Scheler, Max
Scheler, Max (1874–1928)Director of the Institute for Social Scientific Research and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cologne from 1919, Scheler was important in the development of phenomenology, the sociology of knowledge, and the sociology of culture. Under the influence of Friedrich Nietzsche and Edmund Husserl, Scheler attempted to avoid the relativism of the sociology of knowledge by adopting an essentialist view of human nature in his philosophical anthropology, which was also shaped by his own Roman Catholic beliefs. He recognized the plurality and relativism of belief systems but argued that human nature was universal. For Karl Marx's ‘base/superstructure’ metaphor Scheler substituted a ‘life/spirit’ dichotomy. He held a pessimistic view of...
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