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The Human Place in the Cosmos

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Upon Scheler’s death in 1928, Martin Heidegger remarked that he was the most important force in philosophy at the time. Jose Ortega y Gasset called Scheler "the first man of the philosophical paradise." The Human Place in the Cosmos, the last of his works Scheler completed, is a pivotal piece in the development of his writing as a whole, marking a peculiar shift in his approach and thought. He had been asked to provide an initial sketch of his much larger works on philosophical anthropology and metaphysics—works he was not able to complete because of his early demise.

 

Frings' new translation of this key work allows us to read and understand Scheler's thought within current philosophical debates and interests. The book addresses two main What is the human being? And what is the place of the human being in the universe? Scheler responds to these questions within contexts of said two projected much larger works but not without reference to scientific research. He covers various levels of inorganic reality, organic reality (including plant life and psychological life), all the way up to practical intelligence and the spiritual dimension of human beings, and touching upon the holy.

 

Negotiating two intertwined levels of being, life-energy ("impulsion") and "spirit," this work marks not only a critical moment in the development of his own philosophy but also a significant contribution to the current discussions of continental and analytic philosophers on the nature of the person.

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

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About the author

Max Scheler

130 books112 followers
Max Scheler (August 22, 1874, Munich – May 19, 1928, Frankfurt am Main) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Scheler developed further the philosophical method of the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl, and was called by José Ortega y Gasset "the first man of the philosophical paradise." After his demise in 1928, Heidegger affirmed, with Ortega y Gasset, that all philosophers of the century were indebted to Scheler and praised him as "the strongest philosophical force in modern Germany, nay, in contemporary Europe and in contemporary philosophy as such."[1] In 1954, Karol Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II, defended his doctoral thesis on "An Evaluation of the Possibility of Constructing a Christian Ethics on the Basis of the System of Max Scheler."

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Profile Image for flo.
649 reviews2,125 followers
January 27, 2018
It's the first time I read Scheler. This work, originally entitled Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos (1928), was a bit tough to follow. “A bit tough”, who am I kidding? It was painfully difficult, I'm not that familiar with philosophic anthropology, but I want to.
Well, he tries to explain the little detail that is the essence of man, his relationship with animals and plants, and his metaphysical origin and place. He writes about the idea of human nature, according to different conceptions on the matter. He explains the main difference between a man and an animal, rejecting both doctrines of a same theory. Intelligence, spirit, freedom. Man is the being who can say "no", the ascetic of life, unlike the animal that always says "yes" to reality, no matter what.
It was a complex read that left me with more questions than certainties.

July 24, 13
* Also on my blog.
Profile Image for robin friedman.
1,875 reviews331 followers
March 10, 2020
Outside The Cosmos

Titled "The Human Place in the Cosmos", Max Scheler's book finds that the human place is largely outside the Cosmos. Scheler (1874 -- 1928), was a German philosopher who studied with Dilthey and Simmel. His own pupils included Edith Stein, and he deeply influenced other thinkers including Merleau-Ponty and Pope John Paul II. Scheler was deeply influenced by Edmund Husserl's phenomenology even though he became a sharp critic of Husserl. Before Scheler's death, Martin Heidegger called him the most important force in the philosophy of his day.

"The Human Place in the Cosmos" was Scheler's final work and appeared just before his death in 1928. It is short, difficult, and dense -- more of a essay than a fully developed book. This edition was published in 2009 in the "Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy" series of Northwestern University. The translation is by the late Manfred Frings (1925 -- 2008), the editor of Scheler's collected works, with an introduction, notes, and glossary of Scheler's philosophical terminology by Professor Eugene Kelly, who has written extensively about Scheler. Kelly aptly describes Scheler's text as "an adventure in high philosophy".

This is a book for readers who think that philosophy is important in discussing the large questions of life. It is also a book which will appeal to readers with a modernist, post-religious outlook. In other words, Scheler seeks to find meaning and spirituality in life but not within traditional theism or religion. Some of the thinkers that receive attention in this book are the Buddha, Spinoza, and William James. A good background in thinking about philosophical questions and a willingness to study a text closely are helpful in approaching this book.

Scheler describes his book as a "philosophical anthropology" and says its aim is to address two questions: "what is the human being and what is his place in being?" Scheler finds three broad answers to the questions, each of which includes insights but are individually unsatisfactory: 1. The Jewish-Christian view of creationism; 2. the Greek view of reason and participation in logos; 3. the view of the natural sciences, evolutionary biology, and genetics. Scheler's develops his own answers to these questions which begin with inorganic matter and work up through plants and animals to determine what human beings share with other forms of things and how they differ. He then approaches his questions from the other direction, so to speak, to try to understand the role of human beings in what he terms the cosmos.

