Having a body affordsthe human being a privileged access to the living world and theenvironment, an access threatened by the mechanization of nature andthe modern drive to dominate it.

What it means to be a living being takes on a much more complex andelevated significance in Scheler’s later work and marks agenuinely new avenue of investigation for him. Yet, the questionsconcerning the meaning of being human remain very much the same. Arehuman beings merely intelligent living beings? Is the differencebetween the being human and being some other animal one of degree oris it a difference of kind? Is there anything “special” orunique about being human? The answer to these questions is decisivefor Scheler. At stake is the meaning of the human being as person, asabsolute value. In his philosophical anthropology, Scheler attempts todemonstrate that the human being also participates in the movement ofspirit and that spirit is essentially different from the movement oflife. The human being has a “special” place in the cosmosbecause the human being participates in both the movement of life andspirit, because each human being is an embodied spirit, i.e., a finiteperson.

There are at least four ways in which Scheler distinguishes spiritfrom life.

1. Spirit is the activity of objectivizing, a rendering of the world andof beings in terms of what they mean. Mere living beings, by contrast,relate to objects in their environment not as objects, but as thatwhich satisfies the drives. For example, for the living being, theapple is experienced as merely something to fulfill one’sdesire, whereas for the spiritual being, the apple is given as apple,as a kind of food.

2. Related to this first characteristic, is the value latent quality ofspirit. The movement of spirit is the disclosure of value. Accordingto Scheler, life-urge is value blind and is motivated solely bygreater fulfillment. Spirit is motivated by the good and is structuredaccording toagape, a charitable and self-sacrificinglove.

3. Spirit is self-consciousness. Each living being, by virtue of having abody, exhibits a type of body-consciousness, a relating of oneself toothers in a given environment. Spiritual beings not only can takethemselves to be objects of reflection, and thus can be critical ofwho or what they have become, but are also aware of themselves asbeing seen by others, as having a different world of experience thanothers.

4. The final distinguishing characteristic is spirit’s quality ofworld-openness. Spiritual beings are not restricted in theirreflections to the here and now, or even to the specific context oftheir immediate life concerns. This type of world-openness is what iscaptured by the Greek sense of wonder, a metaphysical wonder andastonishment that there is something rather than nothing. Spiritualbeings are able to contemplate the meaning of being, time, death aswell as the purpose of existence itself. These are not merelytheoretical concerns, but that which transcends, or is beyond,life.

It is the sense of spirit as world-open that leads Scheler toundertake his final reflections regarding the ground of all being orWeltgrund. These final reflections are taken not from areligious perspective, but from a metaphysical one. In this finalstage of his thought, Scheler becomes increasingly critical ofreligion and finds that philosophy remains more true to thesignificance of the human being as world-open. Religion, writesScheler, tends to conceal this openness by positing some fixed orsecure notion of God (GW IX, 69). The radical openness that is spiritreveals, to the contrary, that the ground of all being is itselfcaught up in a process of becoming. Scheler’s understanding ofGod also changes. In his later thought, God is a becoming that takesplace in and through the acts of all spiritual beings. It requiresgreat courage to face a world that has no fixed meaning, a world whosemeaning hangs upon the actions of each and every human being.

Outright rejected by Scheler is the creator God of the Judeo-Christiantradition. Spirit wholly lacks the power to createex nihilo,and God as pure spirit is utterly powerless in this sense. The powerof spirit lies in its ability to guide and direct the becoming of theworld. God did not create the world, but allowed it to become (GW XI,203). The world, i.e., life-urge, is the realizing factor of spiritand, in allowing the world to become, God makes it possible forgoodness to be realized. Hence, the becoming of the world is, byvirtue of God’s love,agape. As the meeting place ofspirit and life, the human being is responsible for the becoming ofGod, and consequently for the realization of goodness. This task ofthe realization of God is one and same as the task of the realizationof the deeper spiritual values. As the deeper spiritual values arerealized, existence takes on a more meaningful form and ultimatelypoints to the deepest value, the divine. Scheler’s metaphysicsis the revelation of human responsibility in its most profounddesignation. Whether human existence is the expression of the divineor is merely relative to the basest of values depends solely on themanner in which human beings take responsibility for a future that isopen. Rather than shift responsibility for the uncertain future to aparticular religious practice or dogma, each person must live out thewholly indeterminate becoming of the world, the human being andGod.

