Max Scheler and Philosophical Anthropology

MAX SCHELER AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Dennis M. Weiss In his 1965 introduction to the thought of Max that Scheler wrote Man's Place, his attempt to Scheler, Manfred Frings noted that Scheler be- answer the questions "What is man?" and "What longed to a group of European thinkers, which in- is man's place in the nature of things?" Man's cluded Heidegger, Husserl, and Nicolai Hart- Place was written as an introduction to a planned mann, whose message has remained almost and more comprehensive philosophical anthrounheard of in the United States.' Thirty years pology which Scheler was unable to complete later, little has changed for Scheler. Despite his prior to his death. The essays collected in Philosubstantial influence on the development of con- sophical Perspectives were all composed during temporary European philosophy and the wide this period and reflect Scheler's anthropological scope of subjects he treated, points that Frings interests. It was, according to his own testament, noted in 1965, Scheler has not received the kind his interest in human nature that most preoccuof attention accorded Husserl and, even more, pied Scheler. "The questions 'What is Man?' and Heidegger.^ A s early as 1961, Hans Meyerhoff 'What is man's place in the nature of things?' notes in his introduction tozyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Man's Place in Na- have occupied me more deeply than any other ture, "Max Scheler died in 1928 at the age of philosophical question since the first awakening fifty-four. He was a major thinker in contempo- of my philosophical consciousness" (MP 3). rary philosophy; yet he has been a kind of forgotten man, and unjustly so."^ Indeed, while there has been an increased interest in some aspects of Scheler's philosophy, witness the publication recently of a collection of selected writings, On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing, what some have considered Scheler's greatest work, Man's Place in Natute, has been allowed to go out of print.^ In David Holbrook's 1987 historical survey of the philosophical anthropology movement, '*A Hundred Years of Philosophical Anthropology," Scheler warrants only a few brief lines, despite being recognized as the founder of that discipline.^ Over the past several decades there has been a marked decline in Scheler scholarship until today few i f any articles on his work are published. I believe that this represents a loss to philosophers and students of philosophy and in this article argue for a renewed interest in the work of Scheler.' Scheler's philosophical career is generally divided into three periods according to his primary interests. The first period ends in 1912 and is characterized by his interest in Neo-Kantianism and ethics. From 1912 to about 1921 Scheler's work was characterized by his interest in phenomenology and his conversion to Catholicism. The last period ended in 1928 with Scheler's untimely death and is characterized by his dual interests in philosophical anthropology and the sociology of knowledge. It was during this period PHILOSOPHY TODAY It is Scheler's work on philosophical anthropology that I wish to consider here. This work has had a considerable influence on the development of the philosophical anthropology movement and remains today of considerable import for any one interested in questions concerning human nature. It is the claim that there are sufficient grounds for renewing our acquaintance with Scheler's philosophical anthropology that I wish to defend in this article. I believe it is in fact worthwhile to bring Scheler's philosophical anthropology to the attention of contemporary philosophers, both in its own right and as a stimulus for a renewal of thought concerning human nature. In much contemporary philosophy over the past twenty years any discussion of human nature, philosophical anthropology, or humanism has been treated with an undeserved disdain. It may now be time to reconsider these issues. A second concern of this article is with the kind of reception we ought to give Scheler's philosophical anthropology. Scheler's critical reception in the past has tended to be quite polarized, with critics either overlooking obvious shortcomings and praising him to a degree not warranted or dismissing his philosophical views as curious and of little import. I believe that neither approach is fully justified and a more moderated approach is warranted. There are serious problems in Scheler's philosophical anthropology that cannot be overcome. A t the same time, FALL 1998 235 however, there are many important and genuine insights that should be rescued from the relative obscurity into which Scheler's work on philosophical anthropology has fallen. I w i l l begin with a brief explication o f Scheler's philosophical anthropology. Following that I will consider the various grounds justifying the claim that Scheler's philosophical anthropology is still worthy of consideration today. I will then attempt to separate what I take to be Scheler's contribution to contemporary philosophical concerns from some of his less helpful insights. tebrates and mammals . . . in the second sense, (it) signifies a set of characteristics which must be sharply distinguished from the concept "animal"—^including all mammals and vertebrates. (MP 6-7) The human being, according to Scheler, is a unique fusion of vital and spiritual being, both part of and yet distinct from mammals and vertebrates. In order to bring this out, let me briefly discuss the nature of vital being and spirit, beginning with vital being. A l l organisms or psychophysical life possess an inner-state or self-being which inorganic matter lacks. Scheler divides all psychophysical life I into four stages of increasing complexity with no qualitative distinction existing between these The introduction tozyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Man s Place begins with stages: vital being, instinct, associative memory, the following remark: "If we ask an educated perand practical intelligence. The process of evoluson in the Western world what he means by the tion from vital being to practical intelligence inword 'man'. . ." (MP 5). Scheler makes his way volves a progressive dissociation or decomposiinto philosophical anthropology through a reflection in the connection between animal and tion on the human being in the modem world, an environment. On the lowest end of the scale, vital average person reflecting on the meaning and cirbeing, drive, or impulse is the source of all energy cumstances of his or her own life. And, like most and power in living things, is present in all living philosophical anthropologists, Scheler recogorganisms, and is a mere goal orientation or strivnizes the precariousness of the human being's ing toward something or away from something. situation. "Man is more of a problem to himself at Practical intelligence, on the other end, is the the present time than ever before in all recorded ability to respond meaningfully to a new situation history" (MP 4). There are scientific, theological, without trial and error, a sudden insight reflected and philosophical views of the human being but in expression as an "Aha" experience. Such an no unified idea. The goal of philosophical anthropology is to work towards a comprehensive view experience is characteristic not only of human of the whole human being. This task is motivated beings but also of some animals and is particuin part by the recognition that it is only through larly evident in Kohler's experiments with apes in such a comprehensive anthropological frame- which they displayed, according to Scheler, work that we can overcome both the dualistic "genuine acts of intelligence" (MP 33). Intelliview of the human being that has been the lasting gence is not a monopoly of human beings. Insofar, then, as we consider the human being heritage of Descartes and the picture of the huas vital being there is no qualitative difference beman being coming out of the various sciences as tween human beings and chimpanzees, indeed being composed o f distinct, often unrelated, between human beings and any other living orparts. ganism. Insofar as we remain on the psychoScheler's philosophical anthropology is a physical level, there is nothing unique to human phenomenological exploration of the human bebeings. It is, in fact, a mistake to look on the level ing and his place in nature. Man s Place is a conof psychic and vital functions for that element sideration of the essence of the