I consider how photographic image manipulation and deception influence both interpretation and evaluation of photographs. First I distinguish between image manipulation and deception by clarifying that image manipulation does not necessarily lead to deception in terms of forming false beliefs. I also argue that image manipulation is not the only way of using photographs deceptively, and I provide examples for photographic deception that do not rely on image manipulation. Then I examine what role the readability of photographic properties plays in (...) their interpretation. I introduce the concept of photographic illocutionary acts to account for the interpretation of photographic images, and I argue that the default interpretation of photographs is always based on our knowledge of the specific ontological and epistemic status of photographs in general, and which distinguishes them from non-photographic images. I conclude that our knowledge about the ease and frequency of analogue or digital image manipulation does not alter our default interpretation with which we approach photographs. (shrink)

Recreational Drugs European Network (ReDNet) project aims to use the Psychonaut Web Mapping Project database (Psychonaut Web Mapping Group, 2009) containing novel psychoactive compounds usually not mentioned in the scientific literature and thus unknown to clinicians as a unique source of information. The database will be used to develop an integrated ICT prevention approach targeted at vulnerable individuals and focused on novel synthetic and herbal compounds and combinations. Particular care will be taken in keeping the health professionals working directly with (...) young people showing problematic behaviors regularly updated in terms of novel compounds and combinations as well. A user-friendly project website will be developed aimed primarily at delivering the information/prevention approaches, but will also be a way of communicating with project partners and relevant stakeholders (e.g. thematic forum facilities, instant messages, blogs, video chat, wikiblog, newsletters distributed via mailing list). The website will support various ICT prevention tools, including an SMS alert service. Different areas and sections will be aimed specifically at the different target groups. -/- . (shrink)

In recent years the view that the non-instrumental value of democracy is a relational value, particularly relational equality, gained prominence. In this paper I challenge this relational egalitarian version of non-instrumentalism about democracy’s value by arguing that it is unable to establish a strong enough commitment to democracy. I offer an alternative view according to which democracy is non-instrumentally valuable for it establishes relationships of mutual service among citizens by enlisting them in the collective project of ruling the polity justly (...) together which is a self-standing source of value for them. Relating in the mode of mutual service is not a species of relating as equals; it is a distinct relational value. Democracy is uniquely suited to realize this relational value, for it renders citizens co-authors of the fundamental rules of the system of social cooperation under which they live, and only as co-authors of these rules are they able to mutually serve each other in a way that is appropriate within their relationship as citizens of the same polity. For this reason, a strong commitment to democracy can be based on the relational value of mutual service, which therefore better fits the theoretical purposes of non-instrumentalism than relational equality. (shrink)

The presence of utopian studies in Hungary is of growing importance. Hungarian scholars have provided significant contributions to the understanding of the phenomena of utopia—suffice it to mention the work of Karl Mannheim, Thomas Molnar, and Erika Gottlieb; yet it is also characteristic that all of these scholars, who were born in Hungary, reached their achievements abroad. This essay attempts to give a quick overview of the state of affairs of studies in utopianism in Hungary, listing scholars and seats of (...) study of the present and the recent past.The publication history of Hungarian translations of Thomas More’s Utopia represents the general attitude toward utopianism in Hungary.1 The first translation came... (shrink)

