Analysis of Wonder

Predrag Cicovacki is Professor of Philosophy and the O’Leary Research Fellow at the College of the Holy Cross, MA, USA. He has published over seventy-five philosophy papers published in English, Serbian, German, Russian, Chinese, and Slovenian and is the author or editor of twelve books, including The Ethics of Nonviolence (2013) and The Restoration of Albert Schweitzer’s Ethical Vision (2012).

• Chronological TableIntroduction: Does Hartmann Matter?Part I: BeingI.1 Philosophical MethodI.2 Being as BeingI.3 Modifications of BeingI.4 Strata of Real BeingI.5 Categories of Real BeingI.6 Categories of Being and Categories of Cognition I.7. Ontology of CognitionI.8 Critique of Intellectualism Part II: ValuesII.1 Nature of ValuesII.2 Moral Values in GeneralII.3 Four Fundamental Moral ValuesII.4 Four Forms of LoveII.5 Aesthetic Object and Aesthetic ActII.6 Aesthetic ValuesII.7 Truth in ArtII.8 Sublime II.9 Critique of MoralismPart III: PersonalityIII.1 The Realm of Real Being and the Realm of ValuesIII.2 Personality as a ValueIII.3 Pseudo, Spurious and Genuine PersonalityIII.4 Fulfillment of PersonalityConclusion: Hartmann’s New Ways of PhilosophyBibliography of Hartmann’s WorksIndex

The Analysis of Wonder is both an engaging and enlightening presentation of the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann, one of the major German philosophers of the first part of the 20th Century undeservedly little known in the English-speaking world. The book’s three parts clearly present Hartmann’s ontology, theory of values (both ethical and aesthetic ones) and personality, carefully drawing the major connections among them. After a long period of disarray, Hartmann rehabilitated both ontology –his ontology comprises one of the most composite and rich theories of categories ever developed – and developed one of the first systematic theories of values – both ethical and aesthetic – showing how the latter may include and are higher than the former. Cicovacki’s book offers a well-balanced, clear introduction to these and other issues and promises to become the reference book for anyone wishing to know Hartmann’s philosophy.