Preface.

relation to the assumptions, but will also assert its value in its own results. This is true in particular of the seventh chapter, whose subject, if I see it correctly, has fundamental significance for cognition and, through it, for the entire psychic life. This became especially clear to me precisely from the starting point of the assumptions, though it is by no means more dependent on the assumptions than it is on, for instance, judgment. Insofar as what I have subjected to a preliminary examination in this chapter under the name of the "objective" original: "Objectiv" would, in essence, have deserved a separate treatment entirely independent of the matter of assumptions; and under such circumstances, it will hardly appear unjustified if this first attempt to lay the foundation for the theory of the objective, while never going beyond mere grounding, has nevertheless repeatedly gone beyond what would have been absolutely indispensable solely with regard to the assumptions.

The eighth chapter, which deals with the significance of the assumptions for the theory of value and the theory of desire, has also turned out to be more comprehensive than a mere consideration of the assumptions would have necessitated. This is for a reason that requires a brief explanation here. The requirement that I set forth in my "Psychological-Ethical Investigations into the Theory of Value" original: "Psychologisch-ethischen Untersuchungen zur Werththeorie"—and have already acted upon within reasonable limits—to base ethics on the theory of value, and the theory of value on the psychological investigation of value facts, has given the impetus to a series of publications in which I may well welcome the hopeful beginnings of a psychological theory of value and a value-theoretical ethics, firmly convinced that this ethics, and no other, is the scientific ethics of the future. Among these publications, the two volumes of the "System of the Theory of Value" original: "System der Werththeorie" by Chr. von Ehrenfels undoubtedly occupy the first place, not only in terms of scope; rather, I must also see in them, in terms of content—without disparaging the value of the remaining works—the by far most successful continuation of the value-theoretical investigations I initiated.