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Project

Between Person and Self: Addressing the Problem of the Spiritual Person in Max Scheler's Material Ethics of Values

This dissertation will attempt to elucidate the relation between Max Scheler's concept of spiritual person and self as developed in his earlier works Formalism in Ethics and On the Eternal in Man by conducting a comparative analysis of their relationship to St. Augustine's doctrine of the emotive self. I will argue that Scheler's personalism is, at its foundation, considerably Augustinian, and that an analysis into St. Augustine's influence on Scheler's approach to the spiritual person in relation to the self is important in at least three ways: (1) it will identify why the spiritual person in particular plays a pivotal role in Scheler's early personalism and philosophy of religion, (2) it will clearly frame Scheler's critique of Kant's notion of person as stemming from an ontological disagreement influenced by different philosophical-religious traditions, (3) it will shed light on and attempt to solve the problem between the relation of person and self exhibited in Scheler's own thought as understood by his contemporaries; in particular, Nicolai Hartmann's claim that 'the spiritual' is unnecessary to a viable theory of person.

Date:3 Aug 2017 →  1 Mar 2022
Keywords:Personalism, Max Scheler, Saint Augustine
Disciplines:Theory and methodology of philosophy
Project type:PhD project