Review Essay

Max Scheier and the Heritage of Sociology

Max Scheier On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing
[A volume in the Heritage of Sociology Series]
Edited and with an Introduction by Harold J. Bershady.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1992,
270 pages, $41.00 (cloth), $15.00 (paper)

Reviewed by Irving Louis Horowitz

the supposed lower class enemies of

learning, but by the intellectual class
me to express my deep gratitude for the itself. So bent were the owners of Routseries on The Heritage of Sociology as ledge on becoming trendy and au coursuch. There have been previous at- ant in areas of presumed contemporary
tempts to establish serial publications in radical urgencies that not only did the
sociologythe Oxford University series (there were actually twenty-one
Press volumes From Max Weber and series at the time of its demise) go bellyFrom Karl Mannheim, the Free Press up, but the firm itself was sold off for
collections of the writings of Talcott scrap, becoming a footnote to the moParsons, Robert K. Merton, and Paul nopolization that has swept AngloLazarsfeld, and Kurt Wolff's single- American publishing in the last decade.
The only long-standing, continuous
minded efforts in the 1950s on behalf of
the Ohio State University Press, yield- efforts to link past and present, to deing collections of works on Emile velop a sense of continuity in social
Durkheim and Georg Simmel. But all of theory and social research over space
these aborted early for reasons too nu- and time, are Transaction's multiple semerous and complex to discuss here. It ries on classics (curiously also twentyis a tribute to Morris Philipson, the di- one series), published in unabridged form
rector of the Chicago University Press, and with new introductory essays; and
to Douglas Mitchell, head of its socio- Chicago's series which has been dedilogy section, and to Edward A. Shils of cated for the past two decades to introducthe University of Chicago department ing professional social scientists to the
of sociology, that CUP has stayed the classicfiguresin a synoptic way, likewise
publishing course through fiscal highs with critical and carefuDy researched new
introductions.
and lows.
The current editor of the Chicago
The most successful professional
series building in social science was that series, Donald N. Levine, has not only
undertaken by Routledge Kegan Paul in succeeded in maintaining the standards
the period from 1945 to 1975. Founded set by his predecessor, the series founby Karl Mannheim and edited by W. J. der Morris Janowitz, but has improved
H. Sprott of Nottingham University, upon those standards. This is not to deThe Intemational Library of Sociology mean the earlier volumes, but by generand Social Reconstruction remains un- ating more time specific volumes, the
surpassed for its scholarly integrity and series now displays a better defined set
intellectual comprehensiveness. This of themes. The volumes Martin Buber:
series, by the way, was not "killed" by On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Cretuming to the review of the
Before
text at hand, it is incumbent upon

ativity, edited by Shmuel N. Eisenstadt

of the Hebrew University in Jemsalem,
and Talcott Parsons: TTie Early Essays,
with an outstanding introduction by
Charles Camic of the University of Wisconsin, exemplifies the series' achievement of a new plateau in format and
substance alike.
Nonetheless, whether as a function
of editorial bias or simply a comucopia
of goods to choose from, a haphazard
character still attaches to the Heritage
Series. It is hard to believe that the trio
of Italians, Benedetto Croce, Giovanni
Gentile, and Antonio Gramsci, should
not merit at least one collective entry.
The burst of Marxian scholarship between 1965 and 1985 may have helped
Gramsci, but not the other two. Even
more difficult to understand is the absence of volumes on Roberto Michels
and Vilfredo Pareto, figures crucial to
the evolution of the field as such. And
surely if Thomas Masaryk merits inclusion, so does Peter Kropotkin.
By the same token, if The Constitution of Society by a contemporary such
as Edward Shils warrants publication
(and it does), so do Robert K. Merton's
selected papers on the structure of science. Of course, any such "wish list" of
sociological MIAs can be extended by
others. Perhaps such volumes are in the
planning stage. After all, I am not privy
to drawing board plans for the series in
the years to come. Whatever the Chicago Series may fail to do, this should

