Max Scheler’s Idea of History: A Juxtaposition of Phenomenology and Idealism

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to provide an account of Max Scheler’s notion of history and the growing influence that idealism had on its development. For much of this development, Scheler had sought to chart a middle course between Hegel and Marx, or as he expresses it in his later works, a course between idealism and realism. As my argument demonstrates, idealism comes to have an increasing impact on Scheler’s notion of history when he begins in his later work to reflect on the end (or beginning) of history and in particular when he seeks to articulate a “new cosmopolitanism” and “balancing” of cultures at this end.