From pleasure to happiness: Emotional stratification according to Max Scheler and its critique by Michel Henry

In his description of human emotional life, Max Scheler included the idea that it is stratified and that every feeling is experienced as belonging to a certain level of emotional depth. This makes it possible to distinguish types of feeling, both positive and negative, which are qualitatively differentiated by their greater or lesser depth, ranging from sensitive pleasure and pain to happiness and despair, including joy and sadness, etc. We will clarify the way in which Scheler justifies this theory phenomenologically, taking into special consideration the fact of the greater or lesser subjective “intimacy” of feelings. Finally, we will offer an initial evaluation of Michel Henry’s critique of the doctrine of emotional stratification, pointing out some inaccuracies in his exploration of it and the problems involved in his own alternative.