The strong focus seen on »culture«, as it describes itself or is described, has lead to critical reflection on the term's ubiquitous use. In the current article various forms of »culturalisation« are traced and put in the context of a wider diagnosis of time, based on the example of the treatment of Muslim immigrants. Thereby, both the attribution of a collective identity and governmental strategies for the construction of an accountable Muslim community are examined. On the other hand, the attribution (...) of a collective identity can be included in a modern theoretical programme that perceives the integration of a minority to be a cultural task. Finally, culturalisation arises, being explicitly used as a strategic argument in the interpretation of conflict insofar as it points out the »societal« causes of problem as an alternative to putting the emphasis on cultural origin. (shrink)

Altered states of consciousness (ASC), especially hallucinatory ones, are philosophically and scientifically interesting modes of operation of the mind–brain complex. However, classical definitions of ASC seem to capture only a few common characteristics of traditionally regarded phenomena, thus lacking exact classification criteria for assessing altered and baseline states. The current situation leads to a priority problem between phenomena-based definitions and definition-based phenomena selection. In order to solve the problem, this paper introduces a self-mapping procedure that is based on a three-part (...) analysis on certain aspects of hallucinatory altered consciousness. Starting with commonalities found in current definitions of ASC, issues with self-evaluation, sources of data, and baseline comparison are analyzed first. Next, the concept of alterations is examined with respect to temporal dynamics, change mechanisms, and mental subsystems. Finally, hallucinatory phenomena are discussed regarding various definitions, the relationship between “external” and “internal,” and the “trueness” issue of hallucinations. Conclusive to the analysis above, a technically based working definition of ASC and a stepwise operationalization procedure are also proposed. (shrink)

1980 sonrası dönemde evrimci iktisat yükselişe geçmiş ve ana akım iktisadı tek başına değiştirme gücü vurgulanmıştır. Fakat evrimci iktisadın ne olduğuna yönelik disiplin içinde bir anlaşmazlık ve karışıklık mevcuttur. Bu karışıklığa bağlı olarak evrimci iktisat disiplinde altı farklı yaklaşımla ifade edilmektedir. Bu çalışma ise Veblen’e atıfla gelişen ve 1980’lerden günümüze Hodgson tarafından güçlü bir şekilde sürdürülen evrimci-kurumsal iktisatla ilgilidir. Hodgson, iktisadın etkin bir sosyal bilim olabilmesi için Veblen’in düşüncelerini ve Veblen’le bağlantılı Darwinizmi benimsemesi gerektiğini vurgulamaktadır. Bu öneri Veblen’in post-Darwinist iktisat (...) önerisini genelleştirilmiş Darwinizm olarak sunmaktadır. Hodgson’ın Veblen’e yaslanarak geliştirdiği genelleştirişmiş Darwinizm önerisi, fizik özelinde başlayan iktisattaki bitmeyen doğa bilimi arayışının heterodoks iktisatta da güçlü bir şekilde karşılık bulduğunu göstermektedir. Burada yapılan veya yapılmak istenen doğacılık temelinde bir sosyal teori inşasıdır. 19. yüzyıl düşünsel kodlarına bir dönüş çağrısıdır. Özelde evrimci düşünce ve genelde de doğacılık düşüncesi 19. yüzyıl düşünsel koşullarına gömülüdür. Dolayısıyla günümüzde evrimci iktisadın yükselişi, bir taraftan 19. yüzyıldakine benzer şekilde hem doğa biliminde hem de sosyal bilim de tek geçerli bilim metodolojisi ve hatta metodoloji olmanın ötesinde ontoloji teklifini içerirken diğer taraftan Batı düşüncesinin doğalcılık ve bilimcilik şeklinde tekrar örgütlendiğini göstermektedir. (shrink)

