Scheler, Heidegger, and the Hermeneutics of Value

Journal of Applied Hermeneutics March 15, 2013 The Author(s) 2013

J. Edward Hackett

Abstract

In this paper, the author examines two different phenomenological frameworks for values: Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology and Scheler’s phenomenology. Given the popularity of hermeneutic phenomenology inspired by Heidegger’s efforts, the author openly questions if values can be accommodated in that framework. The author suggests that those paying attention to the lived-experience of values consider Scheler’s phenomenology of value as a more refined alternative to make sense of value-experience and cultural practices more generally.

Keywords ethics, givenness, Heidegger, Scheler, value

In this paper, I explore the possibility of how ideality of value and refer to the rank of val- value can be given in both Heidegger and ues as an eternal order. However, he will nev- Scheler. The “how of givenness” is the man- er spell out the ontological nature of value nor ner in which some thing can be given, or ac- how it is that they are eternal. Thus, if we can cessed phenomenologically. Thus, if we take establish the givenness of value itself and a look at both Scheler and Heidegger, we can what that requires independently of either address their conceptions of phenomenology phenomenology, then we can recommend ei- as limiting and enabling the givenness of val- ther Heidegger or Scheler’s phenomenologi- ue. On a whole, phenomenology’s develop- cal approach. Thus, this paper is not an analy- ment issues more from Heidegger’s influence sis of the historical relation between Scheler than Scheler. Heidegger interprets value as and Heidegger. Rather, this paper works out present-at-hand and I argue this follows from value’s givenness itself in relation by consid- the limits imposed by his hermeneutic phe- ering two phenomenological frameworks to- nomenology. Values are ontic for Heidegger. gether. In Scheler’s magnum opus the Formalismus, he is silent on what values are exactly, but describes them as given. Scholars familiar Corresponding Author: with Scheler’s work will note that many times J. Edward Hackett in the Formalismus, Scheler will assert the Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Doctoral Candidate, Editorial Assistant Library of Living Philosophers Email: [email protected] 2 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2