organic realm of which gives the human being his unique characplants, animals, and human beings. The task of teristics. The new element which gives the huphilosophical anthropology is to make clear the man being his essential nature "is a genuinely essential structure of the human being. new phenomenon which cannot be derived from The structure of the human being is hinted at the natural evolution of life" (MP 36). That new in the ambiguity present in the concept of "man." element, spirit, transcends psychophysical life. In one sense, it signifies the particular morphologiSpirit is that element not shared by animals which cal characteristics of man as a subclass of the ver- PHILOSOPHY TODAY endows the human being with a capacity to act autonomously from his drives. Because it is independent of the human being's physical organization, it cannot be studied by biology or psychology. There are according to Scheler four essential characteristics of spirit. First, spirit is open to the world. Unlike animals, who live completely immersed in the environment, subject to their drives and to the environment, the human being is able to detach himself from his environment and transform it into a world or a symbol of the world. The animal lives ecstatically immersed in its environment but the human being is capable of detaching himself from the world and transforming it into an object of contemplation. As Scheler writes, The essential characteristic of the spiritual being, But while spirit is autonomous of vital being it is also impotent, devoid of energy, and depends on vital being to acquire energy. The process by which the energy of the lower spheres is made available to the higher spheres Scheler calls "sublimation." Spirit depends upon such a process for whatever energy or power it comes to possess. In itself it can neither generate nor cancel the energy of the vital impulse. Rather, spirit must direct and guide this energy into proper channels. It is through the process of directing and guiding the vital impulse that spirit is energized and that the instinctual energy of vital being is transformed into spiritual activity. The human being represents an intimate fusion of both vital being and spirit. Human drives are the agents that realize spiritual ideas and values while the human spirit is the ideational factor that gives the drives their direction and aim (PP 86). regardless of its psychological make-up, is its existential liberation from the organic world—^its free- II dom and detachability from the bondage and pressure of life, from its dependence upon all that belongs to life, including its own drive-motivated intelligence. (MP 37) Spirit is also the door to self-consciousness, the second characteristic of spirit. In addition to the capacity of objectifying his environment, the human being is also able to objectify his own physiological and psychological states. The spiritual center of action has consciousness of itself as vital center and in this consciousness of self arrives at self-consciousness. This center of action in which spirit appears Scheler calls "person." Third, spirit is pure actuality and is not, according to Scheler, a substantial thing or concrete entity. Finally, it is through spirit and the repression of the vital drives that the human being has access to the phenomenological intuirion of essences. The spheres of vital being and spiritual being are distinct. Spirit has its own nature distinct from the essence of vital impulse; it is "autonomous in its being and laws" ( M 63). As psychophysical being the human being is a vital being determined by his drives and by the environment, part of the spatio-temporal realm, and capable of being objectified. As spiritual being, the human being is capable of objectifying his drives and his environment, cannot himself be objectified, and is beyond the spatio-temporal order. This brief sketch of Scheler's philosophical anthropology must seem somewhat quaint and anachronistic today. Any mention of spirit is liable to make the most reasonable of philosophers apoplectic. A n d indeed what little attention Scheler's work has received tends to be dismissive. While Marvin Färber, for instance, notes that Scheler has a knack for recognizing significant ideas, he argues that Scheler never sees these ideas to fruition owing to the fact that his treatment of them is not according to the canons of logic and on the basis of the sciences. What has Scheler contributed toward determining man's place in the cosmos, Färber queries? To some extent he has contributed novelty: in degree and kind of obfliscation, in manner of crudeness in misrepresenting phenomenology and naturalistic theories. . . .As matters stand, Schelei presents a sorry, confused, and eminently unworthy picture in his attack on scientific philosophy, as well as in his dogmatic defense of selected articles offaith.^ In a similar vein, Edo Pivcevic comments: Scheler uses here his anthropology as a springboard for far-reaching metaphysical constructions which display his characteristic imagination and ingenuity but which are, for all their poetic splendour, philosophically of small value.^ SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 237 Paradoxically, while the sense of crisis that spurred Scheler toward philosophical anthropology remains with us today, philosophical anthropology does not. If anything, the sense of crisis which led up to philosophical anthropology has deepened in the second half of the century. We have witnessed the increasing specialization and fragmentation of the sciences and the growing powers and dangers of technology. World War II has underscored for many the dangers of western rationalism seemingly gone berserk and the problems inherent in the pursuit of ever greater technological achievements. A t the same time, philosophers and historians of science were rethinking the very foundations of the sciences. Development in the post-empiricist philosophy of science together with advances in physics have served to emphasize the theoretical anarchy of the sciences, now extended to include even the physical sciences. Developments in the social (1) Martin Buber argues that philosophical an- and political spheres also contributed to the thropology is only possible in periods of what he growing sense of crisis. The unprecedented savcalls "homelessness."^ In such periods, human ageness of two world wars, the conflicts in Korea beings are estranged from the world and, in their and Vietnam, the student revolts of the 1960s, the insecurity, are provoked to reflection. Philo- collapse of Eastern Europe, the rise of countersophical anthropology begins in human beings' cultural movements (African-American, Hisrecognition of their problematic being: " A philo- panic, third-world), the women's and gay rights sophical anthropology is not possible unless it movements, and the environmental movement, begins from the anthropologicalzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA question. It can all contributed to a growing sense of crisis and be attained only by a formulation and expression cataclysm. As Michel Foucault has remarked. While there are persuasive grounds for criticizing Scheler's philosophical anthropology, neither these blanket dismissals nor Scheler's current anonymity are warranted. Furthermore, previous studies of Scheler's philosophy that are more approving often, I think, fail to give sufficient attention to the real strengths of his work, namely his contributions to the field of philosophical anthropology. There are three aspects of Scheler's philosophical anthropology that are deserving of consideration and ought to be recovered for contemporary philosophical thought: his recognition of the importance of anthropological reflection and its focus on the nature and place of the human being, his understanding of how these issues ought to be addressed within the context of a philosophical anthropology, and his recognition of the significance of the human being's world openness. Let me address each of these points in turn. of this question which is more profound, sharp, strict, and cruel than it has ever been before."'