Aurel Kolnai; XI—Deliberation is of Ends, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 62, Issue 1, 1 June 1962, Pages 195–218, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.
The problem of disgust has until recently been neglected in the scientific literature. In comparison to the scientific (psychological and metaphysical) interest that has been applied to hatred, anxiety, and similar phenomena, disgust — although a common and important factor in our emotional life — has been unexplored, or it has been viewed as a “higher degree of dislike,” as “nausea,” or as a phenomenon of the “repression of urges.” We here show how the feeling of disgust possesses a unique (...) and characteristic quality on the basis of a phenomenological investigation. (shrink)
Aurel Kolnai; XI—Deliberation is of Ends, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 62, Issue 1, 1 June 1962, Pages 195–218, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.
Aurel Kolnai; X—Games and Aims, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 1966, Pages 103–128, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/66.
Aurel Kolnai; X—Games and Aims, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 1966, Pages 103–128, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/66.
In 1952, having for the first time to give a lecture in Madrid, I said somewhat dejectedly to the able and witty young man entrusted with the tedious task of revising the Spanish of my text that I found my lecture didn't amount to much: it was but a long paraphrase of one single idea. Perhaps I hoped for an enthusiastic protest on his part. But he only offered as solace the terse remark: ‘Well, I have heard many a lecture (...) that didn't contain even one single idea’. (shrink)
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. (shrink)
Ethics, Value, and Reality is a collection of essays written after Kolnai settled in England in 1955. These essays from Kolnai's mature years sit atop a remarkable gestation of moral and political thinking. At the heart of his thought is the special role of privilege in a good social order. Kolnai relies heavily on the work of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century value theorists such as Alexius Meinong, Nicolai Hartmann, and Max Scheler. He blends this continental tradition of ethics with (...) British intuitionism and Scottish Enlightenment articulations. For Kolnai, ethical life cannot be adequately understood except by reference to moral emphasis, and thus, Kolnai can be thought of as a liberal conservative. He acknowledges myriad values, moral and non-moral, and accepts that all can have some claim upon us. Low values as much as high values have a legitimate claim. His is a tolerant conservatism though not for a moment does he forgo the necessity of judgment: a readily graspable hierarchy keeps the respective demands of values in proportion. Kolnai welcomes the call to seriousness, which is the hallmark of existentialism. The ground of Kolnai's thought is the idea of emotion as cognitive. He saw the typical analytical philosopher's fascination with simplicity of explanation not only thoroughly refuted by the gains in understanding wrought by phenomenological method, with its deference to the richness of phenomena, but sensed in the monistic inclination he dreaded a harbinger of totalitarianism. Never denying his emotionalism, he nonetheless made his points well enough by adopting an analytical approach to philosophy and ethics. This is a major work crossing moral and political philosophy. (shrink)
We are currently witnessing an increasingly influential counterrevolution in political theory, evident in the dialectical return to classical political science pioneered most prominently by Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin. In this context, the work of the relatively unknown Aurel Kolnai is of great importance. Kolnai was one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century to place the restoration of common-sense evaluation and philosophical realism at the center of his philosophical and political itinerary. In this volume, Daniel J. Mahoney presents (...) Kolnai's major writings in political philosophy, writings that explore - in ways that are diverse but complementary - Kolnai's critique of progressive or egalitarian democracy. The title essay contains Kolnai's fullest account of the limits of liberty understood as emancipation from traditional, natural, or divine restraints. 'The Utopian Mind, ' a pr, cis of Kolnai's critique of utopianism in a posthumous book of the same title, appears here for the first time. 'Conservative and Revolutionary Ethos, ' Kolnai's remarkable 1972 essay comparing conservative and revolutionary approaches to political life, appears for the first time in English translation. The volume also includes a critically sympathetic evaluation of Michael Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics and an incisive criticism of Jacques Maritain's efforts to synthesize Christian orthodoxy and progressive politics. Privilege and Liberty and Other Essays in Political Philosophy is a searching critique of political utopianism, as well as a pathbreaking articulation of conservative constitutionalism as the true support for human liberty properly understood. It is a major contribution to Christian and conservative political reflection in our ti. (shrink)
