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11-13 Jun 2026 Nantes (France)
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Conference's rationaleThe relationship between Critical Theory, which emerged from the Frankfurt School, and Max Scheler (1874–1928) is multifaceted and complex. From a historical perspective, the Frankfurt School began by recognizing the importance of Scheler's philosophical renewal (Horkheimer 1928). Scheler's developments in psychology, phenomenology, and Lebensphilosophie were extensively discussed by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno in the 1920s and 1930s. The Frankfurt School—possibly partly under the influence of Siegfried Kracauer (Kracauer 1921; Agard 2006, 146-148)—then gradually distanced itself from the philosopher, through provocative statements such as Adorno's: “Scheler: The Boudoir in Philosophy” (Adorno 1951, 253). However, from a systematic point of view, Scheler's influence on Critical Theory is constant, however underground and little studied it may be (with the exception of G. Raulet's pioneering works on the subject: see Raulet 2020). The classical Frankfurt School shares Scheler's central theme: criticism of modern societies, particularly from the perspective of domination over external and internal nature. This is evidenced by a letter from Horkheimer to Pollock dated April 27th, 1941, explaining the “Disposition” of a planned book, which eventually became Dialectic of Enlightenment: “Science is inextricably linked to the mastery of nature. Presenting the dialectic of the mastery of nature will be one of the main tasks, and we will be careful not to fall into Schelerian paths” (Horkheimer 1996, 25). It is particularly this characteristic ambivalence—between taking over Scheler's subjects of study and a distancing from his approach to them—that deserves to be examined in depth. Namely Scheler's essays on the spirit of capitalism (Scheler 1972) constitute “the missing link between Max Weber and the characteristic themes of the Frankfurt School” (Haber 2016). Indeed, the School sought to merge Marxist criticism of capitalism with a general challenge to “modernity”—a modernity that had become locked into an “instrumental rationality” that grew increasingly brutal as it gained confidence (Adorno and Horkheimer 1944; Agard 2024). Scheler's influence on the Frankfurt School was also evident later on. In Technology and Science as “Ideology,” Jürgen Habermas revisits the distinction between knowledge of domination, knowledge of culture, and knowledge of salvation (Habermas 1968), however without indicating that it comes from Scheler's sociology of knowledge (Scheler 1926). Axel Honneth's The Struggle for Recognition (Honneth 1992) contains a very positive reference to Scheler's distinction between community, society, and the common person (see Schloßberger 2005). Recently, Rahel Jaeggi revisited Scheler's analyses of resentment, presenting it as one of the modes of regression (Jaeggi 2022). Nevertheless, almost all of the work of the classical and recent Frankfurt School is in tension with Scheler's social philosophy, on the one hand because of its rejection of all metaphysical speculation, and on the other because it is indebted to the founding paradigm of negative criticism. Indeed Critical Theory remains very cautious about positive statements concerning human beings, whether anthropological or phenomenological (“it is part of the essence of man to have a body of flesh,” “human life is realized in forms of affective participation,” etc.). In this regard, Hartmut Rosa's theory of resonance, which is based on phenomenological assumptions borrowed from Merleau-Ponty but actually reaching back to Scheler (Rosa 2016), stands out as an exception and could renew the dialogue between phenomenology and Critical Theory. One may wonder whether what Rosa calls resonance is not close to or synonymous with what Scheler analyzes under the heading of sympathy; the phenomenological distinction between different forms of sympathy could possibly clarify the polysemy in Rosa's concept of resonance (Krebs 2021, 132). Last but not least, sharing the field of study of social philosophy, Critical Theory and the phenomenological anthropology derived from Scheler (and Plessner) can mutually enrich, influence, and shape each other. The aim of this symposium is to explore, as systematically and broadly as possible, the relationship between Scheler's thought and Critical Theory, focusing on the following areas (non-exhaustive list):
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