The Philosophy Book

240

See also: Plato 50–55 ■ Blaise Pascal 124–25 ■ Edmund Husserl 224–25

T

he German philosopher

Max Scheler belongs to the

philosophical movement

known as phenomenology. This

attempts to investigate all the

phenomena of our inner experience;

it is the study of our consciousness

and its structures.

Scheler says that phenomenology

has tended to focus too exclusively

on the intellect in examining

the structures of consciousness,

and has overlooked something

fundamental: the experience of

love, or of the human heart. He

introduces the idea that love forms

a bridge from poorer to richer

knowledge in an essay entitled

Love and Knowledge (1923).

Scheler’s starting point, which is

taken from the 17th-century French

philosopher Blaise Pascal, is that

there is a specific logic to the

human heart. This logic is different

from the logic of the intellect.

A spiritual midwife

It is love, Scheler believes, that

makes things apparent to our

experience and that makes

knowledge possible. Scheler writes

that love is “a kind of spiritual

midwife” that is capable of

drawing us toward knowledge,

both knowledge of ourselves and

knowledge of the world. It is the

“primary determinant” of a person’s

ethics, possibilities, and fate.

At root, in Scheler’s view, to

be human is not to be a “thinking

thing” as the French philosopher

Descartes said in the 17th century,

but a being who loves. ■

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Ethics

APPROACH

Phenomenology

BEFORE

C. 380 BCE Plato writes his

Symposium, a philosophical

exploration of the nature of

love and knowledge.

17th century Blaise Pascal

writes of the logic of the

human heart.

Early 20th century Edmund

Husserl develops his new

phenomenological method

for studying the experience

of the human mind.

AFTER

1954 Polish philosopher Karol

Wojtyza (later Pope John Paul

II) writes his PhD thesis on

Scheler, acknowledging the

philosopher’s influence on

Roman Catholicism.

LOVE IS A BRIDGE

FROM POORER TO

RICHER KNOWLEDGE

MAX SCHELER (1874–1928)

Philosophy is a love-

determined movement toward

participation in

the essential reality

of all possibles.

Max Scheler