The purpose of this paper is to find out to what extent the European economic crisis and the search for a way out of it can be considered a crisis of values, and whether the interpretation of this situation can be reduced to the controversy of confrontation between the unified Europe and individual nation states. Historically the European nations used to live their identity in the framework of nation states. The question is whether the existence of nation states is out-of-date, (...) and whether the uniform European identity can be the ideal solution. Can Imre Kertész be right when he states in his response to Habermas that sublime European-political theories are made for keeping the new member states away from significant decisions? The specific historical, cultural and social make-up of the Eastern-Middle European states and the present economical tensions in the societies in the centre and on the periphery cannot be set aside and have to be taken into consideration. In summary the author concludes that the viability of the development of the common European identity may become possible on the basis of the common historical experience, solidarity and of taking mutual responsibility. (shrink)

In the present paper we show that any at most countable linearly-ordered commutative residuated lattice can be embedded into a commutative residuated lattice on the real unit interval [0, 1]. We use this result to show that Esteva and Godo''s logic MTL is complete with respect to interpretations into commutative residuated lattices on [0, 1]. This solves an open problem raised in.

In the interest of moving conflict resolution toward reconciliation, theorists have turned to René Girard whose understanding of scapegoating and imitative desire acquires special importance. But Girardian thinking offers no unique ethical solution, and so theorists have turned to Emmanuel Levinas for such an account. Four ideas especially from Levinas appear helpful: his criticism of totality (and, concomitantly, his substitution of the idea of the infinite); the face as an opening (or gateway) to the infinite; the Other (or other individual) (...) and my infinite (or unlimited) responsibility toward her (or him); and language as the dire as opposed to the dit, the saying (or “to say”) as opposed to the said, as one modality in which this openness to the other individual takes place. Combining Girard’s analysis of the sacrificial with Levinas’s analysis of the ethical may offer conflict resolution theorists an account as thoroughgoing and as old as Biblical scripture, and one to which, in the interest of moving toward reconciliation, they would do well to pay heed. (shrink)

The principal purpose of the present volume is to analyse critically one of the major contemporary interpretations of the origin of support for radical or extremist political behaviour - the political theory of mass society. Mass political theory is one of several major perspectives on political extremism which share a stress on the social psychological, emotional and irrational origins of dissidence. The present work may be seen as part of a growing scholarly effort reassessing such theories and urging the importance (...) of increased attention to the social structure origins, cognitive nature and rational properties of dissident support. The present work should be of interest to a fairly broad professional community and student audience, as well as to the informed and more literate layman. Of particular interest may be the detailed summary of the origins of mass political theory and of the properties of the theory itself and the lengthy case study chapter stressing the purposive, reasonable and non-exceptional character of several familiar radical political movements. (shrink)

Spatio-temporal logic is a variant of branching temporal logic where one of the so-called causal relations on spacetime plays the role of a time flow. Allowing only rational numbers as space and time co-ordinates, we prove that a first-order spatio-temporal theory over this flow is recursively enumerable if and only if the dimension of spacetime does not exceed 2. The situation is somewhat different compared to the case of real co-ordinates, because we establish that even dimension 2 does not permit (...) recursive enumerability in this case. The proof of the result on rational spacetime involves a more deeper portion of spacetime geometry than the corresponding, more evident result for the real co-ordinates. (shrink)

The studying of Marx, said Gyorgy Lukäcs at the beginning of the 1920s, does not mean the uncriticised recognition of the results of his researches, nor the set in well-defined theses, the interpretation of a book. One has to become absorbed in the ceuvre of Marx, so that then, as a second step, one can commence the systematic elaboration of the problems of our age. It is unjust that in western philosophies, especially in the Anglo-Saxon concerning literature the name of (...) the old-age Lukäcs does not appear, or is present as that of some Stalinist inquisitor, the indisputable pillar of Marxism and the Bolshevik movement. Yet his late piece of labour, his vast ontology experiment convincingly shows how one can penetrate the original texts of Marx and at the same time preserve one's conceptual souvereignity, sense of reality, and one's capacity, at least in a latent way, to judge or surpass the thoughts of one's master. This study aims to interpret the problem of Lukäcs's relation to Marx through the analysis of the labour concept of Lukäcs, and would like to prove that the rereading of Lukäcs (and Marx) can serve with surprises, new meanings and morals even today. (shrink)

