 In the Preface to the volume, The Forms of Knowledge and Society, Scheler remarks that the works contained in the volume, The Sociology of Knowledge and Cognition and Work, are a means to understand both his philosophical anthropology and metaphysics (GW VIII, 11). Many of the themes present in this volume are developed in a more speculative manner. Scheler has been often criticized for taking this metaphysical turn, a turn apparently defying his earlier phenomenological investigations and a turn taken at a time that many were declaring to be the end of the metaphysics and metaphysical systems. For Scheler, the move was necessary to counteract the forces found in the mindsets that underpin those positive sciences that render metaphysical and philosophical investigations meaningless. More importantly, this metaphysical turn was also necessary to grasp more profoundly the crisis haunting modernity.