^ The origins of philosophical anthropology can be foimd in the various crises facing European intellectuals between the wars: the collapse of German Idealism and the threat of historicism and irrationalism, the growth of the human sciences and the failure of the sciences in general to provide a unified view of human nature, the social and political upheavals of the time. While Scheler may not have been the first of his generation to remark on this sense of crisis, he was one of the first to connect it explicitly to our self-reflection and philosophical anthropology. It is the fact that "man is more of a problem to himself at the present time than ever before in all recorded history" that leads Scheler into his concern over our nature and our place in the universe. It is only through a reflection on the nature and place of the human being in the modem world that we can provide some stability to an otherwise rapidly changing world. PHILOSOPHY TODAY 238 What has emerged in the course of the last ten or fifteen years is a sense of the increasing vulnerability to criticism of things, institutions, practices, discourses. A certain fragility has been discovered in the very bedrock of existence. * ^ But i f philosophical anthropologists such as Scheler tended to see reflection on human nature as the response to this crisis, contemporary philosophers from many camps, including analytic philosophers, poststructuralists and postmodernists, and feminists, have argued that this was part of the problem. While one embraces a reflection on human nature, the other erases it from reflection. As Charles Taylor notes, "We are very nervous and squeamish about 'human nature.' The very words ring alarm bells. We fear that we may be setting up some reified image, in face of the changing forms of human life in history, that we may be prisoners of some insidious ethnocentrism."'^ While the sense of crisis has deepened, then, we have been cut off from reflec- tion on human nature, from self-reflection. And yet many of the problems facing us today require just that. Debates on animal rights and the environment, on multicultural issues, the social construction of identity (so-called politics of identity), gender issues, all raise significant issues about the nature of the human being, issues which are largely left untouched in today's "squeamish" atmosphere. The increasing marginalization of philosophy in contemporary culture is a testament to its growing irrelevancy to the problems facing human beings today. I have argued elsewhere that we need today a renewal of anthropological thought.'^ Perhaps more than at any time our sense of place in the cosmos is uncertain and our understanding of our nature is complicated by our uncertain relationship to nonliuman animals and, increasingly, intelligent machines. The virtue of Scheler's philosophical anthropology is to draw out the connection of our moral, political, and philosophical crises to our self-reflection on our nature and place. Whatever its flaws in execution, which I shall shortly discuss, Scheler's starting point stands as a testament to his placing the human being squarely at the forefront of concern, neither erasing it, marginalizing it, nor consigning it to the dustbin of history. As Scheler notes, we have an obligation to address these issues: As soon as man has separated himself from the rest of nature and looks upon nature as an "object"—^this belongs to his essence and constitutes the very act of becoming man—^he must, then, turn around and with a sense of awe and ask: "Where do I stand? What is my place in the universe?" (MP 88-^9) (2) While there was widespread agreement among philosophical anthropologists on the sense of crisis and the need for anthropological reflection, there was less agreement on what form that reflection should take. While seldom recognized, there are, I believe, two distinct tasks to a philosophical anthropology. The first, which I will call the integrative task, begins in the recognition that the various sciences which deal with the human being and his achievements lack a firm foundation and that the necessary foundation is a theory of human nature. The integrative task grows out of a reflection on the sciences and their perceived state of anarchy. We unify and synthesize the various sciences by reflecting on their common object, the human being. This understanding o f the task o f p h i l o s o p h i c a l anthropology is evident in Jürgen Habermas's definition: Philosophical anthropology assimilates and integrates the findings of those sciences—^like psychology, sociology, archaeology, and linguistics—that deal with man and his achievements.'"^ Similarly, in his account of philosophical anthropology for thezyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPON Encyclopedia of Philosophy, H . O. Pappe writes: Philosophical anthropology seeks to interpret philosophically the facts that the sciences have discovered concerning the nature of man and the human condition. It presupposes a developed body of scientific thought and aspires to a new scientifically grounded metaphysics.'^ This understanding of the task of philosophical anthropology is also evident in the work of Ernst Cassirer, Arnold Gehlen, H . P. Rickman, and Calvin Schräg.'^ The integrative task proceeds largely with an epistemological task: ordering the various sciences of man and the facts they discover. For Scheler, though, philosophical anthropology is a metaphysical task, the search for man's place and nature, and these metaphysical issues cannot be resolved by falling back on the sciences. The second task of philosophical anthropology, what I will call the v/holeness task, does not begin with the sciences at all but with the human being's crisis of self-knowledge. It begins with the human being's recognition of his problematic nature and his desire to answer the anthropological question in such a way that he addresses his whole being. The wholeness task of philosophical anthropology can be found in the work of Martin Buber, Michael Landmann, and in Scheler and Helmuth Plessner, the recognized founders of philosophical anthropology, all of whom begin with a reflection on the place of the human being in today's world." As we've seen, Scheler makes his way into philosophical anthropology not primarily with a reflection on the sciences but on the circumstances of the human being in the modem world: "If we ask an educated person in the Westem world what he means by the word 'man'..." The wholeness task of philosophical anthropology developed in part as a response to the growing scientific objectification of the human SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 239 ognized our crisis in self-knowledge, Scheler explicitly connected it with reflection on the whole human being, rather than the partial and objectified being provided us by the sciences. There are fundamental problems of interest to us as human beings which science may not be able to answer and which may require a specifically anthropological insight. Rather, Scheler counsels that we need to tum to these questions "without any commitment to any tradition, whether theological, philosophical or scientific" (MP 4). A s he explains his method, "We can attain valid insights," he writes, "only i f we are willing, for once, to clear away all traditional solutions and to look at the being, called man, with an extreme and methodological objectivity, and wonder" (PP 65).'^ Recovering Scheler's conception of philosophical anthropology is important for two reasons. First, in the development of philosophical anthropology as a philosophical discipline, the wholeness task was ultimately eclipsed by the more epistemological and scientific task of coordinating the findings of the various natural and human sciences. This has been unfortunate as it casts philosophical anthropology in the position of a foundational and hierarchical discipline that objectively orders and grounds the various sciences and humanistic disciplines at a period of time when critiques of foundationalism abound. The work of Richard Rorty, Foucault, Derrida, and others has ably demonstrated the weakness of these foundational programs. The perceived connection between the integrative task and philosophical anthropology has made it all the The word "man," in ordinary language and among easier to dismiss philosophical anthropology. all civilized peoples, means something so totally But it is a mistake to assume that philosophical different that it is difficult to find another word in anthropology can be defined solely by the inteour language with the same ambiguity. The word grative task. A s we have seen, for Scheler, philo"man," in the second sense, signifies a set of charsophical anthropology is not an epistemological acteristics which must be sharply distinguished concem or an attempt to coordinate the findings from the concept "animal"—^including all mamof the sciences. Philosophical anthropology is a mals and vertebrates. (MP 