1. Cf. Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik (Berne: Francke, 1966). General descriptions of Scheler' s axiological thought are found in the following works: M. Dupu y, La philosophie de Max Scheler. Son évolution et son unité (Paris: PUF, 1959); J. Llambias de Azebedo, Max Scheler. Exposición sistemática y evolutiva de su filosofia (Buenos Aires: Nova, 1966).

2. Cf. Ethik (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1949); Das Problem des geistigen Seins (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1949).

3. Cf. Traité des valeurs (Paris: PUF, 1951-1955), 2 vols.

4. Cf. Amor y mundo (Mexico: F.C.E., 1940).

5. On the subject of philosophical experience and ways of understanding it deeply and creatively, see my works: Cinco grandes tareas de la filosofía actual (Madrid: Gredos, 1977); "La experiencia filosófica y la necesidad de su ampliación," in Realitas, II (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1976). The pressing need to revalue natural experience is underlined by A. de Waehlen s, La philosophie et les experiences naturelles (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1961). On the structure and scope of religious experience, cf. J. Mourou x, L'experience chrétienne (Paris: Beauchesne, 1952); X. Pikaz a, La experiencia religiosa y el Cristianismo (Salamanca: Sígueme, 1982).

6. Cf. my Metodología de lo suprasensible. Descubrimiento de lo superobjetivo y crisis del objetivismo (Madrid: Nacional, 1953).

7. Cf. Karl Hei m, Glauben und Denken (Pfullingen: Neske, 1957).

8. Cf. L'univers non dimensionnel et la vie qualitative (Paris: PUF, 1948). Obviously, the term "dimension" and its derivates are taken by Hei m in the "in-objective" sense, and by Faureé-Fremie t in an "objective", empirical sense. Hence, the latter uses the negative form.

9. Cf. "Bauen, Wohnen, Denken," in Vorträge und Aufsätze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1959²), pp. 145-163.

10. A broad exposition of the concept of ambit and its rich meaning in the field of aesthetics may be found in my Estética de la creatividad (Barcelona: PPU, Universidad de Barcelona, 1986²).

11. The schema "objective--super-objective, ambital" offers a greater flexibility than the schemas "material-spiritual," "material-formal," "real-ideal," "real-unreal" or "objective-subjective," and gives greater freedom of manoeuvre for clarifying the relationship between the diverse modes of reality. The use of the schema "real-unreal" entails a high risk because, if one expressly or tacitly identifies the real with the "objective" in the above-mentioned sense--which is the technical sense defined by the existential thinkers: Jasper s, Marce l and Heidegge r--all super-objective, unmeasurable, non-conceptual, un-delimitable realities are automatically considered as "unreal." This unfair devaluation perturbes the analysis of all human phenomena: aesthetic, ethical or religious.

12. (Paris: PUF, 1941), 12, page 1.

13. In Estética de la creatividad (especially pp. 33ff.) I expound this idea fully. It has been present more or less expressly in writings on hermeneutics from the time of W. Dilthe y.

14. See, for example, R. Guardin i, Der Gegensatz. Versuche zu einer Philosophie des Lebendig-konkreten (Mainz: Grünewald, 1955). On the meaning of this work within the philosophical, pedagogical and hermeneutic writings of R. Guardini see my Romano Guardini y la dialéctica de lo viviente (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1966).

15. The relationship of presence between two realities which encounter each other occurs not merely by cancelling distances, but through founding a common field of play. In order to do so a form of immediacy must be possible through a form of distance. At first sight, fusional modes of immediacy would seem the most perfect. In reality, they cause the most intense psychological disturbance because they give rise to fascination typical of vertigo. But in contrast to ecstacy, vertigo does not allow one to found a field of free play with another reality; it does not enable one to encounter it and thus develop a fully mature human personality. The distance of perspective does not detach one from reality as so many authors fear, but enables one to enter into play with it and attain a presence which is the fruit of experiences of ecstasy. Any distancing carried out with the aim of founding ambits of play is a "mediational," rather than a "mediatized" presence. The categories of immediacy, distance and presence, whose articulation constitutes the "hermeneutic triangle," play a decisive part in the knowledge and fulfillment of values. Thus they should be submitted to detailed analysis, to which a first approach may be seen in my El triángulo hermenéutico (Madrid: Editorial Católica, 1977²). The concepts of vertigo and ecstasy will be explained in Chap. III.

