On the eternal of man

1. By
Max Scheler

2. Outline:
• His Life
• Concept of Man
• Religious Experience (Revelation)
• Conclusion

3. Abbreviations:
• MP- Man’s Place (Philosophical Anthropology)
• GW- GesammelteWerke(collections of the
manuscripts/works of Scheler)
-”On the Eternal in Man,1921”

4. • Max Ferdinand increasingly non-
Scheler (August 22, committal around
1874 – May 19, 1928) 1921.
was • After 1921 he
a German philosopher disassociated himself
known for his work in public from
in phenomenology, ethi Catholicism and
cs and philosophical the Judeo-
anthropology. Christian God
• Max Scheler was born committing himself
in Munich, Germany with philosophical
on August 22, 1874, to anthropology.
a Lutheran father and
an Orthodox
Jewish mother.
• As an adolescent, he
turned to Catholicism, Max Scheler
likely because of its
conception of love,
although he became

5. • Scheler studied medicine in Munich and Berlin, both
philosophy and sociology under Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg
Simmel in 1895. He received his doctorate in 1897 and his
associate professorship (habilitation thesis) in 1899 at
the University of Jena, where his advisor was Rudolf Eucken,
and where he became Privatdozent in 1901.
• Scheler has exercised a notable influence on Catholic circles to
this day, including his student Stein and Pope John Paul II who
wrote his Habilitation and many articles on Scheler's
philosophy.
• Along with other Munich phenomenologists such as Reinach,
Pfänder and Geiger, he co-founded in 1912 the
famous Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische
Forschung, with Husserl as main editor.

6. • Scheler also advocated an international university to be set up
in Switzerland and was at that time supportive of programs
such as 'continuing education' and of what he seems to have
been the first to call a 'United States of Europe'.
• He deplored the gap existing in Germany between power and
mind, a gap which he regarded as the very source of an
impending dictatorship and the greatest obstacle to the
establishment of German democracy.
• Five years after his death, the Nazi dictatorship (1933–1945)
suppressed Scheler's work.

7. The Concept of Man
“If we ask an educated person
in the western world what he
means by the word „man‟?...”
(MP, 5)

8. • His philosophical anthropology can be found
in his work; Man’s Place ().
• It is an attempt to answer the question “What is
man?” but he never finish it because of his
sudden death in .
• He argued that man is distinct from all other
creatures yet considered the essences of plants
and animals (vitalness of it).

9. • Furthermore, Scheler defines man as a
unique fusion of vital and spiritual being,
both part of and yet distinct from mammal
and vertebrates.

10. The Structure of man compared
to animals and plants
Plants and Vital being
animals
Vital Being
Man
Spiritual Being

11. Vital Being
• It is the source of all energy.
• It is a mere orientation or a striving
toward something or away from it.
• It is present in all living organisms.

12. Spiritual Being
• Scheler argued that Spirit “is a genuinely
new phenomena which cannot be derived
from the natural evolution of life” (MP,36).
• It transcends psychophysical life (vital
being).

13. • Scheler argued that spirit “is genuinely
new phenomena which cannot be derived
from the natural evolution of life” (MP,
36).
• Spirit transcends psychophysical life (vital
being).

14. Four Essential Characteristics of the Spirit:
1. It opens to the world- can detached himself from his
environment making it as the object of contemplation.
2. It is the door to self-consciousness.
3. It is a pure activity and not a substantial thing (concrete
entity).
4. Through spirit and the repression of the vital drives,
human being has access to the phenomenological intuition
of essences.

15. More over…
• Spirit is distinct and has its own nature to the vital
being of man.
• The spirit of man is capable of objectifying his
drives and his environment but cannot objectify
itself (spirit) because it is beyond spacio-temporal
order yet the spirit of man is impotent and devoid
of energy and depends on the vital being to
acquire energy coined by Scheler as the process
of sublimation- the energy of the lower sphere
(vital) is made available to the higher sphere
(spirit).

17. On Religious
Experience

18. • For Scheler, the experience of the holy/divine
is given through rational proof yet in distinct
manner of revelation/experience (GW V, 150).
• All proofs assume the revelation and this come
too late in the attempt to grasp how the
holy/divine is experienced/revealed.
• A phenomenology of religious experience is a
description of the essential characteristics and
meaning of revelation.

19. What is revelation for
Scheler?

20. • Scheler defines revelation as “the type of
givenness wherein the divine/holy is given” (GW
V, 249).
• Thus, givenness is a term used by Scheler and
other phenomenologists to name that which is
experience in a particular manner.
• To suggest that revelation is a peculiar mode of
givenness means that the divine is given to the
person in a unique manner wholly distinct from
rational judgements.

21. Three Distinct Characteristics of the
Religious Act (the act of revelation)

22. 1. The intention of the religious act is ‘world
transcending’.- it means that what is
posited/suggested in act of revelation is
always other than this world, a meaning
transcending the finite.
2. Related to this intention is the object that
fulfils it.- Only the divine/holy fulfils the
intention of the religious act.
In addition, he is arguing that what is sought
in religious experience is precisely that in
principle could not be experience in this world:

23. Divine/Holy-initiates to
be given and to be
experienced
In spite of man’s eagerness ...because he is a spiritual
to experience the divine, he being capable of transcending
cannot because he is finite ordinary experience to a
religious experience.
yet he can transcend...

24. Scheler argued further that we are seeking happiness that would
never be possible on the earth and we are hoping in the
religious act for that which is impossible and unimaginable
(GW V,246)
3. The religious act is only fulfilled through a being taken in
(aufnahme) by a being of a divine character that reveals itself
and gives itself to the human being (GW V, 245)

25. • In addition, Scheler’s claim that for
these to be a religious act, the divine
must be given in experience.
• The givenness of the divine is the
proof of the religious experience or
revelation.
• For him, religious act is ultimately
rooted in an investigation of the
human being that is the fundamental
and essential aspect of being human
(GW V,226).

26. • Thus, human being executes the intention
towards the absolute/divine and is always
responding the givenness of it. Human being
is a God-seeker (an intention of the absolute).
• Scheler claimed, “Every finite spirit believes in
a God or in an idol (GW V,261) and an idol is a
finite subject that is revered and as if it was a
god (GW V, ibid.)

27. Conclusion:

28. As the student-researcher exposed the
Philosophy of Religion and Man, the
researcher analyses the following base on
his class lectures and research and try to
find similarities and simple conclusions:

29. • Religious experience from the past lectures
presents that it is found in being oriented
toward the presence of the divine same for
Scheler as he argued that man tends toward the
absolute/divine as he is known to be a “God-
seeker”.

30. • It(religious experience) does not
represent within the broad human
experience but in a specific mode of
experience same with Scheler as he
claimed that it is personal.

31. • Religious experience of man for both
tends toward the divine as to be found
exclusively in the rapport with the
‘transcendent’; e.i. with the beyond.

32. • The initiative of the divine is clearly seen
and noticed. Thus it is first the initiative
of the divine to reveal himself to us,
human beings.

33. • Lastly, Man crosses from the finite world
(transcending) of the superior power(divine).

34. Good Day!