The crux of the book is in the development of what Scheler calls spirit. Spirit is what makes people human and which separates them from other living things. The development of spirit is what human beings ultimately share with the cosmos and with large reality. Scheler's understanding of "spirit" is difficult and should not be confused with "soul" or with "mind" in idealism or Cartesian dualism. For Scheler, spirit is not a thing or a substance. Animals show a greater or lesser degree of instinctual, associative or possibly reasoning ability to protect themselves and to find food and sex. Human beings show a much greater problem-solving ability. But only humans have an ability to step outside their surroundings, objectify them, and ask themselves what they mean. This ability to step back and reflect, Scheler calls Spirit, and it is a process and an ongoing subject rather than a thing. For all his criticism, this strikes me as a Husserelian approach.

Scheler develops a Spinozistic answer to the relationship between physical process and mental processes, finding that both are two sides of the same thing unified together by spirit. Spirit stands aside from pragmatic issues and searches for meaning through art, law, literature, music, philosophy. It enables people to say "no" to their impulses, upon occasion, in a way animals cannot do. Scheler's understanding of spirit differs from that of traditional religions and earlier philosophies. Most importantly, Scheler's spirit is a weak, difficult reed. It has no power of its own, unlike, say, a transcendental God, and only fully comes through rarely, at the upper reaches of human effort. "Short and rare is what is beautiful in its tenderness and vulnerability", Scheler writes (p.47).While animals are enclosed in their lives and in the environment, human beings live outside of it, in rare moments, through spirit, reflectiveness, and the objectification of their environment. Hence the human place "in the cosmos" is "outside the cosmos."

With its existence "outside the cosmos" spirit tries to find meaning in God or other forms of transcendence. But it is not to be found there for Scheler, but rather from within. Meaning and transcendence are developing concepts that come from below, rather than from above. Thus it is the role of human beings through the generations to develop their varying understandings of spirit. At the conclusion of the book, Scheler writes:

"One might tell me at this point, and, indeed, I was once told, that it is impossible to bear the idea of an unfinished and God-in-becoming. My answer is that metaphysics is not an insurance company for weak people in need of protection. Metaphysics requires and presupposes human beings with strong and courageous minds." (p. 66)

Readers with a strong interest in philosophical and religious questions will benefit from studying Scheler's book.

Robin Friedman
1,345 reviews14 followers
December 19, 2023
En översikt av vad mänsklighet är enligt Scheler, genom det han kallar ande. Han redogör för begreppets olika kontexter, och kontrasterar det mot intellekt och instinkt, det senare genom psykologiska glasögon. Därefter förklarar han de religionsfilosofiska implikationerna, och lanserar sin egen teori kring vad ande är. Tyvärr övertygar texten inte.
Profile Image for pablo!.
66 reviews8 followers
March 9, 2023
Le pondría tres estrellas y media. Esta bien, sin más. Alguna revisión interesante de Aristóteles, buena crítica a Descartes y lo demás bastante basiquito. Interesante pero ya
Profile Image for James Millikan SJ.
196 reviews26 followers
April 2, 2019
I'm a big fan of Max Scheler. At his best, he is a keenly insightful writer who weaves together philosophy and behavioral sciences to make some of the most convincing phenomenological claims in the history of the discipline. He has the rare gift of making complex issues both clear and interesting to readers; Scheler wades into philosophical debates without becoming swept away by jargon or unnecessary digressions.

This book, unfortunately, lacks the characteristic polish of this great author. Presented as a conference in his later years, the quality of El Puesto del Hombre en el Cosmos appears to have suffered because of his busy schedule, and perhaps fatigue.