Words can mean different things to different people. This can be problematic, mainly for those working together in a bureaucratic institution, such as the secret service. Shared, certified, explicit and codified definitions offer a counter to subjective, solitary and/or culturally dominant definitions. It’s true that codified secrecy terms for secret services can be seen to involve a number of political, cultural, subcultural “languages”, but if words come from unclassified or declassified files, memorandums and/or records, one needs a deep understanding of (...) the secret services. A remarkable feature of this bureaucratic language is the evolving nature of, certain “keywords” as important signifiers of historical transformation. Thus, the changes in the language of the secret services depends at least as much on the internal changes of the secret services as on the transformation in the external political-social environment. In spite of the confusion of Hungarian secret services in the revolutions of 1918–1919 and the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, in the early 1920’s became a stable system. Between the two World Wars, the Hungarian State Police directed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Military Intelligence and Counter-Espionage directed by the Ministry of Defence, and the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie directed by both of the Ministries had their own operational service. This structure existed unchanged until 1945. Simultaneously with the forward advance of the soviet troops, government began to re-establish the former system of the secret services in the eastern part of the country. After WWII, in 1946, the “State-protection Department” as political police became independent from the police. However, from the beginning, they remained under the control of the Communist Party. After 1950, the State Security Authority provided special services for the MIA and the Military Political Directorate of the MoD. After quashing the revolution in 1956, in the spring of 1957, the MIA Political Investigation Department was established which—with slight modifications—kept the structure created during the “state protection era”. The MIA III. The State-Protection General Directorate was established in 1962. The reorganization was finalized in the middle of the 1960’s, which resulted in the new system, which—with the structure of Directorates—became the ultimate structure of the state secret police until the abolishment of the MIA General Directorate III in January 1990. These organizational transformations were largely the result of exogenous historical-political changes. Moreover, each new period had a major impact on the organizational communication, language use and vocabulary of the secret services. This study seeks to interpret these historical transformations. (shrink)

It is my endeavour in this paper to connect literary and philosophical texts with each other which all articulate the relation of the good sovereign to the supreme god. I try to show that despite the difference in age and genre these texts have some traits in common: the motiv of the eye looking benignly upon and/or bringing fertility to land and people, and the metempsychosis with the arrival of the king from the god and/or his return to the divine (...) sphere. I suggest that the recurrence of these motifs cannot be accidental and might reveal some continuity of tradition. Although the nature of such conceptual development is bound to be very complex and its starting point hard to trace, I nevertheless argue for a Pythagorean origin for the metempsychosis and the eye of the king, attested by Empedocles and Pindar, which mixed with the old belief of the king assuring fertility, as evidenced in Homer. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a fully intended and carefully tailored allusion in Plato’s Phaedrus to Pindar’s Pythian 1 with the pivotal image of Typho. The analysis of verbal and conceptual links leads to a better appreciation of the nuances in the Platonic passage, including a hitherto utterly unexplored layer of the text, its musical metaphoricity. On this level several main themes of Plato’s thought, such as the problem of singleness vs. manyness, musical ethos and criticism, converge in an (...) extraordinarily dense expression. (shrink)

Oppressive governments that use violence against citizens, e.g. murder and torture, are usually thought of as liable to armed revolutionary attack by the oppressed population. But oppression may be non-violent. A government may greatly restrict political rights and personal autonomy by using surveillance, propaganda, manipulation, strategic detention and similar techniques without ever resorting to overt violence. Can such regimes be liable to revolutionary attack? A widespread view is that the answer is ‘no’. On this view, unless a government is or (...) is likely to turn violent, revolution against it is disproportional. After all, revolution would involve launching potentially lethal attacks against oppressors who do not threaten the lives and bodily integrity of their subjects but pose only lesser threats. I argue that this claim of disproportionality is false. Armed revolution against Stably Non-violent Oppressive Regimes can be proportional under some circumstances, thus they may be liable to revolutionary attack. My argument relies on the Responsibility-Sensitive Account of Proportionality. This account holds that responsibility for posing threats renders agents liable to greater defensive harms than the harms with which they threaten. Even if non-violent oppressive regimes do not threaten citizens with murder, serious physical injury, or enslavement, their responsibility for creating an environment in which citizens’ political rights and personal autonomy are extremely restricted may loosen the proportionality requirement of inflicting defensive harm and render them liable to revolutionary attack. (shrink)