After working out value’s givenness and answer these questions, then it is the phenom- seeing which phenomenology can best ac- enological criterion of value itself that can commodate value, I will show the applicable answer which phenomenological framework upshot of Scheler’s thought to an applied better suits value’s givenness. I will first dis- problem. I will show that disagreements over cuss Scheler and then move to Heidegger. the management and accessibility to health care in the United States invert the absolute I. Scheler’s Intuition of Essences value and overwhelming fullness of persons. This example serves to show the theoretical Scheler’s conception of phenomenology is benefit of adopting a hermeneutics of value given in Chapter 2 of the Formalismus. In the rooted in Scheler’s thought more generally Formalismus, he outlined his concepts of the and further evinces the problematic silence a priori and phenomenological intuition, or plaguing Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenome- what he called “essential intuiting” (We- nology about the prominent role values play sensschau). Scheler designated “as ‘a priori’ in our experience at a fundamental and onto- all those ideal units of meaning and those logical level. propositions that are self-given by way of an immediate intuitive content in the absence of Introduction to the Problem any kind of positing” (Scheler, 1973a, p. 48). Like Husserl, phenomenology is opposed to Scheler offered tiny clues in the Formalismus the natural attitude and is therefore a special as to what he thought phenomenology could type of experience (Frings, 1996, p. 18). In do for him. These insights were given in the the natural attitude, we regard phenomena as introduction between the central preoccupa- a natural fact described by the sciences, and in tions of method. For Heidegger, phenomenol- this standpoint, phenomena are described ogy was the way into working out the prob- from a third-person perspective. The natural lem of Being in his fundamental ontology in attitude seeks only to describe from an objec- Being and Time, yet the problem presented tive or impartial perspective. It does not pay itself when Heidegger construed phenome- attention to how phenomena are disclosed to nology as a hermeneutic turn. While Scheler us in the first-person perspective, and the nat- was not necessarily preoccupied with method ural attitude takes for granted the sense- in the same way Heidegger responded to Hus- constituting role of subjectivity in experience. serl, Scheler can still be analyzed in terms of The natural attitude reveals phenomena in what he claimed about phenomenology in the their non-experienced features and has, there- Formalismus. Primarily, Scheler was interest- fore, a skewed interpretation. Phenomenolog- ed in developing his personalism against the ical description is the attempt to render expe- background of Kant’s moral philosophy. We riential elements clear that undergird and con- must look passed the Formalismus. Heidegger stitute experience itself as we truly live was preoccupied with method, but through them by remaining true to both the Heidegger’s “method” comes across indirect- subjectivity of the experiencer and the en- ly as a consequence of interrogating Dasein joined constituted object. If I told my wife about the question of the meaning of Being that love is merely the evolutionary adaptive and the history of ontology. strategy to facilitate human pair-bonding and that we need not concern ourselves with the In what follows, I want to ask the ques- actual content of love (as it is lived), I would tions: What is the givenness of value? How is seriously disregard what it means to be in value experienced in its givenness? If I can love in the first place. Moreover, the third- 3 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 person perspective does not and cannot ad- given nature of phenomena and these phe- dress what it is like to be in love. 1 Thus, nomena “are ‘in themselves there’ only in this Scheler opposed the propensity of the natural act (Scheler, 1973b, p. 138). It is only within attitude to posit and take for granted the ori- the sphere of acts in which we have a living gins of how acts constitute the meaning of contact with the world, and it is only as a uni- phenomena. Instead, meaning-constitution of ty of these acts we experience each other as an act can only be apprehended in absolute persons. immanence and we must pay specific attention to what is given in experience. What is For Scheler, the immediate apprehension given in experience is how a phenomenon is of whatness/essence cannot be disclosed by lived through within experience. For Scheler, scientific thinking at all. Instead, the content attempting a description is more line with an of that immediate apprehension is what ena- attitudinal approach than a well-established bles our efforts to understand science. Es- method. This also marks a considerable dif- sences reveal the intelligibility and meaning ference between him and Husserl. of the world given in experience. Then, science is an abstraction of phenomenological …phenomenology is neither the name of a experience. In Scheler’s terms, “we can also new science nor a substitute for the word say that essences and their interconnections philosophy; it is the name of an attitude of are a priori “given” “prior” to all experience” spiritual seeing in which one can see or (Scheler, 1973a, p. 49). Scheler equated phe- experience something which otherwise nomenological intuition with phenomenologi- remains hidden, namely, a realm of facts cal experience (Scheler, 1973a, p. 48). of a particular kind. I say attitude, not method. A method is a goal-directed pro- In phenomenology, this connection be- cedure for thinking about facts…before tween act-center and the world is collapsed in they have been fixed by logic, and second, how experience is undergone, and this is of a procedure of seeing… That which is called “intentionality.” The act-center is con- seen and experienced is given only in the sciousness of something. Anytime I am fear- seeing and experiencing of the act itself, ful, I am fearful of the spider. When I per- in its being acted out; it appears in that act ceive, I am perceiving the tree. There is no and only in it. (Scheler, 1973b, pp. 137- moment in which consciousness is not taking 138) an object. Thus, we are constantly undergoing moments of intentional relation with the For Scheler, phenomenological description is world, and it is phenomenology that attempts about describing the sphere of acts in which to retrieve how it is that experience is under- we experience the world. As products of gone by careful attention to what we intuit as “spiritual seeing,” these descriptions aim at given within this intentional structure. Schel- the primordial acts prior to all other cognition er’s term for intentionality that emphasizes and experience. In such a way, the phenome- the constant unfolding linkage of acts and the nologist attempts to retrieve the “most in- world is interconnection. tensely vital and most immediate contact with the world itself, that is with those things in the An essence is not mysterious for the phe- world with which it is concerned and these nomenologist. Instead, essence refers only to things as they are immediately given to expe- ‘what-ness’ of a thing (Was-sein). For Scheler, rience” (Scheler, 1973b, p. 138). Experience, it does not refer to a universal or particular according to Scheler, means the immediately concept of a thing. For example, if I have a 4 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 blue thing in front of me, the essence “blue” is given in the universal concept of the thing Essences fill out both sides of the inter- as well as the particular experience of the connection in terms of acts and propositions. thing in question. Therefore, the essence is the Let me describe the latter. Scheler wrote whatness that carries over into both the universal and particular conception of a thing. In Whenever we have such essences and this way, the phenomenological essence is such interconnections among them, the neither a particular thing, or a universal ab- truth of propositions that find their ful- straction or ideality. Instead, the phenomeno- fillment in such essences is totally inde- logical essence is the mode of givenness ex- pendent of the entire sphere of observa- hibited within experience and these modes of tion and description, as well as of what is givenness constitute experience of the phe- established in inductive experience. This nomenon as such. Therefore, it is wrong to truth is also independent, quite obviously say that the phenomenological content can be of all that enters into causal explanation. It reified to support any particular ontology, and can neither be verified nor refuted by this this is the reason why Philip Blosser articulat- kind of “experience.” (Scheler, 1973a, p. ed the weakness of Scheler’s thought and re- 49) lationship it has acquired in relation to Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. On this, In other words, essences locate the intercon- Blosser wrote nections between what is given originally pri- or to experience to such an extent that this …the chief defect of Scheler’s phenome- originally prior sense is independent of the nology, like all philosophies of value, was empirical determinations about experience. the weakness of his treatment of the on- However, he did not develop what it means tology of values. The insufficient devel- for phenomenology to be independent. The opment of this fundamental aspect of Val- term “independent” follows from Scheler’s ue Theory has left it especially vulnerable description of “immanent experience.” By in a philosophical climate that has been immanent, he meant “only what is intuitively distinguished, since the 1930s, by the ma- in an act of experiencing” and by contrast, jor “growth industry” of Heideggerian on- “non-phenomenological experience is in prin- tology, making this appear probably the ciple an experience through or by means of most critical defect of Scheler’s Formal- symbols and, hence mediated experience that ismus. (Blosser, 1995, p. 16) never gives things “themselves” (Scheler, 1973a, p. 51). Thus, phenomenological de- Blosser is not alone in his assessment. In ad- scriptions are independent from mediation of dition, Stephen Schneck claimed “(i)n accept- any symbols, or representations. In other ing phenomenology, Scheler was already words, they are not conditioned in any way, steeped in the life philosophies and was and immanence can only be disclosed to acts committed to an unrefined metaphysical posi- of experience, the being-in-an-act of experi- tion to an as yet undefined metaphysical posi- ence. tion” (Schneck, 1987, p. 31). Scheler’s sense of ontology remained tenuous and was not While Scheler may not have developed fully developed in the Formalismus in a com- how phenomenological descriptions are inde- plete sense. Support for this interpretation can pendent from the empirical sciences, Scheler also be seen in what little Scheler wrote about did develop what he meant by phenomenolog- essences. ical independence in other works. In his Lehre 5 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 von den drei Tatsachen, Scheler described logical underpinning for his personalism from three levels of “pure facts.” First, the pure fact the brief treatment he gave it in the Formal- must identify a positive something (Etwas) as ismus? A passage in the Phenomenology and the sensory function through which this intui- the Theory of Cognition provides support to tive identity is established will be varied. Se- such a reading linking his phenomenological cond, pure facts must serve as an ultimate efforts to future efforts of ontology. “Essential foundation of the intuitive identified essence connections and essences have an ontological despite the changing nature of sensory content meeting from the start…the ontology of the in which they are first experienced. Finally, spirit and world precedes any theory of cogni- the pure facts must be independent from the tion” (Scheler, 1973b, p. 158). Here, Scheler symbolic order in two ways. First, they must emphasized the independence of phenomeno- be independent from “the symbols with which logical description from the causal sciences, it is possible for us to designate them” and in particular various epistemic theories of second, they must be independent from “the cognition, must first presuppose the phenom- symbols which are used in presenting the enological priority of how spirit and world facts of which they are parts” (Scheler, 1973c, are first encountered in conscious acts. Those p. 299ff). If they are independent, then the very same acts are accessed through the es- connection between act and object must be sential intuiting of the phenomenological atti- independent as well, and this will allow the tude to render it clear how being-in-an-act phenomenological descriptions to represent relates to the world. “what is not given in person” to others when sharing phenomenological results with others. In concluding this section, I explained Phenomenological facts are disclosed in acts some of the problematic features that accom- but without any mediation. In this way, pany Scheler’s thought about experience and Scheler described the essential interconnec- how phenomena are given. I find Scheler’s tions that are possible to address phenomeno- Formalismus wanting because by itself the logically. language of phenomenology cannot get us very far when it concerns the ontology of val- (1) the essences (and their interconnec- ue unless phenomenology becomes ontology. tions) of the qualities and other thing- Clearly, Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenome- contents (Sachgehalte) given in acts nology provides an example of how phenom- (things-phenomenology) (Sächphanome- enology breaks into ontology, and it is where nologie); I turn to next. (2) the essences of acts themselves and their relations of foundation (phenome- II. Heidegger’s Hermeneutical nology of acts or foundational orders); Phenomenology (3) their interconnections between the essence of acts and those of things Heidegger operated with a more skeptical, but [zwischen Akt- und Sachwesenheiten] (e.g. equally complex conception of phenomenolo- values are given in feeling, colors in see- gy. For Scheler, phenomenology accesses the ing, sounds in hearing etc.) (Scheler, foundations of meaning in personal acts that 1973a, pp. 71-72) later become concealed and taken for granted in the empirical sciences, or what he called Scheler’s ontological commitments are “mediated” through signs and symbols. inadequately developed, and this makes them Heidegger denied that a conception of phe- unclear. Did Scheler want to secure an onto- nomenological experience can access imme- 6 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 diately pure phenomena. For him, the herme- everyday contexts we find ourselves already neutic conception of phenomenology that in. We do not know a hammer from the de- arose in Being and Time conceives of the pos- tached perspective as just another epistemic sibility of givenness as that which is always object. Rather, we know the hammer from the mediated, but brought into the clear. This dif- contextual significance it possesses in a nexus ference will become apparent as I explain it of instrumental relationships in which it is from Section 31 and Section 32. Moreover, used. Thus, phenomenology attempts to bring such focused attention on these two sections to light that which is concealed over or taken will illuminate methodological commitments for granted. Phenomenological description Heidegger’s thought never abandoned. brings into explicit relief the hidden contexts and purposes that underscore practical inter- In what follows, I pay special attention to action with the world. This point can only fur- how this conception of phenomenology arises ther be clarified if we explain understanding. within the project of fundamental ontology and Being and Time as a whole. An entire Under a hermeneutic conception, Dasein work could trace out the consequences of is centrally characterized as understanding, hermeneutic phenomenology. Such an effort but as I have already emphasized this concep- is certainly beyond the task of this work, but tion of understanding does not mean under- it is important also to keep in mind the meth- standing only as knowledge. Understanding is odological differences between Scheler and not primarily a formal conception of Heidegger before any exposition of Scheler’s knowledge that epistemologists analyze and concepts and subsequent remedy can be in- consider primitively - basic to human experi- troduced to the problem of dearth of value in ence. Rather, understanding is the implicit Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. intelligibility that characterizes human activi- ties as meaningful and already familiar in A central feature of Heidegger’s funda- practice. When we understand objects, we mental ontology qua phenomenology in- understand them as neither objects with ex- volves the analysis of human beings not as ternal properties, nor an explanation that at- epistemic agents, but as “Dasein.” Dasein is tempts to stand over a phenomenon in a being-in-the-world (Sein-in-der-Welt) and his transhistorical sense either (Heidegger, 1962, name for “us.” Heidegger sought a solution to p. 182/143). Instead, understanding is a pri- the meaning of Being in the very being that mordial disclosure of possibilities of the can pose the question before itself. It is there- world as a whole or the possibilities that per- fore within Dasein (what Heidegger used as a tain to my self-understanding as a historically phenomenological term to stand for any being mediated being thrown into the world. that can pose the question of its own existence to itself) that this concern arises. Dasein is Ontically, we often claim “to understand described as Being-in-the-world. By under- something” but for Heidegger we have to be standing Dasein as being-in-the-world, clear. The ontic interpretations are those con- Heidegger explicated the question of being in cealed over in the public cliché attitudes and terms of the practical orientation we exhibit natural attitude in Husserl and Scheler. Ontic towards the world and others. explanations are unexamined and offer no primordial investigation of a fundamental on- At the same time, Being-in-the-world is a tology that hermeneutic phenomenology can. collapse between Dasein and world. We come Heidegger offered a fundamental ontology to understand ourselves only in light of the through a hermeneutic phenomenology. He 7 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 described the ontological facticity of Dasein ing, or else it seizes upon them and makes as the structure of care (Sorge). In the struc- mistakes. But this means that Dasein is ture of care Heidegger described understand- Being-possible which has been delivered ing as an existentiale - an ontologically con- over to itself - thrown possibility through stitutive characteristic of Dasein at pre- and through. Dasein is the possibility of cognitive the layer of experience. Through the Being-free for its ownmost potentiality- existentiales, one experiences the world. Ac- for-being. Its Being-possible is transparent cordingly, understanding is not a competence, to itself in different possible ways and de- but Being as existing, or what we might call a grees. (Heidegger, 1962, p. 183/144) Being-possible. It is a way of existing. A candidate passage might help clarify: In other words, Dasein is an undetermined potentiality full of possibilities it may choose In understanding, as an existentiale, that for itself. Sometimes, it will make mistakes in which we have such competence over is that choosing, but it seizes upon those possi- not a “what”, but Being as existing. The bilities nonetheless. Accordingly, Dasein kind of Being which Dasein has, as poten- must be handed over to itself as a field of po- tiality-for-being, lies existentially in un- tential possibilities it may choose, and the derstanding. Dasein is not something pre- formation of these possibilities is not com- sent-at-hand which possesses its compe- pletely within human control. There is a tence for something by way of an extra; it world already underway we are born into. We is primarily Being-possible. (Heidegger, are thrown into the world. There are legacies 1962, p. 183/143) shaping the direction and field of history I must and cannot help but respond to in my As seen above, Dasein is its “possibilities,” vocation. When I teach philosophy, I have and those possibilities pertain not only to it- come to expect that students from poorer are- self but how it understands Being as existing, as have less developed writing skills on aver- as it already is thrown into the world. These age than those that come from more affluent possibilities are never independent of the areas. While this is not always the case, a part world in the way we described in Scheler. In of this problem places undue burdens on me other words, Heidegger does not think that as a teacher of philosophy in a public Ameri- possibilities are “free-floating potentiality-for- can university. I have to work harder at get- being in the sense of the liberty of indiffer- ting clear what a text says to my students due ence” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 183/144). In this in large measure by their lack of preparation way, possibilities are not like the “proposi- for university life. I have to develop cultural tionalized” maxims of Kantian moral philoso- references that might be analogous to the life phy that have their source in something else of students far removed from philosophical other than being-in-the-world. Instead, Dasein texts. These legacies of under-preparation, is ontologically understood as its possibilities. failing high schools, and open admissions subsist even if I had never chosen to be a phi- However, possibilities come already fur- losopher teaching at a public university. In nished in a world not of our own making. another sense, however, these possibilities are Heidegger wrote mine and mine alone. I am the one who was assigned such and such a course with enrol- As the potentiality-for-being which is is, it ling first-year students. All of these factors has let such possibilities pass by; it is con- shape my situation. As Heidegger insisted, it stantly waiving the possibilities of its Be- is a matter of “degree.” 8 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2

