Man’s Knowledge of Man

Abstract

Scheler felt strongly that a fresh, deliberate reconsideration of the whole problem concerning the knowledge of others must be made. Such a study must carefully study its own presuppositions, its metaphysical underpinnings and its practical applications. The problem is crucial in the history of human thought. With approval he quoted the words of Ernst Troeltsch:

The main problem here is the question of our knowledge of other minds; for this is the peculiar presupposition of history, and in general a central issue for all philosophy, since the possibilities and difficulties of any common thought and philosophizing all depend upon it.¹