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

Before tuming to the review of thetext at hand, it is incumbent uponme to express my deep gratitude for theseries on The Heritage of Sociology assuch. There have been previous at-tempts to establish serial publications insociologythe Oxford UniversityPress volumes From Max Weber andFrom Karl Mannheim, the Free Presscollections of the writings of TalcottParsons, Robert K. Merton, and PaulLazarsfeld, and Kurt Wolff's single-minded efforts in the 1950s on behalf ofthe Ohio State University Press, yield-ing collections of works on EmileDurkheim and Georg Simmel. But all ofthese aborted early for reasons too nu-merous and complex to discuss here. Itis a tribute to Morris Philipson, the di-rector of the Chicago University Press,to Douglas Mitchell, head of its socio-logy section, and to Edward A. Shils ofthe University of Chicago departmentof sociology, that CUP has stayed thepublishing course through fiscal highsand lows.

The most successful professionalseries building in social science was thatundertaken by Routledge Kegan Paul inthe period from 1945 to 1975. Foundedby Karl Mannheim and edited by W. J.H. Sprott of Nottingham University,The Intemational Library of Sociologyand Social Reconstruction remains un-surpassed for its scholarly integrity andintellectual comprehensiveness. Thisseries, by the way, was not "killed" by

the supposed lower class enemies oflearning, but by the intellectual classitself. So bent were the owners of Rout-ledge on becoming trendy and au cour-ant in areas of presumed contemporaryradical urgencies that not only did theseries (there were actually twenty-oneseries at the time of its demise) go belly-up, but the firm itself was sold off forscrap, becoming a footnote to the mo-nopolization that has swept Anglo-American publishing in the last decade.

The only long-standing, continuousefforts to link past and present, to de-velop a sense of continuity in socialtheory and social research over spaceand time, are Transaction's multiple se-ries on classics (curiously also twenty-one series), published in unabridged formand with new introductory essays; andChicago's series which has been dedi-cated for the past two decades to introduc-ing professional social scientists to theclassic figures in a synoptic way, likewisewith critical and carefuDy researched newintroductions.

The current editor of the Chicagoseries, Donald N. Levine, has not onlysucceeded in maintaining the standardsset by his predecessor, the series foun-der Morris Janowitz, but has improvedupon those standards. This is not to de-mean the earlier volumes, but by gener-ating more time specific volumes, theseries now displays a better defined setof themes. The volumes Martin Buber:On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Cre-

ativity, edited by Shmuel N. Eisenstadtof the Hebrew University in Jemsalem,and Talcott Parsons: TTie Early Essays,with an outstanding introduction byCharles Camic of the University of Wis-consin, exemplifies the series' achieve-ment of a new plateau in format andsubstance alike.

Nonetheless, whether as a functionof editorial bias or simply a comucopiaof goods to choose from, a haphazardcharacter still attaches to the HeritageSeries. It is hard to believe that the trioof Italians, Benedetto Croce, GiovanniGentile, and Antonio Gramsci, shouldnot merit at least one collective entry.The burst of Marxian scholarship be-tween 1965 and 1985 may have helpedGramsci, but not the other two. Evenmore difficult to understand is the ab-sence of volumes on Roberto Michelsand Vilfredo Pareto, figures crucial tothe evolution of the field as such. Andsurely if Thomas Masaryk merits inclu-sion, so does Peter Kropotkin.

By the same token, if The Constitu-tion of Society by a contemporary suchas Edward Shils warrants publication(and it does), so do Robert K. Merton'sselected papers on the structure of sci-ence. Of course, any such "wish list" ofsociological MIAs can be extended byothers. Perhaps such volumes are in theplanning stage. After all, I am not privyto drawing board plans for the series inthe years to come. Whatever the Chi-cago Series may fail to do, this should

82 / SOCIETY MARCH/APRIL 1993

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be seen as a challenge to other scholarlypublishers, not as a rap on a publishinghouse that produces good works.

