The Concept of Life in Elzenberg’s and Scheler’s Philosophical Investigations

Abstract

Henryk Elzenberg is a leading figure of Polish humanism and philosophy. He lived and worked between 1887 and 1967. His interests were at a wide range, and included axiology, ethics, aesthetics, history of culture, history of philosophy and religion. In all of them Elzenberg sought to forge his own independent stance, making it impossible to classify him within any currents in contemporary philosophy. Interestingly enough, in his work he cast a critical eye on contemporary philosophy, preferring to look for inspiration to the remote past: ancient rationalism, Buddhism and Stoicism. His attempt to understand rationalism, understood here as a postulate in the search of the proper measure of things, is also connected with 17th-century rational thought. This kind of rationalism is open to intuition, which permits a deeper reach into the sphere of reality.