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Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Translator's Introduction -- Translator's Preface -- ETHICAL VALUE AND REALITY -- Preface -- List of Works Consulted -- Introduction: The Problem of a Completely Valid Ethics and the Limits of Morality -- Chapter One: Ethical Value -- 1 Primary data of ethics -- 2 The phenomenological ethic of values -- 3 The bearer of value and the ethical end -- 4 The special place of ethical value -- 5 Conflict between ethical values -- Chapter Two: The Limits of the Ethical End -- 1 The presuppositions of adopting an end -- 2 Ideal and Reality -- 3 The moral suppression of need -- 4 Ethical Reform -- 5 Résumé on limitation -- Chapter Three: The Gradation of Ethical Value-Emphases -- 1 The order of values -- 2 The nature of emphasis and gradation -- 3 Gradations of emphasis and ethical freedom -- 4 Gradation in the individual moral act and the stratification of intention -- 5 The coming together of value-emphases -- 6 Gradation of emphasis and the finitude of the moral world -- Chapter Four: Some Criticisms of One-Sided Ethical Approaches -- Introduction -- 1 The Ethic of Stoicism -- 2 Practical value-monism from Kant to Marx -- 3 The ethic of the order of justice and the ethic of regulation -- 4 The ethical outlook of psychoanalysis -- Chapter Five: Gradation in the Types of Value-Experience -- Introduction: the opposition of value and reality -- 1 The experience of exclusion -- 2 The experience of coordination -- 3 The experience of incorporation -- 4 The experience of directness -- Chapter Six: Persons and Responsibility -- 1 Gradation in conduct -- 2 The meaning of responsibility -- 3 Personalistic ethics -- Concluding Remarks: The Possibility of an Ethics Close to Reality -- THE STRUCTURE OF MORAL INTENTION -- DUTY, INCLINATION AND "MORAL-MINDEDNESS -- Index

chapter 1 Family and School (1900–1918) -- chapter 2 Political Development (1916–1919) -- chapter 3 War, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1918–1920) -- chapter 4 Kolnai's Psychoanalytic Episode (1920–1926) -- chapter 5 Early Days in Vienna (1920–1924) -- chapter 6 University Studies and Related Publications (1922–1930) -- chapter 7 Political Journalism or Philosophy? (1920–1930) -- chapter 8 Fighting for the West in Vienna (1930–1937) -- chapter 9 Peripatetic (1937–1940) -- chapter 10 New York and Boston (1940–1945) -- chapter 11 Quebec(1945–1955) -- chapter 12 England or Spain? (1952–1961) -- chapter 13 England - Early Difficulties (1958–964) -- chapter 14 The Last Fifteen Years (1958–1973).

"This title was first published in 2002: 'I sincerely believe that Dr Kolnai is one of the most original and stimulating thinkers in the field of political philosophy alive today.' Karl Popper Kolnai's moral and political thought was developed against the background of Liberal and then Bolshevist revolutions in Hungary, the gradual move towards fascism in twenties and thirties Vienna, and the progress of the Second World War as seen from the USA. Born a Jew, he became a Roman Catholic, and lived successively in Hungary, Austria, France, the USA, Canada and England. He remained, throughout his extraordinary life, a passionate believer in reason and common sense, and the sworn enemy of all philosophical and political systems. Study of Kolnai has been hampered by political developments, his own peripatetic life, and the fact that his writings appeared in five different languages, yet interest in Kolnai is now growing. This book offers the first comprehensive picture of Kolnai's complete works and life. Dunlop presents Kolnai the man in his social and political setting, and offers an accessible exploration of all his writings, whether published or not, including translated passages from papers and letters in Kolnai's various languages. Including a selective bibliography of Kolnai's works, this book presents an important study of this unique political and moral philosopher, showing his relevance in contemporary philosophical thought."--Provided by publisher.

This title was first published in 2002: Kolnai's later work in moral philosophy is well-known, and interest in it continues to grow, but his dissertation, Ethical Value and Reality, has received little attention - although Kolnai himself said that it contains the germs of nearly all his subsequent thought. This first English translation of the dissertation and of two related papers from the same period will enable the English-speaking reader to explore Kolnai's ethical work as a whole. In Ethical Value and Reality Kolnai proposes a 'completion' of phenomenological value-ethics which takes account of 'the embeddedness of ethical values in reality'. Kolnai explores moral psychology and offers important perspectives on political activity in its moral dimensions, on the relation between morality and religion, and on the relation between the moral point of view and the psycho-therapeutic. Dunlop's comprehensive introduction to the translation provides the reader with assistance in understanding the text, setting it in its contemporary context, and relating it to Kolnai's subsequent writings.

chapter 1 Max Scheler's Critique and Assessment of Freud's Theory of Libido (1925) -- chapter 2 High-Mindedness (1931) -- chapter 3 The Total State and Civilisation (1933) -- chapter 4 What Is Politics About? (1933) -- chapter 5 Heidegger and National Socialism (1934) -- chapter 6 On Human Equality (1934) -- chapter 7 Othmar Spann's Theory of Totality (1934) -- chapter 8 The Abuse of the Vital (1934) -- chapter 9 Democracy and Reality (1935) -- chapter 10 An Essay on Hatred (1935) -- chapter 11 The Humanitarian versus the Religious Attitude (1944) -- chapter 12 Contemporary British Philosophy and Its Political Aspects (1959) -- chapter 13 Human Dignity Today (1960) -- chapter 14 Dignity (1969) -- chapter 15 The Ghost of the Naturalistic Fallacy (1962) -- chapter 16 ? Defence of Intrinsicalism against 'Situation Ethics' (1970) -- chapter 17 The Moral Emphasis: Obligation, Practice, and Virtue.

"The essays in this collection, spanning 1925 to 1970, confirm Aurel Kolnai's place as one of the great conservative theorists of the twentieth century. Kolnai carefully analyzes the leading intellectual positions and thinkers of his day, the dominant social movements, and the prevailing moral influences--psychoanalysis, fascism, and National Socialism. He documents how they run counter to the architecture of civilization.Kolnai is relatively unknown outside philosophical circles, but Politics, Values, and National Socialism provides an overview of his moral philosophy. In most moral philosophy books one finds p. devoted to the major theories of ethics. This volume is different. It seeks to address the larger moral question of what kind of thought works against morality, and by implication, how one can defend morality.Eager to protect the surviving islands of Liberal Civilization, Kolnai's concern is really one of theory. He shows that much of what passes for moral theory is subversive of moral order. All who think that totalitarianism is a permanent threat, and who suspect that ideas can quickly be dangerously distorted in times of social unrest, will find plenty of clarifying ideas in this volume."--Provided by publisher.

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