Scheler’s commitment to the distinctive nature of the humanbeing and to the two irreducible movements of the Weltgrund, spiritand life-urge, leaves his final thought in a kind of dualism. He isreadily aware of this and argues that his is a new type of dualism. Itdoes not suffer from the problems introduced by the Cartesian dualismof mind and body. Yet, due in part to the unfinished nature of bothhis philosophical anthropology and metaphysics, we are left with morequestions than answers about the relation between life and spirit. Forinstance, how do spirit and life interact when life is value blind andspirit is powerless? How is the human being a unity when itparticipates in two essentially different movements? What is clear isthat these two movements constituting the unique place of the humanbeing interpenetrate one another through a discourse of loving, theeros of life and theagape of spirit. Through his or herexistence, the human beings is the unification of both forms of lovingand is afforded the unique insights that arise through eros andagape. Scheler’s attempt at a metaphysics is a morespeculative approach to an examination of human existence, but thisspeculative move is motivated by a fuller understanding of theoriginal and loving openness the human being bears to the world.

8. Concluding Remarks

Scheler occupies a precarious position in the history of thephenomenological movement. Unlike many of the giants in the tradition,Scheler was not a student of the master, Husserl. Phenomenology is an“attitude” to which Scheler arrives after he completes hisformal studies. His first published works are not, strictly speaking,phenomenological. Husserl and the phenomenological approach providedScheler access to phenomena he had previously only hinted at or viewedfrom afar, phenomena such as moral and emotional experience. WhenScheler was introduced to phenomenology, it was in its infancy, stilldiscovering itself as a distinctive approach. Both of these factors,Scheler’s maturity as a philosopher and phenomenology’simmaturity as a movement, provided Scheler the freedom to developphenomenology in his own unique style as well as to test itslimits.

Many of the differences between Scheler and his fellowphenomenologists, whether in terms of style or content, could beattributed to a difference in their personalities. Yet, there are atleast notable and substantial differences between Scheler and otherphenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Forexample, Scheler draws a much sharper line between existence andspirit, between the real and the ideal, between object and act. Thiscan be seen most acutely in Scheler’s understanding of theintuition of essences and how such an intuition participates in thebecoming-God. In terms of style, Scheler worked solely from insightand refused to follow any prescribed method or pedagogy. His tendencywas to move directly to the most profound or deepest of insights,rather than develop levels of phenomenological analysis, e.g., staticand genetic, or hermeneutic. As a result, Scheler does not hesitate totake up subjects such as ethics, politics and religion. This lack ofmethod in Scheler is in part due to the foundational nature of theemotional life, his conviction that love is the ground for knowledge– a foundational relation in direct opposition to Husserl. Ifthere is a single point or thought that best captures the distinctivenature of Scheler’s approach in contrast to that of his fellowphenomenologists, it is his notion of the human being as person. This“choice” of human being as person in contrast toHusserl’s transcendental ego, Heidegger’s Dasein orMerleau-Ponty’s lived-body gives a particular directedness toScheler’s thought, an emphasis on the personal dimension ofexperience. Scheler’s world is cast in a much different reliefand as a consequence, is illuminated by such personal experiences asthe love of others and the divine.

Bibliography

A. Collected Works

The collected works of Max Scheler are published asGesammelteWerke, in volumes as follows:

1. Frühe Schriften, 1971, Maria Scheler and Manfred S.Frings (eds.), Bern: Francke Verlag.
2. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die matierale Wertethik.Neuer Versuch der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus,1980, Maria Scheler (ed. 1^st to 5^th Edition),Manfred S. Frings (ed. 6^th Edition), Bern: FranckeVerlag.
3. Vom Umsturz der Werte, 1972, Maria Scheler (ed.). Bern:Francke Verlag.
4. Politisch Pädagogische Schriften, 1982, Manfred S.Frings (ed.), Bern: Francke Verlag.
5. Vom Ewigen im Menschen, 1954, Maria Scheler (ed.), Bern:Francke Verlag.
6. Schriften zur Soziologie und Weltanschauungslehre, 1963,Maria Scheler (ed.), Bern: Francke Verlag.
7. Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, 1973, Manfred S. Frings(ed.), Bern: Francke Verlag.
8. Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft, 1980, MariaScheler (ed. 1^st and 2^nd Edition), Manfred S.Frings (ed. 3^rd Edition), Bern: Francke Verlag.
9. Späte Schriften, 1976, Manfred S. Frings (ed.),Bern: Francke Verlag.
10. Schriften aus dem Nachlass, I. Zur Ethik undErkenntnislehre, 1957, Maria Scheler (ed.), Bern: FranckeVerlag.
11. Schriften aus dem Nachlass, II. Erkenntnislehre undMetaphysik, 1979, Manfred S. Frings (ed.), Bonn: BouvierVerlag.
12. Schriften aus dem Nachlass, III. PhilosophischeAnthropologie, 1987, Manfred S. Frings (ed.), Bonn: BouvierVerlag.
13. Schriften aus dem Nachlass, IV. Philosophie undGeschichte, 1990, Manfred S. Frings (ed.), Bonn: BouvierVerlag.
14. Schriften aus dem Nachlass, V. Varia I, 1993, Manfred S.Frings (ed.), Bonn: Bouvier Verlag.
15. Schriften aus dem Nachlass, VI. Varia II, 1997, ManfredS. Frings (ed.), Bonn: Bouvier Verlag.