82 / SOCIETY MARCH/APRIL 1993

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be seen as a challenge to other scholarly

publishers, not as a rap on a publishing
house that produces good works.
Suffice it to say that in an age when
crude empiricism and wild irrationalism
passes as "modem" sociology, The Heritage of Sociology Series sheds a beacon light on a troubled, fragmented
discipline. Without pomp and circumstance, indeed with far less of a marketing effort than it warrants, the Chicago
Series establishes a measuring rod for
greatness in sociology. Whether it presents Europeans like Emile Durkheim,
Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, and
Georg Simmel, or American scholars
like Harold Lasswell, George H. Mead,
Talcott Parsons, or Robert E. Park (who
tops the list with four entries), the series
gives clear substance to how much the
many in the present owe to so few in the
past. There is no catering to what has
been called the "mantra" of race, gender, and class. The works selected are
meritorious, whatever the scholarly and
professional criteria for relevance and
fame. Those wishing to sift through the
debris of what is living and what is dead
in sociology are certainly free to speculate for themselves. Those with more
modest aims and less time could not find
a better place to start than this series for
understanding what is still alive as we
tum a page on the millennium.
These same qualities and virtues can
be discemed in the volume on the German sociologist Max Scheier, edited by
Harold Bershady. By a curious happenstance, I spent some time in Buenos
Aires in the late 1950s, where I had
access to Scheler's major works far earlier than people in the English-speaking
world. Fondo de Cultura y Economica
and several other publishers, operating
under a cloud of pan-German sentiment
sweeping Latin America in the Hitlerian
1930s, courageously brought forth the
works of such masters of social thought
as Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Scheier, and
Max Weber. To be sure, the Catholic
tradition in Latin America formed an
additional impetus for issuing the works
of Scheier, for he showed certain possibilities inherent in the linkage of sociology and theology that are absent from
the mainline secular tendencies in the
field. Although Scheier died in 1928,

with a few notable exceptions, it was not

until the late 1950s, and for the most
part far later, that his work was translated and became known to the Englishspeaking communities.
Harold Bershady's explanations in
the introduction to the Scheier volume
of this lapse are persuasive and compelling. Scheler's main work was in the
areas ofthe sociology of knowledge and
phenomenological sociology, which are
closely identified with the work of Karl
Mannheim and Alfred Schutz. Furthermore, Scheier wrote from a religious
point of view, thus clashing head-on
with the secular character of nearly all
sociological writings in the present. But
Bershady's own frankly stated "consternation""I, in common with most
American scholars, believe [religious
views] should best be kept a private
matter"places a peculiarly American
stamp on the introduction.
Alas, no such constraints seem to
exist with respect to his discussion of
Scheler's romantic involvements and
sexual proclivities. Bershady ends by
comparing Scheier to such American
counterparts as W. L Thomas in sociology and Thorstein Veblen in economicswithout, however, quite bringing
himself to note that the penalties for
their private excesses, alleged or genuine, far outweighed their transgressions.
It is evident that in matters of personal
behavior, Scheier was entirely "secular." Bershady does appreciate how his
personal life tempered Scheler's theoretical, and sometimes theatrical, love
affair with the Catholic Church.
Nonetheless, while the introduction
is well constructed and strives to be
fair-minded, Bershady's antagonism to
Catholicism, which he holds to be "foreign, indeed antagonistic, to the major
assumptions that have shaped our own
largely Protestant culture," weakens his
analysis. It confuses the larger culture
(even of Germany) with the intimate
culture of sociologyshaped as it was
at least as much by Jewish scholars as
by Protestants. Scheler's early conversion (which he later repeated) from Judaism to Catholicism can be viewed as
an effort to maintain the religious foundations of a sociology as much as a
rebellion against a thoughtless father