There are a few brilliant insights pertaining to philosophical anthropology, but there is much lower diamond-to-rough ratio than in his earlier works. Worth a read, but read his earlier works first.
Profile Image for Miguel Lugo.
88 reviews16 followers
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July 14, 2021
Estuve utilizando este libro para un curso de antropología que tomé.
Un libro complicado, es muy fácil perderse, la información te exige de una concentración absoluta, pero vale la pena cada palabra puesta en las páginas, escritos que te ayudan a comprender el comportamiento del ser humano, como nuestro entorno influye completamente en quienes somos y porqué reaccionamos con estímulos, porque razonamos y un sin fin de porqués que nos afligen y atormentan durante nuestra vida.
Profile Image for Zoila Tapia.
8 reviews
January 22, 2023
no m'ha agradat la forma en que escriu, el contingut em sembla interessant i una bona combinació d'altres doctrines, però uf horrible de llegir, desestructurat i desendreçat😫
Profile Image for Rana Rafeh.
72 reviews39 followers
October 28, 2022
Read as a requirement for my Philosophical Anthropology course. As someone very new to the field, the only way I could understand Scheler is juxtaposed to Uexküll whose work was discussed earlier. My inability to understand Scheler's work, without comparing it, lies in my very weak and hazy understanding of Phenomenology so any recommendations that would ease the way into that field would be welcome.
I left this book without a rating simply because I don't feel qualified enough to rate it.
Profile Image for Franklin Trejo.
4 reviews1 follower
July 31, 2014
Me quedo pensando en la misma pregunta con la que Scheler comenzó. ¿Qué es el hombre? Comparto la idea del autor al decir que justamente aquello que nos hace diferentes es "espíritu" aquello que es inaccesible para los animales y plantas. Ésto a su vez genera algunas dudas más pues en la actualidad es concepto de "espíritu" o "espíritual" se encuentra sin ninguna definición clara o sucede lo que decía el autor en la introducción: que existen diversas corrientes ... pero ninuna de ellas se encuentran conectadas entre sí.
Me gustó el libro, aunque tiene un pequeño grado de complejidad fue un gusto el poder haberlo estudiado.
Saludos desde Perú.
Profile Image for M..
738 reviews145 followers
August 7, 2018
This was quite interesting for a first time reading Scheler. I found myself agreeing with his rejection of some contemporary theories, but I can't really follow him in some other confusing passages such as the idea of misinterpreting Thomas Aquinas' first way, for the idea that there is a world in no way is meant to exclude other ways for the existence of God, the third way seems one Scheler would be most fond of.

The final exhortation to see God as someone bigger than the one to fill our gaps and shortcomings is necessary although I disagree with his idea of fear, reverence and prayer before God being "childish".
Profile Image for Uğur.
472 reviews
February 2, 2023
Scheler's ontological-based approach, which deals with anthropology with philosophical inquiry, has enabled him to think directly about the existence of man without getting stuck in concepts and has helped him a lot in extracting metaphysical elements by considering the existence of man concretely. It will not be difficult to see that his ontological approach has also borne fruit in this work. However, I saw a serious contrast with Scheler, and let me not pass by without mentioning it. Scheler does not characterize man as a part of nature, but considers him higher as the performer of science, philosophy, art, literature, justice. On this occasion, it is radically opposed to the fact that man is a natural origin. For this reason, it also does not accept that it is the result of an evolutionary process that man has undergone in nature. But the fact that the creator of science, whom he defended with this book, found that man came from nature and microscopically from a single source through genetic code analysis stands as a personal contrast. However, to speak specifically about the book, it has a very well-equipped content. Especially it is very important to evaluate a person (by nature) in the state of being and to show the way and situation for his development (evolution). Because as far as I know, there are not many books written on this topic.

The fact that it has an approach that deals with man through his concrete state has prevented reaching conclusions contrary to reality, as it is not reductionist. The fact that man's place in the universe is completely oriented with realistic knowledge and knowledge provides an environment in which both the human evolution is not over, it continues, and the mind, the formation of which has not yet been discovered, can reveal itself. In this context, it has gained the quality of a supporting work on the path of Nietzsche's superhuman theory. I wish you a pleasant reading.
Profile Image for phebez locke.
41 reviews
September 13, 2024
Max Scheler has added many profound insights into the world of phenomenology with The Human Place in the Cosmos. He analyzes wonder and objectification in ways that were specifically compelling to me. However his attempt to create a spiritual distinction between animals and humans disgusts me at times. Scheler rejects aspects of Darwinism in favor of constructing a human spirit that no animal could ever achieve. In fact Scheler cites false science constantly throughout this book. I understand that a book written in 1928 will of course have outdated science, but Scheler repeatedly based his arguments on why animals are fundamentally different from humans on weak outdated scientific foundations. With retrospect the specifics of many of his arguments fall apart. But despite all of that Scheler does make many philosophically compelling points on the human mind, culture, and its development.

. . . But don't even get me started on how much he underestimates plants omg.
Profile Image for Dan.
423 reviews110 followers
July 11, 2023
As someone interested in Heidegger, I was surprised by this book and the author. Most of Heidegger's major thoughts are present here in a rough and undeveloped form: preoccupation with Being, respect for the Ancient Greeks, interest in phenomenology and Husserl, confrontation with Descartes's dualism, critique of modern epistemology, original understanding of Spirit as some incipient form of Event/Being, God's dependence on humans and history, preoccupation with metaphysics as a foundational quest, and so on.
Profile Image for Alba.
27 reviews10 followers
April 11, 2021
Si llegeixes en diagonal tota la jerga científica obsoleta del principi,,, prou bo!