According to estimates more than 400 biobanks currently operate across Europe. The term ‘biobank’ indicates a specific field of genetic study that has quietly developed without any significant critical reflection across European societies. Although scientists now routinely use this phrase, the wider public is still confused when the word ‘bank’ is being connected with the collection of their biological samples. There is a striking lack of knowledge of this field. In the recent Eurobarometer survey it was demonstrated that even in (...) 2010 two-thirds of the respondents had never even heard about biobanks. The term gives the impression that a systematic collection of biological samples can constitute a ‘bank’ of considerable financial worth, where the biological samples, which are insignificant in isolation but are valuable as a collection, can be preserved, analysed and put to ‘profitable use’. By studying the practices of the numerous already existing biobanks, the authors address the following questions: to what extent does the term ‘biobank’ reflect the normative concept of using biological samples for the purposes of biomedical research? Furthermore, is it in harmony with the so far agreed legal–ethical consensus in Europe or does it deliberately pull science to the territory of a new, ambiguous commercial field? In other words, do biobanks constitute a medico-legal fiction or are they substantively different from other biomedical research protocols on human tissues? (shrink)

Sándor Radnóti looks at forgeries, artistic reproductions, replicas, variations, and pastiches in order to study the dilemmas surrounding artistic illusion and "poetic license." He reveals how forgeries as the parasites of art make clear and transparent the meaning of artistic orginality.

Let be the class of odd involutive even the notion of partial lex products is not sufficiently general. One more tweak is needed, a slightly even more complex construction, called partial sublex product, introduced here.

The article describes the implementation of the diacritical principle in the philosophy of László Tengelyi. It is emphasized that not only the method is diacritical, but also the experience in itself, in the description of which Tengelyi sees the main task of phenomenological philosophy. In doing so, the author presents the main ideas of Tengelyi's last book, paying special attention to such structures of experience as I, the Other and the world. The analysis of the categories of experience and their (...) relation is carried out, for which the Kantian term «consonance» used. However, unlike Kant, Tengelyi shows that consonance permeates all experience. Further, the author, developing Tengelyi's approach, examines in detail the diacritical relation between the I and the Other and such types of diacritically structured experience as love, despair and the consciousness of one's own death. (shrink)

A new structure, called equality algebras, will be introduced. It has two connectives, a meet operation and an equivalence, and a constant. A closure operator will be defined in the class of equality algebras, and we call the closed algebras equivalential. We show that equivalential equality algebras are term equivalent with BCK-algebras with meet. As a by-product, we obtain a quite general result, which is analogous to a result of Kabziński and Wroński: we provide an equational characterization for the equivalential (...) fragment of BCK-algebras with meet. (shrink)

For odd and for even involutive, commutative residuated chains a representation theorem is presented in this paper by means of direct systems of abelian o-groups equipped with further structure. This generalizes the corresponding result of J. M. Dunnabout finite Sugihara monoids.

We generalize the notions of Girard algebras and MV-algebras by introducing rotation-invariant semigroups. Based on a geometrical characterization, we present five construction methods which result in rotation-invariant semigroups and in particular, Girard algebras and MV-algebras. We characterize divisibility of MV-algebras, and point out that integrality of Girard algebras follows from their other axioms.

Hahn’s embedding theorem asserts that linearly ordered abelian groups embed in some lexicographic product of real groups. Hahn’s theorem is generalized to a class of residuated semigroups in this paper, namely, to odd involutive commutative residuated chains which possess only finitely many idempotent elements. To this end, the partial lexicographic product construction is introduced to construct new odd involutive commutative residuated lattices from a pair of odd involutive commutative residuated lattices, and a representation theorem for odd involutive commutative residuated chains (...) which possess only finitely many idempotent elements, by means of linearly ordered abelian groups and the partial lexicographic product construction is presented. (shrink)

The idea that language is metaphoric in nature has often been suggested or stated since Vico and Rousseau. Derrida, too, often writes about metaphor and the impression he gives is that he is arguing for the metaphoric nature of both thought, whether philosophic or not, and language. Interpreters like de Man or Culler have helped to spread this impression. If it is correct, Derrida shares a pan-metaphoric view of language and whatever can be made with it. It is useful to (...) refer to Derrida's view because in my opinion he has been very good at saying what language is, even if he has been very much in the wrong in seeing no distinction between language and language use. Let us consider first what he has been good at. (shrink)

After the rule of the canonized Marxism has come to an end, the present situation of philosophy in Hungary might be characterized as pluralistic and colourful. The academic, educational and institutional structure of philosophy, as well as the situation concerning the publication of journals and books has changed equally. In general, each of the relevant philosophical trends has gained its representation, significant individual and collective achievements have been reached, and we have also witnessed the rise of a new philosophical generation. (...) Though not as dominanting, philosophy has been integrated into Hungarian intellectual and public life. By now it is not regarded an isolated domain of knowledge as it was before. (shrink)