REVIEW ESSAY / 83

and unhappy childhood experiences. I

suspect Scheier, for reasons of his own
reputation, would also prefer a sociological to a psychoanalytic rendering of
his religious devotionals. The vocabulary of motives is, after all, infinite.
Bershady's introduction, as a result,
never quite succeeds in linking the public and the private in Scheier. He confesses his inability to integrate what he
terms Scheler's "moral transgressions"
with his intellectual output. Perhaps it
takes a full-scale biography to do justice
to the various strands in Scheler's complex personality, but in this single-minded, critical^jaundiced may be a better
termview of Scheler's three marriages
and various affairs, Bershady is peihaps
more consistent than the object of his
labors, but curiously far more "religious"
in his judgments than Scheier ever was.
Scheier suffered dearly for his exercise of
sexual freedombeing largely barred
until the end of his life from academic
postsbut Bershady, in positing
Scheler's private life and dalliances and
his sociological thought as "two extremes" is perhaps more Catholic than the
Pope, something Scheier certainly never
claimed for himself.
On the objective, that is the analytic
level, Bershady's introduction is entirely balanced. It is rich in detail and extremely useful. The divisions of the
book into emotions and social life,
knowledge and social life, and values
and social life is appropriate to
Scheler's writings. Why the section
heads could not simply be called Emotions, Knowledge, and Values is hard to
say. And why the title should substitute
feeling for emotions is equally incomprehensible, since Scheler's "community of feeling" is clearly the sum total
of a variety, or plane, of the sentiments
that constitute the emotional unity of
social life.
The first segment of the volume
gives broad insight into how Scheier
sought to link the subjective with the
sociological. Love and hatred were linked to Catholic social thought. He is clear
to distinguish love and hate from self
and other. In other words, acts directed
at others are not necessarily loving and
those directed at the self are not necessarily hateful. And while theremay be

Knowledge," Scheier notes, "The Age

of Enlightenment's one-sidedness saw
only the conditioning of society by
knowledge. It was an important realization of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to see there was also a converse
relation, that knowledge is conditioned
by society."
This makes a fitting transition to the
third and final section on value theory.
Only there does Scheier attempt a summing up, as it were, of his sociological
and theological beliefs. In separating
out "vital feelings" from "laws of preferences" he also gives an insight into his
deep connection with European nineteenth-century thought, especially of
the Nietzschean sort and, perhaps to a
lesser degree, with the Bergsonian elan
vital.
At a time when value theory has become central to social science analysis,
Scheler's efforts to construct a phenomenology of value theory merits close
attention. We can only wish this section
had been greatly expanded. As it is, the
complex mosaic of the dimensions of
relativism in moral judgment (whether
this is better or worse than theft and for
whom, and where) and the opposite dimension of absolutism in moral judgment (the universal aim for higher
values predicated on what is spiritual
and holy) offers a strong antidote to an
uncontested secularity.
Even as he moves into the sociology
Scheler's Catholicism is embedded
of knowledge, Scheier retains a special in a sociology in which "human life is
sense of the religious. He has no trouble not the highest value," since it is the love
stating categorically that "the greatest of and respect for the community of
experience of European humanity, the humankind, of the collectivity of value
appearance of Christ, still does not em- strivers that is higher. One might argue
body the relationship of knowledge to that Scheler's rejection of Judaism also
love in a meaningful way." Borrowing makes sense in this context, since the
more heavily than he acknowledges elevated status of love over life, of chilfrom the socialist and Marxist tradition, iastic sacrifice over naturalistic surScheier concedes that interests, preju- vival, might well be said to be one of the
dices, and ideologies do not yield sci- basic demarcation points between the
ence, they rather create the possibility of Catholic and the Hebraic. It is a long
ascriptive frames of judgment based on hyphen indeed, and Scheler's writings
"blood" and "prejudice." This belief in provide inadvertent insight into the gulf
the autonomy of culture makes Scheier separating Judaism from Catholicism.
reject the mechanistic in Marxism and That he also offers a special sort of
appreciate the degree to which personal sociology has been recognized by othrevelations are as real or significant as ers, such as the late, great Werner Stark,
economic systems. In a perfectly mar- who wrote the opening essay for The
velous note to chapter nine, "The ForNature of Sympathy and, in his own
mal: Problems of the Sociology of
work, took up the systematic integration