The list of Apollo's virtues in the second hymn of Callimachus describes, in the context of the appearance of the god, a mysterious healing substance which trickles from the hair of the patron of medicine. Hymn 2.38–41:αἱ δὲ κόμαι θυόεντα πέδῳ λείβουσιν ἔλαια⋅οὐ λίπος ᾿Απόλλωνος ἀποστάζουσιν ἔθειραι,ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὴν πανάκειαν⋅ ἐν ἄστεϊ δ᾽ ᾧ κεν ἐκεῖναιπρῶκες ἔραζε πέσωσιν, ἀκήρια πάντ᾽ ἐγένοντο.Apollo's hair distils flagrant drops of unguent to the ground: Apollo's curls shed no oil but panacea itself. In the city where (...) those dewdrops fall to earth, all things are safe. (shrink)

Three studies examined how members of a national group react to in-group wrongdoings. We expected that perceived in-group moral superiority would lead to unwillingness to repair the aggression. We also expected that internal-focused emotions such as group-based guilt and group-based shame would predict specific, misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation toward the victim groups. In Study 1, facing the in-group’s recent aggression, participants who believed that the Hungarians have been more moral throughout their history than members of other (...) nations, used more exonerating cognitions, experienced less in-group critical emotions and showed less willingness to provide reparations for the members of the victim group. Study 2 and Study 3 confirmed most findings of Study 1. Perceived in-group moral superiority directly or indirectly reduced willingness to provide either general or specific reparations, while internally focused in-group critical emotions predicted specific misdeed-related reparative intentions but not general approach motivation. The role of emotional attachment to the in-group is considered. (shrink)

A personal report on a recent Web conference hosted by Cappadocia University, Turkey on the cultural impacts of pandemics. January 13-15, 2021.

In this paper I examine the question of what duties the principles of democratic legitimacy prescribe for receiving states towards asylum seekers in general, and towards those who belong to vulnera...

Das Widerspiel von mythischer und historischer Zeit ist ein wesentliches Merkmal der antiken Zeitauffassung, wie sie uns in reinster Form die antike Literatur widerspiegelt. Es stellt auch einen wichtigen Unterschied zu unserer modernen Zeiterfahrung dar, sodass die angelegentliche Untersuchung jeder Spielart dieser παλίντονος ἁρμονίη von Mythischem und Historischem einer Herausforderung gleichkommt, die Eigenart antiker Zeitauffassung verstehen zu lernen. Auf den folgenden Seiten geht es um diese Problematik in einem einzigen Gedicht einer bestimmten Gattung eines begrenzten Zeitalters: Das Zeitalter ist die (...) Hochblüte des Hellenismus, die Gattung die Hymnendichtung, das Gedicht der Hymnos auf Artemis des Kallimachos. (shrink)

This book provides the first in-depth exploration of the importance of music for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s life and work. Wittgenstein’s remarks on music are essential for understanding his philosophy: they are on the nature of musical understanding, the relation of music to language, the concepts of representation and expression, on melody, irony and aspect-perception, and, on the great composers belonging to the Austrian-German tradition. Biography and philosophy, this work suggests that Wittgenstein was a composer of philosophy who used the musical form (...) as a blueprint for his own writing and thought. For Wittgenstein music is not alone, but connects and resonates with our cultural forms of life. His relation to composers, especially to Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler, enables Wittgenstein to address the question of how to do philosophy and compose music in the breakdown of tradition. Unlike his conservative musical sensibility, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is open to musical experiments. Reflecting on his remarks on music makes it possible to compare the therapeutic aim of his philosophical activity with that of music, and thus notice affinities between Wittgenstein and John Cage. Béla Szabados has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Calgary and is professor of philosophy at the University of Regina. His publications include Wittgenstein Reads Weininger (2004), Wittgenstein at the Movies (2011) and Wittgenstein on Race, Gender, and Cultural Identity: Philosophy as a Personal Endeavour (2010). (shrink)

