Action and Work Between Blondel and Scheler: A Practical Transcendentalism?

Abstract

The paper addresses the problem of a practical transcendentalism, namely the possibility to grasp some transcendental elements in the building process of human active experience. It examines the peculiar relation between work and action as reflected by Blondel and Scheler. First, going over Scheler’s text Arbeit und Ethik, the paper finds the features of work and its structural contribution to the concrete effectuation of action, thus touching on the relation between the instrumental and teleological nature of the active determination of the subject. Secondly, it ascertains the effective presence and the conceptual marks of the Blondelian idea of human work, conceived as a universal “law” of human action itself and of the existential and moral deployment of man. Finally, the paper sees how the two perspectives of Blondel and Scheler, if put in a theoretical comparison, help to conceive of a practical double effectual-teleological “transcendental” of human praxis.