"no such thing as love from a group,"

Scheier does admit to forms of symbolic
affection for ideologies and institutions.
The achievement of highest value compatible with one's declared vocation is
loveand this can be manifested in attitudes toward people and religions.
If Scheier was a sociologist of knowledge, he was even more a psychologist
of religion. The role of resentment in the
destruction of values, the place of hatred
in the destruction of personality are fully
explored. These writings are filled with
the sort of wonderful metaphors that
make secularists squirm. Suffering has
pleasant and sad components. When Paul
faces the ongoing rush of bodily and
earthly deterioration "Paul allows the
soul to sing a hymn of rising joy." And
when Martin Luther's daughter dies, he
notes that paradox of being "merry in
the spirit, but sad in the flesh." Phenomenological sociology is also a philosophical theology, a guide to overcoming
negative feelings at the very moment
they are being explained on sociological
grounds. "Genuine moral value judgments are never based on ressentiment,"
but still such a sentiment "can account
for important developments in the history of moral judgments." Scheier aims
at moral structure (or perhaps religious
scripture) withoutrelinquishingthe sociological scalpel that dissects these moral
properties.

84 / SOCIETY MARCH/APRIL 1993

of social science and Catholic social

thought that Scheier had clearly left unfinished.
Scheler's work is a bundle of great
thoughts rather than the result of systematic research. One might say that he
reacted too favorably and too quickly to
events of his time. For example, he became a great popularizer of the German
war effort in 1914, only to repudiate this
allegiance by war's end to uphold a
socialism predicated more on belief in
the disintegration of the bourgeoisie
rather than love of proletarian party organizations. At a time when the revolt
against modernization is in full swing
and many of Scheler's fears about the
bourgeois deterioration and socialist
dogmatism have come home to roost,
one can hope that he will be read, albeit
in a critical spirit.
Whatever benefit a reading of these
essays and extracts may bring, they at
least give a flavor of that which has been
lost in the process of the secularization
of sociology. Amid the welter of celebrations of having gone beyond faith

and religion, so many varieties of sociology have been reduced to extremely

modest bookkeeping services on one
side and grandiose ideological blustering on the other. Unlike Auguste Comte,
who attempted to convert sociology into
a religion of humanity, Scheier attempted
to convert religion into a sociology of
spirituality. If these proved equally untenable and doomed to failure, at least
Scheler's attempt was noble in purpose
and fruitful in sociological consequences.
The works of Karl Mannheim, Pitirim
Soroldn, and Wemer Stark, among others,
attest to it.
And yet there is a dark side to all of
this. Bershady wisely notes that Scheier
was a victim of circumstance. The great
German social scientists who went into
exile rather than brave the furies of fascism became the heroes of AngloAmerican sociology and of democracy.
Scheier, of course, died five years before Hitler's rise to power. As a result
he was also (and for a welcome change),
a beneficiary of circumstances. It remains highly speculative just where

Scheler's emotional allegiance would

have been in the "new order." He had,
after all, been capable of a full swing
from militarism to pacifism in the
course of several years. However, he
was bom a Jew and therefore would
have been doomed to suffer the consequences of National Socialism, whatever his sentiments may have been. His
fortuitous, if natural, death made it possible for the absurdity of a science of
sociology, built up)on dogmatic, medieval theology, to remain nonetheless an
authentic part of the heritage of German
culture.

Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah

Arendt Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at
RutgersThe State University of New
Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
His most recent book. The Decomposition of Sociology, is scheduled for release by Oxford University Press in
mid-1993.

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