Analysis Of Max Scheler's Notion Of Personhood

a.2. Max Scheler’s Notion of Personhood
Another prolific philosopher that influenced St. Karol Wojtyła’s line of thought is Max Scheler . Wojtyła’s encounter with Scheler happened when he was doing his habilitation thesis. When he became pope he recollected it: “Much later, Father Różycki suggested the topic for my habilitation thesis on Max Scheler’s book Der Formalismus in der Ethik und materiale Wertethik, which I translated into Polish as I was writing my thesis. This was another turning point. I defended the thesis in November 1953.” This turning point of the academic life of Wojtyła helped him to developed his philosophical cognizance and he added: “I wrote on the contribution which Scheler’s phenomenological type of ethical system
For Scheler, the sphere of the person cannot be objectified as the “ego” or a “thing” can be objectified. He continues, the person is rather, the immediately coexperienced unity of experiencing; the person is not a merely thought thing behind and outside what is immediately experienced. Scheler discusses here that man is experiencing his own personhood as an unchanging presence in his actions, an abiding sense of oneself as an ideal unity through intellectual and emotional
St. Karol Wojtyła’s Personalism:
Having laid the foundations and the influences for the understanding of St. Karol Wojtyła’s personalism, this section will elucidate that of his own conception of person. As what have been said, Wojtyła is very fond with regard to the issues on the human person because of his personal experience of injustices and unhuman cruelties. As a result, the meaning of the human person seems to impoverished. As a searcher of truth, his philosophical foundation led him to be aware of one’s uniqueness and not to stop in inquiring truths. He states:
My previous Aristotelian-Thomistic formation was enriched by the phenomenological method, and this made it possible for me to undertake a number of creative studies. I am thinking above all, of my book The Acting Person. In this way I took part in the contemporary movement of philosophical personalism, and my studies were able to bear fruit in my pastoral work. …My formation within the cultural horizon of personalism also gave me a deeper awareness of how each individual is a unique person.

And during his pontificate, he greatly acknowledges his philosophical formation as an aid on his pastoral ministry especially on how to relate with the other persons. The Holy Father