In political economy, the seminal contribution of the Baron–Ferejohn bargaining model constitutes an important milestone for the study of legislative policy making. In this paper, we analyze a particular equilibrium characteristic of this model, equilibrium uniqueness. The Baron–Ferejohn model yields a class of payoff-unique stationary subgame perfect equilibria in which players’ equilibrium strategies are not uniquely determined. We first provide a formal proof of the multiplicity of equilibrium strategies. This also enables us to establish some important properties of SSPE. We (...) then introduce veto players into the original Baron–Ferejohn model. We state the conditions under which the new model has a unique SSPE not only in terms of payoffs but also in terms of players’ equilibrium strategies. (shrink)

This study looks at the ways how the Reformed Church encountered the new modern mission movement in Transylvania with the arrival of Dr. Béla Kenessey and Dr. István Kecskeméthy to the newly established Reformed Theological Seminary at Cluj in 1895. By the time being, some theologians expressed grave concerns about the dangers of theological liberalism to the Confessions. The paper argues that these young professors, touched by the mission movement and revival also sought to encompass those who had an evangelistic (...) fervor to reach unbelievers and to serve those people in their personal and social needs. As a result, Christian Covenant was established in 1896, with official recognition in 1903 as the Christian Endeavor. It is hoped to unfold the major shifts regarding the attitudes to mission in the Reformed Church of Hungary and throw lights on ambiguous beginnings of mission movements. (shrink)

Arguably, the religious use of hallucinogenic drugs stems from a human search of metaphysical insight rather than from a direct need for cognitive, emotional, social, physical, or sexual improvement. Therefore, the sacramental and spiritual intake of hallucinogenic drugs goes so far beyond other biopsychosocial functions that it deserves its own category in the drug instrumentalization list.

We are surrounded by threats of environmental harm whose actual dangers to public health are scientifically unverified. It is widely presumed that under conditions of uncertainty, when it is not possible to foresee the outcomes of our actions, or to calculate the probability they will actually cause harm, we cannot be held culpable for the risks and harms our actions impose on others. It is commonly presumed, that is, that exposing others to what this paper terms ‘uncertain threats’ is permissible, (...) because conventional theories of moral responsibility understand uncertainty as implying that the effects of our actions are out of our control and, therefore, beyond our fault. In contrast, in rejecting arguments from moral luck, this paper denies that authors of uncertain threats of environmental harm are excusably ignorant, and denies that prevailing uncertainty diminishes their moral obligations or attenuates their culpability. For under conditions of uncertainty, culpability turns on the lack of due regard for others as moral equals – a consideration that neither luck nor ignorance excuses. To expose others to unconsented-to uncertain threats of harm without exercising due care to prevent possible injury is to wrongfully gamble with their welfare and their capacity for self-authorship. (shrink)

Each work of Kafka's is so rich in "interrelationships" that it is virtually impossible to engage in reasoning about them without analysis of notions "pertaining to content." Here an estheticist, even one who regards the immanent approach as obligatory, faces a dilemma that, as a general rule, confronts only someone just starting a career as critic: whether, upon having analyzed a work, to leave it to the reader himself to draw the conclusions in social philosophy, or whether to construct his (...) analysis directly on the basis of historical, sociological, philosophical, esthetic, and psychological reasoning. (shrink)

Works concerning the history of the Hungarian Reform had been almost absent until the second half of the seventeenth century. The relatively peaceful process of the Hungarian Reform, the lack of armed conflicts, and the tragic memory of the battle of Mohács made the appearance of self-justifying religious narratives in Hungarian historiography seem unnecessary. On the other hand, the changes caused by the Tridentine Catholic renewal movement and the deterioration of the religious and political condition of the Protestant confession culminated (...) in punishing actions. This brought the polemical and self-justifying narratives to the forefront in both literature and historiography. First signs of interest regarding the history of Protestantism appeared on the Catholic side, but they emerged under the pressure of the circumstances. On the other hand, a growing foreign interest gradually appeared on the Protestant side, making way to historiographical works. An example of such an opus is the Historia Ecclesiae Reformatae in Hungaria et Transilvania (1706) by Pál Debreceni Ember. The author presents the history of the Reformed Church in Hungary. He also tries to present the origins of Hungarian Christianity, projecting it onto the Apostolic Period. Finally, he turns to the early Christian writers such as Jerome to prove his theory. The paper aims to present this chapter in Jerome’s reception and its religious background. (shrink)

