Editing Max Scheler (section)

===Love and the "phenomenological attitude"===

When the editors of ''[[Geisteswissenschaften]]'' invited Scheler (about 1913/14) to write on the then developing philosophical method of phenomenology, Scheler indicated that the phenomenological movement was not defined by universally accepted theses but by a "common bearing and attitude toward philosophical problems."<ref name="Max Scheler 1973">Max Scheler, ''Selected Philosophical Essays'', "Phenomenology and the Theory of Cognition," trans. David Lachterman (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 137.</ref> Scheler disagrees with [[Husserl]] that phenomenology is a method of strict phenomenological reduction, but rather "an attitude of spiritual seeing … something which otherwise remains hidden …."<ref name="Max Scheler 1973"/> Calling phenomenology a method fails to take seriously the phenomenological domain of original experience: the givenness of phenomenological facts (essences or values as ''a priori'') "before they have been fixed by [[logic]],"<ref name="Max Scheler 1973"/> and prior to assuming a set of criteria or symbols, as is the case in the natural and human sciences as well as other (modern) philosophies which tailor their methods to those of the sciences.

Rather, that which is given in phenomenology "is given only in the seeing and experiencing act itself." The essences are never given to an 'outside' observer without direct contact with a specific domain of experience. Phenomenology is an engagement of phenomena, while simultaneously a waiting for its self-givenness; it is not a methodical procedure of observation as if its object is stationary. Thus, the particular attitude (''Geisteshaltung'', lit. "disposition of the spirit" or "spiritual posture") of the philosopher is crucial for the disclosure, or seeing, of phenomenological facts. This attitude is fundamentally a moral one, where the strength of philosophical inquiry rests upon the basis of [[love]]. Scheler describes the essence of philosophical thinking as "''a love-determined movement of the inmost personal self of a finite being toward participation in the essential reality of all possibles''."<ref>Max Scheler, ''On the Eternal in Man'', "The Essence of Philosophy and the Moral Preconditions of Philosophical Knowledge" trans. Bernard Noble (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 74.</ref>

The movement and act of [[love]] is important for philosophy for two reasons: (1) If philosophy, as Scheler describes it, hearkening back to the [[Platonism|Platonic tradition]], is a participation in a "primal essence of all essences" (''Urwesen''), it follows that for this participation to be achieved one must incorporate within oneself the content or essential characteristic of the primal essence.<ref>Max Scheler, ''On the Eternal in Man'', "The Essence of Philosophy and the Moral Preconditions of Philosophical Knowledge" trans. Bernard Noble (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 75.</ref> For Scheler, such a primal essence is most characterized according to love, thus the way to achieve the most direct and intimate participation is precisely to share in the movement of love. It is important to mention, however, that this primal essence is not an objectifiable entity whose possible correlate is knowledge; thus, even if philosophy is always concerned with knowing, as Scheler would concur, nevertheless, reason itself is not the proper participative faculty by which the greatest level of knowing is achieved. Only when reason and logic have behind them the movement of love and the proper moral preconditions can one achieve philosophical knowledge.<ref>Max Scheler, ''On the Eternal in Man'', "The Essence of Philosophy and the Moral Preconditions of Philosophical Knowledge" trans. Bernard Noble (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), 77. Scheler criticizes [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] on precisely this point. He writes, "Since … their philosophy defined the primal essence as an objectifiable entity and therefore a possible correlate of knowledge, they had also to regard knowledge as the definitive, ultimate participation in reality which man might attain …. Accordingly they could not but see the highest and most perfect form of human being in the ''philosophos'', the 'wise one'." ''On the Eternal in Man'', 77.</ref> (2) Love is likewise important insofar as its essence is the condition for the possibility of the givenness of value-objects and especially the givenness of an object in terms of its highest possible value. Love is the movement which "brings about the continuous emergence of ever-higher value in the object--just as if it was streaming out from the object of its own accord, without any sort of exertion...on the part of the lover. ...true love opens our spiritual eyes to ever-higher values in the object loved."<ref>Max Scheler, ''The Nature of Sympathy'', trans. Peter Heath (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), 57.</ref> Hatred, on the other hand, is the closing off of oneself or closing one's eyes to the world of values. It is in the latter context that value-inversions or devaluations become prevalent, and are sometimes solidified as proper in societies. Furthermore, by calling love a movement, Scheler hopes to dispel the interpretation that love and hate are only reactions to felt values rather than the very ground for the possibility of value-givenness (or value-concealment). Scheler writes, "Love and hate are acts in which the value-realm accessible to the feelings of a being...is either ''extended'' or ''narrowed''."<ref>Max Scheler, ''Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values'', trans. Manfred Frings and Robert Funk (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 261.</ref>