ABSTRACT
Edmund Husserl first addresses the issue of instinct in the Fifth Logical Investigation and develops the phenomenology of instincts in his later phenomenology as the deepest layer of genetic phenomenology. As Max Scheler points out, instinct is a “very controversial and unclear concept”. Among the various concepts of instinct, the following two are the most important: instinctive behavior; and the innate drive that is specific to a species. The concept of instinct as instinctive behavior is used in some natural-scientific disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, and animal psychology, as well as in some disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, such as philosophical anthropology and theology. The different types of post-Husserlian phenomenology do not address the issue of the phenomenology of instinct. Max Scheler could have dealt with the phenomenological concept of instinct as one of the important topics of his phenomenological material ethics as well as his philosophical anthropology and his sociology of knowledge.
