In this dissertation I examine our relationship with the Earth and our natural environment by clarifying what it means to be human. I do this by looking at the interpenetration of spheres of being or philosophical anthropology to articulate how the human being is the dynamic meeting point of life and spirit. In this interpenetration of life and spirit, the task of the human being as loving flashes forth. On the basis of this task, it is possible to realize a loving relationship with the Earth and our natural environment that is not based on domination or use. To understand further how we are situated in relation to the earth and our natural environment, I discuss shortcomings of both the conservation and deep ecology movements. I also discuss problems with traditional philosophical anthropologies to highlight how some of these presuppositions have been incorporated into our relationship with the earth and our natural environment. To illuminate how life and spirit are enmeshed in one another, I describe Nicolai Hartmann's new ontology and Edmund Husserl's regional ontology as well as Scheler's philosophical anthropology since all of these philosophers ground their reflections in experience. However, since Scheler grounds being human in loving, his approach is unique and not only resolves the supposed dualism between life and spirit but gives us a fresh outlook on the responsibility inherent to being human. This opens the possibility for living a loving relationship with the earth and our natural environment.

Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney / This dissertation investigates the possibility of a renewed phenomenological ethics that would ground ethics in the structure of lived experience, so that daily existence is ethically informative and the good is located in the concrete, heartfelt affairs of dwelling in the world with others. Thus far, phenomenological ethics has been deeply influenced by the two schools of Max Scheler’s value ethics and Emmanuel Levinas’ alterity ethics, both of which I argue share a fundamental point of contact in what I am calling Deep Kantianism. That is, phenomenological ethics has been haunted by Immanuel Kant’s non-phenomenological divide between nature and freedom, being and goodness, ontology and ethics. In response, I will suggest a new point of departure for phenomenological ethics beginning with the originary unity of being and goodness as revealed by the love that moves the self beyond herself toward her ground in the other person. Chapter One seeks to establish and identify the problem of Deep Kantianism, or explain what exactly Deep Kantianism is according to its origins. Kant begins his ethics with Hume’s assumption that being and goodness, is and ought, are separate. The implications of this divide threaten to reduce being to bare being without ethical import and to convert the good into an abstract shadow that is irrelevant to the situations of daily life. Chapter Two examines how Scheler in his value ethics shows against Kant that the ethical is only experienced by a being with a heart. The source of normativity is revealed and known through affectivity. However, this insight is troubled by Scheler’s distinction between values and bearers of value that repeats the Kantian distinction between nature and freedom, respectively. Chapter Three focuses on Scheler’s prioritization of love as the fundamental affect of the heart and person in its moving the person outside of herself, a movement that constitutes the person as such. However, this love turns out to not be for the sake of the person but for the value-essence that she bears, again placing the ethical with Kant outside of the realm of Being. Chapter Four begins with Levinas’ discovery that ethics is constituted by the relation to the Other, an ethical relation that is the first relation before any ontological relation, indicating that the self is responsible for the Other. Yet Levinas here is haunted by Deep Kantianism in his denigration of affectivity, which for him is an egoist return to the self that excludes the Other. Chapter Five argues that Levinas’ ethics is permeated by an abyssal nothingness that is exhibited in the destitution of the Other in Totality and Infinity and the passivity of the self in Otherwise than Being. The nothingness that permeates the ethical relation hints at the necessity of a return to the ontological, suggesting that ontology is not, as Levinas maintains following Kant, devoid of ethical implications. Chapter Six turns to Martin Heidegger in his retrieval of a pre-Kantian pathos through his readings of Augustine and Aristotle. This pathos suggests that affectivity is always already oriented toward the things and persons of the world in a way that reveals what is conducive and detrimental to one’s Being, implying a notion of what is good and bad for one’s Being, which Heidegger leaves undeveloped. Chapter Seven conducts a phenomenology of the ground of ethics that is informed by the discoveries made by Scheler, Levinas, and Heidegger. The self begins as constituted by a nothing, demanding that it move outside of itself in the exteriorization of love. This exteriorization directs the self to the concrete other person, the thou, who is revealed to be both the Good and Being as the proper end of love, indicating that the self is constituted by Being-for-the-Other. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

Proefschrift--Sociale wetenschappen--Utrecht--Rijksuniversiteit, 1985. / Mention parallèle de titre ou de responsabilité : Lösung aus dem Bann der Vernunft : eine Konfrontation zwischen der kultur- und wissenssoziologischen Auffassung von Max Scheler und Max Weber. Résumé en allemand. Bibliogr. p. 376-394. Index.