B. Current English Translations

B.1 Books and Collection of Essays

• Cognition and Work: A Study Concerning the Value and Limits ofthe Pragmatic Motifs in the Cognition of the World, 2021 ZacharyDavis (tr.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values,1973, Manfred S. Frings and Roger L. Funk (trs.), Evanston, IL:Northwestern University Press.
• Man’s Place in Nature, 1961, Hans Meyerhoff (tr.),NY: Noonday.
• Max Scheler: The Constitution of the Human Being, 2008,John Cutting (tr.), Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
• On the Eternal in Man, 1960, Bernard Noble (tr.), London:SCM Press.
• Person and Self-Value. Three Essays, 1987, Manfred S.Frings (ed. and partial tr.), Dordrecht, Netherlands: MartinusNijhoff.
• Philosophical Perspectives, 1958, Oscar Haac (tr.),Boston: Beacon Press.
• Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, 1980, Manfred S.Frings (tr.), Kenneth Stikkers (ed.), London: Routledge & KeganPress.
• Selected Philosophical Essays, 1973, David Lachterman(tr.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• The Constitution of the Human Being, 2008, John Cutting(tr.), Marquette University Press.
• The Human’s Place in the Cosmos, 2009, Manfred S.Frings (tr.), Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• The Nature of Sympathy, 1970, Peter Heath, Hamden (tr.),CN: Archon Books (first printing, London: Routledge & Kegan Press,1954).

B.2 Essays

• “Ana priori Hierarchy of Value-Modalities,”1967, inReadings in Existential Phenomenology, DanielO’Connor (tr.), Nathaniel Lawrence and Daniel O’Connor(eds.). Englewood, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
• “Concerning the Meaning of the Feminist Movement,”1978 (Fall), Manfred S. Frings (tr.), inPhilosophical Forum,9: 42–54.
• “Future of Man,” 1928 (Feb.), Howard Becker (tr.), inMonthly Criterion, 7: 100–119.
• “Humility,” 1981, Barbara Fiand (tr.), inAltheia, II: 200–209.
• “Love and Knowledge,” 1992, inMax Scheler. OnFeeling, Knowing, and Valuing. Selected Writings, Harold J.Bershady with Peter Haley (trs.), Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress.
• “Max Weber’s Exclusion of Philosophy (on thePsychology and Sociology of Nominalist Thought,” 1989, inMax Weber Science as Vocation, R. C. Speirs (tr.), PeterLassman, Irving Velody with Hermino Martins (eds.), London: UnwinHyman.
• “Metaphysics and Art,” 1974, inMax Scheler(1874–1928) Centennial Essays, Manfred S. Frings (tr. anded.), The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
• “On the Positivistic Philosophy of the History of Knowledgeand Its Laws of Three Stages,” 1970, inThe Sociology ofKnowledge: A Reader, Rainer Koehne (tr.), James E. Curtis andJohn W. Petras (eds.), New York: Praeger.
• “On the Tragic,” 1954, Bernard Stambler (tr.),Cross Currents, 4: 178–191.
• “Reality and Resistance: On Being and Time, Section43,” 1977 (Fall), Thomas Sheehan (tr.), inListening,12(3): 61–73.
• “Sociology and the Study and Formulation ofWeltanschauung,” 1989, inMax Weber’s Science asVocation, R. C. Speirs (ed.), Peter Lassman, Irving Velody withHermino Martins (eds.), London: Unwin Hyman.
• “The Idea of Man,” 1978 (Oct.), Clyde Nabe (tr.), inJournal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 9:184–198.
• “The Idea of Peace and Pacifism,” 1976 (Oct.) andcontinued 1977 (Jan.), Manfred S. Frings (tr.), inJournal for theBritish Society for Phenomenology, 8 (October): 154–66,(January): 36–50.
• “The Meaning of Suffering,” 1992, in Max Scheler,On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing: Selected Writings, HaroldBershady (tr.), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• “The Psychology of So-Called Compensation Hysteria and theReal Battle against Illness,” 1984 (Fall), Edward Vacek, S. J.(tr.), inJournal of Phenomenological Psychology, 15(2):125–143.
• “The Thomist Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,”1964, Gertrude Neuwith (tr.), inSociological Analysis, 25:4–19.
• “Toward a Stratification of the Emotional Life,”1989,inMax Weber’s Science as Vocation, R. C. Speirs (tr.),Peter Lassman, Irving Velody with Hermino Martins (eds.). EnglewoodCliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

