EXPLORING THE WORLD OF HUMAN PRACTICE
Readings in and about the Philosophy of Aurel Kolnai
Zoltán Balázs is Associate Professor
at the P. Pázmány Catholic University,
Budapest-Piliscsaba,
Francis Dunlop is Honorary Lecturer at the University
of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
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.
"The editors of the book, who rank Kolnai among
the outstanding moral-political philosophers of the
twentieth century, are to be congratulated on this and
their other efforts at bringing Kolnai's work to the
attenction of more readers, after decades of undeserved
neglect." - Appraisal
Contents
Preface; About the Contents of This Volume;
Introduction, Francis Dunlop; I. PAPERS
BY KOLNAI What Is Politics About?; A Note on
the Meaning of Right and Wrong; Erroneous Conscience;
Are There Degrees of Ethical Universality?; The Concept
of Practical Error; Actions and Inactions; Agency and
Freedom; The Indispensability of Philosophy; II.
PAPERS ABOUT KOLNAI’S WORK 1. Introductory
Kolnai’s Mature Political Philosophy, Lee Congdon;
The Ethical Theories of Aurel Kolnai, John D. Beach;
2. Politics and Utopia The Democratic Subversion
of Political Liberty and Participation, John P. Hittinger;
Liberty, Equality, Nobility: Aurel Kolnai and the Moral
Foundations of Democracy, Daniel J.Mahoney; Aurel Kolnai:
A Political Philosopher Confronts the Scourge of Our
Epoch, Pierre Manent; Aurel Kolnai and Utopia, David
Wiggins; 3. Ethics Aims in Games and Moral Purposes,
Loránd Ambrus-Lakatos; Kolnai and Kant on (Human)
Dignity, Zoltán Balázs; Kolnai’s
Dissertation Der ethische Wert und die Wirklichkeit:
A “Completion” of Scheler’s Value-Ethics,
Francis Dunlop; The Nature and Scope of Ordinary Morality:
Some Reflections in the Spirit of Aurel Kolnai, M.W.
F. Stone; 4. Feeling and Emotion Is Love Intertwined
with Hatred? Andreas Dorschel; Kolnai’s Idea of
Emotional Presentation, Thomas Norgaard; Aurel Kolnai’s
“Disgust”: A Source in the Art and Writing
of Salvador Dalí, Robert Radford; About the
Contributors to This Volume; Indexes
2005
354 pages
ISBN 978-963-9241-97-8 cloth $47.95 / €39.95 /
£28.95
ISBN 978-963-7326-01-1 paperback $24.95 / €18.95
/ £12.95
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