7) human concem. It is concemed with the whole It is the incompatibility of these competing human being and his place in nature. Schelei views of human nature, one traced back to the sci- does not begin with what the sciences tell us ences, the other to philosophy and theology, that about the human being. He begins with the huin part gives rise to philosophical anthropology, man being. A reflection on Scheler's philosophiand that Scheler seeks to resolve. But in address- cal anthropology, then, provides us with a clearer ing this fundamental incompatibility, one cannot and I think more acceptable account of the task of simply fall back on the sciences and presuppose that discipline, allowing us to recover the proper that they represent the correct framework in task of this important movement. which to address the questions of the human beSecondly, Scheler's account of the task of ing's nature and place in the cosmos. Having rec- philosophical anthropology underscores its con- being and represented an attempt to reassert the properly philosophical task of reflecting on human nature. Scheler recognized that a unified view of the human being could be derived from science but he suggests that the sciences must be approached with caution. "The increasing multiplicity of the special sciences that deal with man, valuable as they are, tend to hide his nature more than they reveal it" (MP 6). There are limits to what the sciences can tell us about the human being. Science provides us with a number of different conceptions of the human being which are all too narrow to encompass the whole human being. The sciences treat the human being as a thing but he is not a thing. Philosophy's task, according to Scheler, was to liberate itself from the bonds of the scientific method. "Philosophy must no more be the mere servant of the sciences than the servant of religious faith" (PP 1). Furthermore, Scheler was aware of the growing incompatibility between what the sciences were telling us and what we commonly believe to be true. The sciences tell us that there is no significant difference between animals and human beings. Human beings and animals differ only in regard to degree. The unified view of man derived from the sciences places him squarely in "a relatively very small comer of the animal kingdom" (MP 6). And yet the theological and philosophical views of man assert the uniqueness of man. As Scheler notes, most people presuppose that there is some unique characteristic applicable to human beings and not animals. PHILOSOPHY TODAY 240 which can be freely accomplished at any moment, tinued significance today. The incompatibility in a process of truly becoming man. (PP 25) our ways of thinking about human nature are as much a matter of the current scene as they were in With the ultimate center of his being free from 1928 when Scheler first addressed them. In texts nature's driving force, with his ability to objecsuch as Alan Wolfe'szyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Human Difference and Mary Midgley's Beast and Man, the question of tify not only the environment but also himself, to the uniqueness of the human being and his rela- be open to the world, the human being is free to tionship to animals is very much a l i v e . T h i s develop himself, to shape that infinitely plastic conflict also seems to feed into disagreements segment of his nature through the guidance and over the nature of animal rights. Scientific analy- direction of spirit. ses of human nature, from the human genome What comes from the spirit does not come autoproject to connectionist programs in artificial inmatically, nor does it come of itself It must be telligence, continue to cast doubt on the uniqueguided! Man is a creature whose very essence is ness of human nature, though I think Scheler's the open decision. What does he want to be and to assertion that most people resist this claim holds become? (PP 101) true as well. The conflict in philosophy of mind between straightforward physicalists such as Scheler rejects any model or pattern of man Daniel Dennett and Paul Churchland, and what which does not recognize man's freedom to deOwen Flanagan calls the new mysterians, phi- velop himself His attempt to approach philolosophers of mind such as Colin McGinn and sophical anthropology independently of any reJohn Searle, is, at least in part, simply a contem- ceived philosophical, scientific, or traditional porary version of the incompatibility that Scheler answer to the question "what is man?" is in part a addresses: can the mind be captured completely recognition of this freedom. "The greatest danger within the bounds of an objective, naturalist sci- for all philosophical attitudes is to conceive the ence or is there, in consciousness or the qualita- idea of man too narrowly, to derive it unintentiontive content of the mind, some remainder left ally from one nature or even historical form, or to over that resists objective, scientific treatment?^^ see it contained in any such narrow conception" The strength of Scheler's approach is that he rec- (PP 101). ognized that these issues take place against the In making world openness a key characteristic backdrop of our concem over and interest in hu- of spirit, Scheler was drawing on a long tradition man nature and that they should be addressed that Michael Landmann in Philosophical Anwithin the context of a philosophical anthropol- thropology argues extends from Protagoras to the ogy that is willing to forego the traditional routes. Renaissance and the Goethe Period.^' This idea, (3) In addressing the issue of man's nature and though, had not been developed within the context of an anthropological understanding of the place in the cosmos, Scheler's analysis reveals human being. Again Scheler recognized the imthe importance of man's openness. As we have portance of placing a discussion of the human be¬ seen in the previous section, world openness is ing's world openness, freedom, and selfthe essential characteristic of the human being determination in the context of an account of the and is pivotal to Scheler's account of the human nature of the whole human being. World openbeing as both a vital being and a spiritual being. It ness is not a characteristic of human beings that is the human being's existential liberation from floats free from any ontological or anthropologithe organic world that opens to him the spiritual cal foundation. And it was this characteristic of realm. Furthermore, Scheler's view of spirit as Scheler's anthropology, more than any other, that pure actuality and open to the world led him to had a lasting influence on the development of emphasize the human beings' task of develop- philosophical anthropology. Plessner's discusment. The human being is not a thing, not a being sion of the human being's positionality, Gehlen's at rest, but rather a direction of movement, a pos- account of the human being as the deficient besible direction of development. ing, Buber's discussion of distance and relation, as well as many others, owe a debt to Scheler's Man does not "exist" as an object, nor even as a early formulation of the human being's world relatively constant object, but only as constant poopenness. tential for growth to the state of true humanity SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 241 While today there are many correlates of the biology in human life. On the other hand, though, human being's world openness, seldom are they when it comes to the spiritual sphere, which derelated to an understanding of human nature. fines our essence as human beings and our unique Taylor's account of human agency, Harry Frank- place in the world, culture and biology prove infort's discussion of second-order desires, Ernst consequential. Let me begin by looking briefly at Tugendhat's account of self-determination, Ror- the role of culture in Scheler's philosophical anty's recent thoughts on self-creation, and Fou- thropology. cault's turn to technologies of the self all, in a fon¬ While culture in fact plays a fairly small role damentally similar manner, presuppose an in Scheler's philosophical anthropology—^it is account of the human being as open to the barely mentioned inzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUT Man's PlacexX does play a world.^^ What is generally missing from these substantial role in Scheler's sociology of knowlcontemporary approaches is an anthropological edge, an aspect of his thought receiving growing framework in terms of which we can understand attention today.