16. Thought by dilemma, which is widely cultivated in the contemporary era, may obtain brilliant results in demagogic campaigns in favor of certain out-of-date ideologies, but it uproots the profound unity of the real and splits the inner context of human thought and life.

17. A confrontation of both phenomena may be seen in my La juventud actual entre el vértigo y el éxtasis (Madrid: Narcea, 1982), pp. 108 ff.

18. Cf. N. Hartmann, Zur Grundlegung der Ontologie (Meisienheim am Glan: Hain, 1948³), p. 244.

19. On the level of ludic activity, the terms and schemas take on a new, broader and more flexible meaning and are more open to other contrasted meanings. This fecund inner freedom of the concepts is not possible in a mode of thought concerned exclusively with objects which supposedly are closed in on themselves.

20. Because it ignored or left to one side this semantic transformation of the "subject-object" schema, modern and contemporary hermeneutics often found its research entangled in a web of aporias which were false at heart and prevented the solution of the basic problems of philosophy.

21. In my work Cinco grandes tareas de la filosofía actual, pp. 43 ff., there are further clarifications of circular thought and the "hermeneutic circle."

22. In El triángulo hermenéutico, pp. 287-316, 333-366, I study this question fully with regard to the theory of "ideas" of Descartes and within the contemporary Spanish philosophy of Angel Amor Ruiba l. A well balanced means of stating this subject fairly is provided by another Spanish thinker, Xavier Zubir i, for whom the primary union between man and the real stems from the fact that man "is in reality" because he is intelligent: logos and reason are founded in intelligence. Therefore, the basic unity between man and reality is given at the pre-logical and pre-reasoning stage, but not at the pre-intelligent one. Cf. Sobre la esencia (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1952); Inteligencia sentiente (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1980, 1982, 1984), 3 vols.

23. Because of lack of rigor in the use of philosophical categories and schemas, this highly risky idea is at times shared even by thinkers far from a vitalistic position. See, for example, L. Cencillo' s otherwise splendid work, Experiencia profunda del ser (Madrid: Gredos, 1959).

24. Cf. Calígula, suivi de le malentendu (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), p. 83. A detailed analysis of this work, and of La Nausée by J.P. Sartr e, is to be found in my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 367-454.

25. In his Wahrheit (Zurich: Benzinger: 1947), Urs von Balthasa r takes pains to elaborate on this fulfillment.

26. Cf. Cinco grandes tareas de la filosofía actual, pp. 70 ff., 99 ff.

27. Cf. La enfermedad mortal o De la desesperación y el pecado (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1960); Etapes sur le chemin de la vie (Paris: Gallimard, 1948). A detailed description of "immediate" man as adopting the infra-creative attitude of the "first stage along the path of life" may be found in my Estrategia del lenguaje y manipulación del hombre (Madrid: Narcea, 1984³), pp. 40 ff.

28. Cf. Traité des valeurs, I, p. 207.

29. Cf. L. Lavell e, op. cit., I p. 211.

30. Cf. L. Lavelle, op. cit., I, p. 214.

31. The sense in which this occurs in musical and literary works was explained in the light of the theory of play and ambits in my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 127-150.

32. In his work, What is Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, l962), D. von Hildebran d took great pains to clarify that the objectivity of the knowledge of certain realities does not depend on universal assent.

33. "When I am free, I do not want such and such a thing because I want it, but because I have persuaded myself that it is just." "The conquest of certainty . . . --freedom--demands that vulgar opinions be surpassed." "What is decisive is inner liberty. This lies in the fact that, when I see clearly, I stop depending on an exterior reality entirely, but it cannot be completed unless this be in loving agreement with reality. This is what in the end constitutes knowledge." Cf. Karl Jasper s: "¿Qué es Europa?" in El espíritu europeo (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1957), pp. 291, 299.

