Scheler was born in Munich and studied in Jena, returning to learn about the phenomenology of Husserl in 1907. In 1913 he wrote his Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values, criticizing Kantian ethics for excessive formalism, and comparing moral perception to perception of secondary qualities. His philosophy developed in terms of the phenomenology of perception of non-Platonic essences, held together by a hierarchical, Kantian architecture. Among others he impressed Heidegger and Ortega y Gasset, and his second wife Märit Furtwängler was the sister of the conductor. Other translated works include Man’s Place in Nature (trs. Meyerhoff, 1961).