Dr Neville Buch and references to William James, Max Scheler, and J. Edward Hackett [1]
[1] Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has been fairly used in the production of this work. The tool used is Google NotebookLM (recently rebranded as Gemini Notebook). It is an AI-powered virtual research assistant and thinking partner designed to help a person interact deeply with their own documents. Unlike general chatbots, it is source-grounded, meaning it only generates answers based on the specific PDFs, documents, or links uploaded. The A.I. process in the production of this work has been limited to the attached (prompts) on each of the questions in turn. This ensures an accurate reading of each source. The author then rearranged and re-edited the answers the A.I. provided. The human author publishes this work. A.I. is never an author when used properly. This assistance is not qualitatively different from a human research assistant when that assistance is deemed to have no authorial status but is acknowledged.
This study-review essay explores the intellectual synergy between J. Edward Hackett’s pragmatic reconstruction of Max Scheler’s phenomenology of feeling and Dr. Neville Buch’s socio-historical Dynamic of Cognition (DoC) model. Hackett’s seminal article, “The Jamesian Appeal of Scheler’s Felt Metaphysics” (2015), addresses a critical “crisis of concretion” in Scheler’s ethics—namely, the disembodied nature of spiritual and Holy feelings. By integrating William James’s enactive, embodied theory of emotions, Hackett demonstrates that all feelings, including the subtlest moral and spiritual experiences, possess a bodily sounding board, revealing that reality is primordially given as felt. Dr. Buch expands this Jamesian-Schelerian framework into the social sphere through his POLICE model and the theory of Contributory Economy. Buch operationalizes felt metaphysics by positing that personal lived experience (Erlebnis) and the “discomforting pain” of social wounds serve as the necessary empirical grounding for ethical critique and “thinking as caring” (panser). This comparative review demonstrates that both frameworks offer highly practical, non-dualistic tools to combat modern denoetization—the mechanical liquidation of judgment—and restore Human Authorship in an era dominated by technocratic reductionism.
The Embodied Heart of Reality: A Study-Review of Felt Metaphysics and the Dynamic of Cognition
Introduction: The Crisis of Depersonalization
A persistent challenge in modern Western philosophy and social theory is the systematic de-personalization of the human being (Hackett 2015: 40). Since the Cartesian turn, academic and administrative systems have increasingly favoured a “techné mindset”—a cognitive failure that privileges narrow vocational fitness, quantifiable data, and automated calculations over a multi-textured understanding of human existence (Buch 2026a: 1). This reductive paradigm separates objective, formal reasoning from subjective, lived experience, trapping individuals in a state of “denoetization” where the collective capacity for moral judgment is liquidated (Buch 2026b: 1).
To remediate this intellectual impasse, contemporary scholarship must return to the primordial root of experience. J. Edward Hackett (2015) and Dr. Neville Buch (2026a) provide two deeply compatible pathways for this return. By bridging the gap between American Pragmatism and European Phenomenology, both thinkers assert that reality is not an abstract machine but is fundamentally felt, and that any rigorous ethical or historical inquiry must remain tethered to the concrete, embodied person.
1. How J. Edward Hackett Developed the Jamesian-Schelerian Insights
In “The Jamesian Appeal of Scheler’s Felt Metaphysics”, J. Edward Hackett (2015: 29) diagnoses a structural flaw in Max Scheler’s phenomenological stratification of emotional life. In his foundational work Formalismus, Scheler outlines four distinct levels of feeling-consciousness: sensible feelings (localized physical sensations like pain), vital feelings (the holistic sense of health or dread in relation to the environment), psychic feelings (directed ego-emotions), and spiritual feelings (disembodied states like bliss, despair, peace, and serenity) (Hackett 2015: 30-32).
Scheler argues that as one ascends from lower to higher values, the relevance of the lived-body decreases (Hackett 2015: 31). Because Scheler’s ethical personalism is designed to protect the unique, non-objectifiable person from being treated as a mere physical thing, he asserts that spiritual and Holy feelings must be entirely independent of material sensible conditions (Hackett 2015: 32).
