The Boundaries of our Inner Life. Meinong and Scheler on Representation, Feeling and Value

The aim of this paper is to discuss the resemblance, remarked by Max Scheler, between his value-theory and that developed by Alexius Meinong in order to shed light on those theoretical aspects of their value-theories that effectively legitimize Scheler’s assessment that Meinong’s research on value is compatible with his own. After having briefly showed (section 1) in what representationalism consists, I move (section 2) to outline Meinong’s account of presentation in order to stress out the cognitive function of feeling and its role in value-experience. In the third section I turn to briefly sketch out Scheler’s account of feeling in light of his criticism toward Brentano’s thesis according to which only inner perception is endowed with evidence. I argue that the resemblance between Scheler’s and Meinong’s theories of value can be found in their attempt to overcome representationalism both by pointing out the intertwinement between feel- ing and value and highlighting the immediate nature of emotional experience.