Abstract
In The Human Place in the Cosmos Max Scheler argues the question of philosophical anthropology must address three problems: (i) the difference between man and animal; (ii) the Cartesian problem of the mind and body; and (iii) the essence of spirit. In a recent issue of Human Studies, two articles by Cristian Ciocan and Christian Ferencz-Flatz addressed the first of these problems through investigations of Husserl’s Nachlass. In this paper, I respond primarily to Ciocan by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology and the implications this has for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. By looking at Husserl’s published comments, we can see how the attempt to differentiate between man and animal is bound up with his understanding of spirituality. This allows an alternative way of understanding normality and abnormality which shifts emphasises away from how far we can empathise with the Other (be they man or animal) to emphasise what it means to be normal or abnormal. This will allow us to address an ambiguity of Husserl identified by Ferencz-Flatz.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Hereafter OEM.
Hereafter PSK.
Hereafter HPC.
Hereafter CM.
To my mind the questions of philosophical anthropology and intersubjectivity are interconnected and one cannot adequately address the one without also addressing the other. That is, to ask “What is man?” is to ask “Who are Others?”.
In some cases this perceived category mistake carries overtones of cognitive defaults and deficiencies on the part of those that make them.
Aristotle’s version is not necessarily tied to the human prejudice per se. In fact, in his account not all humans could be rational. The human prejudice is, in fact, born with Christianity. I intend to publish a more detailed account of this at a later date.
Heidegger and Scheler would have a 3 day long discussion on the work shortly after its publication from which he would conclude that only Scheler had truly understood the argument of Being and Time.
This would seem to refer to naturalistic conceptions particularly.
How to translate Scheler’s use of “Mensch” seems to be a common problem. Of the title alone (Dies Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos), alternative to Fring’s translation as The Human Place in the Cosmos, is Meyerhoff’s own translation as Man’s Place in Nature (1962) and Farber’s (1954: 393) reference to it as “The Place of Man in the Cosmos”. The book itself is based on a lecture Scheler gave in 1927 under the title “Die Sonderstellung des Menschen” which in a further oddity of Frings’ translation is rendered as both “The Special Place of Humankind” and “The Special place of the Human Being” (2009: xix, 3).
To this list we should also add Sartre’s réalité humaine of Being and Nothingness (1943/2003).
I have also discussed a fourth level as intersubjectivity as value (Tuckett 2017: 16–17).
What is interesting here is that he does not extend this point in the other direction. Take the following lamentation from Brother Cavil in Battlestar Galactica (quotes.not 2017), for instance:
I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the Universe. Other stars, other planets and eventually other life. A supernova! Creation itself! I was there. I wanted to see it and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull! With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air … I don't want to be human! I want to see gamma rays! I want to hear X-rays! And I want to - I want to smell dark matter!
Further, there is a distinct lack of consideration of sex in relation to concordance. How far is normal empathy achievable in this sense when both males and females have differing biophysical structures? It would seem that when it comes to the opposite sex we actually engage in abnormal empathy on this frame.
“Drive conditioning” might be more appropriate.
We should, also, speak of a multiplicity of natural attitudes (see Tuckett 2017).
Whether this is the correct place for the child on this hierarchy is debatable.
References
Arnal, W., & McCutcheon, R. (2013). The sacred is the profane: The political nature of “religion”. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barber, M. (2013). Alfred Schutz and the problem of empathy. In L. Embree & T. Nenon (Eds.), Husserl’s Ideen (pp. 313–326). London: Springer.
Becker, H., & Dahlke, H. (1942). Max Scheler’s sociology of knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2, 310–322.
Ciocan, C. (2017). Husserl’s phenomenology of animality and paradoxes of normality. Human Studies, 40, 175–190.
Derrida, J. (1969). The ends of man. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 30, 31–57.
Duranti, A. (2010). Husserl, intersubjectivity and anthropology. Anthropological Theory, 10, 1–20.
Eshleman, M. (2013). Jean-Paul Sartre and phenomenological ontology. In L. Embree & T. Nenon (Eds.), Husserl’s Ideen (pp. 327–350). London: Springer.
Farber, M. (1954). Max Scheler and the place of man in the cosmos. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 14, 393–399.
Ferencz-Flatz, C. (2017). Humanizing the animal, animalizing the human: Husserl on pets. Human Studies, 40, 217–232.
