We study behind-the-scenes investor activism promoting environmental, social, and governance improvements by means of a proprietary dataset of a large international, socially responsible activist fund. We examine the activist’s target selection, forms of engagement, impact on ESG performance, drivers of success, and effects on the targets’ operations and value creation. Target firms are typically large and visible, perform well, and have high liquidity and low ESG performance. Engagement induces ESG rating adjustments: firms with poor ex ante ESG ratings experience a (...) ratings increase after complying with the activist’s demands, whereas firms with high ex ante ESG ratings experience a ratings decrease following the revelation of their ESG problems. Activism that is focused on environmental and social issues is more likely to succeed if targets are ESG-sensitive. Successful engagements boost targets’ sales. Risk-adjusted excess stock returns of successful engagements outperform those of unsuccessful engagements by 2.7%. Results are especially strong for firms with low ex ante ESG scores. Specifically, targeted firms in the lowest ex ante ESG quartile outperform matched peers by 7.5% in the year after the end of the engagement. Our results thus suggest that the activism regarding corporate social responsibility generally improves ESG practices and corporate sales and is profitable to the activist. Taken together, we provide direct evidence that ethical investing and strong financial performance, both from the activist’s and the targeted firm’s perspective, can go hand-in-hand together. (shrink)

What are mental states? When we talk about people’s beliefs or desires, are we talking about what is happening inside their heads? If so, might cognitive science show that we are wrong? Might it turn out that mental states do not exist? Mental fictionalism offers a new approach to these longstanding questions about the mind. Its core idea is that mental states are useful fictions. When we talk about mental states, we are not formulating hypotheses about people’s inner machinery. Instead, (...) we simply talk "as if" people had certain inner states, such as beliefs or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This is the first book dedicated to exploring mental fictionalism. Featuring contributions from established authors as well as up-and-coming scholars in this burgeoning field, the book reveals the exciting potential of a fictionalist approach to the mind, as well as the challenges it faces. In doing so, it offers a fresh perspective on foundational debates in the philosophy of mind, such as the nature of mental states and folk psychology, as well as hot topics in the field, such as embodied cognition and mental representation. Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals alike. (shrink)

For Jerry Fodor, Hume’sTreatise of Human Natureis “the foundational document of cognitive science” whose significance transcends mere historical interest: it is a source of theoretical inspiration in cognitive psychology. Here I am going to argue that those reading Hume along Fodor’s lines rely on a problematic, albeit inspiring, construction of Hume’s science of mind. My strategy in this paper is to contrast Fodor’s understanding of the Humean mind (consonant with the widely received view of Hume in both cognitive science and (...) much of Hume scholarship) with an alternative understanding that I propose. I thereby intend to show that the received view of Hume’s science of mind can be fruitfully revised while critically engaging with Fodor’s contemporary appropriation. Consequently, I use this occasion to put forward a rather unorthodox interpretation of Hume’s theory in dialogue with Fodor as my guide. (shrink)

It is common wisdom in intellectual history that eighteenth-century science of man evolved under the aegis of Newton. It is also frequently suggested that David Hume, one of the most influential practitioners of this kind of inquiry, aspired to be the Newton of the moral sciences. Usually this goes hand in hand with a more or less explicit reading of Hume’s theory of human nature as written in an idiom of particulate inert matter and active forces acting on it, i.e. (...) essentially that of Newton’s Principia. Hume’s outlook on the mental world is thus frequently described in terms of conceptual atoms whose association is compared to interparticulate attractions analogous with Newtonian forces in general, and gravity in particular. In the present paper I argue that Hume’s theory can indeed be understood in Newton’s wake, but not in the context of the Principa’s reception but that of the Opticks, which exerted a more significant influence on natural inquiry in eighteenth-century Scotland. I intend to show that Hume speaks a language and represents an outlook on human matters convergent with “philosophical chemistry” in Scotland at that time, and particularly to his later friend and physician William Cullen. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce a prominent classical scholar, József Balogh, whose work can be read as a significant contribution to the historiography of ancient, and in some sense modern, philosophy. Following a summary biography, I sketch the relevance of Balogh''s interpretation of Augustine. I draw some analogies between his and Eric Havelock''s treatment of the problems in ancient philosophy, and argue that the obvious similarities between them have a common origin, namely the perspective of the orality/literacy chasm which both (...) treated, in connection with their research into Augustine and Plato, as crucial. Subsequently, I show how the problem of reading aloud, which Balogh was the first to treat systematically, has acquired significance in some current debates in philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter introduces several versions of mental fictionalism, along with the main lines of objection and reply. It begins by considering the debate between eliminative materialism (“eliminativism”) versus realism about mental states as conceived in “folk psychology” (i.e., beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.). Mental fictionalism offers a way to transcend the debate by allowing talk of mental states without a commitment to realism. The idea is to treat folk psychology as a “story” and three different elaborations of this are reviewed. First, (...) prefix semantics paraphrases a sentence like ‘Biden believes that Trump lost’ as ‘According to folk psychology, Biden believes that Trump lost’, whereby ontological commitment to belief is avoided. Similarly, pretense theory suggests that we do not assert ‘Biden believes that Trump lost’, but only pretend to assert it. Third, affective theory proposes that such discourse is used in a metaphorical way to understand a person’s affective and dispositional states vis-a-vis the community. The main objections concern whether folk psychology has the features of storytelling, and whether mental fictionalism ends up being self-refuting. The chapter also recaps a less discussed fictionalist view about “qualia” or phenomenal states, and closes by summarizing the papers contained in the volume. (shrink)