possibility to what someone is “factually.” Dasein is thrown, and thus understanding For example, Aristotle’s doctrine of natural takes into account the whole of a situation, slavery in the Politics largely depends on and has a basic idea of its capabilities already metaphysical assumptions. (Aristotle, 1254a, but possession of this self-knowledge is not pp. 28-32) For Aristotle, a thing possesses its guaranteed. Dasein can fail to recognize that nature inherent within it, and as such, the dis- it is essentially its ownmost possibility. Un- tinction between those that rule and those that derstanding can go astray. Heidegger summa- are ruled inheres in the nature of individuals. rized his complete definition of understand- In another way, the pseudoscience of phre- ing: “Understanding is the existential Being nology in the 19th century “secured” the truth of Dasein’s own potentiality-for-being; and it of racist attitudes. In addition, understanding is so in such a way that this Being discloses in “agency” in moral philosophy has gravitated itself what its Being is capable of” (Heidegger, towards attempting to construct moral theo- 1962, p. 184/144). To unpack this conception, ries by first examining how humans operate Dasein is that which has its own being as it socially through social psychology.2 This is issue for it. We are in possession of our own an attempt at establishing what we are factual- possibility. This possession is not mysterious, ly rather than looking at how it is we exist as but it is a structure exhibited in our everyday being-in-the-world. The latter emphasizes the daily experience. In this way, the possibilities facticity of human life over what Aristotle, are concrete. In an intimate way, we know pseudoscience or the use of moral psychology what we are capable of since an intimate fa- can do for us in ethics. The point in raising miliarity with our own being is disclosed in a these examples is to open up Dasein’s worldly very practical orientation towards the world. structure but at the same time being aware of what Heidegger is not claiming. Dasein could Let me take stock of what has been estab- never be discerned from what it is factually. lished thus far. For Heidegger, possibilities Instead, “Dasein is ‘more’ than it factually is, were not a deliberated choice, or a detached supposing that one might want to make an belief that will inform action later on. These inventory of it as something-at-hand and list possibilities are concretized in a particular the contents of its Being… ” (Heidegger, context of significance. These possibilities are 1962, p. 185/145). Therefore, again, Dasein already present in a world we are thrown into, cannot be known by simply listing off the and the possession of these possibilities occur properties of its being as a scientific perspec- in matters of degree. These possibilities are tive might insist. Instead, Heidegger’s analy- always relative to a worldly situation. Under- sis is an existential-ontological account of standing is always practically-oriented in a how the projection of self-understanding can context - this is what Heidegger meant by become “what it is by becoming what is pos- calling the projected understanding a “for-the- sible for it to be” (Hoy, 1993, p. 181). In or- sake-of-which” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 182/143). der to understand what one may become, in- By being constantly affixed to the worldly terpretation is required since we must be able concrete possibilities and situational character, to interpret the already possessed conception Heidegger introduced a distinction between of who we want to become. For my purposes factuality and facticity. Let me explain the here, the possibilities can thus be interpreted distinction. as “modes of givenness” and interpretation imposes the limit of how those modes of Many past thinkers have argued what is givenness can be understood. possible by connecting those inferences about 9 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2