34. It is useful to recall in this respect that the contemporary return to the concrete responds to a will to return to the place in which creative phenomena occur. It is not dictated by a feeling of aversion to any universal whatsoever. This may be verified by reading attentively the works of the authors studied by J. Wah l in his Vers le concret (Paris: Vrin, 1932).

35. Cf. Estética de la creatividad, pp. 112 ff.

36. Cf. Saint-Exupér y, Tèrre des hommes, in Oeuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1953), p. 252.

37. An exposition of this suggestive subject with bibliographical notes is to be found in my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 163 ff.

38. Cf. my Metodología de lo suprasensible.

39. Cf. R. Le Senn e, Obstacle et valeur (Paris: Aubier, 1934), pp. 175 ff.

40. An extensive bibliography on the personalist-dialogical movement (M. Bube r, F. Ebne r, F. Rosenzwei g, Th. Haecke r, R. Guardin i, M. Nédoncelle, E. Brunne r, F. Gogarte n, etc.) may be found in my Pensadores cristianos contemporáneos (Madrid: BAC, 1966), and El triángulo hermenéutico, pp. 415-16. Attempts to clarify the meaning of this movement are to be found in the following works: B. Caspe r, Das dialogische Denken (Freiburg: Herder, 1967); P. Laín Entralg o, Teoría y realidad del otro, 2 vols. (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1961); D. Langemaye r, Der dialogische Personalismus in der evangelischen und katholischen Theologie der Gegenwart (Paderborn: Bonifacius, 1963); G. Schröder , Das Ich und Du in der Wende des Denkens (Göttingen: 1951).

41. A bibliography on play may be found in my Estética de la creatividad, p. 159.

42. Apart from well-known works by C. Fabr o, L.-B. Geige r, Ulric h and Artol a on the Thomisti c conception of participation, I would point out here, on account of their original treatment of the subject, the entire philosophical work of L. Lavell e and G. Marce l.

43. Cf. R. Laut h, Die Frage nach dem Sinn des Daseins (München: Barth, 1953); J.E. Hengstenber g, Philosophische Anthropologie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1957). On the absurd, cf. A. Camu s, Le mythe de Sisyphe (Paris: Gallimard, 1942).

44. On the relational-dynamic conception of reality, see a broad bibliography in my Cinco grandes tareas de la filosofía actual, pp. 134-35.

45. A more extensive exposition of this subject may be found in my work, Las experiencias de vértigo y la subversión de valores (Madrid: Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas, 1986).

46. The anxiety which leads to ecstasy is a form of void which becomes a growth trauma; whereas the anxiety which leads to vertigo is a kind of void that gives rise to a dissolution trauma.

47. Cf. my "La concepción del amor y la soledad en Ortega," Estudios, 143 (1983), 455-465. A detailed analysis of J.-P. Sartre, La Nausée may be found in my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 367-411.

48. For further details on this subject see Cinco grandes tareas de la filosofia actual, pp. 160 ff.

49. The theory of play and ambits opens up an extraordinarily rich humanistic horizon inspired, not by the mastery of objects, but by the creation of all manner of linkages. The human environment then appears in a new light. Seen in their "ambital" aspect, the beings in the human environment are no longer reduced to mere objects of knowledge, manipulation or mastery, but become collaborators of persons in the great play of existence. This transmutation is the starting-point for Franciscan humanism, in both its spiritual and intellectual aspects. Cf. F.A. Merin o, Humanismo franciscano, Franciscanismo y mundo actual (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1982).

50. Cf. F. Ebne r, Das Wort ist der Weg (Vienna: Herder, 1949), pp. 112, 142.

51. Cf. G. Gillema n, Le primat de la charité en théologie morale. Essai méthodologique (Brussels: Desclée, 1954²).

52. The term analectic refers to the simultaneous attention that man should give to phenomena which, although different, are linked and hierarchically related, e.g., the relationship between a meaning and the voice that utters it.

