Max Scheller’s phenomenological thanatology

Max Scheler is credited with the first elaborated thanatology within the

phenomenological tradition. Although it is primarily a matter of manuscripts

and fragments, Scheler?s thanatology is very systematic. It also encompasses

a phenomenology of the post-mortem state, or more precisely, of what it

means to ?live on?. Scheler?s phenomenological thanatology focuses on the

?intuitive fact of death?, or death as the experiential background of life.

Unlike many other phenomenologies of death, Scheler does not start from the

death of the Other, but from our own death, drawing on the phenomenon of

ageing and the temporality of human life. Furthermore, Scheler?s thanatology

includes historical analyses, as well as a consideration of the relationship

of non-European cultures to death. It is in this context that the

distinction between the normal and the pathological repression of death

appears. Having critically analyzed Scheler?s thanatology from 1911 to 1916,

the article pays particular attention to the lectures of 1923-1924, which

are characterised by a metaphysical attitude towards the spiritual dimension

of death (and immortality).