Work · Phenomenology & Hermeneutics
System of Value Theory
Two volumes (1897–98) on the psychology of desire and on ethics: things have value because they are desired or would be desired; Ehrenfels disputed with Meinong whether value rests on desire or on feeling.
Introduction
Ehrenfels published the “System der Werttheorie” in two volumes in Leipzig in 1897–98. The first volume develops a general theory of value on the basis of the psychology of desire: things have value because they are desired, or would be desired if we were convinced of their existence or non-existence; the second applies this to ethics. The book continued Ehrenfels’s debate with Meinong, who grounded value in feeling, and belongs to the Austrian school of value theory that developed alongside the Austrian school of economics. It influenced later work in axiology and in the psychology of motivation.
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