The preceding Preface, which Professor William Frankena had the great kindness to write as an introduction for the readers of the present English translation of my major work, still requires several supplementary com ments on my part. Professor Frankena rightly considered it to be an advan tage to introduce the English-speaking world to my moral philosophy through its presentation in this book. As an introduction to my moral philosophy, Professor Frankena provided a concise formulation of the fun damental ideas of my ethics by quoting from an article I had just recently published. Several points worth mentioning remain. Firstly, it is necessary to distinguish the two editions of the text here translated. The first edition was published in 1951 by Anton Hain in Meisenheim am Glan, under the title Pflicht und Neigung (Duty and In clination), with the subtitle Die Grundlagen der Sittlichkeit, erOrtert und neu bestimmt mit besonderem Bezug auf Kant und Schiller (The Fun damentals of Morality, Discussed and Redefined with Special Regard to Kant and Schiller). In 1974, a revised and enlarged second edition was published by the same publisher and was entitled Die Grundlagen der Sitt Iichkeit (The Fundamentals of Morality). Of this second edition, the first four chapters have been translated in the present volume, along with four more recent essays.

Klappentext

Originally entitled Osoba i Czyn and published in Poland in 1969, TheActing Person is the official English translation and has been thoroughly edited and revised with the collaboration of the author. The book stresses that Man must ceaselessly unravel his mysteries and strive for a new and more mature expression of his nature. The author sees this expression as an emphasis on the significance of the individual living in community and on the person in the process of performing an action. The author states in his preface that he has tried to face the major issues concerning life, nature, and the existence of Man directly as they present themselves to Man in his struggles to survive while maintaining the dignity of a human being, but who is torn apart between his all too limited condition and his highest aspirations to set himself free. The author hopes that his book 'contributes to this disentangling of the conflicting issues facing Man, which are crucial for Mans own clarification of his existence and direction of his conduct'. The authors analysis of the human being is a dynamic counter to the materialistic and positivistic tendencies in various schools of modern philosophy. Ever since Descartes, the knowledge of Man and his world has been identified through cognition. This book is a reversal of the post-Cartesian attitude toward Man in that it characterises him as the person in action. Audience: The Acting Person will be of great interest to philosophers, anthropologists, and scholars specializing in phenomenology. It will also be of deep concern to theologians, priests, seminarians, and members of religious orders who wish to gain an insight into Pope John Paul IIs philosophy of life.

Inhalt
I. Duty and Inclination.- A Ethico-Historical and Critical Part.- 1. Kants Systems of Ethics in Its Relation to Schiller's Ethical Views.- 2: A Critique of the Groundwork of Kant's Ethics.- B Systematic Part.- 3: The Method Required in Ethics.- 4: The Origins of the Moral Ought and Its Relations to Inclination and Willing.- II. On the Adaption of the Phenomenological Method to, and Its Refinement as a Method of, Ethics. (Zeitschrift fur Philo- sophische Forschung 29 (1975), pp. 108117.).- III. Is Value Ethics Out of Date? (Zeitschrift fur Philosophische Forschung 30 (1976), pp. 9398.).- IV. The Golden Rule and Natural Law. (Studia Leibnitiana 8 (1977), pp. 231254.).- V. Good and Value, The Philosophical Relevance of the Concept of Value.- Name index.