Abstract

In the first chapter, titled “Modern and Postmodern Aspects of Scheler’s Later Personalism,” Michael Barber argues that Scheler’s earlier and his later personalism reflect a similar pretheoretical ethical experience. Barber finds postmodern aspects in Scheler, insofar as the later Scheler finds underneath science and metaphysics desires to control and to love. At the same time, Scheler remains tied to modern thought in that he never abandons eidetic phenomenology, which, Barber argues, is essential in order not to surrender Scheler’s understanding of personhood to determinist explanations or dogmatic religion. In his conclusion, Barber compellingly suggests that the ethical origins of Scheler’s personalism could be found in moments of face-to-face communication with another, and that his later critique of spiritualization and altered vision of God have their roots in Scheler’s awareness of how false spiritualization hides its own drives and desires and how this makes possible “the subjection of the Other to its own violent totality”.