^^ Throughout his philosophical the human being as a moral agent, as capable of career Scheler maintained a distinction between having second-order desires, and as self-creating what he generally called fortuitous existence, the or self-determining. Little effort is expended in existence of the world here and now, and essence. explaining how these capacities relate to a view Parallel to this distinction was the distinction beof the human being as a whole. That such an ac- tween knowledge of control and achievement count is necessary was, I think, one of Scheler's and knowledge o f philosophy. The former is lasting contributions not only to philosophical knowledge of the fortuitous existence of this anthropology but to philosophy as a whole. world, the knowledge of the sciences, and this What advances Scheler was able to make on knowledge, according to Scheler, is relative to these issues, though, were undermined by his various material and social conditions, to our metaphysical dualism. His recognition of the hu- various drives, and to the practical purposes we man being's world openness, premised as it is adopt. Knowledge of philosophy, though, the upon spirit's transcendent nature, is purchased at knowledge of essence, begins with the exclusion a heavy price. In the next section I wish to turn to of all possible attitudes reflecting worldly desire some of the weaknesses of Scheler's philosophi- and practical concem (PP 45). B y excluding all cal anthropology. attitudes based on the senses and drives, all inherited opinion, the philosopher is open to a new Ill form of knowledge, knowledge of essence, which stands sharply opposed to the knowledge Despite the aspects of Scheler's work that are of the sciences. Through such an attitude, the phideserving of our consideration, there are serious problems with Scheler's philosophical anthro- losopher gains access to the objective, a priori espology. A reconsideration of Scheler should nei- sential stmcture of the world in which facts are no ther be a slavish devotion nor a naive return to his longer relative because they depend on drives and metaphysical themes. Too often opposite the re- practical concems. The human being, in addition to objectifying jection tout court of Scheler's philosophical positions is blind devotion or, more charitably, over- his environment and his physiological states, can sight. Manfred Frings' and Edward Vaceks' also objectify the contents of tradition, relegating conmientaries on Scheler, for instance, seem to it to history and clearing the grounds for new distolerate or ignore serious problems, notably coveries and inventions (MP 27). As John Staude Scheler's metaphysical dualism. Scheler's ac- notes, Scheler's phenomenology requires "what count of the vital being capable of spiritual acts Scheler called a 'continuous desymbolization of fails to meet the basic test of the wholeness ac- the world,' forcing man to refom to the immedicount, a unified view of the human being. Fur- acy of his experience prior to its symbolization thermore, by locating the human being's essence and conceptualization."^'* Phenomenology, the in the spiritual realm, Scheler is led to minimize basis for Scheler's philosophical anthropology, the human being's cultural and embodied nature. was the concerted effort to move from the symScheler's view is in fact complex and highly bols and images of the human being back to his ambivalent. On the one hand, as we shall shortly intuitively experienced essence. Indeed, the husee, he recognizes the significance of culture and man being's freedom and self-determination de- PHILOSOPHY TODAY 242 pend, according to Scheler, on the absence of tra- Färber's setting Scheler in the context of a response to the rising tide o f evolutionary dition. So while Scheler's sociology of knowledge naturalism opposing the naturalistic conception recognized the significance of cultural and social of man and his works. Färber sees Scheler as prefactors, they were relevant only to the knowledge eminent among the anti-naturalists and rejects of the sciences. Philosophy, including philo- his philosophy for this reason. In one respect this sophical anthropology, dealt with essences and is clearly false. Scheler does not deny the human necessarily excluded knowledge of culture, tradi- being's natural or biological endowment. As tion, and history. This, I believe, is a mistake. A Scheler explicitly notes, "Man has in no way philosophical anthropology that intends to deal 'evolved' beyond the animal world; rather, he with the whole of the human being cannot, I was an animal, is an animal, and always will rethink, exclude culture, for if anything is true, it is main an animal."^^ Indeed, Scheler argues that that the human being is a cultural being. The hu- Descartes' mistake was to remove the human beman being's life is informed by culture, history, ing from the natural realm. The result of Desand tradition. This was the essence of Cassirer's cartes' dualism, argues Scheler, was a "fantastic argument with Scheler. While Cassirer's ap- exaggeration of the unique position of man now proach to philosophical anthropology inzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCB An Es- completely torn loose from the maternal arms of say on Man is indebted to Scheler, he argues, cor- nature. In fact, the category of life itself and its rectly in my estimation, that our unique nature phenomena was thrown out of the world with one lies in our symbolic activity, in the fact that spirit stroke of the pen" (MP 72). Scheler also clearly "weaves itself into a world of its own, a world of maintained that spirit requires drive or urge in orsigns, of symbols and of meanings."^^ Cassirer ar- der to realize itself While each sphere is lawfully gues that it is not by denying the symbolic that independent of the other, spirit is originally imhuman beings are open to the world. It is the very potent and requires the assistance of the vital urge nature of the symbolic to give man the power to in order to realize itself Finally, Scheler's debt to venture "beyond all the limits of his finite exis- science is clear throughout Man s Place where tence."^^ Michael Landmann and, more recently, he calls on the sciences in support of his discusClifford Geertz similarly argue that culture is the sion of the vital sphere. Scheler's defense of his correlative of man's biological openness, his ex- claim of the u nity of life, for instance, repeatedly istential liberation from instinct. As Geertz ex- looks to the sciences for support (MP 71-80). plains, "We live . . in an information gap. Between what our body tells us and what we have to know in order to function, there is a vacuum we must fill ourselves, and we fill it with information . . . provided by our culture."^^ While Geertz, like Scheler, recognizes the openness of the human being or, as he puts it, the information gap between what our body tells us and what we have to know in order to function, he also recognizes that culture fills that gap. Culture is correlative to our openness. Even were we to in fact grant that culture is not an essential ingredient of human nature, Geertz, Landmann, and Cassirer recognize that a philosophical anthropology that remains silent on this important dimension of human life is inadequate. The same ambivalence present in Scheler's analysis of culture is also present in his account of the human being's biological nature. Again, Scheler does not deny the human being's biological constitution. Life is an intrinsic part of human being. This point is significant in Ught of Marvin What Scheler does do is to simply refuse to accord biology any role in man's unique nature or place in the cosmos. While criticizing Cartesian duahsm, Scheler commends Descartes for recognizing the superiority, autonomy, and sovereignty of spirit (MP 72). Consistent throughout the history of Scheler's philosophical development is the claim that spirit cannot be derived from man's biological and psychological nature. As he suggests in The Nature of Sympathy, For neither in its knowing, intuiting and thinking capacity, nor in its emotional and volitional one, is spirit, orzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONM nous, an outcome or "sublimation" of life. The modes in which cognition operates can nowhere be traced back to the biopsychical pattern found in processes of the automatic and objectively goal-seeking type.