C. Suggested Secondary Literature

• Barber, Michael, 1993,Guardian of Dialogue. MaxScheler’s Phenomenology, Sociology and Philosophy of Love,Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press.
• Bermes, Christian, Wolfhart Henckmann, Heinz Leonardy (eds.),2000,Person und Wert, Schelers “Formalismus” –Perspektiven und Wirkungen, Freiberg: Albers.
• ––– (eds.), 2003,Vernunft und Gefühl.Schelers Phänomenologie des emotionalen Lebens,Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
• ––– (eds.), 2006,Solidarität. Personund Soziale Welt, Würzburg: Königshausen &Neumann.
• ––– (eds.), 2007,Die Bildung derGesellschaft. Schelers Sozialphilosophie im Kontext,Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.
• Bermes, Christian, Ernst Wolfgang Orth (eds.), 2011,Religionund Metaphysik als Dimensionen der Kultur, Würzburg:Königshausen & Neumann.
• Blosser, Phillip, 1995,Scheler’s Critique ofKant’s Ethic, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press.
• Ferran, Ingrid Vendrell, 2008,Die Emotionen: Gefuehle in derrealistischen Phaenomenologie, Berlin: Akademische Verlag.
• Frings, Manfred S., 1997,The Mind of Max Scheler,Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.
• ––– , 2003,Lifetime: Max Scheler’sPhilosophy of Time, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Gabel, Michael, 1991,Intentionalität des Geistes: derphänomenologische Denkansatz bei Max Scheler: Untersuchung zumVerständnis der Intentionalität in Max Scheler“Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materialeWertethik”, Leipzig: Benno Verlag.
• Gabel, Michael, Mathias Müller (eds.), 2015,Erkennen– Handeln – Bewähren. Phänomenologie undPragmatismus (Scheleriana Band 2), Nordhausen: TraugottBautz GmbH.
• Gottlöber, Susan (ed.), 2022,Max Scheler inDialogue, Cham: Springer.
• Kelly, Eugene, 1997,Structure and Diversity:ThePhenomenological Philosophy of Max Scheler, Dordrecht:Kluwer.
• Kelly, Eugene, 2011,Material Ethics of Value: Max Scheler andNicolai Hartmann, New York: Springer.
• Leonardy, Heinz, 1976,Max Scheler Versuch eines“phänomenologischen” Personalismus, Den Haag:Martinus Nijhoff.
• Luther, Arthur, 1972,Persons in Love: A Study of MaxScheler’s Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff.
• Mader, Wilhelm, 1995,Max Scheler in Selbstzeugnissen undBilddokumenten, Hamburg: Rowohlt.
• Ranly, E. W.,Scheler’s Phenomenology of Community,The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Schneck, St. F., 1987,Person and Polis, Albany: StateUniversity of New Press.
• Spader, Peter, 2002,Scheler’s Ethical Personalism: ItsLogic, Development and Promise, New York: Fordham UniversityPress.
• Steinbock, Anthony J., 2014,Moral Emotions: Reclaiming theEvidence of the Heart, Evanston, IL: Northwestern UniversityPress.
• Wojtyla, K. (Pope John Paul II), 1979,The Acting Person,Analecta Husserliana X, Dordrecht: Kluwer.

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