The notion of value in Christian von Ehrenfels

Karl Schuhmann

pp. 95-115

in: Lester Embree (ed), Phenomenology of values and valuing, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

There can be little doubt that Husserl's doctrine of value is less innovative than most other parts of his philosophy. Though less extreme in its objectivism than, e.g. that of his Munich and Göttingen followers Moritz Geiger or Adolf Reinach (let alone Dietrich von Hildebrand), it still shares with them the conviction that values are somehow features pertaining to objects. Not only do we in non-reflective life experience "a world that is not a world of mere things, but in the same immediacy a world of values",¹ but also in phenomenological reflection "there appear to valuing acts objects of value, i.e. not only the objects that have value, but the values as such".² This position Husserl had inherited from his teacher Franz Brentano, according to whom only what is good in itself may in the strict sense of the term be called good.³

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Geiger Moritz

Reinach Adolf

Brentano Franz

Ehrenfels Christian Von