Helmuth Plessner (Author) Helmuth Plessner (1892¿1985) was a German philosopher and sociologist. From 1953-59, he was president of the German Sociological Association. Three of his many books have appeared in English, Political Anthropology (Northwestern, 2018), The Limits of Community (Humanity Books, 1999) and Laughing and Crying (Northwestern, 1970).J. M. Bernstein (Introducer) J. M. Bernstein is University Distinguished Professor in Philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York City.Millay Hyatt (Translator) Millay Hyatt is a writer and translator based in Berlin. Her dissertation, ¿No-Where and Now-Here: Utopia and Politics from Hegel to Deleuze,¿ received the University of Southern California's doctoral research prize.

Foreword from the Helmuth Plessner Society | viiTranslator's Preface and Acknowledgments | ixPreface to the First Edition (1928) | xvPreface to the Second Edition (1965) | xixIntroduction | xxxviiJ. M. Bernstein1. Aim and Scope of the Study | 1The Development of Intuitionist Lebensphilosophie in Opposition toExperience, 3 ¿ Lebensphilosophie and the Theory of the Humanities, 11 ¿Working Plan for the Foundation of a Philosophy of the Human, 222. The Cartesian Objection and the Nature of the Problem | 34Extension vs. Interiority and the Problem of Appearance, 34 ¿Appearance as Originating in Interiority, 38 ¿ The Prior Givennessof Interiority and the Forward Displacement of Myself: The Propositionof Immanence 41 ¿ Extension as Outer World; Interiority as InnerWorld, 46 ¿ The Proposition of Representation and the Elementof Sensation, 51 ¿ The Inaccessibility of Other I's according to thePrinciple of Sensualism, 55 ¿ The Need for a Revision of the CartesianDichotomy in the Interest of a Science of Life, 58 ¿ A MethodologicalReformulation of the Opening Question, 643. The Thesis | 75The Question, 75 ¿ The Dual Aspect in the Appearance of OrdinaryPerceptual Things, 76 ¿ Against the Misinterpretation of This Analysis:A Closer Focus on the Subject Matter, 81 ¿ The Dual Aspect of LivingPerceptual Things: Köhler contra Driesch, 84 ¿ How Is Dual AspectivityPossible? The Nature of the Boundary, 93 ¿ The Task of a Theory of theEssential Characteristics of the Organic, 99 ¿ Definitions of Life, 104 ¿Nature and Object of a Theory of the Essential Characteristics of theOrganic, 1104. The Modes of Being of Vitality | 115Essential Characteristics Indicating Vitality, 115 ¿ The Positionality ofLiving Being and Its Spacelikeness, 118 ¿ Living Being as Processand Type; the Dynamic Character of the Living Form; the Individuality of theLiving Thing, 123 ¿ Living Process as Development, 129 ¿ The Curve ofDevelopment: Aging and Death, 137 ¿ The Individual Living Thing as aSystem, 144 ¿ The Self-Regulation of the Individual Living Thingand the Harmonious Equipotentiality of Its Parts, 149 ¿ Individual Living Thingsas Organized: The Dual Meaning of Organs, 154 ¿ The Temporality ofLiving Being, 159 ¿ The Positional Union of Space and Time and theNatural Place, 1685. The Organizational Modes of Living Being: Plants and Animals | 172The Circle of Life, 172 ¿ Assimilation-Dissimilation, 182 ¿Adaptedness and Adaptation, 186 ¿ Reproduction, HereditySelection, 196 ¿ The Open Form of Organization of the Plant, 202 ¿The Closed Form of Organization of the Animal, 2096. The Sphere of the Animal | 219The Positionality of the Closed Form: Centrality and Frontality, 219 ¿The Coordination of Stimulus and Response in the Case of an InoperativeSubject (Decentralized Type of Organization), 227 ¿ The Coordination ofStimulus and Response by a Subject (Centralized Type of Organization)231 ¿ The Animal's Surrounding Field Organized into Complex Qualities andThings, 242 ¿ Intelligence, 252 ¿ Memory, 257 ¿ Memory as the Unity ofResidue and Anticipation, 2627. The Sphere of the Human | 267The Positionality of the Excentric Form: "I" and Personhood, 267 ¿Outer World, Inner World, Shared World, 272 ¿ The Fundamental Lawsof Anthropology: The Law of Natural Artificiality, 287 ¿ The Law ofMediated Immediacy: Immanence and Expressivity, 298 ¿ The Law ofthe Utopian Standpoint: Nullity and Transcendence, 316Appendix | 323Glossary | 337Notes | 345Index | 359