Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/538

VI. CRITICAL NOTICES. System der Werttheorie. Von DK. CHBISTIAN v. EHBENFELS, Pro- fessor der Philosophie an der deutschen Universitat in Prag. Band. i. Allgemeine Werttheorie, Psychologie des Begehrens. Band. ii. Grundzilge einer Ethik. London : Williams & Norgate, 1897-8. Pp. xxiii., 277; viii., 270. SOME account has already been given in MIND 1 of the attempts recently made in Austria to work out a theory of value in relation to the problems of Ethics ; and in particular the systematic treatise of Meinong has been discussed in connexion with the earlier papers of Ehrenfels. The present treatise by Ehrenfels is on a more ambitious scale than Meinong's work, and must no doubt be regarded as the most comprehensive treatment of the subject that has yet appeared. The first volume contains a complete discussion of the general theory of value ; the second is an attempt to con- struct a theory of Ethics from the point of view of the theory of value set forth in the first volume ; and it appears to be the author's intention to add a third volume, in which some of the more practical problems of Ethics are to be dealt with from the same point of view, and in which, more particularly, the bearings of Ethics on Economics are to be brought out. The general theory of value, with which the first volume is occupied, falls into three parts : 1. The general conception of value and its derivative conceptions ; 2. Laws of the transforma- tions of value ; 3- Analysis of desire. The second volume consists of seven chapters : 1. Ethics as the psychology of actually existent moral valuations (Psychologie der sittlichen Wertthatsacheri) ; 2. Analysis of ethical facts (Ethische Realanalyse) ; 3. Ethical de- velopment ; 4. Moral maxims, positive morality (Sitte) and law ; 5. Individual Ethics and conscience : the ethico-metaphysical problem ; 6. Popular ethical conceptions : the problems of absolute value and of indeterminism ; 7. Summary and sketch of further problems. In the discussion of the general conception of value, the most fundamental point in the doctrine of Ehrenfels seems to lie in the fact that he connects value rather with desire than with feeling. 2 In this way he escapes to a large extent from the common hedon- istic interpretation of value. He rejects the view that desire is directed towards pleasure as an end (9), and also the view that it 1 New Series, vol. iv., No. 16. 2 Cf. MIND, I.e., p. 427 sqq.