The Mind of Max Scheler

This book is designed to fill a long-standing gap in the general literature of 20th century philosophy in that it offers a comprehensive view of the philosophy of Max Scheler (1874-1928) and opens up substantial discussions that have hitherto been largely overlooked. The book is solely based on the original texts of the German Collected Edition as well as posthumous and untranslated materials. References to English translations have been made whenever available.

The Mind of Max Scheler familiarizes the reader with strains of European thought that are rapidly gaining interest in the Americas, Asia, and Europe itself. Already the pivotal questions, “Who are we?” “What is a human being” reveal the relevance Scheler’s thought has to the self-questioning stance that appears to mark this century’s philosophy as a whole. He also presents us with a cosmic view of what it means to be human, and one is amazed at the scope of his approach that goes beyond his better known European contemporaries Heidegger, Husserl, Ortega, or philosophers of our present time. He addresses spurious value patterns that suffuse the age of capitalism and provides answers, among them, the gleaning of historical textures that are emerging toward the future and through which a lingering awareness of the eternal will eventually surface from the depths of human existence.