Foreword from the Helmuth Plessner Society | vii
Translator’s Preface and Acknowledgments | ix
Preface to the First Edition (1928) | xv
Preface to the Second Edition (1965) | xix
Introduction | xxxvii
J. M. Bernstein
1. Aim and Scope of the Study | 1
The Development of Intuitionist Lebensphilosophie in Opposition to
Experience, 3 • Lebensphilosophie and the Theory of the Humanities, 11 •
Working Plan for the Foundation of a Philosophy of the Human, 22
2. The Cartesian Objection and the Nature of the Problem | 34
Extension vs. Interiority and the Problem of Appearance, 34 •
Appearance as Originating in Interiority, 38 • The Prior Givenness
of Interiority and the Forward Displacement of Myself: The Proposition
of Immanence 41 • Extension as Outer World; Interiority as Inner
World, 46 • The Proposition of Representation and the Element
of Sensation, 51 • The Inaccessibility of Other I’s according to the
Principle of Sensualism, 55 • The Need for a Revision of the Cartesian
Dichotomy in the Interest of a Science of Life, 58 • A Methodological
Reformulation of the Opening Question, 64
3. The Thesis | 75
The Question, 75 • The Dual Aspect in the Appearance of Ordinary
Perceptual Things, 76 • Against the Misinterpretation of This Analysis:
A Closer Focus on the Subject Matter, 81 • The Dual Aspect of Living
Perceptual Things: Köhler contra Driesch, 84 • How Is Dual Aspectivity
Possible? The Nature of the Boundary, 93 • The Task of a Theory of the
Essential Characteristics of the Organic, 99 • Definitions of Life, 104 •
Nature and Object of a Theory of the Essential Characteristics of the
Organic, 110
4. The Modes of Being of Vitality | 115
Essential Characteristics Indicating Vitality, 115 • The Positionality of
Living Being and Its Spacelikeness, 118 • Living Being as Process
and Type; the Dynamic Character of the Living Form; the Individuality of the
Living Thing, 123 • Living Process as Development, 129 • The Curve of
Development: Aging and Death, 137 • The Individual Living Thing as a
System, 144 • The Self-Regulation of the Individual Living Thing
and the Harmonious Equipotentiality of Its Parts, 149 • Individual Living Things
as Organized: The Dual Meaning of Organs, 154 • The Temporality of
Living Being, 159 • The Positional Union of Space and Time and the
Natural Place, 168
5. The Organizational Modes of Living Being: Plants and Animals | 172
The Circle of Life, 172 • Assimilation—Dissimilation, 182 •
Adaptedness and Adaptation, 186 • Reproduction, Heredity,
Selection, 196 • The Open Form of Organization of the Plant, 202 •
The Closed Form of Organization of the Animal, 209
6. The Sphere of the Animal | 219
The Positionality of the Closed Form: Centrality and Frontality, 219 •
The Coordination of Stimulus and Response in the Case of an Inoperative
Subject (Decentralized Type of Organization), 227 • The Coordination of
Stimulus and Response by a Subject (Centralized Type of Organization),
231 • The Animal’s Surrounding Field Organized into Complex Qualities and
Things, 242 • Intelligence, 252 • Memory, 257 • Memory as the Unity of
Residue and Anticipation, 262
7. The Sphere of the Human | 267
The Positionality of the Excentric Form: “I” and Personhood, 267 •
Outer World, Inner World, Shared World, 272 • The Fundamental Laws
of Anthropology: The Law of Natural Artificiality, 287 • The Law of
Mediated Immediacy: Immanence and Expressivity, 298 • The Law of
the Utopian Standpoint: Nullity and Transcendence, 316
Appendix | 323
Glossary | 337
Notes | 345
Index | 359
