Scheler, Max

SCHELER, MAX. - Philosopher, b. in Munich on 22 Aug. 1875, d. in Frankfurt am Main on 19 May 1928. He first taught as a Privatdozent in Jena and Munich, then (1919) as a professor in Cologne.

He is the principal continuator of Husserl's phenomenological school (v.) in the ethico-social field. His theoretical position with respect to his master is thus defined in the work Die transzendentale und die psychologische Methode (Leipzig

1900): the unity of the form or category is superior to the processes or activities unified by it; these form the object of phenomenology; the categories are contemplated, in their transcendental aspect, by an inductive procedure from the lower world of experience, which recognizes them as a super-world of consciousness, the world of values; and therefore they present themselves with an aspect inverse to their true nature, so that, in order to revalue them ontologically, this must be overturned (not the contemplative values in themselves, as both the Nietzschean formulas and socialism proposed). It is on these criteria that Scheler's two fundamental works are inspired: Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, a new essay toward the founding of an ethical personalism (in Husserl's Jahrbücher, 1913-16; 2nd ed. Halle 1921) and Vom Umsturz der Werte (= On the Overturning of Values, memoirs and essays, 2 vols., Leipzig 1915; 2nd ed. 1919). The definition of values as an objective, Platonic reality makes it possible to assign to the phenomenal consciousness the Kantian formality of morality as its unity, and to the values the metaphysics of ethics, insofar as they are real qualities and have their own matter according to which they are recognized by us. The psychological world comes to depend entirely on these values, and to detach itself from the physical world, whose parallelism Scheler denies. The empirical concreteness of the psyche is distinguished by the positive developments of negative principles, such as resentment (Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil, Leipzig 1912) and sympathy (Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, Bonn 1923). In this, like all phenomenologists, he draws close again to positivism (v.). He moves away from it again, however, with his theory of religion as having an absolute and contemplative foundation in the intuition of God. The phenomenology of religion, however, studies acts and objects of worship and of faith and the empirical knowledge of the essence of religion. Religion and morality mutually postulate each other and justify a theistic metaphysics (which is, according to Scheler, a priori and prior to pantheistic forms) and a history of humanity conforming to sacred history and to the existence of a worldly principle of evil and rebellion. These ingenious and paradoxical doctrines were, however, several times bent by Scheler to nationalist interests, both on the occasion of the First World War (Krieg und Aufbau, Leipzig 1916; Deutschlands Sendung u. d. kathol. Gedanke, Berlin 1918; etc.) and in favor of National Socialism and neo-paganism (Vom Ewigen im Menschen, I, 1928).

Santino Caramella