53. On the specific rationality of art, see my general study "La racionalidad propia del arte. Creatividad y acceso a lo real," in Realitas III-IV (Madrid: 1979), pp. 181-228.

54. M. Dufrenn e, in his work La notion d'apriori (Paris: PUF, 1959), shows amply the need to understand realistically the concept of a priori in the light of integral human experience.

55. Cf. Th. Haecke r: Metaphysik das Fühlens (Munich: Kösel, 1953); J. Bofil l: "Para una metafísica del sentimiento," "Note sur le valeur ontologique du sentiment," "L'admiration," in Obra Completa (Barcelona: Ariel, 1967), pp. 107 ff; A. Roldán , Metafísica del sentimiento (Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1956).

56. Cf. L. Lavell e, Traité des valeurs, I, p. 158.

57. R. Frondiz i reproaches the phenomenologists with having cut the connection with experience after having extracted their concepts from reality, and with transforming these concepts, which are of empirical origin, into immutable, a priori essences. Cf. Qué son los valores? (Mexico: FCE, 1962), pp. 104, 112). Pintor-Ramos points out that the phenomenologists do not disconnect their analyses from all experience, but from "inductive-mediatized" experience. Cf. "La filosofía de los valores de M. Schele r," in Estudios (Madrid), 27 (1971), p. 187.

58. An application and, at the same time, an approval of this nexus between the birth of value, the foundation of a field of play and syneidetic thought is the "ludic-ambital" method of analysis of works of literature which makes each reading of quality texts a splendid lesson in ethics. The deepest humanistic values are seen in their full light in a genetic reading in which even those considered destructive because of their bitter defense of the absurd and their nihilism may, despite themselves, have some constructive function. An extended exposition of this method may be seen in my Análisis estético de obras literarias (Madrid: Narcea, 1982), and Análisis literario y formación humanística (Madrid: Escuela Española, 1986).

59. Cf. K. Jasper s, Philosophie II. Existenzerhellung (Berlin: Springer, 1932).

60. This category of "leap," which is central to Kierkegaar d and to the existential thinkers inspired by him--above all Jasper s--should be understood in the "analectic" or bipolar sense, for ludic activity transfigures the mediational elements through which it occurs, but does not annul them; it takes them on and transcends them.

61. Cf. my Diagnosis del hombre actual (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1966).

62. Cf. L. Cencill o, Experiencia profunda del ser, p. 249.

63. This demand is made luminously manifest in the needy state of musical scores. In the score the work exists only virtually, for latent in it are certain values, certain fields of possibilities for aesthetic play that demand being put into act. If an interpreter capable of listening to such an appeal gives a creative response the work emerges into act.

64. In my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 128 ff., I discuss in detail the meaning which the verb "to master" assumes at the ludic level.

65. Remember the approach to this by authors such as R. Eucke n, M. Schele r, A.N. Whitehea d, L. Lavell e, G. Marce l, R. Le Senn e, X. Zubir i, A. Amor Ruiba l. Cf. H.E. Hengstenber g, Philosophische Anthropologie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1957); L. Cencill o, Experiencia profunda del ser (Madrid: Gredos, 1959); L. Cencillo, Tratado de las realidades (Madrid: Univers, 1971); C.A. Van Peurse n, Wirklicheit als Ereignis (Freiburg: K. Alber, 1965).

66. Some of the strategic resources mobilized today are discussed in my work Estrategia del languaje y manipulación del hombre (Madrid: Narcea, 1965). The interpretation of language as a vehicle of the creative activity of ambits is treated fully in my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 291-357.

67. Cf. X. Zubir i: "La dimensión histórica del ser humano" in Realitas, I (Madrid: Sociedad de Estudios y Publicaciones, 1974), pp. 11-69.

