ABSTRACT
Max Scheler's discussion of Freud's ontogenesis of love is noteworthy for several reasons. With the exception of Edmund Husserl, its founder, Scheler is the most important member of the productive and influential 'Phenomenological' school of philosophy. Scheler sticks especially tenaciously to the keynote of his critique, that psychological qualities cannot be derived from one another. Apropos of repression he demands to be informed about the repressing power and draws a would-be ironical comparison between Freudian libido and Fichte's 'ego', which also 'sets bounds to itself'. Scheler only partially accepts the psychoanalytical assumption that the amorous preference of young people for opposite sexed members of their immediate family circle over the choice of extra-familial objects represents a regular stage of sexual development. It is perhaps no accident that Scheler, in his heart of hearts, refuses to acknowledge assumptions about drive-conflicts or drive-interferences, let alone psychological new creations that follow from them.