There are two approaches to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956: to view it as a national or as a social affair; a fight for national independence or for a revolutionary transformation of society. The two approaches can be collapsed into a comprehensive one in the name of autonomy, and this is what Feher and Heller did, remaining mindful, however, of the two major and irreducible aspects of the actual events and their motivating forces. Their main argument is threefold. The people (...) in revolt wanted to establish a “dual system” of a socialist economy and a political pluralism; they wanted a renegotiation of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements; and in the course of the revolution they achieved a national consensus that could actively negotiate a compromise implied by both major aims. (shrink)

We generalize the notions of Girard algebras and MV-algebras by introducing rotation-invariant semigroups. Based on a geometrical characterization, we present five construction methods which result in rotation-invariant semigroups and in particular, Girard algebras and MV-algebras. We characterize divisibility of MV-algebras, and point out that integrality of Girard algebras follows from their other axioms.

Classification of certain group-like FL $_e$ -chains is given: We define absorbent-continuity of FL $_e$ -algebras, along with the notion of subreal chains, and classify absorbent-continuous, group-like FL $_e$ -algebras over subreal chains: The algebra is determined by its negative cone, and the negative cone can only be chosen from a certain subclass of BL-chains, namely, one with components which are either cancellative (that is, those components are negative cones of totally ordered Abelian groups) or two-element MV-algebras, and with no (...) two consecutive cancellative components. It is shown that the classification theorem does not hold if we drop the absorbent-continuity condition. Our result is the first classification theorem in the literature on FL $_e$ -algebras that does not assume the condition of being naturally ordered (which, under certain conditions, corresponds to continuity of the monoid operation). In our classification theorem, continuity is replaced by the much weaker absorbent-continuity. (shrink)

This paper aims at a phenomenological analysis of trust. We argue that trust has a transcendental dimension in that it functions as a condition of possibility of the basic ego-world relation. Tacit for the most part in ordinary experience, it comes forth in its problematicity in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. People experiencing psychic disturbances lose trust in the continuity and the mineness of lived experience and conceive the world as uninhabitable. In order to address the transcendental problem of trust, we first (...) carry out a static analysis of trust as perceptual faith and we show that it is founded in the functioning of a transcendental ground. In a second step, we proceed with a genetic analysis drawing on Husserl’s manuscripts on the awakening of the self, on early childhood, and Richir’s recent phenomenological readings of D. W. Winnicott. We situate the archaic experience of trust in an originarily intersubjective and affective dimension, where the parental environment functions as a transcendental matrix for the early development of a yet inchoative self. By doing so, we aim to sketch out the major lines of a transcendental history of trust in the early stages of human experience. (shrink)

Contemporary phenomenological psychopathology has raised questions concerning selfhood and its possible alterations in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Although the notion of the self is central to several accounts of anomalies, it remains a question how exactly the radically minimal experiential features of selfhood can be altered. Indeed, the risk is to reduce the notion of selfhood so drastically, that it can no longer account for alterations of experience. Here we propose to give thickness to the minimal self. To do this we (...) first discuss Sartre’s phenomenological definition of coenesthesia as the translucent matter of consciousness articulating it with the notion of existential feelings. We then draw on the historical research on coenesthesia to dig deeper in this translucent materiality identified as the element of the body. We show that selfhood, even in its most minimal level, must be conceived of with a specific elemental thickness, corresponding to a phenomenological materiality of embodiment. We argue that a phenomenological reading of coenesthesia as the bodily element of ipseity can shed a new light on the anomalies of self-experience. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A new algebraic construction -called rotation- is introduced in this paper which from any left-continuous triangular norm which has no zero divisors produces a left-continuous but not continuous triangular norm with strong induced negation. An infinite number of new families of such triangular norms can be constructed in this way which provides a huge spectrum of choice for e.g. logical and set theoretical connectives in non-classical logic and in fuzzy theory. On the other hand, the introduced construction brings us (...) closer to the understanding the structure of these connectives and the corresponding logics. From the application point of view, results of this paper can be especially useful in the field of non-classical logic, fuzzy sets, and fuzzy preference modeling. (shrink)