Suffice it to say that in an age whencrude empiricism and wild irrationalismpasses as "modem" sociology, The Her-itage of Sociology Series sheds a bea-con light on a troubled, fragmenteddiscipline. Without pomp and circum-stance, indeed with far less of a market-ing effort than it warrants, the ChicagoSeries establishes a measuring rod forgreatness in sociology. Whether it pres-ents Europeans like Emile Durkheim,Alexis de Tocqueville, Max Weber, andGeorg Simmel, or American scholarslike Harold Lasswell, George H. Mead,Talcott Parsons, or Robert E. Park (whotops the list with four entries), the seriesgives clear substance to how much themany in the present owe to so few in thepast. There is no catering to what hasbeen called the "mantra" of race, gen-der, and class. The works selected aremeritorious, whatever the scholarly andprofessional criteria for relevance andfame. Those wishing to sift through thedebris of what is living and what is deadin sociology are certainly free to specu-late for themselves. Those with moremodest aims and less time could not finda better place to start than this series forunderstanding what is still alive as wetum a page on the millennium.

These same qualities and virtues canbe discemed in the volume on the Ger-man sociologist Max Scheier, edited byHarold Bershady. By a curious happen-stance, I spent some time in BuenosAires in the late 1950s, where I hadaccess to Scheler's major works far ear-lier than people in the English-speakingworld. Fondo de Cultura y Economicaand several other publishers, operatingunder a cloud of pan-German sentimentsweeping Latin America in the Hitlerian1930s, courageously brought forth theworks of such masters of social thoughtas Wilhelm Dilthey, Max Scheier, andMax Weber. To be sure, the Catholictradition in Latin America formed anadditional impetus for issuing the worksof Scheier, for he showed certain possi-bilities inherent in the linkage of sociol-ogy and theology that are absent fromthe mainline secular tendencies in thefield. Although Scheier died in 1928,

with a few notable exceptions, it was notuntil the late 1950s, and for the mostpart far later, that his work was trans-lated and became known to the English-speaking communities.

Harold Bershady's explanations inthe introduction to the Scheier volumeof this lapse are persuasive and compel-ling. Scheler's main work was in theareas ofthe sociology of knowledge andphenomenological sociology, which areclosely identified with the work of KarlMannheim and Alfred Schutz. Further-more, Scheier wrote from a religiouspoint of view, thus clashing head-onwith the secular character of nearly allsociological writings in the present. ButBershady's own frankly stated "con-sternation""I, in common with mostAmerican scholars, believe [religiousviews] should best be kept a privatematter"places a peculiarly Americanstamp on the introduction.

Alas, no such constraints seem toexist with respect to his discussion ofScheler's romantic involvements andsexual proclivities. Bershady ends bycomparing Scheier to such Americancounterparts as W. L Thomas in sociol-ogy and Thorstein Veblen in econom-icswithout, however, quite bringinghimself to note that the penalties fortheir private excesses, alleged or genu-ine, far outweighed their transgressions.It is evident that in matters of personalbehavior, Scheier was entirely "secu-lar." Bershady does appreciate how hispersonal life tempered Scheler's theo-retical, and sometimes theatrical, loveaffair with the Catholic Church.

Nonetheless, while the introductionis well constructed and strives to befair-minded, Bershady's antagonism toCatholicism, which he holds to be "for-eign, indeed antagonistic, to the majorassumptions that have shaped our ownlargely Protestant culture," weakens hisanalysis. It confuses the larger culture(even of Germany) with the intimateculture of sociologyshaped as it wasat least as much by Jewish scholars asby Protestants. Scheler's early conver-sion (which he later repeated) from Ju-daism to Catholicism can be viewed asan effort to maintain the religious foun-dations of a sociology as much as arebellion against a thoughtless father

REVIEW ESSAY / 83

and unhappy childhood experiences. Isuspect Scheier, for reasons of his ownreputation, would also prefer a socio-logical to a psychoanalytic rendering ofhis religious devotionals. The vocabu-lary of motives is, after all, infinite.

