J. W. Frings

Max Scheler was a German philosopher born in Munich in 1874 into an Orthodox Jewish family that leaned towards assimilation and agnosticism. He later converted to Catholicism in 1901. Scheler began his university studies in medicine before shifting to philosophy and sociology in Berlin, and later Jena. He studied under prominent thinkers like Wilhelm Dilthey, Carl Stumpf, Georg Simmel, and Rudolf Eucken, completing his doctorate and habilitation at Jena. His early academic work focused on the relationship between logical and ethical principles, and the transcendental versus psychological methods. Scheler is recognized for his significant contributions to phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology, and was considered a leading German philosopher of his time. His work profoundly influenced later philosophers, with Martin Heidegger calling him a dominant philosophical force in Europe.

Scheler viewed phenomenology not as a rigid method but as a spiritual "attitude" or "seeing" that reveals phenomena as they are originally experienced, before being shaped by logic or scientific frameworks. He emphasized that essences and values are given directly through experience, not observed from a distance. For Scheler, the philosopher's disposition is crucial, and he posited that philosophical inquiry is fundamentally rooted in love. He described philosophical thinking as a movement of the self towards participation in essential reality, drawing from Platonic traditions. This participation, he argued, is best achieved through the movement of love, which allows for a direct and intimate connection with the primal essence of all things. Love, in this context, is not merely a reaction to existing values but the very condition that makes values accessible, potentially revealing ever-higher values.

Scheler developed a hierarchical system for understanding values and their disvalues, ranking them from religiously relevant (holy/unholy) down to sensible (agreeable/disagreeable). He also outlined essential interconnections regarding the existence and non-existence of values and disvalues, asserting that the existence of a positive value is itself a positive value, and so on. Regarding good and evil, Scheler defined them in relation to the realization of values in the sphere of willing. Goodness is linked to the realization of a positive value or a higher value, while evil involves the realization of a negative value or a lower value at the expense of a higher one. Ultimately, Scheler believed that goodness originates not just in an act of willing, but in the fundamental moral disposition or "basic moral tenor" of the individual.

In his work "Man and History" (1924), Scheler presented initial ideas for philosophical anthropology, advocating for a critical examination of ingrained prejudices from major traditions like religion, philosophy, and science. He argued that simply rejecting these traditions, as Nietzsche did with religion, is insufficient. Scheler contended that these traditions have deeply permeated culture and continue to influence thought, even for those who no longer adhere to their tenets. His aim was to establish a new understanding of humanity by clearing away these inherited assumptions, suggesting that a more authentic conception of man requires a radical reassessment of these foundational influences.

“the strongest philosophical force in modern Germany, nay, in contemporary Europe and in contemporary philosophy as such.”