• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.130
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• pp.23-45
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• 2014

It can be said that Scheler's theory of perception is the theory of drive-conditioned perception, in more detail the theory of drive-motoric conditions of perception. Scheler tells us that Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach were mistaken in their assumption that sensations are purely receptive and primary in all experience. He claims that sensations are not primary but subsequent to a subliminal attention of vital drives(called 'Vor-Liebe und Vor-Interesse' by him). And because sense perception cannot take place without a vital energy of drives that account for the ongoing activity of perception, no object can be perceived unless it stimulates movement in an organism which exercises a count-movement against objects and thereby resisting objects. According to Scheler, an order of foundation such as the preexistence of images prior to perception; the priority of perception with regard to functions of senses; the priority of sense functions with regard to sensations has to be kept in mind. And it has to be kept in mind that the essence of life is pre-empirical, is pure becoming(Werden) and unbecoming(Entwerden), a process in which its two empirical sides are not yet separated. Then it is easy to see that perception is conditioned by vital drives. The drive-conditioned theory of perception is also supported by the fact that the motility of an organism determines its sensory apparatus, an organism has an alphabet of senses that can serve as signs of luring and noticing objects that are meaningful for its drive-motoric behavior. For example a lizard remains undisturbed by a gun shot but runs away from the slightest noise in the grass.