Bershady's introduction, as a result,never quite succeeds in linking the pub-lic and the private in Scheier. He con-fesses his inability to integrate what heterms Scheler's "moral transgressions"with his intellectual output. Perhaps ittakes a full-scale biography to do justiceto the various strands in Scheler's com-plex personality, but in this single-mind-ed, critical j^aundiced may be a bettertermview of Scheler's three marriagesand various affairs, Bershady is peihapsmore consistent than the object of hislabors, but curiously far more "religious"in his judgments than Scheier ever was.Scheier suffered dearly for his exercise ofsexual freedombeing largely barreduntil the end of his life from academicpostsbut Bershady, in positingScheler's private life and dalliances andhis sociological thought as "two ex-tremes" is perhaps more Catholic than thePope, something Scheier certainly neverclaimed for himself.

On the objective, that is the analyticlevel, Bershady's introduction is entire-ly balanced. It is rich in detail and ex-tremely useful. The divisions of thebook into emotions and social life,knowledge and social life, and valuesand social life is appropriate toScheler's writings. Why the sectionheads could not simply be called Emo-tions, Knowledge, and Values is hard tosay. And why the title should substitutefeeling for emotions is equally incom-prehensible, since Scheler's "commu-nity of feeling" is clearly the sum totalof a variety, or plane, of the sentimentsthat constitute the emotional unity ofsocial life.

The first segment of the volumegives broad insight into how Scheiersought to link the subjective with thesociological. Love and hatred were link-ed to Catholic social thought. He is clearto distinguish love and hate from selfand other. In other words, acts directedat others are not necessarily loving andthose directed at the self are not neces-sarily hateful. And while theremay be

"no such thing as love from a group,"Scheier does admit to forms of symbolicaffection for ideologies and institutions.The achievement of highest value com-patible with one's declared vocation isloveand this can be manifested in atti-tudes toward people and religions.

If Scheier was a sociologist of know-ledge, he was even more a psychologistof religion. The role of resentment in thedestruction of values, the place of hatredin the destruction of personality are fullyexplored. These writings are filled withthe sort of wonderful metaphors thatmake secularists squirm. Suffering haspleasant and sad components. When Paulfaces the ongoing rush of bodily andearthly deterioration "Paul allows thesoul to sing a hymn of rising joy." Andwhen Martin Luther's daughter dies, henotes that paradox of being "merry inthe spirit, but sad in the flesh." Phenom-enological sociology is also a philosoph-ical theology, a guide to overcomingnegative feelings at the very momentthey are being explained on sociologicalgrounds. "Genuine moral value judg-ments are never based on ressentiment,"but still such a sentiment "can accountfor important developments in the his-tory of moral judgments." Scheier aimsat moral structure (or perhaps religiousscripture) without relinquishing the soci-ological scalpel that dissects these moralproperties.

Even as he moves into the sociologyof knowledge, Scheier retains a specialsense of the religious. He has no troublestating categorically that "the greatestexperience of European humanity, theappearance of Christ, still does not em-body the relationship of knowledge tolove in a meaningful way." Borrowingmore heavily than he acknowledgesfrom the socialist and Marxist tradition,Scheier concedes that interests, preju-dices, and ideologies do not yield sci-ence, they rather create the possibility ofascriptive frames of judgment based on"blood" and "prejudice." This belief inthe autonomy of culture makes Scheierreject the mechanistic in Marxism andappreciate the degree to which personalrevelations are as real or significant aseconomic systems. In a perfectly mar-velous note to chapter nine, "The For-mal: Problems of the Sociology of

Knowledge," Scheier notes, "The Ageof Enlightenment's one-sidedness sawonly the conditioning of society byknowledge. It was an important realiza-tion of the nineteenth and twentieth cen-turies to see there was also a converserelation, that knowledge is conditionedby society."