^^ Scheler's mistake, I would contend, is not to ignore biology but to make spirit completely independent of man's biological and psychological realities. Scheler feared that granting any signifi- SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 243 cance to biology would ultimately lead to the denial of man's unique nature. While previous views of human nature were severely impaired, this is especially true in the case of the Darwinian view. In order to maintain the common sense belief in the uniqueness of the human being, it was necessary to completely separate biology and spirit. Biologically, man is simply a sick animal, a dead end. It is only in his spiritual development that he represents a unique development. As Vacek notes, spirit, originally impotent, and the demonic drive, originally blind to all spiritual ideas and values, may fuse in the growing process of ideation, or spiritualization, in the sublimation of the drives and in the simultaneous actualization, or vitalization, of the spirit. This interaction and exchange represent the goal of finite being and becoming. (MP 71) One is left to wonder, though, how twoJhings as distinct as spirit and life can interpenetrate. How can spirit, which Scheler describes as a From his earliest writings to the last Scheler rejects transpatial and transtemporal realm of reality, any full-fledged naturalistic conception of human guide and direct a psychic process? Further, how beings since, he says, it is insufficient to the facts can the matter of instinctual energy be transof a true spiritual activity that is independent of the formed into the immaterial activity of spirit? psychophysical organism. Moreover, such theoHow can a spiritual center of action guide that ries are self-destructive since they set out to exwhich is essentially blind and substantial? One plain various kinds of activity, e.g., mathematical must also wonder to what extent it is appropriate reasoning, and end up by explaining them away, to refer to an insubstantial spiritual activity as e.g., merely brain processes.^^ having a "center." While Scheler maintains that spirit cannot be located in space and time, he does The tension and ambivalence over these issues suggest that it can be located "in the highest in Scheler's philosophical anthropology can, I Ground of Being itself (MP 47). Francis Dunlop believe, be traced back to the tension inherent in correctly points out that while spirit is not supScheler's view of the human being as a vital be- posed to be substantial according to Scheler's acing capable of spiritual acts. This view is meant to count of acts, Scheler's metaphors often suggest satisfy the twin demands of a unified view of the just such a substantial interpretation. Certainly whole human being and a view which remains his discussion of fusion, interaction, and extrue to the commonsense intuition Scheler recog- change lends some credibility to this claim, as does his account of a tension or oscillation benizes in the introductory section ofzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Man's Place: tween spirit and life.^' As Dunlop comments, there is a difference in kind between human beonly things of the same order can be in tension ings and animals. On the one hand, the goal of a with one another. Location, centers, oscillation, unified view of the whole human being suggests are spatial and substantial indicators that are inthat the human being be a part of nature and that appropriate when referring to spirit. there be continuity between the vital realm and Arthur Luther has attempted to defend man. On the other hand, the goal of distinguishScheler's views on the antithesis of spirit and life ing between human being and animal not merely by arguing that there is no dualism.^^ He cites two in degree but in kind implies a discontinuity bereasons for thinking so. tween the two. In his attempt to meet these twin 1. Luther argues that the relationship between and perhaps incompatible goals, Scheler articu- spirit and life has generally been seen as antithetilates a view of the human being which founders cal. This is due to the mistranslation of the term on the rocks of dualism. This is nowhere clearer gegensatzv^Yixoh, says Luther, is more adequately than in his discussion of the relationship between translated as "contrast" or "complementary." A c spirit and life. cording to Luther, Scheler does not intend spirit The relation of spirit and life comes in the pro- and life to be in an antagonistic relationship. cess of sublimation in which both interpenetrate Rather, there is a functional relation in which in such a way that spirit is vitalized and vital im- spirit does not stand over against life but is the pulse is spiritualized. In this process, spirit and complement of life, serving to fill out or comlife, originally independent and autonomous, plete life. The two terms are correlative, with one term immediately implying the other. A s Scheler fuse. PHILOSOPHY TODAY 244 points out, the two are not complete in themselves but only in and through their mutual interpenetration (MP 93). The issue here, though, is not whether Scheler intended spirit and life to be antithetical or complementary but whether he in fact was caught in an inextricable dualism. Scheler clearly does intend for spirit and life to be complementary. The real question is whether they can in fact be so. And here the answer is no. It is simply not clear how two radically distinct spheres of reality can complete one another. Luther himself recognizes this without registering its true import: "It is absurd to think, for example, that there can be a struggle between some-thing, basic drive, and no-thing, spirit or person."^^ It is absurd to think that there can be a struggle between some-thing and no-thing but it is equally absurd to think th^t there can be an interpenetration or a complementary relationship between "some-thing" and "no-thing." Furthermore, Scheler's discussion of the relationship between spirit and life takes place in the context of a discussion of dualism which suggests his implicit acceptance of this untenable philosophical position. In his discussion of Descartes, for instance, Scheler notes the following: "That there is no such thing as a substantial soul located, as Descartes believed, in the pineal gland is perfectly obvious because there is no central point neither in the brain nor elsewhere in the body, where all sensitive nerve filaments run together, or where all nerve processes meet" (MP 72). Rather than simply rejecting Descartes' dualism outright, Scheler criticizes it on the ground that biology has found no central place where the soul might interact with the brain. A page later, Scheler rejects "the superficial connection" implied by Descartes' dualism (MP 73). Finally, Scheler argues that the brain and mind do not set up an essential dualism. "Instead, the dualism which we encounter in man and which we experience ourselves is of a higher order: it is the antithesis between spirit and life" (MP 80). Taken together, these passages suggest that Scheler is much more accepting of some form of dualism than he should be.^^ 2. Luther's second justification in support of the claim that there is no dualism in Scheler concems Scheler's thoughts on the Ground of Being. Luther writes: " A dualism is not found or implied here because ultimately drive and spirit are inte- grated without identification in the Ground of Being."'' Scheler's thoughts on the Ground of Being are his most obscure. With his rejection of Catholicism and his subsequent tum to pantheism, Scheler came to reject the traditional theistic view of God. His thinking on this matter seems to have been influenced by his strong belief in the human being's freedom and self-determination, that is, the human being's world openness. " A God must not, and shall not exist," Scheler wrote, "for the sake of man's responsibility, freedom, and mission, and in order to give meaning to human existence" (PP 91). As a moral being, the "person," according to Scheler, cannot exist in a world created by a divinity according to its own plan. Scheler's v/ork in this third period which we are discussing came increasingly to emphasize the human being's participation in the process of realizing God, a process played out in human history through the interpenetration of spirit and life, the two attributes of the Ground of Being. The Ground of Being, according to Scheler, is the highest form of Being; it is its own cause and is the Being upon which everything else depends (MP 70). Vital impulse as force or energy and spirit are itszyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPO two attributes. The Ground of Being strives for self-deification, that is, the process of