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Aurel Kolnai was born in Budapest, in 1900 and died in London, in 1973. He was, according to Karl Popper and the late Bernard Williams, one of the most original, provocative, and sensitive philosophers of the twentieth century. Kolnai's moral philosophy is best described in his own words as intrinsicalist, non-naturalist, non-reductionist", which took its original impetus from Scheler's value ethics, and was developed by using a natural phenomenologist method. The unique combination of linguistic analysis and phenomenology yields highly original ideas on classical fields of moral theory, such as responsibility and free will, the meaning of right and wrong, the universalisability of ethical norms, the role of moral emotions, internalism vs externalism, to mention a few. The volume presents a selection of essays by Kolnai, including his main political theoretical work, "What is Politics About", available in English here for the first time. The second half of the book Kolnai's work is analyzed in a series of essays by eminent scholars

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Introduction: The Complex and Contested History of Democracy -- Part I Pre-Classical Democracy -- Chapter 1 Prehistory -- Chapter 2 The Assyrians -- Chapter 3 Ancient India -- Chapter 4 Ancient China -- Chapter 5 Israel and Phoenicia -- Part II Classical Democracy -- Chapter 6 Early Greece -- Chapter 7 Athens -- Chapter 8 Rome -- Part III Medieval Democracy -- Chapter 9 Islam -- Chapter 10 Venice -- Chapter 11 The Nordic Countries -- Chapter 12 The Christian Church -- Part IV Early Modern Democracy -- Chapter 13 The English Parliament -- Chapter 14 The Levellers and Diggers -- Chapter 15 The Swiss Cantons -- Chapter 16 The American Revolution -- Chapter 17 The French Revolution -- Part V Colonialism and Democracy -- Chapter 18 Africa -- Chapter 19 Native Americans -- Chapter 20 Australasia -- Chapter 21 Singapore -- Part VI National Movements -- Chapter 22 1808: South American Liberation -- Chapter 23 1848: European Revolutions -- Chapter 24 1919: After Versailles -- Chapter 25 1945: Post-Second World War Japan -- Chapter 26 1989: Eastern Europe -- Part VII Peoples' Movements -- Chapter 27 Anti-Slavery -- Chapter 28 Women's Suffrage -- Chapter 29 Socialism, Communism, Anarchism -- Chapter 30 Civil Rights -- Part VIII Democracy Today -- Chapter 31 South Africa -- Chapter 32 Bolivia -- Chapter 33 Georgia -- Chapter 34 Iraq -- Chapter 35 Burma -- Chapter 36 China since Tiananmen Square -- Chapter 37 Islam since 9/11 -- Part IX Futures and Possibilities -- Chapter 38 Democracy Promotion -- Chapter 39 Transnational Democracy -- Chapter 40 Digital Democracy -- Chapter 41 Radical Democracy -- Chapter 42 Deliberative Democracy -- Chapter 43 New Thinking -- Conclusion: The Future History of Democracy -- Notes on the Contributors -- Index