Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 // (...) ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)

Dickie (2020) presents an argument against the traditional, broadly Gricean view of conversation. She argues that speakers must sometimes be more specific than required for sharing knowledge on a topic of common concern. Her proposed solution is to claim that the goal of conversation is not just sharing knowledge but also sharing cognitive focus. In response, I argue that her proposal faces both conceptual and empirical difficulties, and that the traditional view can handle the problem of non-specificity by acknowledging that (...) in order to sustain mutual trust, conversational participants should be less than optimally efficient. (shrink)

In this commentary I discuss the role of types of knowledge and conceptual structures in lexical representation, revealing the explanatory potential of frame-based knowledge. Although frame-based lexical semantics is not alien to the theoretical model outlined in Jackendoff's conceptual semantics, testing its relevance to the analysis of the lexical evidence presented in his book has been left out of consideration.

We relax the assumption that priors are common knowledge, in the standard model of games of incomplete information. We make the realistic assumption that the players are boundedly rational: they base their actions on finite-order belief hierarchies. When the different layers of beliefs are independent of each other, we can retain Harsányi's type-space, and we can define straightforward generalizations of Bayesian Nash Equilibrium and Rationalizability in our context. Since neither of these concepts is quite satisfactory, we propose a hybrid concept, (...) Mirage Equilibrium, providing us with a practical tool to work with inconsistent belief hierarchies. When the different layers of beliefs are correlated, we must enlarge the type-space to include the parametric beliefs. This presents us with the difficulty of the inherent openness of finite belief subspaces. Appealing to bounded rationality once more, we posit that the players believe that their opponent holds a belief hierarchy one layer shorter than they do and we provide alternative generalizations of BNE and Rationalizability. Finally, we show that, when beliefs are degenerate point beliefs, the definition of Mirage Equilibrium coincides with that of the generalized BNE. (shrink)

Philosophers and linguists alike tend to call a semantic theory ‘Russellian’ just in case it assigns to sentences in which definite descriptions occur the truth-conditions Russell did in ‘On Denoting’. This is unfortunate; not all aspects of those particular truth-conditions do explanatory work in Russell's writings. As far as the semantics of descriptions is concerned, the key insights of ‘On Denoting’ are that definite descriptions are not uniformly referring expressions, and that they are scope-bearing elements. Anyone who accepts these two (...) claims can account for Russell's puzzle cases the way he did. Russell had no substantive argument for the claim that ‘The F is G’ entails ‘There is at most one F’; in fact, he had important misgivings about it. I outline an argument against this claim, and I argue that by holding on to uniqueness contemporary semanticists make a momentous mistake: they keep the illusion alive that there is a way to account for linguistic meaning without addressing what linguistic expressions are for. (shrink)

Examining the naturalist and normativist concepts of health and disease this article starts with analysing the view of C. Boorse. It rejects Boorse's account of health as species-typical functioning, giving a critique of his view based on evolutionary theory of contemporary biology. Then it gives a short overview of the normativist theories of health, which can be objectivist and subjectivist theories. Rejecting the objectivist theories as philosophically untenable, it turns to the subjectivist theories of Gert and Culver, and to the (...) view of Nordenfelt. These theories give quite a good subjectivist account of health and disease, but they do not pay enough attention to the notion of the environment, without which it is impossible to define health and disease. Starting with their definitions but introducing the notion of “reasonable social norms”, the article arrives at the following definition of health: The healthier a physical or mental characteristic, process, reaction is, the more it makes it possible for the individual to adapt to reasonable social norms without pain and suffering, and the longer, and happier a life it will be able to ensure him in that society. (shrink)

1. rész, 1. köt. A tudományos gondolkodás forradalma.

This paper invokes the conceptual framework of Bourdieu to analyse the mechanisms, which help to maintain inappropriate authorship practices and the functions these practices may serve. Bourdieu’s social theory with its emphasis on mechanisms of domination can be applied to the academic field, too, where competition is omnipresent, control mechanisms of authorship are loose, and the result of performance assessment can be a matter of symbolic life and death for the researchers. This results in a problem of game-theoretic nature, where (...) researchers’ behaviour will be determined more by the logic of competition, than by individual character or motives. From this follows that changing this practice requires institutionalized mechanisms, and change cannot be expected from simply appealing to researchers’ individual conscience. The article aims at showing that academic capital is translated into honorary authorship. With little control, undetected honorary authorship gives the appearance of possessing intellectual capital. In this way a dominant position is made to be seen as natural result of intellectual ability or scientific merit, which makes it more acceptable to those in dominated positions. The final conclusion of this paper is that undemocratic authorship decisions and authorship based performance assessment together are a form of symbolic violence. (shrink)