També val a dir que aquests alemanys es fan un embolic per acabar dient que déu existeix sense dir que déu existeix, però buenu,,,

(molt divertit si vas fer moderna amb en Turró i et va agradar el temari!)
February 5, 2022
Eine zusammenfassung voller Ideen und Anreize. Inmitten einer Zeit, in der der Mensch seine Grenze sucht und Gefahr läuft, ganz unterzugehen, arbeitet Scheler die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos heraus.
Profile Image for Claudio Valverde.
348 reviews7 followers
December 1, 2017
Interesante, algo intrinacdo por momentos Un enfoque exitencialista y fenomenológico del ser humano. El espíritu confluye en el mismo punto en que Freud habla de "sublimación".
November 18, 2018
Pure philosophical text about existential problems and life of humanity. Not so hard to read, somewhere between Schopenhauer and Fromm.
Profile Image for Clum4n1.
97 reviews1 follower
October 29, 2021
Impulso y espíritu, poder decir no aun cuando queremos decir que si, eso es todo la delgad aliens entre nosotros y los animales y que no creo en lo personal que dure mucho
Profile Image for Minäpäminä.
442 reviews13 followers
June 11, 2017
66 tiivistä sivua muun muassa ihmisen ja jumalan synnystä. On nautinto lukea rationaalista ja jäsenneltyä, mutta silti rohkeaa ja "korkeaa" filosofiaa.
Profile Image for Berr.
66 reviews14 followers
November 18, 2019
Yalnız hazza yönelmiş yaşam biçimi, halkların yaşamında olduğu gibi, bireylerin yaşamında da çok açık bir yaşlılık göstergesidir; tıpkı "her damlanın tadını çıkaran" ihtiyar alkoliğin, benzer görüntüleri erotik şeyler konusunda sergileyen kişinin durumunda olduğu gibi.
Profile Image for Drew.
24 reviews
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March 25, 2015
In brief: 'Tis a shame that Scheler died before he could complete this work and follow it up further, even if I would criticize it at some crucial points (esp. theology).

Not only does he, in his own way, challenge the Cartesian foundation of modern(ist) philosophy, but this work in particular has a special sense of negotiating between the two new preceding 'movements' in philosophy: the 'masters of suspicion' (i.e. Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) and Husserl's phenomenology. Together, Scheler articulates this field of philosophical anthropology, which is much needed. It is a well-intended response to the Nietzschean reproach of Western culture having "grown weary of man".

We would do well in pursuing, as he did, a full 'concept of man' and a better synthesis for modern thought.
Profile Image for Searchingthemeaningoflife Greece.
1,003 reviews20 followers
July 31, 2023
[...]Με μια λέξη, ο άνθρωπος μπορεί να «εξιδανικεύει» την ενστικτώδη του ενέργεια σε πνευματική δραστηριότητα.[...]
[...]Το ίδιο του ανθρώπου είναι να αντιπαραθέτει σ' αυτό το είδος πραγματικότητας ένα ισχυρό «όχι». Αυτό είναι και το νόημα εκείνον των λέξεων του Βούδα, ότι δηλαδή είναι υπέροχο το να παρατηρεί κανείς το κάθε πράγμα, αλλά είναι τρομερό το να είναι κανείς κάθε πράγμα. Αυτό είναι και το νόημα της τεχνικής της αποπραγμάτωσης (Entwirklichung) του κόσμου και του εαυτού, που ανέπτυξε ο Βούδας.[...]
Profile Image for sanita erharde.
89 reviews12 followers
January 3, 2014
Ieteiktu šo grāmatu izlasīt fanātiskiem reliģijas piekritējiem. Nekur iepriekš neesmu lasījusi tik viegli uztveramu un pamatoti izskaidrotu viedokli par to- kādēļ cilvēks-mīļais ir izdomājis sev Dievus un Jēzuliņu.

Šo grāmatu gan nevajadzētu lasīt tā uzreiz- "uz galvas dziļumā". Jābūt kaut nelielai sagatavotībai, jo ir ļoti specifiska terminoloģija un jēdzieni.
Profile Image for Yasmin.
81 reviews
May 18, 2020
Súper síntesis:

En esta obra Scheler reflexiona sobre las similitudes y diferencias entre plantas, animales y el hombre, y claro, enfocado en qué es lo que hace al hombre un ser diferenciado.

Spoiler alert!

Básicamente: razón y espíritu.
1 review2 followers
July 28, 2008
Excellent essay by Scheler. A new translation is coming out soon by Manfred Frings (Northwestern U Press). Should become the standard.
Author 2 books450 followers
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January 19, 2022
"İnceliği ve narinliği içinde güzel olan şey kısa sürer ve seyrektir." (s.94)
Profile Image for callaina.
68 reviews4 followers
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October 3, 2017
everyone considering reading this, save yourself a lot of trouble and read Arnold Gehlen's Der Mensch in which he not only roasts Schelers definition of the human in a few passages but furthermore, explains his own definition in a more accessible text
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