realizing an etemal Deilas, and can reach this goal only through the interpenetration of spirit and vital impulse achieved in world history. The history of the spiritualization of vital impulse and the vitalization of spirit, a process which is realized only in the human being, is the process of the Ground of Being realizing itself in and through the human being. Luther is correct in recognizing that Scheler believed that spirit and life are in fact integrated in the Ground of Being. For several reasons, though, this is not an adequate defense against the charge of dualism. First, this merely pushes the charge of dualism one step back. Now the Ground of Being rather than the human being has the seemingly impossible task of unifying two metaphysically distinct realms of being. The question of how an originally impotent spirit can guide and direct an originally blind force remains essentially unanswered. Secondly, bringing in the Ground of Being raises more problems than it solves. We are left wondering, for instance, what the relation of SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 245 spirit as an attribute of Ground of Being is to spirit as an attribute of human being. Given that there is one infinite, spirit, how do we individuate persons? Scheler suggests that the human being, as both spirit and life, is "but a partial mode of the etemal spirit and drive" (MP 92). The spirit of the human being is, according to Scheler, a self-concentration of the one divine spirit and is individualized "not in body and heredity, nor in experience derived through the medium of psychic vital functions, but through itself and in its e l f (PP 132). But this individuation through itself and in itself, as well as what Scheler might mean by the self-concentration of the one divine spirit, remains, like the interpenetration of spirit and life, essentially mysterious. Finally and most decisively, the most serious problem concems the very interpenetration of spirit and life that accounts not only for the realization of God in human history but also the relation of these two realms in the human being. In its pure form in the Ground of Being spirit is originally impotent, being completely devoid of power, energy, or activity. Whatever power or energy the spirit has is gained through the process of sublimation in which the spirit guides and directs vital impulse by inhibiting and releasing its energy according to the determination of the spiritual will. But i f spirit is originally impotent where does it get the energy necessary to inhibit vital impulse? How is this inhibition possible? How is any form of guidance or direction possible given the complete impotence on spirit's part? Given spirit's initial lack, this first act of inhibition, which initiates world history, could never have gotten underway. Scheler remarks that Spirit infuses life with ideas, but only life is capable of initiating and realizing the spiritual activity, from its simplest act to the achievement of a great spiritual content. (MP 81) Here Scheler seems to realize that life in fact must initiate spiritual activity. The first spiritual act is not, in fact, a spiritual act at all, but an act on the part of vital impulse. This, though, is at odds with Scheler's other assertions that it is spirit which initiates this process ("It is precisely the spirit that initiates the repression of instincts" (MP 62).). Vital impulse, as essentially a blind striving-for, is incapable of initiating a spiritual PHILOSOPHY TODAY 246 act. But spirit, as devoid of energy, is equally incapable of initiating the repression of instincts necessary for any spiritual act. The only conclusion that can be drawn, then, is that spirit and life, originally separate and distinct realms of being, must remain separate and distinct. Finally, then, we must conclude that Luther is mistaken in his claim that there is no dualism to be found in Scheler's thought. The view of the human being as the vital being capable of spiritual acts is essentially a dualistic one and so fails to provide a unified view of the human being. While Scheler manages to maintain the distinction between human being and animal, he does so only at the cost of failing the wholeness task of philosophical anthropology. IV It is Scheler's discussion of the Ground of Being, of spirit and life and their interpenetration, and of the dualism that this implies that lead most contemporary philosophers to treat Scheler (when they happen to encounter him) with bemusement and bewilderment and to put him aside with the other relics of our quirky philosophical heritage. I have argued, though, that this is an i l l deserved fate. Scheler's recognition of the problem of the human being's nature and place in the cosmos, his account of the task of philosophical anthropology, and his awareness of the human being's world openness represent insights into our understanding of human nature that justify a recovery of and greater recognition for his philosophy in this last period of his life. These are issues and problems which still resonate today, at the close of the twentieth century, as much as they did at the beginning of the century. Disciplines such as sociobiology and artificial intelligence, the Human Genome project, our own increasing reliance on technology to sustain both our physical and our daily lives, our growing understanding of the rich mental lives of animals are trends in our society that tend to shake if not completely undermine our belief in human uniqueness and dismpt our understanding of our place in the cosmos. Consider how these issues came crashing together in the recent chess matches between Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue.zyxwvutsrqponmlk USA Today's, cover story on the chess match began with the headline: "Can This Man Save the Humai^ Race?" Time magazine suggested that the world chess champion was playing for you, me, the whole human species. "He was trying, as he put it shortly before the match, to 'help defend our dignity.'"'^ The chess match between Kasparov and Deep Blue became the focus of all our anxieties over our nature and place, our dignity and uniqueness. Scheler's efforts to address these issues head-on is a testament to his lasting greatness and continuing relevance. But I have also argued that Scheler's attempt to address these issues, within the framework of his view of the human being as vital being capable of spiritual acts, is finally not satisfying. Ultimately, Scheler leaves us with a picture of the human being as composed of two ill-fitting halves. Even here, though, Scheler's mistakes are, I believe, instructive. In trying to "square the circle," see the human being as part of nature and yet distinct, and in trying to address the role of science in our reflections on human nature and our place in the cosmos, Scheler was mapping out problems that persist in philosophy. More recent at- tempts to reconcile our vision of ourselves with what the sciences are telling us face similar difficulties to Scheler's. Accounts of subjectivity by the new mysterians, Midgely's account of "beast and man," Wolfe's discussion of "the human difference," and Bruce Mazlish's description of the "fourth discontinuity," all in one way or another are concemed with the issue of the continuity or discontinuity between human beings and either animals or intelligent machines.'^ And like Scheler, all, I think, have a difficult time navigating these treacherous waters. Each wants to place the human being in the natural order while simultaneously maintaining some order of distinction between human beings and either animals or machines. Scheler's attempt to manage this complex task is instmctive for how it can fail. These more recent attempts might leam something from his mistakes. In both its successes and its failures, Scheler's philosophical anthropology is instmctive for contemporary philosophy. It is tmly a shame that few recognize this. ENDNOTES 1. Manfried Frings,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Max Scheler: A Concise Introduction into gotten man Scheler is now remembered as one of the the World of a Great Thinker (Pittsburgh: Duquesne Uni- intriguing but minor figures on the Weimar landscape, a versity Press, 1965), p. 13. philosopher who dealt chiefly with metaphysical and re- 2. It is interesting to note that Heidegger's 1929 work Kant ligious subjects and occasionally with sociological ones as trans. Richard Taft well" (p. 1). It's also interesting to note that this collection and the Problem of Metaphysics, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990) bears the following dedication: "The present work is dedicated to the memory of Max Scheler. Its content was the subject of of Scheler's selected writings does not include any of his writings on the topic of philosophical anthropology. 