"My interest in [Max] Scheler's critique of Kant runs back nearly a decade.... The more I read of Scheler, the more I began to see the value of a project dealing with his critique of Kant in Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wetethik, which would possess the virtue of focusing in a single project three important strands of philosophical interest: phenomenology, Kantianism, and ethics.... "The study is divided into six chapters and two appendices. Each of the chapters (...) constituting the body of the work contains a brief analysis of the Kantian position or discussion of the basic questions at issue in it, an exposition of Scheler's critique of the Kantian position and its presuppositions, and a detailed appraisal of Scheler's critique." -- from the introduction by the author. (shrink)

The legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd, that colossus of reformational thinking, presents us not only with the gifts of his systematic genius, but also with the riddles of his unperfected work, which now have become a part of our own unfinished work. Not the least of these riddles and not the least of our unfinished work confront us in the legacy of Dooyeweerd’s anthropological reflections. As he indicates in the conclusion of his monumental New Critique, all of his previous investigations are (...) nothing but preliminaries that implicitly converge upon the ultimate problems of philosophical anthropology. The question of man, in effect, constitutes the fundamental implicit theme of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. (shrink)

This anthology offers an extraordinary illustration of the rich resources furnished by the philosophical tradition for anyone wishing to understand the basic and universal human concern of friendship. The book gathers together reflections from thirty different thinkers in a historically, culturally, ideologically and emotionally diverse group.

"My interest in [Max] Scheler's critique of Kant runs back nearly a decade.... The more I read of Scheler, the more I began to see the value of a project dealing with his critique of Kant in _Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wetethik_, which would possess the virtue of focusing in a single project three important strands of philosophical interest: phenomenology, Kantianism, and ethics.... "The study is divided into six chapters and two appendices. Each of the chapters (...) constituting the body of the work contains a brief analysis of the Kantian position or discussion of the basic questions at issue in it, an exposition of Scheler's critique of the Kantian position and its presuppositions, and a detailed appraisal of Scheler's critique." -- from the introduction by the author. (shrink)

I dispute Scheler’s view that good and evil cannot be willed as such; that moral value is always an inevitable and indirect by-product of willing other ends; that every act of willing yields a moral value; and that moral value attaches only to persons. I argue that moral value attaches to a variety of objects of willing (including one’s own moral worth), and that, although all acts have moral implications, not all acts are typologically moral. Those that are, I suggest, (...) typically involve a transactional categoriality where we take another’s good or bad as our own. Those that are not may yield various values of personal willing whose positive or negative value is typologically non-moral. I also deny that obligation is diminished by value-insight or that all norms are categorially moral. (shrink)

This essay compares Scheler’s view of the person in his last (“pantheistic”) period with the views of Keiji Nishitani, a Buddhist representative of the Kyoto School of phenomenology. Scheler eschewed a “substantialist” concept of the person, as did Nishitani in view of the Buddhist “non-self” (muga) doctrine. Both had experienced spiritual crises in their lives. Why did Nishitani turn to the Buddhist concept of “absolute nothingness”? Why did Scheler turn from theism to pantheism? Both saw traditional Christianity and its understanding (...) of the person as intellectually inadequate, though for different reasons. Nishitani focuses on the inadequacies of secondary influences (like Cartesianism) in the Western concept of person, while Scheler focuses on problems of theodicy stemming from the problem of evil and of volition (divine and human) as the source of evil. Both abandon the Christian meaning of personhood. (shrink)

This essay compares Scheler’s view of the person in his last (“pantheistic”) period with the views of Keiji Nishitani, a Buddhist representative of the Kyoto School of phenomenology. Scheler eschewed a “substantialist” concept of the person, as did Nishitani in view of the Buddhist “non-self” (muga) doctrine. Both had experienced spiritual crises in their lives. Why did Nishitani turn to the Buddhist concept of “absolute nothingness”? Why did Scheler turn from theism to pantheism? Both saw traditional Christianity and its understanding (...) of the person as intellectually inadequate, though for different reasons. Nishitani focuses on the inadequacies of secondary influences (like Cartesianism) in the Western concept of person, while Scheler focuses on problems of theodicy stemming from the problem of evil and of volition (divine and human) as the source of evil. Both abandon the Christian meaning of personhood. (shrink)

Sartre attacks the "illusion" that mental images are "immanent" in consciousness. After comparing sartre with husserl, I develop his view that mental images are non-Perceptual phenomena involving a relationship with something non-Present. From the impoverished, Unworldly view that results, I suggest that sartre's own view is still too attached to the perceptual analogy and conclude with the richer, Alternative view of ricoeur that imaginal fiction has a constructive role in shaping reality.