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Scheler, Heidegger, and the Hermeneutics of Value

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Scheler, Heidegger, and the Hermeneutics of Value Journal of Applied Hermeneutics March 15, 2013 The Author(s) 2013 Scheler, Heidegger, and the Hermeneutics of Value 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 val- ues 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 al- ternative 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 atten- tion 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, sci- ence 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.
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