By interpretation (Auslegung), Heidegger meant a practically-oriented capacity of un- The totality of involvements is always understanding to bring into view the parts and derstood not as a grasping of facts inde- wholes of an entire possibility and context. pendently of that historicity and already un- Put another way, interpretation is the devel- derstood contexts of significance. Instead, the opment of the understanding’s projection up- totality of involvements is what Heidegger on what is inherently possible. In Heidegger’s called “ready-to-hand” (Zuhanden). We do words, an interpretation is “the working out of not apprehend properties about objects out- possibilities projected in understanding” side of the interpretively-laden contexts we (Heidegger, 1962, p. 189/148). Thus, we must inhabit. Such an apprehension would exem- already have a worked out understanding of plify what Heidegger called “present-at-hand” possibilities prior to interpretation since inter- (Vorhanden). Moreover, this holds for value pretation is grounded in the understanding. too. As Heidegger put it, “in interpreting we Understanding is never generated out of in- do not throw a signification over some naked terpretation. Instead, understanding is the pre- thing which is present-at-hand, we do not reflective, pre-linguistic, and pre-cognitive stick a value on it…” (Heidegger, 1962, p. practical orientation that makes it possible to 190/150). In other words, interpretations can- interpret the world at all. We understand as- not get outside of the contextual significance. pects of the world already; we understand Instead, this hermeneutic threshold holds for something-as-something. When I engage in value. For instance, values are not disclosed reading a book, I understand the book as as a mind-independent property through a something to be read. The book occurs in the type of moral intuition.3 In the totality of in- in-order-to relationships that constitute the volvements, there are three pre-linguistic/pre- whole world and the possible interpretations cognitive features that condition interpretation of it: and further the hermeneutic threshold already described. As Heidegger put it, “an interpreta- That which is disclosed in understanding - tion is never a presuppositionless apprehend- that which is understood - is already ac- ing” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 191/150). cessible I such a way that its ‘as which’ can be made to stand out explicitly. The First, there is fore-having (Vorhabe). We ‘as’ makes up the structure of explicitness have a prior understanding that does not stand of something that is understood. It consti- out clearly from the background. We under- tutes the interpretation. (Heidegger, 1962, stand the bridge is something to cross prior p. 189/149) the practical involvement of driving. Second- ly, there is fore-sight (Vorsicht). This is the In other words, there is an implicit back- act of appropriation in which the interpreter ground to the world, a nexus of practical rela- brings into relief an already understood but tionships behind understanding and interpret- veiled aspect of a thing, and this is what is ing the world that Heidegger called the “total- responsible for conceptualization of a thing ity of involvements.” I possess an intimate for interpretation. Finally, Heidegger de- familiarity with many of these practical rela- scribed fore-conception (Vorgriff). This is the tionships already. For Heidegger, we are born already decided and definite way of conceiv- into a world already underway within its own ing the thing to be interpreted “either with historicity and, likewise, all interpretations are finality or with reservations; it is grounded in a working out of projective understanding in something we grasp in advance—in a fore- that historicity and totality of involvements. conception” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 191/150). 10 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2

