The Varieties of Togetherness: Scheler on Collective Affective Intentionality

Abstract

In this paper I reconstruct the basic structures of Max Scheler’s social philosophy, focusing on the question which different forms of human togetherness (feeling or acting together, etc.) are possible. My specific aim is to connect the theory of the different forms of human interaction which Scheler developed in The Nature of Sympathy (infection/unification, sensing, and fellow feeling) with, on the one hand, his theory of the various categories of feeling and, on the other hand, his theory of social forms (mass, community, society, collective person) in Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. I show that Scheler recognizes two different forms of collective intentionality: a primitive form of feeling-the-same that is brought about by “infection” or “unification”, and a form that is characterized by a genuinely experienced community: a “feeling-with-one-another” (Miteinanderfühlen).