5. David Holbrook, "A Hundred Years of Philosophical An- the last conversation in which the author was allowed once thropology," Education and Philosophical again to feel the unfettered power of his spirit." (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), 3. Hans Meyerhoff, Introduction, to Max Scheler, Man's Place in Nature, trans. Hans Meyerhoff (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961), p. ix. 4. Max Scheler, On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing, ed. Harold Bershady (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). On Feeling, Knowing, and f^/wmg deals primarily with Scheler's earlier work on a theory of feelings and the pp. 57-82. 6. References to Max Scheler, Man's Place in Nature (MP), trans. Hans Meyerhoff (New York: Farrar, Straus and Girouox, 1961), and Philosophical made parenthetically in the text. his thought, as the editor Harold J. Bershady argues in his 14 (1954): 399. Scheler... was acclaimed in Europe after the First World Germany's most brilliant thinker. . . . But within a few years of his death Scheler became, at least publicly, a for- (PP), 7. Marvin Färber, "Max Scheler On the Place of Man In the Cosmos," Philosophy War as one of the leading minds of the modem age and Perspectives trans. Oscar Haac (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958) will be sociology of knowledge. Interestingly, even in this area of introduction, Scheler remains largely forgotten. "Max Anthropology and Phenomenological Research 8. Edo Pivcevic, Husserl and Phenomenology (London: Hutchinson, 1970), p. 101. 9. Martin Buber, "What is Man?" in Between Man and Man, trans. R. G. Smith (New York: MacMillan, 1965), p. 128. 10. Ibid., p. 147. SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 247 20. See, for instance, Daniel Dennett, Brainstorms 11. Michel Foucault,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Power/Knowledge, ed. Colin Gordon (Cam- bridge: MIT Press, 1978); Paul Churchland, Matter and (New York: Pantheon, 1972), p. 80. 12. Charles Taylor, Forward, to Axel Honneth and Hans Joas, Consciousness (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988); Owen eds.. Social Action and Human Nature (Cambridge: Cam- Flanagan, Consciousness Reconsidered (Cambridge: MIT bridge University Press, 1988), pp. Vii-ix. Press, 1992); Colin McGinn, "Can We Solve the Mind- 13. See Dennis Weiss, "Renewing Anthropological Reflec- Body Problem?" Mind 98 (1989): 349-66; and John Searle, The Rediscovery tion," Man and World 21 (1994): 1-13. of the Mind (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992). 14. Quoted in Calvin Schräg, Radical Reflection and the Origin of the Human Sciences (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1980), p. 32. 21. Michael Landmann, Philosophical trans. Anthropology, David Parent (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974). 22. See, for instance, Charles Taylor, Human Agency and 15. H. O. Pappe, "Philosophical Anthropology," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3 (New York: MacMillan, 1967), p. 160. Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) ; Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); 16. See, for instance, Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944); Arnold Gehlen, Ernst Tugendhat, Self-Consciousness Determination, and Self- trans. Paul Stem (Cambridge: MIT Press, Man, trans. Claire McMillan and Kari Pillemer (New 1986) ; Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony, and solidarity York: Columbia University Press, 1988); H. P Rickman, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); and Mi- "Is Philosophical Anthropology Possible?" Metaphiloso- chel Foucault, "Technologies of the Self," in Technologies phy 16 (1985): 29-46; and Calvin Schräg, Radical Reflec- of the Self, ed. Luther Martin, et al. (Amherst: The Univer- tion. sity of Massachusetts Press, 1988), pp. 16-49. 17. See, for instance, Buber, "What is Man?"; Michael Land¬ mann. Fundamental Anthropology, frans. David Parent (Washington: University Press, 1982); and Helmuth Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen 23. See, for instance, Max Scheler, Problems with a Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980). und der Mensch 24. John Staude, Max Scheler: An Intellectual Portrait (New 18. That Scheler's position in this matter continues to reso- 25. Ernst Cassirer, "'Spirit' and 'Life' in Contemporary Phi- (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981). York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 22. nate today is indicated in Linda Alcoflf's account of meta- losophy," trans. Robert Bretall and Paul Schlipp, in The physics in her essay "Cultural Feminism Versus Philosophy Poststructuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist The- Salle: Open Court, 1949), p. 868. ory," in Micheline R. Malson, et al.. Feminist Theory in Practice and Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 295-326. Alcoflf notes that metaphysics still has a role to play in today's poststructuralist environment. "If metaphysics is conceived not as any particular ontological commitment but as the attempt to reason through ontological issues that cannot be decided empiri- of Ernst Cassirer, ed. Paul A. Schlipp (La 26. Cassirer, Essay, p. 55. 27. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation (New of Cultures York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 50. 28. Quoted in Edward Vacek, "Max Scheler's Anthropology," Philosophy Today 23 (1979): 239. 29. Max Scheler, The Nature of Sympathy, trans. Peter Heath (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954), p. 74. cally, then metaphysics continues today in Derrida's 30. Vacek, "Max Scheler's Anthropology," p. 240. analysis of language, Foucault's conception of power, and 31. Francis Dunlop, "Scheler's Idea of Man: Phenomenology all of the poststrucmralist critiques of humanist theories of versus Metaphysics in the Late V^orks," 'A letheia the subject. There are questions of importance to human (1981): 220-34. beings that science alone cannot answer... and yet these 11 32. Arthur Luther, "The Articulated Unity of Being in are questions that we can usefully address by combining Scheler's Phenomenology. Basic Drive and Spirit," in scientific data with other logical, political, moral, prag- Manfried Frings, ed.. Max Scheler: matic, and coherence considerations" (p. 319). (The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1974), pp. 1^2. 19. See Alan Wolfe, The Human Difference (Berkeley: Uni- Centennial Essays 33. Luther, "The Articulated Unity," p. 22. versity of California Press, 1993), and Mary Midgley, 34. It is interesting to note, however, that Scheler does com- Beast and Man (New York: New American Library, 1978). pletely reject the mind/body dualism of Descartes and, in PHILOSOPHY TODAY 248 doing so, articulates a dual aspect theory of the mind not modes of observing and describing the same phenome- altogether different from those proposed by Thomas non." (MP, p. 81). See Thomas Nagel,zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZ The View From No- Nagel, Peter Strawson, and Stuart Hampshire. Scheler of- where (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Peter fers a unified conception of psychophysical life in which Strawson, Individuals (London: Methuen, 1959); and Stu- psychic structure and physical stmcture are two phenome- art Hampshire, Freedom of Mind (Princeton: Princeton nally distinct aspects of life which are ontologically iden- University Press, 1975). tical. He notes, for instance, "what we call 'physiological' 35. Luther, "The Articulated Unity," p. 24. and 'psychological' are but two ways of looking at one and 36. Robert Wright, "Can Machines Think?" Time (25 March same process of life. There is a biology 'from within' and a biology 'from without'" (MP, p. 75). As well he points 1996): 50. 37. Mary Midgely, Beast and Man; Alan Wolfe, The Human out, "If we envisage the 'psychic' and the 'physical' as two Difference; Bmce Mazlish, The Fourth Discontinuity: aspects of the same life process, to which correspond two Co-Evolution of Humans and Machines The (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). English and Humanities, York College, York, PA 17405-7199 SCHELER'S ANTHROPOLOGY 249