All three factors describe the fore-structure. most primordial kind of knowing” (Heidegger, These three features constitute the hermeneu- 1962, p. 195/153). Heidegger’s phenomeno- tic threshold that interpretation imposes upon logical description of understanding limits the what is possible for us. very possibility of phenomenological ontology itself. More generally, many philosophers Hermeneutic phenomenology is not simp- have imposed the standards of deductive rigor ly a description about the limits of under- upon discourses in philosophy. These rigor- standing and interpretations. Those are cer- ous discourses attempt to get at the truth of a tainly part of it, yet it is more. For me, herme- discourse. Yet, such an imposition of an ideal neutic phenomenology is the fusion of the as- of knowledge is still a species of projective structure and fore-structure in Heidegger. The understanding. In the Crisis of the European fore-structure is the particular way in which Sciences, Husserl phenomenologically re- the whole “must already have understood trieved how the sedimentation of historical what is to be interpreted” (Heidegger, 1962, p. meaning in Galileo had “mathematized” na- 194/152). Hermeneutic phenomenology is the ture to the point that nature itself could only descriptive attempt to bring the as-structures be understood scientifically as an event within and fore-structures together in which together space-time.5 Such events could not be given they form an articulation.4 The as-structure is any other way. Quite similarly, Heidegger’s the thing “as its own” but such a thing is giv- insistence on the priority of practical engage- en as part of a contextual whole. Their togeth- ment with the world is a similar insight. erness delimits how projective understanding Heidegger’s efforts return to what is given, actually works. In projective understanding, and at the same time, the return establishes a limit that neither understanding nor interpreta- …entities are disclosed in their possibility. tion can surpass. This would include how val- The character of the possibility corre- ues could be given, if at all. sponds, on each occasion, with the kind of the entity which is understood. Entities III. Phenomenological Tensions within-the-world generally are projected upon the world—that is, upon the whole The differences in these respective philoso- of significance, to whose reference- phies illustrate two ways values can be inter- relations concern, as Being-in-the-world, preted. First, Scheler’s silence on the ontolo- has been tied up in advance. (Heidegger, gy of value follows from his phenomenologi- 1962, p. 192/151) cal attitude. From the earlier passage, Scheler regarded the “given only in the seeing and In other words, projective understanding is experiencing of the act itself.” In the sphere of limited by the part-whole relation disclosed in acts, we could discern the essences of things, the as-structure and fore-structure. but this essential insight cannot glean any ontological insight. Scheler was a thoroughly To say that understanding works out pos- committed pure phenomenologist at that point, sibilities for interpretation within the part- and the ontological neutrality of the attitude whole relationship is not to commit oneself to of “spiritual seeing” does not seek to delimit circular reasoning. It is not a “vicious circle” that which can be given. Scheler’s insistence as Heidegger insisted. Instead, interpretation on the immediate givenness of value through is an effort to see more than simply an ideal emotional intuition expresses that spirit may of knowledge operating as pure philosophiz- discern the what-ness of a phenomenon, yet ing but rather “a positive possibility of the we are never told anything about what es- 11 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 sences are anymore than how it is that values For it is our whole spiritual life - and not are given as an eternal a priori order of ranks. simply objective thinking in the sense of On the other hand, Dasein cannot immediate cognition of being - that possesses “pure” intuitively apprehend a phenomenon. Accord- acts and laws of acts which are, according ing to Heidegger, all understanding is – to put to their nature and contents, independent it in Scheler’s words – “mediated” through of the human organization. The emotive “signs and symbols.” Therefore, it is clear that elements of spirit, such as feeling, prefer- insofar as the analysis regards the Formal- ring, loving, hating and willing, also pos- ismus and Being and Time, there are clear sess original a priori contents which are contradictory commitments to either a phe- not borrowed from “thinking”, and which nomenology that can discern essences imme- ethics must show to be independent of diately through intuition or a hermeneutic logic. There is an a priori ordre du Coeur, phenomenology in which the understanding or logique du Coeur as Blaise Pascal aptly works out its interpretive possibilities mediat- calls it. (Scheler, 1973a, p. 63) ed through the as-and-fore-structures of experience. If someone is given the choice be- Scheler considered the experience of affec- tween these two approaches, the question can tivity as the basis for all other experiences. In be asked: Which approach allows for a better Heidegger, the moods are experienced in understanding of value’s givenness? much the same way as Scheler. They are a co- penetrating part of the structure of care. In the Nature of Sympathy, Scheler argued Moods come from behind us, without our that existence is pervasively already mooded - control, and we are constantly delivered over that is to say, Scheler’s insistence that affec- to them. Every situation is mooded, and there- tivity pervades human life is that such affec- fore given as already mooded as such. In this tivity is being-in-the-world. I offer the follow- way, both Scheler and Heidegger emphasized ing passage as evidence of this interpretation: the same primordial level of affectivity in which all situations and the world itself is dis- …the value-qualities of objects are al- closed. Yet, there is a striking difference be- ready given in advance at a level where tween both phenomenological approaches. In their imaged and conceptual features are Scheler, the emotions form an independent not yet vouchsafed to us, and hence that autonomous logic disclosed in the structure of the apprehension of values is the basis of intentional acts. In Heidegger, the moods our subsequent apprehension of objects. work alongside the other existentiales. This (Scheler, 2008, p. 57-58) autonomous logic is the reason why Scheleri- We are actively borne into a world engrossed an phenomenology is capable of grasping the in an emotional tonality. Human life is thor- values intended in emotions more fully than oughly “mooded” in Scheler. Consequently, Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, there is agreement with the Heideggerian in- and explains why Heidegger could not ade- sistence on Dasein as Being-in-the-world, and quately grasp values in the everydayness of how the care structure unfolds emphasizing Dasein. “moodedness.” Scheler’s analysis takes affectivity farther than Being and Time. He gives The givenness of value-qualities in expe- full phenomenological independence to affec- rience, when successfully bracketed phenom- tive intentionality whereas moods are just one enologically, perdure. That is, values are giv- existentiale in the care structure. en as a form of intransient permanence as ev- idenced in acts of love. These acts are of spirit, 12 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 and they disclose values as objectively valid will what we have hitherto gained in in- in their own way. Consider the experience of terpreting Dasein gets its existential justi- love. Love is a personal intentional act that fication. (Heidegger, 1962, p. 37/16) opens up the grasp of value’s givenness of another’s spiritual essence. These others could For Heidegger, ethics is but one example of be other persons, an anonymous other – such an ontic interpretation that does not go far as other Americans, or maybe an idea like jus- enough in elucidating the Being of Dasein. tice. Either way, the structure of love is the Heidegger thought that various ontic interpre- same intentional act and offers us phenome- tations of Dasein’s possibilities had been nological insight into the experience of values overlooked and concealed over. In a sense, itself. In love, I will adopt a permanent intran- Heidegger was correct, yet had Heidegger ex- sient orientation to sacrifice all my effort to plored the ground of values as “felt in experi- bring the other to proper fruition. I will not ence,” he would have gleaned Scheler’s in- attempt to control, manipulate, or dominate sight. I hope the reader understands I am not this other. Control, domination, or manipula- simply “playing up” Scheler, but offering the tion would only attempt to bring about an im- givenness of value as a reason to regard posed conception of what the other should be Scheler’s phenomenology more sophisticated rather than allowing the unique other to be. on this point. Phenomenologically speaking Hence, love is the movement or ascendancy and independent of Scheler, values are given of Scheler’s value-rankings that allows the as enduring beyond contexts of significance. valued good to become more than what it is, If I face a similar situation later on in life, and at the highest level is the absolute value then ceteris paribus the same value will apply of the person. Being capable of experiencing to the same context of significance. Hence, value’s givenness requires eliminating any we can understand it when Scheler claimed mediation such that the experience can pick that the determinate order of values “is inde- upon value’s overwhelming fullness. The pendent of the form of being into which val- overwhelming fullness of value’s givenness is ues enter - no matter, for instance, if they are a conceptual feature of value itself. present to us as purely objective qualities, as members of value-complexes (e.g., the being- It could be proposed that Heidegger agreeable or being-beautiful of something), or picked up on the givenness of value as a form as values that ‘a thing has’” (Scheler, 1973a, of permanence, but Heidegger held value to p. 17). Heidegger had only picked up on the be an ontic phenomenon that naively regard givenness of value partly. Indeed, values are values as present-at-hand. As Heidegger first given as a presence perduring throughout time mentioned ethics in Being and Time because the act-center of persons realizes them into time as goods.6 The act-center of Dasein’s ways of behavior, its capacities, persons in realizing values exceeds represen- powers, possibilities, and vicissitudes, tation, and so too do the values realized by have been studied with varying extent in persons. philosophical psychology, in anthropolo- gy, ethics, and ‘political science’, in poet- An example might prove helpful. Scheler ry, biography and in the writing of history stated that values only matter in relation to the each in a different fashion…Only when dignity of a person, and this is the highest the basic structures of Dasein have been value (which for Scheler is the value of the adequately worked out with explicit orien- Holy). Therefore, if I enslave another person, tation towards the problem of Being itself, I disregard how he is given to me in experi- 13 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 ence as a person. This insight is gleaned in the ern philosophy,” Gadamer referred to phe- emotional apprehension I have in relation to a nomenology and its supplementary role to a person. The dignity of a person does not come metaphysics informed by philosophical an- to us through the a priori form of the moral thropology. Scheler’s contribution is down- law as a Kantian would insist. Instead, the played if a hermeneutic phenomenology in inviolable sense of the person is given in her either Gadamer or Heidegger’s formation inexhaustible richness as a wholly unique in- succeeds. Yet, hermeneutic phenomenology is dividuated being. The person emanates out- limited by its inability to capture the absolute ward phenomenologically as absolute and immanence of value-experience. There is no unique. It does not matter if we are talking mediation in Scheler’s thought of value expe- about the slaves of Ancient Egypt, or slaves in rience. This follows from Scheler’s commit- the American South of the 19th century. In all ment to a phenomenology of essences ex- instances, the value of the person is felt in ex- pressed in the interconnections between emo- perience. There is no mediation of the value tional acts and value-correlates. attached to the holy sense afforded to person. In much the same way, Levinas