The relationship between humans and non-human animals has received considerable attention recently. Animal advocates insist that non-human animals must be included in the moral community. Consequently, eating meat is, at least in most cases, morally bad. In an article entitled “In Defense of Eating Meat”, Hsiao argued that for the membership in the moral community, the “root capacity for rational agency” is necessary. As non-human animals lack this capacity, so the argument runs, they do not belong to the moral community. (...) Consequently, harming non-human animals for human nutrition can be justified. In this short comment I would like to highlight some of the most important errors of the above argument, primarily from the perspective of a biologist. I conclude that assuming the existence of a mysterious “root capacity for rational agency” is a biological nonsense. It cannot be verified, and it only obscures reality. In my opinion, the greatest problem with Hsiao’s argument is that it tries to defend anthropocentrism, a view that has presumably been the very cause of the spoiled non-human–human relationships. Perhaps adopting a vegan lifestyle is a better solution than quieting one’s conscience. (shrink)

The book aims to provide a comprehensive, new look at business ethics topics and models from a European perspective. Apart from theoretical arguments and empirical data, case studies and games are used to get closer to real life problematics of business. The book is written by leading business ethics professors of the Community of European Management Schools (CEMS). Chapters of the handbook first describe the central issue and the latest theories and practices. They then introduce new approaches and analyze real (...) world examples. Finally conclusions are provided, which include ethical warning signals, proposals for future research and suggested policy recommendations. (shrink)

The conference of Salat Levente, "The Challenge of Diversity Answers and Dilemmas".

The author discusses and critically questions the historical development of the nation-state – the „success story” of the last three hundred years. Its fundamental ideas are embraced both by the common mentality regarding the role of the state and the theory of international relations, which recognizes the nation-states as legitimate actors on the stage of international politics. The main challenges toward this model are, in the author’s view, the process of globalization and the reality of diversity (ethnic and linguistic). Even (...) if the nation-state successfully manages to adapt to globalization, in many cases it will still sacrifice the idea of diversity, through its various processes of homogenization. In the end, the author discusses the relation between democracy and the nation-state, and its influences in managing inner diversity. (shrink)

In contrast to the assumptions of standard economic theory, recent experimental evidence shows that the income of peers has a systematic impact on observed degrees of risk aversion. This paper reports the findings of two experiments examining the impact of income inequality on risk preferences and whether the knowledge of inequality mediates the decisions. In Experiment 1, participants who were recruited for a real-effort task were paid either a low wage or a high wage. Half of the participants were aware (...) of the income inequality, while the other half were not. After completing their task, they were invited to invest a part of their salary in a risky asset. In Experiment 2, we replicated the same experiment in the laboratory with windfall endowments to test the consistency of results in the laboratory settings. The results of the first experiment show that high-wage subjects take higher risks than low-wage participants do if they are aware of the inequality in wages. This finding supports the idea that income comparisons shape risky decisions. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, we did not observe any significant differences in decisions. This may suggest that the income comparison is sensitive to house-money effect. (shrink)

How are ownership relationships distributed in the geographical space? Is physical proximity a significant factor in investment decisions? What is the impact of the capital city? How can the structure of investment patterns characterize the attractiveness and development of economic regions? To explore these issues, we analyze the network of company ownership in Hungary and determine how are connections are distributed in geographical space. Based on the calculation of the internal and external linking probabilities, we propose several measures to evaluate (...) the attractiveness of towns and geographic regions. Community detection based on several null models indicates that modules of the network coincide with administrative regions, in which Budapest is the absolute centre, and where county centres function as hubs. Gravity model-based modularity analysis highlights that, besides the strong attraction of Budapest, geographical distance has a significant influence over the frequency of connections and the target nodes play the most significant role in link formation, which confirms that the analysis of the directed company-ownership network gives a good indication of regional attractiveness. (shrink)

