Abstract:
The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the theoretical background and practical meaning of the so called war writings which emerged within the phenomenological movement during the First World War. The author exemplifies it by researching the works of two German representatives of this movement, Max Scheler and Kurt Stavenhagen. He focuses on their application of the phenomenological method to the analysis of Russian national identity, and historical as well as cultural foundations of Russian state. The paper’s main thesis is that the politicization and militarization of phenomenology consisted in both “personalization” and “sociologization” of the phenomenological approach to the problem of the state. While interpreting Scheler’s personalism as an exemplification of the approach to the state as a problem of social ontology, the author reconstructs the theoretical conditions of analyzing the Russian imperial state in terms of the “world.” The focus of the paper is particularly on the phenomenology of, as Scheler put it, Russian collective personality and Russian national consciousness or “soul” as well as on the question of legitimacy of Ukrainian resistance against Russian imperialism.
Keywords:
phenomenology, two sides theory of the state, legal positivism, pure theory of law, First World War, Russian imperialism, Ukrainian affair
How to cite:
Gniazdowski, Andrzej. “State at War: The Phenomenology of the Russian World by Max Scheler and Kurt Stavenhagen.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 6, no. 4 (2022): 107-122. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2022.0038.
Author:
Andrzej Gniazdowski
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
72 Nowy Świat Street, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland
agniazdo@ifispan.edu.pl
References:
Caprio, Stefano. “A Nation of Resentment.” Asia News, June 11, 2022. https://www.asianews.it/news-en/A-nation-of-resentment-56010.html.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Politische Schriften. München: Pieper & Co Verlag, 1917.
Flasch, Kurt. Die geistige Mobilmachung. Die deutschen Intellektuelle und der Erste Weltkrieg. Ein Versuch. Berlin: Alexander Fest Verlag, 2000.
Frings, Manfred S., “Nachwort des Herausgebers.” In vol. 4 of Gesammelte Werke, 691-99. Bern und München: Francke Verlag, 1982.
Goncharov, Ivan. Oblomov. Translated by Charles J. Hogarth. London: Gordon Allen & Unwin LTD, 1915.
Heidegger, Martin. “In Memoriam Max Scheler.” In vol. 26 of Gesamtausgabe, edited by Klaus Held, 62-64. Frankfurt/Main: Klosterman, 1978.
Hiden, John, and Thomas Lane, eds. The Baltic States and the Outbreak of the Second World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Hildebrand, Dietrich von. Die Metaphysik der Gemeinschaft. Regensburg: Verlag Josef Habbel, 1955.
Husserl, Edmund. “Hobbes’ Ethik und Staatsphilosophie und ihr egoistisches Prinzip der Selbsterhaltung.” In vol. 37, Husserliana, edited by Henning Peucker. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004.
Husserl, Edmund. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. Translated by Fred Kersten. The Hague-Boston-Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983.
Husserl, Edmund. “Letter to Hugo Münsterberg.” In Hugo Münsterberg, The Peace and America. New York: D. Appleton, 1915, 222-24.
Husserl, Edmund. Logical Investigations. Translated by John N. Findlay. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
Husserl, Edmund. “Philosophy as Rigorous Science.” In Husserl’s Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, translated by Quentin Laurer, 71-149. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
James, William. Das pluralistische Universum. Translated by Julian Goldstein. Leipzig: Verlag der Weißen Bücher, 1914.
Jellinek, Georg. Allgemeine Staatslehre. Berlin: Verlag von o. Häring, 1900.
Kelsen, Hans. Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre entwickelt aus der Lehre vom Rechtssätze. Tübingen: Mohr, 1911.
Kersten, Jens. The Normative Power of the Factual: Georg Jellinek’s Phenomenological Theory of Reflective Legal Positivism. In Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism, edited by Torben Spaak and Patricia Mindus, 248-72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2021. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108636377.011.
Kleinow, George. Das Problem der Ukraine. Wien: Verlag des Bundes zur Befreiung der Ukraina, 1915.
Laruelle, Marlene. The “Russian World.” Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination. Washington: Center On Global Interests, 2015.