This dissertation proposes a phenomenological investigation into value and feeling in classical and "neo-" Confucianism, particularly in the works of Mencius and Wang Yangming, in light of the German phenomenologist Max Scheler's clarification of human experience and theory of value. The phenomenological method and attitude, which seek essence by resorting to concrete personal and interpersonal experience rather than relying on the presuppositions of conceptual systems, offers a fresh and insightful perspective from which to examine the experiential pattern of morals in Confucian tradition. In order to illustrate how moral feelings and values establish each other, I examine the feeling-value correlations of love, sympathy and ren, shame and righteousness, respect and ritual propriety, and approval and wisdom, developed from Mencius' discussion on four initial moral emotions. This work not only clarifies the optimal experience of moral feelings, but also points out the concrete contents of what Wang Yangming calls the pure knowing of Heavenly principle. This phenomenological presentation of Confucian values, especially as mediated by Wang with some clarification through Scheler's thought, opposes both the dogmatic and relativist conceptions of principle (li) and the abstract interpretations of "pure knowing" (liang zhi) as having no concrete content, and thus it is relevantly applicable in directing our moral lives. The clarification of experience in different traditions is significant for research in both phenomenology and Chinese philosophy, and the experiential analysis made possible by this approach offers greater possibilities for mutual understanding among various cultures in the world.

La thèse que nous proposons aboutit à une interprétation de l’ouvrage philosophique de Karol Wojtyla qu’est Osoba i czyn ou enfrançais Personne et acte. Dans sa préface, l’auteur présente cet essai non seulement issu de ses travaux concernant Max Scheler,mais également né d’une interrogation jaillie « dans l’esprit de celui qui » le rédigeant « étudia alors saint Thomas ». La présenteétude de ce texte phénoménologique tâche de comprendre un tant soit peu le lecteur de Thomas d’Aquin qui élabore cet ouvrage.Les écrits qui sont les témoins de l’histoire philosophique de Wojtyla et concernent tant Jean de la Croix ou Max Scheler queThomas d’Aquin, aident à comprendre l’auteur de Personne et acte. Leur examen ainsi que celui de ce dernier essai conduisent àrendre compte de l’importance de l’amour qui est seulement évoqué au terme du texte. Pour Wojtyla, la mystique de Jean de laCroix, dans laquelle l’amour joue un rôle primordial, est radicalement conforme à la doctrine thomasienne. Cette dernière se trouvealors enrichie par une prise en compte de la réalité en tant qu’elle est vécue par le sujet. Dans la phénoménologie schelerienne, quitend à manifester la personne dans l’amour, Wojtyla apprécie à nouveau cette considération de l’expérience qui manquait àThomas d’Aquin. Mais il remarque que l’émotionnalisme de Scheler conduit à une erreur résultant « de la radicale séparation del’opérativité de la personne d’avec son amour ». Dans Personne et acte, la pensée thomasienne permet à Wojtyla de corriger lapensée schelerienne en s’appuyant sur la conception de l’actus humanus. Le thomisme carmélitain de l’ouvrage implique uncertain « antithomisme » méthodologique étonnamment adéquat à la pensée thomasienne. A l’instar de la mystique, Personne etacte peut donc être interprété comme la description d’un exercice pratique de connaissance de la personne dans son acte : unexercice qui est une voie d’amour et plus précisément une voie d’extase nocturne où l’amour même est connaissance. / Our Doctoral Thesis is an interpretation of Karol Wojtyla’s philosophical work “Osoba i czyn” (in English Person and Act). In hispreface the author describes his work as emanating not only from his research on Max Scheler, but also as originating from aquestion that arose “from the mind of the one whom”, while writing on St. Thomas, “was at the same time studying him.” Thepresent study of this phenomenological text tries to arrive at a better understanding of the reader of St. Thomas as he develops hiswork. Wojtyla’s philosophical influences include John of the Cross and Max Scheler, as well as Thomas Aquinas. These allcontribute to an understanding of the author of Person and Act. The examination of these works, along with Person and Act, leadsto the revelation of the importance of love, which is however only mentioned at the end of the latter text. For Wojtyla, the mysticismof John of the Cross, in which love has a central role, is completely in accordance with Thomistic doctrine. This doctrine is thenenriched by taking into account the reality as experienced by the subject. In Schelerian phenomenology, where the person revealshimself in the act of love, Wojtyla found here what he thought was precisely lacking in St. Thomas. But he noted that Scheler’semotionalism leads to an error arising from “the radical separation between the person’s actions and his love.” In Person and Act,Wojtyla, by applying the Thomistic doctrine of actus humanus, is able to correct the weakness inherent in Schelerian thought. Thework’s Carmelitan Thomism suggests a certain anti-Thomistic methodology which is paradoxically consistent with Thomisticdoctrine. Like the mystic himself, Person and Act can thus be interpreted as the description of a practical exercise of knowledge ofthe person in action: an exercise which is a way of love, or, more precisely, a way of dark ecstasy where love itself is knowledge.