This paper is the continuation of [11] where the rotation construction of left-continuous triangular norms was presented. Here the class of triangular subnorms and a second construction, called rotation-annihilation, are introduced: Let T1 be a left-continuous triangular norm. If T1 has no zero divisors then let T2 be a left-continuous rotation invariant t-subnorm. If T1 has zero divisors then let T2 be a left-continuous rotation invariant triangular norm. From each such pair the rotation-annihilation construction produces a left-continuous triangular norm with (...) strong induced negation. An infinite number of new families of such triangular norms can be constructed in this way, and this further extends our spectrum of choice for the proper triangular norm e.g. in probabilistic metric spaces, or for logical and set theoretical connectives in non-classical logic, or e.g. in fuzzy sets theory and its applications. On the other hand, the introduced construction brings us closer to the understanding of the structure of these operations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Violence and Difference. Girard, Derrida, and DeconstructionSandor GoodhartViolence and Difference. Girard, Derrida, and Deconstruction, by Andrew J. McKenna; 238 pp. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992, $15.95 paper.McKenna’s book is disturbingly intelligent. I have the impression in reading it that there is nothing that has not crossed the author’s mind regarding contemporary theory, that here is a book of inquiry and thought in the grand tradition of European (...) letters. I am also struck by how few books there are of this high quality, either on Derrida’s work or Girard’s, a lament which is also one of the book’s subtexts.McKenna’s expressed goal is to engage Jacques Derrida’s work with René Girard’s. The project is certainly overdue. Both writers have been working for a long time now on structures of exclusion and victimage, Derrida at the level of language, writing, and signifiers, Girard at that of cultural anthropology and institutional formation. Neither has fully acknowledged—let alone engaged—the other. Girard is almost entirely absent from Derrida’s writing, appearing in the convoluted context of a review of a book by Derrida’s student, Lacoue-Labarthes, containing an essay on Girard’s reading of Plato. Girard repeatedly cites Derrida’s treatment of the theme of the scapegoat and of the supplement—for example, in “Plato’s Pharmacy” (“La pharmacie de Platon”)—largely ignoring Derrida’s primary concern, his critique of philosophic essentialism.McKenna sets out less to right these “baleful circumstances” than to explore them. Through a highly diplomatic “shuttling back and forth between Girard’s and Derrida’s contribution” to our understanding of the foundational occlusionary mechanisms of language and the social, McKenna lays out, definitively in my view, the case for their similarities. But equally evident throughout these chapters both to the reader and McKenna is the “logic of [a] preference” which becomes explicit only in the concluding chapter when he turns to the question of the sacred.For, in McKenna’s view, what Derrida and deconstruction has resisted throughout is its own implication in the very logic of totalization it everywhere exposes, ironically by way of its very persistent and totalizing appeal for dismantling such logic. Derrida’s “systematic indisposition” is “permanent,” “structural,” and “crippling,” “frustrating” its best insights by participating in an antitranscendentalism as old as romanticism and which alone escapes detection, although it licenses the suspicion of all discourse. Deconstructing all philosophy after Plato as literature, Derrida succeeds ironically only in waging Plato’s own battle, recreating the same rigorous synchronic antithesis (philosophy/literature) which is already the stake of Platonic idealism if in reverse polarity.The difference is decisive. Deconstructing philosophic language as writing, metaphor, signifier, text, Derrida repeats the “sacrificial scenario” of philosophy [End Page 252] itself. Mistaking the symptom (the “crisis of all cultural signs”) for the cure, constituting itself as an impossible demand for a “total” or metalinguistic account, deconstructing all language as difference, deferral, or “differance,” deconstruction defers finally to the very representational strategies it exposes. It scapegoats and retrieves in marginalized form the absolute in the face of the antisacrificial staging of truth that great literature posits. What begins as a critique of the widespread “symmetrical allergy to the sacred and to signifiers” concludes on one hand with an exposition of the mechanism of sacralization, and on the other with a via negativa hardly distinguishable from the tradition it opposes, a hypersensitivity to language which may be only the latest version of a transcendental skepticism which has a long and distinguished history in the West, perhaps the history of philosophy itself.One may disagree with McKenna. In fact, in a curious way, not to do so would be to betray the book’s polemical challenge, that we develop a positive knowledge of culture as the product of questioning and examination. But one would be hard put to find a more penetratingly thoughtful study of its topic. It is an example of the practice of intellectual activity at its finest. In an age of mindless epigonism, here is a book about such dangers whose spirit of critical thinking we would do well to emulate.Sandor GoodhartWhitman... (shrink)

This book offers an analysis of the status and function of the Anglo-Saxon prognostics in their manuscript context, a study of their introduction to and transmission in Anglo-Saxon England, and, for the first time, a comprehensive edition of prognostics in Old English and Latin.