Lembeck, Karl-Heinz. “‘Deutscher Weltberuf?’ Natorps und Schelers Kriegsphilosophie.” In Vom Umsturz der Werte in der modernen Gesellschaft, 220-37. Bonn: Bouvier, 1997.
Lenin, Vladimir I. On the National Pride of the Great Russians. In vol. 21, Collected Works, 102-106. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974.
Lepsius, Oliver. Georg Jellinek’s Theory of the Two Sides of the State. In The Normative Force of the Factual: Legal Philosophy Between is and Ought, edited by Frederick Schauer, Christoph Bezemek and Nicoletta Bersier Ladavac, 5-28. Cham: Springer Verlag, 2019.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity. An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1991.
Luft, Sebastian H. “Germany’s Metaphysical War. Reflections on War by Two Representatives of German Philosophy: Max Scheler and Paul Natorp.” Themenportal Erster Weltkrieg, 2007. https://epublications.marquette.edu/phil_fac/37/.
Lübbe, Hermann. Politische Philosophie in Deutschland. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co, 1974.
Pergler, Wolfgang. Religionsphilosophische Elemente geistiger Aufrüstung in Max Schelers Schriften zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Graz: [n.p.], 2016
Plessner, Helmuth. “Analyse des deutschen Selbstbewußtseins.” In vol. 6, Gesammelte Schriften, 251-260. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1982.
Reinach, Adolf. “The Apriori Foundations of the Civil Law.” In vol. 3, Aletheia. An International Journal of Philosophy, 1-143. Irving: The International Academy of Philosophy Press, 1984.
Reinach, Adolf. Gesammelte Schriften. Halle: Niemeyer, 1921.
Scheler, Max. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik [The Formalism in Ethics and Material Ethics of Values]. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1916.
Scheler, Max. Der Genius des Krieges und der Deutsche Krieg. Leipzig: Verlag der Weißen Bücher, 1915 [1917].
Scheler, Max. Krieg und Aufbau. Leipzig: Verlag der Weißen Bücher, 1916.
Scheler, Max. Zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Sympathiegefühle und von Liebe und Hass. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1913.
Scheler, Max. Ursprunge des Deutschenhasses. Eine nationalpädagogische Erörterung. Leipzig: Verlag der Weißen Bücher, 1917.
Scheler, Max. Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelman, 1912.
Schneider, Gabriele. “Intellektuelle und Krieg: Max Scheler’s Wandel vom Militaristen zum Pazifisten und die Konsequenzen für die Politik.” In Die Intellektuelle in Weimarer Republik, edited by George Iggers and Wolfgang Bialas, 177-96. Frankfurt/New York, Peter Lang GmbH, 1995.
Spiegelberg, Herbert. The Phenomenological Movement. A Historical Introduction. Vol. 1. The Hague: Martinus Nijhof, 1965.
Stavenhagen, Kurt. Heimat als Grundlage menschlicher Existenz. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1939.
Stavenhagen, Kurt. Die Kriegsziele des Großrussentums und der Fremdvölker Rußlands. Charlottenburg: Ostlandverlag GmbH, 1916.
Stavenhagen, Kurt. Kritische Gänge in die Volkstheorie. Riga: Verlag der Akt.-Ges. ‘Ernst Plates,’ 1936.
Stavenhagen, Kurt. Das Wesen der Nation. Berlin: H. R. Verlag, 1934.
Stein, Edith. An Investigation Concerning the State. Washington: ICS Publications, 2006.
Sternad, Christian. “The Force of War. Max Scheler and Jan Patočka on the First World War.” Labyrinth 19, no. 1 (Autumn 2017): 120-37. https://doi.org/10.25180/lj.v19i1.74.
Trillhaas, Wolfgang. “Nachruf auf Kurt Stavenhagen.” In Nachlass Wolfgang Trillhaas. Professor der Theologie 1905–1995. Göttingen: Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Göttingen, 2014.
Open Access Statement:
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author, as long as the author and original source are properly cited. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Submitting a text to Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture means that the author agrees with the general conditions of this license. The author does and will maintain copyrights and publishing rights for his/her article without any restrictions.