Standard derivations of the Bell inequalities assume a common common cause system that is a common screener-off for all correlations and some additional assumptions concerning locality and no-conspiracy. In a recent paper (Grasshoff et al., 2005) Bell inequalities have been derived via separate common causes assuming perfect correlations between the events. In the paper it will be shown that the assumptions of this separate-common-cause-type derivation of the Bell inequalities in the case of perfect correlations can be reduced to the assumptions (...) of common-common-cause-system-type derivation. However, in the case of non-perfect correlations a non-reducible separate-common-cause-type derivation of some Bell-like inequalities can be given. The violation of these Bell-like inequalities proves Szabó's (2000) conjecture concerning the non-existence of a local, non-conspiratorial, separate-common-cause-model for a delta δ-neighborhood of perfect EPR correlations. (shrink)

Standard derivations of the Bell inequalities assume a common-commoncause-system that is a common screener-off for all correlations and some additional assumptions concerning locality and no-conspiracy. In a recent paper Graßhoff et al., "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science", 56, 663–680 ) Bell inequalities have been derived via separate common causes assuming perfect correlations between the events. In the paper it will be shown that the assumptions of this separate-common-cause-type derivation of the Bell inequalities in the case of perfect (...) correlations can be reduced to the assumptions of a common-common-cause-system-type derivation. However, in the case of non-perfect correlations a non-reducible separate-common-cause-type derivation of some Bell-like inequalities can be given. The violation of these Bell-like inequalities proves Szabo's ) conjecture concerning the non-existence of a local, non-conspiratorial, separate-common-cause-model for a δ-neighborhood of perfect EPR correlations. (shrink)

This commentary asks the reader to examine Pylyshyn's target article and the imagery debate at four levels of analysis – institutional, programmatic, empirical, and individual. It is proposed that the debate follows somewhat generic patterns of discourse at all four levels, but the discourse associated with one side of the debate may or may not be expressible and evaluated in terms of the other. The different sides of the debate might better serve cognitive science if they proceed as separate research (...) programs in their respective sub-disciplines. A more inclusive program could result, however, if the opposing approaches could somehow unite. (shrink)

It is shown that, given any finite set of pairs of random events in a Boolean algebra which are correlated with respect to a fixed probability measure on the algebra, the algebra can be extended in such a way that the extension contains events that can be regarded as common causes of the correlations in the sense of Reichenbach's definition of common cause. It is shown, further, that, given any quantum probability space and any set of commuting events in it (...) which are correlated with respect to a fixed quantum state, the quantum probability space can be extended in such a way that the extension contains common causes of all the selected correlations, where common cause is again taken in the sense of Reichenbach's definition. It is argued that these results very strongly restrict the possible ways of disproving Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

A recent analysis by de Barros and Suppes of experimentally realizable GHZ correlations supports the conclusion that these correlations cannot be explained by introducing local hidden variables. We show, nevertheless, that their analysis does not exclude local hidden variable models in which the inefficiency in the experiment is an effect not only of random errors in the detector equipment, but is also the manifestation of a pre-set, hidden property of the particles ("prism models"). Indeed, we present an explicit prism model (...) for the GHZ scenario; that is, a local hidden variable model entirely compatible with recent GHZ experiments. (shrink)

This essay has two main claims about EPR’s Reality Criterion. First, we claim that the application of the Reality Criterion makes an essential difference between the EPR argument and Einstein’s later arguments against quantum mechanics. We show that while the EPR argument, making use of the Reality Criterion, does derive that certain interpretations of quantum mechanics are incomplete, Einstein’s later arguments, making no use of the Reality Criterion, do not prove incompleteness, but rather point to the inadequacy of the Copenhagen (...) interpretation. We take this fact as an indication that the Reality Criterion is a crucial, indispensable component of the incompleteness argument(s). The second claim is more substantive. We argue that the Reality Criterion is a special case of the Common Cause Principle. Finally, we relate this proposal to Tim Maudlin’s recent assertion that the Reality Criterion is an analytic truth. (shrink)

A partition $\{C_i\}_{i\in I}$ of a Boolean algebra $\cS$ in a probability measure space $(\cS,p)$ is called a Reichenbachian common cause system for the correlated pair $A,B$ of events in $\cS$ if any two elements in the partition behave like a Reichenbachian common cause and its complement, the cardinality of the index set $I$ is called the size of the common cause system. It is shown that given any correlation in $(\cS,p)$, and given any finite size $n>2$, the probability space (...) $(\cS,p)$ can be embedded into a larger probability space in such a manner that the larger space contains a Reichenbachian common cause system of size $n$ for the correlation. It also is shown that every totally ordered subset in the partially ordered set of all partitions of \cS$ contains only one Reichenbachian common cause system. Some open problems concerning Reichenbachian common cause systems are formulated. (shrink)