insisted on Interconnections are, like essences, “giv- the transhistorical absolute value of the other. en”. They are not a “product” of “under- It is therefore no mistake that Levinas and standing.” They are original thing- Scheler insisted on the trans-historical and interconnections [Sachzusammenhänge], therefore trans-mediated sense that the other not laws of objects just because they are person possesses. No ethics can get off the laws of acts apprehending objects.7 They ground if there was not a phenomenological are “a priori” because they are grounded givenness of the person and value itself. In in essences [Wesenheit], not in objects and short, ethicists assume the phenomenological goods. They are a priori, but not because existence of values and persons as a basis for of “understanding” or “reason” “produces” their own inquiry. them. The logos permeating the universe can be grasped only through them. (Schel- A Heideggerian might counter we have er, 1973a, p. 68) simply paid too much attention to the as- structure, the immediate immanence of a per- The givenness of value shares in a completely son without paying attention to what context different mode of givenness - more than or fore-structure that allows us to make such Heidegger could anticipate in Being and Time claims as when Scheler opens in the Second - and this is why it is unfair to insist upon the Preface to the Formalismus with “The spirit hermeneutic threshold without fully paying behind my ethics is one of rigid ethical abso- attention to the how-of-givenness and what lutism and objectivism” (Scheler, 1973a, p. that how-of-givenness entails for value in par- xxiii). Consequently, it is no accident that the ticular. The givenness of value could only be next sentence follows as “My position may in articulated in a phenomenology of emotional another respect be called emotional intuition- life where they are experienced directly. For ism” (Scheler 1973a, p. xxiii). By contrast, instance, if I find myself likely to eat fish one could agree with Gadamer’s sentiments from Lake Erie, I will refrain. Lake Erie is surrounding Scheler’s thought. Scheler’s ma- very polluted, and the game wardens in Penn- jor ethics merely “fused the tradition of Cath- sylvania near Presque Isle warn of the dangers. olic moral philosophy for the first time with The fish are given as threatening my health. the most advanced positions in modern phi- Moreover, I come to value my health over the losophy” (Gadamer, 2008, p. 135). By “mod- pleasurable desire to eat fish. I choose the vi- 14 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 tal value of health over the lower pleasurable type of virtue ethics in which phronesis is in- value. To experience value is to be thrust in volved in apprehending what values are sali- situations in which values are given in rela- ent to a particular value-complex, duty or per- tion to each other, and the phenomenological son, but this is a topic for another time.8 evidence of preferring acts indicates the higher values are chosen at the expense of those In this paper, I have urged two conclu- experienced as lower. sions regarding the differences spelled out between Scheler’s intuition of essences and Some might be dissatisfied with my inter- Heidegger’s hermeneutic turn. First, I have pretation that Heidegger missed out on the argued that the experience of value could not givenness of value. It is not enough to elicit help but be given in terms of its presence-at- the motivations for why a philosopher has de- hand nature. Persons and values, when fended a particular conclusion. Herein, I have viewed within time, resemble presence in the offered the givenness of value as its own evi- Heideggerian sense because of the excess of dence and this is why if a moral phenomenol- givenness overtakes the phenomenal appear- ogy is to take shape, the phenomenology in ance and that overwhelming giveness of value question cannot adopt a Heideggerian frame. is given immanently without mediation. Instead, a moral phenomenology can only be Heidegger’s insistence that values are ontic founded on a phenomenology open to value in follows from Heidegger’s incomplete grasp of the first place, and unlike Heidegger, Scheler how values are given in experience. The in- phenomenology accommodates value’s transience of value is simply the manner in givenness. However, there are some limita- which it is given in experience. tions even to Scheler’s approach. Scheler’s silence about the ontology of Scheler provided an account of moral value in the Formalismus is a product of seek- phenomenology that disclosed the how-of- ing a phenomenological basis for ethics. Put givenness of values. However, in his ethics, simply, when we engage in phenomenological he never provided a clear account as to what description, we are not to assume anything the content of values are, nor how that content prior about the phenomenon, but let the phe- is experienced. Instead, we know what value nomenon show itself from itself. From this might be operative in a particular value- phenomenological neutrality, Scheler cannot complex or situation and the phenomenologi- settle anything about the question of values cal form of moral experience more generally. ontologically, but unlike Heidegger, Scheler’s I feel a calling of the Holy and the values cor- phenomenology can capture the givenness of related to spiritual feeling but there are no value. Scheler can say how values are experi- specific duties or prescriptions as to how I enced in emotional intuition in preferring, instantiate that calling in my actions. With its loving, and hating, and that there may be les- dearth of a prescriptive element, Scheler’s sons to learn from Heidegger. Heidegger’s moral phenomenology cannot take the form efforts to “ontologize” phenomenological in- of a particular moral theory that privileges quiry about factical life is a model for how ways to decide what I ought to do, and by Scheler’s efforts may be better developed - “moral theory,” I mean a philosophical meth- though my audience must wait for another od that provides agents with set procedures time to address the Heideggerian suggestions for moral deliberation, e.g., Kant’s categorical for Scheler’s metaphysics yet to come. At imperative or Mill’s greatest happiness prin- present, Scheler’s approach is more amiable ciple. At best, Scheler might endorse some to the givenness of persons and values and for 15 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 this reason. Scheler’s approach should be re- very much on whether one’s job provided garded as the better hermeneutic framework health care insurance. In the United States, whenever such frameworks concern values in private companies provide insurance benefits lived-experience. attached to one’s employment. For the under- employed, the jobless and those with preexist- IV. Application ing conditions, these people cannot acquire insurance easily or not at all, and the only re- In this last section, I hope some of my efforts course these at risk populations is to access have opened up eidetic seeing about values. health care services provided by the Emer- The earlier sections provide reasons why we gency Room in the hospital. Federal law pro- ought to favor Scheler’s phenomenology of hibits hospitals from turning away anybody, value over and above Heidegger’s hermeneu- but this option often puts the uninsured in ex- tic phenomenology. Scheler’s unique vision treme financial debt if the problem is severe, for a phenomenology of value has intellectual and hospitals will not go out of their way to merit. His phenomenology of value accom- serve the uninsured. In January 2014, howev- modates the very experience of values. This er, the ACA will require all Americans to unique vision is superior to Heidegger’s her- purchase insurance and employers of all types meneutic phenomenology, and the overall will be required now to offer insurance. This ambition of this essay has appealed to the requirement is called the “universal mandate.” phenomenological evidence of value itself as a way to decide this issue. For non- Let us, now, assume that one wanted to phenomenologically-inclined thinkers, such a interpret this political situation. In light of solution may seem rather obtuse. Put differ- feelings of the uninsured prior to the Afforda- ently, the interest in hermeneutic approaches ble Care Act, a Heideggerian frame could to problems of human experience cannot ac- pick up on the anxiety felt of those in the situ- commodate the experience of values if her- ation. The anxious mood and suffering of meneutics is restricted to embody one’s health might reveal aspects of our Heideggerian-inspired approaches. I choose to finitude, even possibly revealing aspects of address Heideggerian hermeneutic phenome- our own being-towards-death depending on nology since Heidegger’s thought has inspired the severity of one’s health problem. Anxiety so many. Beyond the concerns with “theory,” can individuate the experiencer and even ar- let me provide an example why this insight is rest us from our immersed social self to the crucial to those interested in hermeneutic point where we achieve an authentic existence method and application to cultural practices. (Eigenlichkeit). Yet, anxiety is not love. Anx- iety only brings to light my possibilities for Over the last four years, health care acces- action as a finite being and, in its deepest rev- sibility has been the subject of intense debate elation about my own possibilities in the call in the United States. Ever since the passage of of conscience. I am not called to serve others the Affordable Care Act (ACA hereafter), the as much as I am only aware of myself as anx- politics of the United States have been divid- ious. My own freedom and the tenuous re- ed between those that think reform need not solve to face my situation constitute all I am involve any alteration of how health care is capable of doing. Applied to one’s personal made accessible in the United States via pri- health, this deep revelation of anxiety can on- vate companies and those that believe in pub- ly inform me as to how I relate to the environ- lic insurance. Until the ACA, a person’s abil- ing world. For Scheler, anxiety is felt in the ity to access health care service depended vital sphere of values. Love allows us to as- 16 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 cend past this value sphere and acquire over lower ones, and the movement in the knowledge of values beyond the personal in- various value-spheres, as the example of eco- dividuated experience anxiety causes within nomic concerns below, would be based on us. Heidegger has no order of preferring with- love that would eventually culminate in the in his limited conception of hermeneutic phe- Holy. Thus, economics understood through nomenology to acquire knowledge of values the various value-spheres in Scheler’s thought beyond the personal individuated experience would resemble the following schema. of anxiety. - pleasure: hedonistic consumerism Love allows us to grasp higher values and - utility: as measured, e.g., by money units realize them in the service of the other. Reli- - vital values: as found in the original life- ant upon Scheler’s act of preferring, or what communal meaning of “Oikonomia” viz., we could call value-ception (Wertnehmung), care of the home persons can glean the values given in our ex- - spiritual values: e.g., when economies perience of the world whereas Heidegger can primary interest is justice only pick up on the moodedness of a situation - the Holy: e.g., when labor is experienced as it pertains to Dasein’s concern only, but not as participation in God’s ongoing creation the value-correlates attached to those moods. and as an act of creation. (Stikkers, 1986, In this way, Heideggerian hermeneutics could p. 251) not do appropriate justice in understanding the moral imperative necessary to engage in a The ACA’s universal mandate that every- political dialogue about how best to solve the one buy public insurance is based on love. If anxiety of having little or no reliable access to healthier people buy into a nation-wide insur- health care services. Love is the name of ance pool, the cost of uninsured people will those intentional acts where we ascend in no longer drive up costs for those that have Scheler’s value rankings to the highest value insurance, and the universal mandate compels of the person. In this way, love enables the obedience so that more people can afford to growth beyond the vital sphere to solving the purchase it. The ACA is motivated by provid- problem felt in the vital sphere. We can see ing access to the economically disenfran- this insight in Kenneth Stikkers’s work on chised already tending both towards the spir- Scheler. He wrote itual value of justice and the Holy.