Ibn Djuljul from Andalusia who wrote in the Western Islamic World and Nadīm from Baghdād who wrote in the Eastern Islamic World, give information about lots of physicians and translators in their books that contributed significantly to history of science. Both authors write their books at same time or very close time. Sometimes they offer similar information, but sometimes they provide different information. -/- One of the physicians whom Ibn Djuljul mentioned in his book, Māsarjawayh lived at the times of (...) Umayyads. Nadīm gives information about Māsarjīs who lived at the times of Abbāsids. However, in the course of centuries, some authors combined the knowledge about these two people by giving reference to Ibn Djuljul’s and Nadīm’s work and represented as the same person. Accordingly, most of the modern scholars mentioned the two authors as a substitute. -/- This paper wants to keep track of this confusion and wants to clarify whether Māsarjawayh who was mentioned by Ibn Djuljul and Māsarjīs who was told by Nadīm are the same person or not. (shrink)

This essay presents an argument, which it calls the Bias Argument, with the dismaying conclusion that (almost) everyone should significantly reduce her confidence in (too many) philosophical beliefs. More precisely, the argument attempts to show that the most precious philosophical beliefs are biased, as the pervasive and permanent disagreement among the leading experts in philosophy cannot be explained by the differences between their evidence bases and competences. After a short introduction, the premises of the Bias Argument are spelled out in (...) the first part. The second part explains why the objections to the Bias Argument are not compelling. Even though the essay does not adopt the conclusion of the Bias Argument, partly because it seems to be self-defeating, the authors know no plausible way to refute its premises. Thus, the primary aim of the essay is to clarify why the aporetic situation of the Bias Argument arises. (shrink)

By means of the Rollback Argument, this paper argues that metaphysically robust probabilities are incompatible with a kind of control which can ensure that free actions are not a matter of chance. Our main objection to those (typically agent-causal) theories which both attribute a kind of control to agents that eliminates the role of chance concerning free actions and ascribe probabilities to options of decisions is that metaphysically robust probabilities should be posited only if they can have a metaphysical explanatory (...) role but probabilities can explain anything only if chance has a role. First, we reconstruct the Rollback Argument. Second, we criticize the standard ways of reconciling non-chancy control with metaphysically robust probabilities. Finally, we respond to those worries that are related to the thought experiment of the Rollback Argument. (shrink)

This paper proposes a specific approach to understanding the nature of technology that encompasses the entire field of technological praxis, from the making of primitive tools to using the Internet. In that approach, technology is a specific form of human agency that yields to (an imperfect) realization of human control over a technological situation—that is, a situation not governed to an end by natural constraints but by specific human aims. The components of such technological situations are a given collection of (...) natural or artificial beings, humans, human aims, and situation-bound tools. By performing technological situation analysis, the essential form of tool making, the complex system of relationships between science and technology, technological practices with and without machines, the finiteness or imperfectness of any technology, and engineering (i.e., the possibility of the creation of technological situations) can be considered. For a better characterization of the approach to technology, the paper also presents a comparison of other philosophies of technology. Following Feenberg’s comparative analysis, the so-called fundamental question of the philosophy of technology is formulated, its two sides are identified, and it is applied for clarification of our position within philosophy of technology. In our approach, all human praxis can be considered to be technological; more precisely, every human activity has a technological aspect or dimension. (shrink)

It is an increasingly popular view among philosophers that moral responsibility can, in principle, be attributed to unconscious autonomous agents. This trend is already remarkable in itself, but it is even more interesting that most proponents of this view provide more or less the same argument to support their position. I argue that as it stands, the Extension Argument, as I call it, is not sufficient to establish the thesis that unconscious autonomous agents can be morally responsible. I attempt to (...) show that the Extension Argument should overcome especially strong ethical considerations; moreover, its epistemological grounds are not too solid, partly because the justifications of its premises are in conflict. (shrink)