On one standard reading, Plato's works contain at least two distinct views about the structure of the human soul. According to the first, there is a crucial unity to human psychology: there is a dominant faculty that is capable of controlling attention and behaviour in a way that not only produces right action, but also ‘silences’ inclinations to the contrary—at least in idealized circumstances. According to the second, the human soul contains multiple autonomous parts, and although one of them, reason, (...) normatively dominates the others, it may fail to do so descriptively: even in the face of full, explicit, well‐reasoned, conscious awareness of the truth of a claim, a person may continue to feel residual inclinations towards disavowed, inappropriate and misguided experiences and courses of action. In this paper, I will argue that even the second of these views does not fully capture the ways in which reflective commitment fails to guide human action. Whereas the traditional multi‐part soul view is well suited to explaining phenomena that involve a cognitive conflict between our reflective attitudes and our non‐reflective endorsements, it falls short when we turn to the full array of human patterns of response, because it neglects a further source of challenge to reason's rule, namely, the mediation of associative and heuristic processes. These processes introduce complications for which the simple faculty psychology view cannot adequately account. Because they produce challenges to reason's rule that are phenomenologically invisible, traditional strategies for self‐regulation cannot be straightforwardly applied to their management. (shrink)

I will argue that Kochen-Specker arguments do not provide an algebraic proof for quantum contextuality since, for the argument to be effective, operators must be uniquely associated with measur...

I will argue that the Peres-Mermin square does not necessarily rule out a value-definite (deterministic) noncontextual hidden variable model if the operators are not given a physical interpretation satisfying the following two requirements: (i) each operator is uniquely realized by a single physical measurement; (ii) commuting operators are realized by simultaneous measurements. To underpin this claim, I will construct three hidden variable models for three different physical realizations of the Peres-Mermin square: one violating (i), another violating (ii), and a third (...) one violating both (i) and (ii). (shrink)

A condition is formulated in terms of the probabilities of two pairs of correlated events in a classical probability space which is necessary for the two correlations to have a single (Reichenbachian) common-cause and it is shown that there exists pairs of correlated events probabilities of which violate the necessary condition. It is concluded that different correlations do not in general have a common common-cause. It is also shown that this conclusion remains valid even if one weakens slightly Reichenbach's definition (...) of common-cause. The significance of the difference between common-causes and common common-causes is emphasized from the perspective of Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

A partition $\{C_i\}_{i\in I}$ of a Boolean algebra Ω in a probability measure space (Ω, p) is called a Reichenbachian common cause system for the correlation between a pair A,B of events in Ω if any two elements in the partition behave like a Reichenbachian common cause and its complement; the cardinality of the index set I is called the size of the common cause system. It is shown that given any non-strict correlation in (Ω, p), and given any finite (...) natural number n > 2, the probability space (Ω,p) can be embedded into a larger probability space in such a manner that the larger space contains a Reichenbachian common cause system of size n for the correlation. (shrink)

In the paper it will be shown that Reichenbach’s Weak Common Cause Principle is not valid in algebraic quantum field theory with locally finite degrees of freedom in general. Namely, for any pair of projections A, B supported in spacelike separated double cones ${\mathcal{O}}_{a}$ and ${\mathcal{O}}_{b}$ , respectively, a correlating state can be given for which there is no nontrivial common cause (system) located in the union of the backward light cones of ${\mathcal{O}}_{a}$ and ${\mathcal{O}}_{b}$ and commuting with the both (...) A and B. Since noncommuting common cause solutions are presented in these states the abandonment of commutativity can modulate this result: noncommutative Common Cause Principles might survive in these models. (shrink)

On the basis of what I call physico-formalist philosophy of mathematics, I will develop an amended account of the Kantian–Reichenbachian conception of constitutive a priori. It will be shown that the features attributed to a real object are not possessed by the object as a “thing-in-itself”; they require a physical theory by means of which these features are constituted. It will be seen that the existence of such a physical theory implies that a physical object can possess a property only (...) if other contingently existing physical objects exist; therefore, the intrinsic–extrinsic distinction is flawed. (shrink)

Bell inequalities, understood as constraints between classical conditional probabilities, can be derived from a set of assumptions representing a common causal explanation of classical correlations. A similar derivation, however, is not known for Bell inequalities in algebraic quantum field theories establishing constraints for the expectation of specific linear combinations of projections in a quantum state. In the paper we address the question as to whether a ‘common causal justification’ of these non-classical Bell inequalities is possible. We will show that although (...) the classical notion of common causal explanation can readily be generalized for the non-classical case, the Bell inequalities used in quantum theories cannot be derived from these non-classical common causes. Just the opposite is true: for a set of correlations there can be given a non-classical common causal explanation even if they violate the Bell inequalities. This shows that the range of common causal explanations in the non-classical case is wider than that restricted by the Bell inequalities. (shrink)

In 2007, a debate took place between Hungarian representatives of the analytic and continental schools of philosophy. Boldizsár Eszes and János T?zsér concluded their article about the history of analytic philosophy by the claim that the only possible method of philosophising is analytic. Answering on behalf of continental philosophers, Tibor Schwendtner approached the topic from the points of view of the sociology of knowledge and academic politics. Tamás Ullmann also defended continental philosophy, emphasizing that it is not vague or unscientific. (...) István Faragó-Szabó, in opposition to the continental position, represented a third, independent point of view. In their answer to Scwendtner, Eszes and T?zsér reject his charges, providing extensive evidence against them. (shrink)