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August 22, 1874


Max Scheler (August 22, 1874 to May 19, 1928) was a German philosopher associated now with the school we call phenomenology. For Scheler though, his concern was simply an observation and analysis of the phenomena available to human consciousness. His work was studied by the man who would become Pope John Paul II. Scheler was one of the first, if not the first, person within academe who warned against the threat of Nazism.

Scheler's work involved an anthropology which examined the reality in which people participate. This of course involved distinguishing between things which change and others which do not change at the same speed. One example Frings, a notable explicator of philosophy, mentions, in Max Scheler: a concise introduction into the world of a great thinker (1996), is that of a tree which maintains a function dependent on its surroundings. The tree functions in the life of a cat as a means of escape from danger. This was one example-- you cannot simply define something independent of its surroundings.

Scheler dissected capitalism on the basis of its being a mind-set, based on anxiety, rather than the Weberian approach. Nietzsche was mistaken in defining god as 'dead,' Scheler pointed out, because our world view was actually permeated by that theological orientation, and thus deducting god did not address the situation.

Banning Scheler's work was one of the first things Hitler did after he came to power.

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