This makes a fitting transition to thethird and final section on value theory.Only there does Scheier attempt a sum-ming up, as it were, of his sociologicaland theological beliefs. In separatingout "vital feelings" from "laws of pref-erences" he also gives an insight into hisdeep connection with European nine-teenth-century thought, especially ofthe Nietzschean sort and, perhaps to alesser degree, with the Bergsonian elanvital.

At a time when value theory has be-come central to social science analysis,Scheler's efforts to construct a phenom-enology of value theory merits closeattention. We can only wish this sectionhad been greatly expanded. As it is, thecomplex mosaic of the dimensions ofrelativism in moral judgment (whetherthis is better or worse than theft and forwhom, and where) and the opposite di-mension of absolutism in moral judg-ment (the universal aim for highervalues predicated on what is spiritualand holy) offers a strong antidote to anuncontested secularity.

Scheler's Catholicism is embeddedin a sociology in which "human life isnot the highest value," since it is the loveof and respect for the community ofhumankind, of the collectivity of valuestrivers that is higher. One might arguethat Scheler's rejection of Judaism alsomakes sense in this context, since theelevated status of love over life, of chil-iastic sacrifice over naturalistic sur-vival, might well be said to be one of thebasic demarcation points between theCatholic and the Hebraic. It is a longhyphen indeed, and Scheler's writingsprovide inadvertent insight into the gulfseparating Judaism from Catholicism.That he also offers a special sort ofsociology has been recognized by oth-ers, such as the late, great Werner Stark,who wrote the opening essay for TheNature of Sympathy and, in his ownwork, took up the systematic integration

84 / SOCIETY MARCH/APRIL 1993

of social science and Catholic socialthought that Scheier had clearly left un-finished.

Scheler's work is a bundle of greatthoughts rather than the result of sys-tematic research. One might say that hereacted too favorably and too quickly toevents of his time. For example, he be-came a great popularizer of the Germanwar effort in 1914, only to repudiate thisallegiance by war's end to uphold asocialism predicated more on belief inthe disintegration of the bourgeoisierather than love of proletarian party or-ganizations. At a time when the revoltagainst modernization is in full swingand many of Scheler's fears about thebourgeois deterioration and socialistdogmatism have come home to roost,one can hope that he will be read, albeitin a critical spirit.

Whatever benefit a reading of theseessays and extracts may bring, they atleast give a flavor of that which has beenlost in the process of the secularizationof sociology. Amid the welter of cele-brations of having gone beyond faith

and religion, so many varieties of soci-ology have been reduced to extremelymodest bookkeeping services on oneside and grandiose ideological bluster-ing on the other. Unlike Auguste Comte,who attempted to convert sociology intoa religion of humanity, Scheier attemptedto convert religion into a sociology ofspirituality. If these proved equally unten-able and doomed to failure, at leastScheler's attempt was noble in purposeand fruitful in sociological consequences.The works of Karl Mannheim, PitirimSoroldn, and Wemer Stark, among others,attest to it.

And yet there is a dark side to all ofthis. Bershady wisely notes that Scheierwas a victim of circumstance. The greatGerman social scientists who went intoexile rather than brave the furies of fas-cism became the heroes of Anglo-American sociology and of democracy.Scheier, of course, died five years be-fore Hitler's rise to power. As a resulthe was also (and for a welcome change),a beneficiary of circumstances. It re-mains highly speculative just where

Scheler's emotional allegiance wouldhave been in the "new order." He had,after all, been capable of a full swingfrom militarism to pacifism in thecourse of several years. However, hewas bom a Jew and therefore wouldhave been doomed to suffer the conse-quences of National Socialism, what-ever his sentiments may have been. Hisfortuitous, if natural, death made it pos-sible for the absurdity of a science ofsociology, built up)on dogmatic, medi-eval theology, to remain nonetheless anauthentic part of the heritage of Germanculture.

Irving Louis Horowitz is HannahArendt Distinguished Professor of So-ciology and Political Science atRutgersThe State University of NewJersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey.His most recent book. The Decomposi-tion of Sociology, is scheduled for re-lease by Oxford University Press inmid-1993.

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