The philosophical Relevance of Max Scheler’s Distinction between Acts and Functions

Abstract

While specialists often reproduce Scheler’s distinction between “acts” and “functions”, they seldom venture a satisfactory theoretical justification of it, which the German philosopher did not clearly offer either. In this paper I propose an interpretation of those concepts aimed at clarifying them. It will be shown that the distinction between acts and functions is of great importance for the philosophical anthropology and, in particular, for establishing the contrast between the person’s “world” (Welt) and the animal’s “environment” (Umwelt). As a contribution to the discussion of these topics, still so popular one century after Scheler’s death, I also take the liberty of introducing an additional concept: that of “mere function”.