Revised version of author's dissertation-- Universität Trier, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p.189-199).

Zugleich: Diss. Heidelberg, 2008. / Literaturverz.

Sumario: Scheler en el pensamiento filosófico contemporáneo - El "formalismus" y el concepto scheleriano de espíritu - El espíritu y la actitud fenomenológica - La esencia del espíritu - El ámbito del espíritu - La naturaleza del espíritu y la teoría de los estratos emocionales - El espíritu y los valores - Espíritu y persona - Espíritu, yo y cuerpo-propio - Espíritu personal finito y espíritu personal infinito - Origen, porvenir temporal y destino final del espíritu humano - El espíritu según <i>El puesto del hombre en el cosmos</i> - Conclusiones.

本論文首先闡釋同理心在心理學上使用以及其侷限，而藉由現象學無預設的方式來奠基心理學理論的不足，主要透過馬克思‧謝勒的同情感理論，剖析其中對於同情感的描述，提供當代對於同情或是同理的疑惑新的解決之道，為未來人文療癒之路作一鋪成。 / This thesis first explains the use of empathy in psychology and its limitations. Through the phenomenological approach of presuppositions to be the foundation of the psychological theory, mainly by the Max Scheler’s theory of sympathy. Analyzed the differences between sympathy and empathy. To provide a new solution to the doubts about sympathy and empathy that people know how to use in the future. Especially offer the new way of Humanities Therapy open the bright horizon for us.

The limit between the proper and the foreign – how this limit is established, but also crossed and dissolved – has remained a crucial issue in phenomenology. Setting these questions in the context of the phenomenology of religion, this thesis develops an analysis of the relation between transcendence and body understood in terms of a certain limit. The introductory part is rooted in Edmund Husserl’s discussions of the concept of transcendence, which is shown to have an essential connection to the analysis of inner time-consciousness. Here we encounter a decisive limit to objectifying knowledge, which also comes across in his investigations of the body and its spatiality. The second part discusses Max Scheler’s critique of Husserl’s excessively objectifying view of knowledge, with a particular focus on Scheler’s understanding of love as a condition of possibility for any knowledge. Scheler is shown to have developed a new concept of transcendence that avoids the pitfalls of objectivism, although in his philosophy of religion he tends to downplay the importance of the body. The third part undertakes a reading of Edith Stein, who develops ideas similar to Scheler’s, though in a phenomenologically more nuanced fashion. Although her philosophy of religion also bypasses the body, Stein provides a more genuine access to the writings of the mystics, the analysis of which forms the core of the fourth and concluding part. Drawing on the work of the 13th century Beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg, this concluding chapter develops a phenomenological understanding of religion with an emphasis on transcendence and limit, while also retaining the centrality of our experience of the body. This means: a phenomenology of the limit is investigated, rather than a limit of phenomenology. / Hur gränsen mellan det egna och det främmande ska dras är en central fråga inom den fenomenologiska traditionen, en fråga som här undersöks i ett religionsfilosofiskt sammanhang. På vilket sätt kan vi överskrida oss själva mot det främmande och ogripbara, och på vilket sätt är denna möjlighet förbunden med vår egen kroppslighet? Dessa teman utvecklas i en serie diskussioner av filosofer som Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler och Edith Stein. Redan i Husserls analyser av transcendensen, tidsmedvetandet och kroppsligheten framträder en bestämd gräns för den objektiverande kunskapen, även om han i sista hand alltid uppfattade den som ett ideal. I Schelers och Steins religionsfilosofier utvecklas därefter en kritik av denna kunskapssyn, bland annat i form av en analys av kärleken (Scheler) och mystiken (Stein), men hos ingen av dem får kroppsligheten en central ställning. I den avslutande delen, som analyserar den mystika erfarenhetens uttryck hos den medetida beginen Mechthild von Magdeburg, utvecklas en fenomenologi som förbinder transcendens med kroppslighet och sinnlighet. Därmed undersöks en gränsens fenomenologi snarare än fenomenologins gräns. Jonna Bornemark är forskare och lärare på Södertörns högskola. Boken är hennes doktorsavhandling.