Lakatos constructed his major contribution to the philosophy of science, the methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP), in the late sixties and early seventies in England, after he had already become estranged from the Popperian philosophy of science. In this paper, we attempt to show that the MSRP was motivated by his philosophical and political ideas from the forties and fifties in Hungary, when he was imbued with the communist ideology and was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Lukács. From (...) this point of view, the MSRP can be considered to be a special representation of Lakatos' earlier political values and practice in the field of history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

This chapter argues that mental fictionalism can only be a successful account of our ordinary folk-psychological practices if it can in some way preserve its original function, namely its explanatory aspect. A too strong commitment to the explanatory role moves fictionalism unacceptably close to the realist or eliminativist interpretation of folk psychology. To avoid this, fictionalists must degrade or dispense with this explanatory role. This motivation behind the fictionalist movement seems to be rather similar to that of Sellars when he (...) came up with the Myth of Jones, his proto-theory of mental concepts. He was faced with the problem of preserving the explanatory status of mental concepts without turning them into proper theoretical entities. By introducing the Sellarsian proto-theory of concepts related to the mental and outlining its main points, this chapter aims to provide a critique of the two versions of mental fictionalism that are arguably the strongest: Adam Toon’s prop-oriented pretence theory and Tamás Demeter’s expressive storyism. (shrink)

The paper argues for the necessity of building up a philosophy of the Internet and proposes a version of it, an «Aristotelian» philosophy of the Internet. First, an overview of the recent trends in the Internet research is presented. This train of thoughts leads to a proposal of understanding the nature of the Internet in the spirit of the Aristotelian philosophy i. e., to conceive the Internet as the Internet, as a totality of its all aspects, as a whole entity. (...) For this purpose, the Internet is explained in four (easily distinguishable, but obviously connected) contexts: we regard it as a system of technology, as an element of communication, as a cultural medium and as an independent organism. Based on these investigations we conclude that the Internet is the medium of a new mode of human existence created by late modern man; a mode that is built on earlier (i. e., natural, and social) spheres of existence and yet it is markedly different from them. We call this newly formed existence web-life. Finally using two enlightening cultural-historical analogies (the reformation of knowledge and the formation of web-life) several fundamental characteristics of the web-life is presented. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Walter Gilbert's group has estimated the number of original exons from which all extant proteins might have been constructed. The approach used is subjected to a critical analysis here. It is shown that there are flawed assumptions about both the mechanism and generality of exon‐shuffling and in the sequence comparison procedures employed, the latter failing to distinguish chance similarity from similarity due to common ancestry. These methodological errors lead to the omission of many known cases of (...) exonshuffling and the inclusion of others which may not be genuine. In consequence, the analysis from the Gilbert group cannot give a reliable estimate of those modules that actually participated in exon‐shuffling and provides no information on the number of protein archetypes that did not participate in these processes. (shrink)

Based on a brief overview of the history of ontology and on some philosophical problems of virtual reality, a new approach to virtuality is proposed. To characterize the representational technologies in the Internet age, I suggest that Aristotle’s dualistic ontological system be complemented with a third form of being: virtuality. In the virtual form of being actuality and potentiality are inseparably intertwined. Virtuality is potentiality considered together with its actualization. In this view, virtuality is reality with a measure, a reality (...) which has no absolute character, but which has a relative nature. This situation can remind us the emergence of probability in the 17th century: then the concept of certainty, now the concept of reality is reconsidered and relativized. Currently, in the descriptions of the world created by representational technologies, there are two coherent worldviews with different ontologies: the world is inhabited by actual and potential beings—or all the beings in the world are virtual. (shrink)

Indigenous health is becoming a top priority globally. The aim is to ensure equal health opportunities, with a focus on Indigenous populations who have faced historical disparities. Effective health interventions in Indigenous communities must incorporate Indigenous knowledge, beliefs, and worldviews to be culturally appropriate.