However, Hackett (2015: 32) points out that this move creates a severe “crisis of concretion”. By denying the relevance of the lived-body in psychic and spiritual feeling, Scheler’s phenomenology becomes detached from the actual, lived practices of human beings. Religious and moral acts—such as folding one’s hands in supplication, bowing one’s head, or gesturing in welcome—are deeply bodily movements that resonate with spiritual values (Hackett 2015: 36).
To resolve this defect, Hackett (2015: 33) introduces the James-Lange theory of emotions from William James’s Principles of Psychology. James famously stipulates that bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of those same changes as they occur is the emotion (James in Hackett 2015: 33). Hackett applies this phenomenological reading of James to show that even in “subtler” moral, intellectual, and aesthetic feelings, the “bodily sounding board is still hard at work” (James in Hackett 2015: 34). The deep sigh of relief upon finishing a monograph or the physical tension felt when philosophizing demonstrate that cognitive and spiritual undertakings occur within the lived-body (Hackett 2015: 34).
Furthermore, Hackett (2015: 35) links Scheler’s “functionalization of essence” with James’s pragmatic maxim. For Scheler, an insight into the essence of a thing is achieved in a single exemplary experience and functionalizes as a rule governing future interactions (Hackett 2015: 36). This is identical to James’s (1998: 27-28) view that the meaning of a concept consists entirely in its conceivable practical effects and the conduct it produces.
By reading Scheler through James, Hackett (2015: 35) shows that essences are not static, Platonic entities; rather, they are co-created through the dynamic, embodied participation of intentional feeling with the world. This bottom-up approach is mirrored in Scheler’s later metaphysics, where the tension between impulsion (Drang) and spirit (Geist) is reconciled by working through the drives of the lived-body to let spirit guide human self-activity (Hackett 2015: 41).
2. How Dr. Buch Developed the Jamesian-Schelerian Insights
While Hackett operationalizes the Jamesian-Schelerian insights at the level of philosophical anthropology and the philosophy of emotion, Dr. Neville Buch translates these concepts into a powerful method of social and historiographical critique within the Management Institute for Contributory Economy (MICE) framework (Buch 2026a: 1). Buch integrates the “felt metaphysics” of James and Scheler into his Dynamic of Cognition (DoC) and POLICE (Philosophically Ontology Logic Intersect Compatibility Education) models (Buch & Peach 2024; Buch 2026a: 1).
Dr. Buch’s development of these insights is centred on three core concepts:
A. Personal Unity-in-Diversity (Integrity)
Responding to critics who charge that combining a personal grievance with scholarly critique is a “category error,” Buch defends Personal Unity-in-Diversity (Integrity) (Buch 2025: 1). Drawing on Jan Olof Bengtsson’s (2006) history of personalism, Buch argues that a researcher’s embedded perspective—“getting into the shoes of the case”—reveals structural and systemic truths that distant, so-called “objective” observers are unable to see (Buch 2026b: 6, 9).
Just as Hackett rejects the separation of the spiritual person from the lived-body, Buch rejects the forced separation of objective, scholarly analysis from subjective, lived suffering (Buch 2026b: 77). True integrity lies in synthesizing these two domains to challenge oppressive power structures (Buch 2026b: 23).
B. The Sensory Gateway: Comfort vs. Pain
Buch (2026c: 1) identifies a core cognitive barrier in modern society: “pleasurable-comfortableness”. The “Conventional Person” or “Tourist in Reality” retreats into private ease and automated routines, which shields them from moral complexity and facilitates a state of “Historical Forgetfulness” (Buch 2026c: 1, 3).
Conversely, “discomforting pain” is not merely biological data; it is the “social wound” that forces a rupture in unthinking habits (Buch 2026c: 1-2). Drawing on J.P. McKinney’s philosophy, Buch asserts that encountering this pain acts as the tangible gateway to self-understanding and restorative truth-telling (Buch 2026c: 2).
C. Panser (Thinking as Caring)
To balance the coldness of pure, technocratic calculation (penser), Buch proposes panser (thinking as caring) as a procedural necessity and a “kindness shield” (Buch 2026c: 1, 3). Panser requires what Nel Noddings terms “motivational displacement”—responding to the particularity and concrete needs of the cared-for rather than retreating into abstract moral rules or institutional compliance (Buch 2026b: 59; Buch 2026c: 5). By utilizing Spiral Historiography, the scholar uses the community’s pain as a diagnostic signal to “uncoil” historical errors and restore human agency (Buch 2026a: 2; Buch 2026c: 3).
