Metaphysics

The Human Place in the Cosmos

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Max Scheler

1928

The Human Place in the Cosmos is Scheler's final and most concentrated work — a brief but dense statement of his philosophical anthropology that appeared just a year before his death. Scheler asks what distinguishes the human being from all other forms of life: what makes a person a person, and how this uniqueness situates the human within the larger whole of being. His answer centres on the concept of spirit (Geist): the distinctively human capacity for openness to the world (Weltoffenheit), for saying no to biological drives, for grasping essences and values, and for self-transcendence. Unlike plants and animals, which are bound to their environment (Umwelt), the human being can stand back from any particular environment and ask about being as such. The book also outlines Scheler's late metaphysics — his controversial claim that God is not an already-completed omnipotent being but a becoming deity whose spiritual pole needs the human being to realise its potential in the world.