68. Cf. P. Touilleu x, Introduction à une théologie critique (Paris: Lethielleux, 1967).

69. Cf. L. Lavell e, Traité des valeurs, I, p. 23.

70. The linkage between the absurd, "nausea," lack of creativity and modes of extreme relaxation which fuse man with circumstantial reality is shown in my interpretation in Estética de la creatividad, pp. 367-442 of La Nausée by J.P. Sartr e and L'Etranger by A. Camu s. The feeling of anxiety brought about by limit-situations such as the death of a loved one, failure to love, bankruptcy, etc., should not be confused hastily with despair or with nausea, that is, wirh the upheaval caused by the abundance of swollen, excessive, useless beings who are "superfluous" because they lack any meaning. Anxiety is the feeling of not being able to retain one's balance brought on by the crumbling of the "objective" world to which one had clung in the certainty that it was a model reality and, as such, unshatterable. Cancelling this security may lead either to coming to terms with the nonsensical character of this situation of crisis by surrendering to the absurd, or to taking the leap into the "transcendence" of super-objective realities which invite one to a creative commitment. This second reaction turns anxiety into the starting-point for an authentically human life which surpasses entities so as to live on the plane of being (Heidegge r); it implies a "leap" from an "objectivist" to a "ludic" attitude.

71. After describing the current movement towards "a fecund reevaluation of the cognitive power of symbols," J.G. Caffaren a states that "a gnoseology of the symbolic" has not yet been elaborated and points out the pressing need to structure a theory of the symbol as an adequate means of knowledge of elevated aspects of reality. This "symbolical realism" as an approach to knowledge differs from the "realism of sciences" or "the simple imaginative formulation or oblique expression of emotions or evaluations." Cf. Filosofía de la religión (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1975), pp. 305-306.

72. Further details and examples of the relational-ludic interpretation of symbolism may be seen in my Estética de la creatividad, pp. 269-271, 322-326. It is interesting to recall here the relational interpretation of the "thing" offered by Heidegge r in his article "Das Ding" and his description of the temple, the pitcher, the bridge and the house. Cf. Vorträge und Aufsätze (Pfullingen: Neske, 1954); Holzwege (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1950).

73. On the creative nature of the image and its difference from the figure, cf. my work Análisis estético de obras literarias (Madrid: Narcea, 1982), pp. 83-89. As to the relationship between image and metaphor, cf. Söh ngen: Analogie und Metaphern. Kleine Philosophie und Théologie der Sprache (Freiburg: Alber, 1962), p. 104.

74. Cf. J.G. Caffaren a: op. cit., p. 144.

75. Cf. Consentement et création (Paris: Aubier, 1943); La vocation de l'esprit (Paris: Aubier, 1953).

76. Cf. Traité de l'action morale (Paris: PUF, 1961), 2 vols. In the works of these thinkers one finds valuable details on the relationship between values and love, good, time, duty, liberty, will and feeling, truth and reflection, creative fidelity, the development of human personality, participation in being and the nexus between the real and the possible. The contribution of these authors, if organically assembled by means of a well articulated methodology, could constitute a very sound and broad axiological structure.

77. "Where there is no participation, there is no reality," M. Bube r, Die Schriften über das dialogische Prinzip (Heidelberg: L. Schneider, 1954), p. 66.

78. Cf. M. Bube r, op. cit., p. 15.

79. In his posthumous work, El hombre y Dios (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1984), X. Zubir i shows that one's journey towards God is a search for the ultimate foundation of the development of one's personal life and that it is carried out by the energy one has from being situated within reality.

80. It would be sufficient to analyze closely the theory of "ideal entities" in Husser l and Hartman n in order to realize the insufficiency of axiological currents which stress the "objectivity" of values against the different genres of subjectivism and psychologism, and which consider value as a sort of "ideal entity" in order not to slip back into "objectivism. How is the ideal to be tied to the normative-real? How can one avoid the ideal entity becoming a mere abstraction? These and other difficulties which could be cited show that it is just as insufficient to use a "suggestive" language which more or less vaguely denotes the subtle phenomena which constitutes the world of value, as to resort to an already coined philosophical language which does not transmit all the nuances of the experience of value and draws one's attention to issues which are notably different, though not completely alien, from values.

81. The founding of the theory of values requires a carefully considered study of all forms of creative relationship between man and the real, a relationship which R. Boire l has called "dynamology of the spirit." Cf. Théorie génerale de l'invention (Paris: PUF, 1961).