Rezeptionsschwierigkeiten. Hans Peter Duerrs Kritik an Norbert Elias’ historischer Anthropologie

Abstract

Hans Peter Duerr’s critique of Norbert Elias’ theory of the civilizing process has brought about a lot of strong, mostly disapproving reactions. This article is an attempt to seriously take up the challenges of Duerr’s work showing the strength of Duerr’s arguments in contradiction to Elias.

To do this it is focused on the phenomenon of human shame. Duerr’s theory of shame is related to the Philosophical Anthropology of Max Scheler and it is argued, that Duerr’s thesis of the universality of shame actually can not be combined with Elias’ thesis of the process of increasing civilization as Elias’s defenders would support.