Contemporary Western culture, for exam- Contrary to ascension, Conservative ad- ple, is to be understood as an utilty-value vocates mostly favor an entirely free market ethos increasingly dominated by economy solution. Such solutions privilege the man- - what Scheler describes the “ethos of in- agement of one’s home and projection of dustrialism” - and to grasp this fact is to one’s own self-interest against what would be gain the single most penetrating insight in the interest of others. The fact that the uni- into that culture. (Stikkers, 1986, p. 250) versal mandate compels people by law to purchase a service they might not want or need is In light of this passage, Stikkers continued interpreted as going against their own self- and showed what the idea of economy looks interest. In the vital sphere, we can feel the like as we ascend in value. Starting from the value of anxiousness, but anxiousness, as I lowest value at the top and ascending in love, criticize Heidegger is self-referential. The economic concerns look very different at eve- violation of liberty often spoken about by op- ry level. Love is the grasping of higher values ponents of the ACA is based on a conception 17 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2 of liberty-as-self-interested. Yet, the entire Scheler’s phenomenology of value allows for system prior to the ACA viewed the unin- a deeper insight into cultural practices. sured as people incapable of paying and ex- cludes them economically. To this day, the References health care system seeks to profit from treat- ing patients as consumers rather than the indi- Blosser, P. (1995). Scheler’s critique of vidual person. Kant’s ethics. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. V. Conclusion Frings, M.S. (1996). Max Scheler: A concise When it comes to value-experience, there are introduction into a great thinker. Milwaukee, few approaches in philosophy that can thema- WI: Marquette University Press. tize experience. Phenomenology is one approach to describing lived-experience.9 Yet, Gadamer, H.G. (2008). Philosophical herme- the lived-experience of value is unique. Val- neutics (D. Linge, Trans.). Berkeley, CA: ues have a special mode of givenness, and as University of California Press. such, the phenomenological commitments of Scheler and Heidegger prevent or enable that Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. mode of givenness to be seen. In this essay, I Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New argued that if we pay attention to the York, NY: Harper & Row. givenness of value itself as an enduring immanent presence, I can determine which ap- Hoy, D.C. (1993). Heidegger and the herme- proach can accommodate the givenness of neutic turn. In C.B. Guignon (Ed.), The Cam- value. As a phenomenologist, I want to allow bridge companion to Heidegger (pp. 170-194). for the phenomenon of value to shine forth on Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. its own merits, and I devoted considerable attention to see how value could manifest in Scheler, M. (1973a). Formalism in ethics and both approaches. the non-formal ethics of value: A new attempt toward the foundation of an ethical personal- In Heidegger’s thought, values are either ism. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University not gleaned at all or only partially. The prin- Press. cipal figure in the development of twentieth century hermeneutics is Heidegger. Heidegger Scheler, M. (1973b). Phenomenology and the also eclipses the importance of Scheler’s phe- theory of cognition In Selected philosophical nomenology, and yet only in Scheler’s phe- essays (D. Lachtermann, Trans.) (pp. 136- nomenology is the core of value-experience 201). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University truly manifest. For those outside of philoso- Press. phy but still interested in the application of hermeneutic insight into cultural practices are Scheler, M. (1973c). The theory of three facts. better served by adopting Scheler’s phenome- Selected philosophical essays (D. Lachterman, nology when addressing the reality of value- Trans.) (pp. 202-287)). Evanston, IL: North- experience. I attempted to show this insight in western University Press. the example Stikkers applied to economics itself. This application allowed for us to see Scheler, M. (2008). The nature of sympathy that despite the prominent appeal of (P. Heath, Trans.). New Brunswick, NJ: Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology, Transaction Publishers. 18 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2