Glendinning, S. (1998). On being with others: Heidegger–Derrida–Wittgenstein. London: Routledge.
Glendinning, S. (2007). In the name of phenomenology. London: Routledge.
Gorner, P. (2007). Heidegger’s being and time: An introduction. Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Husserl, E. (1960). Cartesian meditations: An introduction to phenomenology (D. Cairns, Trans.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1965). Phenomenology and the crisis of philosophy (Q. Lauer, Ed., Trans.). London: Harper Torchbooks.
Husserl, E. (1970a). Logical investigations (J. Findlay, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Husserl, E. (1970b). The crisis of European science and transcendental phenomenology: An introduction to phenomenological philosophy (D. Carr. Evanston, Trans.). Northwestern University Press.
Husserl, E. (1973a). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Zweiter Teil: 1921–1928 (I. Kern, Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1973b). Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Dritter Teil: 1929–1935 (I. Kern, Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Husserl, E. (1989). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy second book: Studies in the phenomenology of constitution (R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer, Trans.). London: Kluwer Academic Publishing.
Husserl, E. (2004). Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920/1924 (H. Peucker, Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Husserl, E. (2008). Die Lebenswelt. Auslegungen der vorgegebenen Welt und ihrer Konstitution. Texte aus dem Nachlass 1916–1937. Dordrecht: Springer.
Kelly, E. (1977). Max Scheler. Boston: Twayne Publishers.
Lewis, M., & Staehler, T. (2010). Phenomenology: an introduction. London: Routledge.
Moran, D. (2012). Husserl’s crisis of the European sciences and transcendental phenomenology: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moran, D. (2013). From the natural attitude to the life-world. In L. Embree & T. Nenon (Eds.), Husserl’s Ideen (pp. 105–124). London: Springer.
Murphy, T. (2010). The politics of spirit. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Quotes.net. (2017). Battlestar Galactica, season 4 quotes. Accessed May 25, 2017. http://www.quotes.net/show-quote/8111.
Sartre, J. P. (2003). Being and nothingness (H. Barnes, preface by R. Eyre, intro. by M. Warnock, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Scheler, M. (1954). On the nature of sympathy (P. Heath, intro. by W. Stark, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Scheler, M. (1962). Man’s place in nature (with intro. by H. Meyerhoff, Trans.). New York: Noonday Press.
Scheler, M. (1973a). Formalism in ethics and non-formal ethics of values (M. Frings & R. Funk, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Scheler, M. (1973b). Selected philosophical essays (D. Lachterman, Trans., Ed.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Scheler, M. (1978). On the idea of man. Journal for the British Society of Phenomenology, 9(3), 184–198.
Scheler, M. (1980). Problems of a sociology of knowledge (M. Frings, intro. by K. Stikkers, Trans.). London: Routledge.
Scheler, M. (2009). The human place in the cosmos (M. Frings, intro by E. Kelly, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Scheler, M. (2010). On the eternal in man (B. Noble, intro. by G. McAleer, Trans.). London: Transaction Publishers.
Schutz, A. (1962). Collected papers I: The problem of social reality (M. Natanson, Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Spiegelberg, H. (1971). The phenomenological movement (2nd ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Tuckett, J. (2015a). The prejudice of being human in the study of non-ordinary realities. Diskus, 17(2), 21–37.
Tuckett, J. (2015b). Levels of intersubjectivity: Scheler’s ‘idea of man’ and Schutz’s human prejudice. Schutzian Research, 7, 105–128.
Tuckett, J. (2017). Prolegomena to a philosophical phenomenology of religion: A critique of sociological phenomenology. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, (online access), 1–40.
Tuckett, J. (forthcoming). The Talos principle: Philosophical and religious anthropology. Implicit Religion.
Waldenfels, B. (2004). Homeworld and alienworld. In D. Moran & L. Embree (Eds.), Phenomenology. Expanding horizons of phenomenology (Vol. IV, pp. 280–291). London: Routledge.
Waldenfels, B. (2011). Phenomenology of the Alien (A. Kozin and T. Staehler, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tuckett, J. Spirituality and Intersubjective Consensus: A Response to Ciocan and Ferencz-Flatz. Hum Stud 41, 313–331 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-018-9458-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-018-9458-8