3. What are the Lessons for Today?
The synthesis of Hackett’s and Buch’s work yield urgent lessons for contemporary society, particularly in the face of rapid technological acceleration and the “crisis in the humanities”:
- The Threat of Denoetization: In the digital age, automated bureaucratic systems and algorithmic metrics reduce human life to “measurable utility” and “job-readiness” (Buch 2026a: 1). Humans are treated as “puny nodes” in interaction ritual chains rather than proactive agents (Buch 2026a: 1). The primary lesson is that we must resist this mechanical liquidation of judgment by reclaiming our ontological and bodily uniqueness.
- The Fallacy of the Archimedean Point: Modern theory often suffers from an “illusion of self-sufficiency” (Williams 2006 in Buch 2026a: 21). Both Hackett and Buch teach us that we cannot judge ethical or historical realities from a detached, abstract “Archimedean point” (Williams 2006 in Buch 2026a: 21). Our ideas must remain tethered to the “thick” ethical bearings of a locally familiar world-picture (Williams 2006 in Buch 2026a: 21).
- Dismantling Specialized Ignorance: Modern public policy frequently relies on “singular messaging” and standardized protocols that filter out humanistic critique, leading to a state of Specialized Ignorance (Buch 2026a: 21). To counter this, society requires an “intellectual immune system”—such as the POLICE model—to detect “institutional bullshit” and manufactured political myths (Buch & Peach 2024 in Buch 2026a: 21).
4. Why J. Edward Hackett’s and Dr. Buch’s Insights are Very Important and Practical
The work of J. Edward Hackett and Dr. Neville Buch is highly important and practical for several reasons:
- It Underies a Non-Dualistic Realism: By showing that reality is encountered primordially in feeling, Hackett (2015: 38) undercuts the traditional dualistic distinction that splits the world into the physical and the mental. This provides a robust, realistic foundation for experiencing the Holy and constructing moral values without requiring supernatural literalism (Buch 2026b: 110).
- It Transforms Philosophy into Practice: Dr. Buch’s professional motto—“understanding history is philosophy in practice”—means that historical data is not treated as a collection of neutral, static facts, but as the essential empirical grounding for ethical critique (Buch 2026a: 1). This is a highly practical methodology that can be applied to local community organizing, educational reform, and public policy (Buch 2026a: 5).
- It Facilitates Aristotelian Flourishing (Eudaimonia): Rather than measuring societal success by narrow transactional profit, gross domestic product, or credential inflation, both frameworks orient humanity toward Aristotelian Flourishing (eudaimonia) (Buch 2026a: 12; Buch 2026c: 3). This is an objective state of being anchored in wisdom, moral character, substantial fairness, and the active preservation of human dignity (Buch 2026a: 21; Buch 2026c: 3). It moves the individual from a “Junior” state of unreflective execution to a “Senior” state of social accountability (Buch 2026a: 21; Buch 2026c: 3).
Bibliography
Bengtsson, J. O. (2006). The worldview of personalism: Origins and early development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Buch, N. (2025). True unity: A response to Edward Merkus. Brisbane: Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
Buch, N. (2026a). Spiral historiography and the dynamic of cognition (Revised Final). Brisbane: Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
Buch, N. (2026b). Journey through intellectual, sociological, and philosophical thinking. Brisbane: Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
Buch, N. (2026c). The sensory gateway: From passive comfort to ethical caring. Brisbane: Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
Buch, N., & Peach, N. (2024). Philosophically Ontology Logic Intersect Compatibility Education (POLICE). Brisbane: Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
Hackett, J. E. (2015). The Jamesian appeal of Scheler’s felt metaphysics. Comparative & Continental Philosophy, 7(1), 29–43.
James, W. (1952). Principles of psychology. Chicago, IL: William Benton Publishers.
James, W. (1998). Pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
McKinney, J. P. (1971). The structure of modern thought. London: Chatto & Windus.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Scheler, M. (1973). Formalism in ethics and non-formal ethics of value: A new attempt toward the foundation of an ethical personalism (M. Frings & R. Funk, Trans.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Williams, B. (2006). Philosophy as a humanistic discipline (A. W. Moore, Ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Neville Buch
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