Stikkers, K.W. (1986). ‘Ethos,’ Its relation- Schneck, S. (1987). Person and polis: Max ship to real and ideal sociological factors in Scheler’s personalism as political theory. Al- Scheler’s philosophy of culture. Listening: bany, NY: State University of New York Journal of Religion and Culture, 21(3), 243- Press. 252.

4 It is no surprise that so much time is spent

on logos as a gathering together (legein) and Notes letting-be in Heidegger’s essay Early Greek

Thinking. 1 The priority of this type of act is central to the entire sphere of moral experience in 5 It is fair to say that beyond a transcenden- Scheler. tal idealistic phenomenology, Husserl’s

draw to sedimentation is an influence of 2 The turning point of this in the most recent Heidegger’s hermeneutic turn. literature and attraction to social psychology would probably be Gilbert Harman’s “Moral 6 This is a point of contention in Parvis Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Emad’s brilliantly argued Heidegger and the Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Er- Phenomeology of Value (Torey Press: Glen ror” in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Soci- Ellyn, IL, 1984). In that work, Emad thinks ety 99 (1998-1999): pp. 315-333. It is fair to the difference between Heidegger and say that this probably goes as far back Hume. Scheler turns on Scheler’s acceptance of In his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume’s traditional concepts of the person that attempt at describing the moral sciences at- presuppose a temporality of presence. tempts to discern limited to normative theo- Heidegger, Emad insists, works out a ry by appeals to Hume’s psychology about completely different account of temporality sympathetic identification. that questions Scheler’s acceptance of a

traditional metaphysics concealed in his 3 This holds really for any conception of phi- commitment to intentional acts as products losophy that apprehends or discovers mind- of spirit (and likewise the whole of Western independent truths. Such examples in some metaphysics for that matter). “The a- moral philosophy disobey this hermeneutic temporal nature of spirit is clearly manifest threshold that Heidegger sees as constrain- in its sole representative, the act. The nature ing all inquiry. R. Schafer-Landau is the of act is such that it does not exist in time. most recent defense of moral intuitionism in To use Scheler’s terminology, acts exercise his Moral Realism: A Defense (Oxford: Ox- their influence into time without being ford University Press, 2003). Similarly, this extended in it…like the tradition criticized hermeneutic limit has consequences for any by Heidegger, Scheler is unaware of the realism about science, art, ethics or wherev- subtle, hidden and elusive role of time” (p. er such efforts attempt at grasping the struc- 47) While I do not have the space here to ture itself without seeing such efforts as op- revisit the entire presentation of Emad’s erative in a context already. These condi- argument, Emad’s book only takes up the tions also elicit Heidegger’s suspicion about Heideggerian confidence in that line without metaphysics and why it is that we must call asking first what the givenness of value is for the de-structuring of metaphysics. itself. The alternative explanation for

19 Hackett Journal of Applied Hermeneutics 2013 Article 2

Scheler’s lack of awareness about time is simple. Values are given in such excess that, like persons, they exhibit a type of givenness that cannot be captured in time. The givenness is a vertical dimension, given in height and only partially understood in the horizon of time articulated in hermeneutic phenomenology.

7 On its own laws apprehending objects would be a form of naïve realism or version of either epistemic or moral intuitionism.

8 While I do not have time to review the literature on this point, I am especially attracted to Eugene Kelly’s recent efforts to marry virtue ethics, Scheler, and Hartmann. For more information on this view, see his “Between Scheler and Hartmann: Some Problems of a Material Value Ethics” in Ethics and Phenomenology. Ed. Mark Sanders and J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2012): p. 39- 56. Those parties interested in Scheler may also read his “On the Rehabilitation of Virtue” trans. Eugene Kelly (2005) in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 79(1), 21-37.

9 American pragmatism is the other side of philosophy that regards experience as primary.