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Max Scheler

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description Max Scheler Overview

Max Scheler was a German philosopher who developed a complex theory of value. His work, particularly “Formalism in Ethics,” explored how humans experience and categorize values like beauty, goodness, and truth. Scheler argued that these values are not derived from objective reality but originate within the human psyche itself. This approach is relevant for those studying ethics, phenomenology, and the foundations of moral thought.

He significantly influenced 20th-century philosophical discussions regarding value systems.

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What is Max Scheler's hierarchy of values?

Scheler arranged values broadly from sensory pleasure through vital and spiritual values to values of the holy. In Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, he argued that people apprehend these differences emotionally rather than inventing them through preference.

How did Max Scheler disagree with Immanuel Kant about ethics?

Kant grounded morality in formal duties derived through reason, while Scheler argued that ethics must address objective values encountered in experience. His major critique appeared in Formalism in Ethics, first published in parts during the 1910s.

What does Max Scheler mean by ressentiment?

Scheler used ressentiment for a lasting condition in which suppressed hostility distorts a person's judgments about value. His 1912 study engages directly with Friedrich Nietzsche but develops the idea through phenomenology and social analysis.

Was Max Scheler a phenomenologist like Edmund Husserl?

Scheler adopted phenomenological description and was an important early participant in that movement, but he did not simply follow Husserl's system. He applied phenomenology to emotion, ethics, religion, and philosophical anthropology before his death in 1928.