Francis Dunlop – författare

Aurel Kolnai wrote his Sexualethik in the Vienna of the 'twenties, not long after the end of the first world war and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire. Although not one to try and tell people what they should do or think, he was nevertheless a passionate believer in reason and rigorous thought about the data of experience and he strongly believed that he had something important to say on virtually every aspect of sexual morality. Despite being personally inclined to a puritan attitude, he possessed a voracious curiosity about sex, an astonishingly objective approach to experience and a determination minutely to question people of all different sexual persuasions, with the broad aim of trying to lay bare the meaning and significance of sex in all its main forms, approved and disapproved. This first English translation of an important part of Kolnai's work by leading Kolnai scholar Francis Dunlop will be an invaluable addition to the literature on sexual ethics and of great interest to moral philosophers, moral theologians and students of counselling, sex therapy and sexology. The book contains a preface by Roger Scruton and a detailed introduction by the translator.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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