This book affects a rapprochement between memory studies and eighteenth-century aesthetics with the aim of modifying received views on the role and fate of memory in the history of criticism. It argues that the philosophical problems characterizing conceptualizations of memory unsettle its opposition to the imagination and explain its relation to literary discourse. Moving from the Muses through Plato and Descartes to works by Pope, Addison, Gerard, and Kames, the book traces these problems through various "figures" representing notions of memory (...) and claims that eighteenth-century critical thought exploited a constructive sense of memory for accounts of the notion of the imagination. Komáromy thus argues for the persistence of the literary relevance of memory even in a poetics of the imagination, offering a new perspective on the changing relation of memory and imagination at a point in the history of criticism that has determined the critical assessment of these concepts. (shrink)

Hieroglyphic Luwian: An Introduction with Original Texts, 3rd Revised Edition. By Annick Payne. Subsidia et Instrumenta Linguarum Orientis, vol. 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2014. Pp. xiv + 217. €29.80.

This article aims to present an overall interpretation of a poem by Callimachus that centres on the dead Ptolemaic queen Arsinoe II. Firstly the position of the Ektheosis Arsinoes in Callimachus’ œuvre, the genre to which it belongs and its structure will be investigated. This leads to the analysis of the highly allusive character of the work (above all to Hesiod, Ibycus, Simonides and Pindar as well as to hymnic poetry). In addition, realia (the historical background) and textual difficulties arising (...) from the fragmentary transmisson will also be treated. The appendix discusses a hitherto unnoticed testimony to the poem’s reception in the Roman epicist Ennius. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

Every Pindaric ode poses the question of literary unity, which is a main issue of Pindaric scholarship. But every ode presents a specific form of unity. The ways of achieving unity in the Sixth Olympian, one of Pindar’s most accomplished poems, are the chief concern of this paper. I argue that unity in O. 6 comes about by a metaphoric correspondence between the poet (Pindar) and the prophet (Hagesias, the victor, and Iamos, the mythic protagonist). This constellation is based on (...) two significant aspects, which are typical of both prophet and poet: the moment of inspiration and of the utterance (of the oracle viz. poem). These aspects are emphasized in vv. 58-70 concerning Iamos, the prophet, and in vv. 82-91 (the main stumbling block in the interpretation of the poem) with regard to the poet Pindar. These metaphors of prophetic-poetic activity permeate the whole ode. (shrink)

This article argues for an allusion in Virgil's Eclogue 4 to one of Pindar's victory odes. It will be suggested that this Pindaric pretext is viewed by the Latin poet through a Callimachean perspective which adds to it further layers of significance. Consequently, the evidence will be discussed for reading the allusion in terms of royal ideology which places Virgil's poem in the tradition of Hellenistic ruler-encomia.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

(1993). Is the improvement of human condition our field? Making Evolutionary science work for human betterment. World Futures: Vol. 38, Theoretical Achievements and Practical Applications of General Evolutionary Theory, pp. 17-31.

What are the differences between hypocrisy, change of mind, and weakness of will? Each typically involves a gap between word and deed, yet they do not seem morally equivalent. Moreover, they are intuitively different concepts, even though the conceptual boundaries between them are fuzzy. This paper explores diverse examples, attempting to identify elements which may be distinctive of each concept, with special attention to hypocrisy. It also provides a discussion of the appropriateness of such use of examples in moral philosophy.

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)

The authors’ aim is to bring to the attention of readers the inadequacies of care for people in Hungary who are terminally ill. They believe that both objective and subjective factors cause these inadequacies. Most of these factors arise from moral dilemmas that could be eased or even solved if ethics education had a much more prominent place in the nursing curriculum. Even if nurses would not become automatically better persons morally, a much wider knowledge of medical/nursing ethics could significantly (...) improve nursing care both before and at the end of life. Although the article is also critical of the nursing care provided, it is not its purpose to make any generalizations. The study utilized selected passages from essays written by 76 practicing nurses on their personal experience of ethical dilemmas in their work environment, and a questionnaire administered to 250 students (registered nurses and health care students) studying for a college degree. This article is written by two authors who have formed an unusal alliance: a registered nurse with 29 years’ experience of bedside nursing, but who is currently a teacher of nursing ethics at a local health college, and a lawyer turned bioethicist. (shrink)