Aurel Kolnai Books

Aurel Kolnai's Political Memoirs offer a profound insight into the life of a significant moral philosopher of the twentieth century. The memoirs detail his upbringing in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, education in Germany, and early career in Vienna, highlighting his conversion from Judaism to Roman Catholicism. The narrative follows his exile to the United States and Canada before settling in Great Britain, where he became a citizen in 1955. Edited and annotated by Francesca Murphy, this work presents a unique perspective on Kolnai's philosophical journey and historical context.

Despite being inclined to a puritan attitude, Aurel Kolnai possessed a voracious curiosity about sex, an objective approach to experience and a determination to lay bare the meaning and significance of sex in all its main forms, approved and disapproved. This is the first English translation of Sexualethik, an important part of Kolnai's work by leading Kolnai scholar Francis Dunlop. The book contains a preface by Roger Scruton and a detailed introduction by the translator.

The essays reflect the author's experiences and observations after moving to England in 1955, offering insights into cultural differences, personal reflections, and the challenges of adapting to a new environment. Through a blend of humor and poignancy, the collection captures the essence of life in England from the perspective of an outsider, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and the nuances of everyday life.

Focusing on the philosophical contributions of Aurel Kolnai, this collection highlights his critiques of progressive democracy and utopianism. Daniel J. Mahoney presents Kolnai's key writings, including his comprehensive analysis of liberty and the newly translated essay on conservative versus revolutionary ethos. The volume also features critical evaluations of other thinkers, such as Michael Oakeshott and Jacques Maritain. Together, these essays provide a profound critique of political utopianism and advocate for conservative constitutionalism as essential for understanding true human liberty.

Kolnai made a breakthrough in the phenomenology of aversion when he showed the "double intentionality" of emotions like fear, focusing on both the object of fear and the subjects' concern for his own well-being, this being one of the ways in which fear differs from disgust. In a surprising yet persuasive move, Kolnai argues that disgust is never related to inorganic or non-biological matter, and that its arousal by moral objects has an underlying similarity with its arousal by organic material: a particular combination of life and death. Kolnai gives an analytic list of various kinds of disgusting objects (which should not be read just before lunch) and shows how disgust relates to the five senses.