In Opticks, Newton notes that by following the method of analysis and synthesis, ’the bounds of moral philosophy will also be enlarged’. Hume’s Treatise fulfills this vision, albeit with significant caveats. The chapter argues: 1) Hume’s affinity with Newton is primarily methodological, and Hume’s project is closer to the Queries of Opticks than to the Principia. 2) For Hume, moral philosophy is an experimental study of moral beings qua moral beings which results in ‘an anatomy of the mind’ embodying an (...) epistemic ideal closer to Scottish philosophical chemistry than to any kind of mechanical philosophy. 3) Hume primarily inquires into qualitatively different active principles of human nature that explain why humans function as they do. 4) The knowledge that Hume’s project offers can be used normatively. 5) Thus, in Hume’s hands the boundaries of moral philosophy are enlarged. Yet, being entirely secular, it was not what Newton had envisioned. (shrink)

A piliscsabai Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem oktatója, Hankovszky Tamás (két kivételtől eltekintve) az utóbbi évtizedben megjelent publikációiból állította össze tanulmánykötetét. A filozófiai, teológiai és irodalmi ihletésű írásokat mindenekelőtt "az Istennel való találkozás" keresztény hite fűzi egybe, és persze a filozófiatörténész szerző preferenciái (Pilinszky, Camus, Mauriacimon Weil, Dosztojevszkij). "Minden találkozás olyan partnereket követel, akik szabadon megnyílnak egymásnak, de nem oldódnak fel egymásban, akik a másik közelségére vágynak, mégis megőrzik a köztük lévő távolságot, mert a dialógust keresik, és a dialógus lételeme (...) a különbözőség. Ám az ember csak azért különbözik a másik embertől és Istentől, hogy kapcsolatba léphessenek" - olvasható az ismertetőben. Mivel Hankovszky professzor a találkozásban és a párbeszédben látja az élet értelmét és végső célját, a kötet kívül áll azon a misztikát is felölelő monista hagyományon, amely az Istennel való minél teljesebb egyesülésre, Isten és ember egységére törekszik, és a vele való párbeszédet, a kölcsönös megszólítást pusztán a cél felé vezető út első lépésének tekinti. Azonban éppen azért áll kívül ezen az ősi és tiszteletreméltó hagyományon, hogy dialógust folytasson vele, és így teljesebben érthesse meg Isten és ember viszonyát, valamint megtalálja benne a földi lét, a művészet és a kultúra igazi helyét. A szakkönyvtárak anyagába ajánlható kötetet rövidítés- és irodalomjegyzék, valamint az esszék és tanulmányok első megjelenési helyeinek listája teszi teljessé. (shrink)

Gyorgy Tamas works in the philosophy of logic, that difficult interdisciplin ary region wherein the notion of categories is both basic and subtle. To understand ways of thinking, to understand patterns of whatever is real, to recognize what is possible and to reject the nonsensical and the impossible is to comprehend the categories. This was a in thought and in fact, recurring motive of European thought from the earliest self-aware beginnings, and Tamas knows that history well, as his critical respect (...) demonstrates. Ancient, medieval, and modern thinkers appear in this book, set forth in their own words; and likewise we see that Tamas has built upon the historians and commentators, upon the pioneering historical investigation of the categories by Trendelenburg a century ago and by Bochenski in our days. Tamas has two principal goals here: to investigate the logic, which is to say the structure and the relations, of the philosophical categories; and to set forth the logic of thought which may then be based upon the critically established system of categories obtained by that investigation. Ancillary but of striking value is his style of historical relevance which enables the reader to engage in a discussion that is both analytically sharp and developmentally insightful. Furthermore, Tamas draws upon his contem porary colleagues with similar critical respect: Lukasiewicz, Quine, Patzig, Menne, Tavanets and others. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct the central concept of the young Lukács’s and Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge, as they present it in their writings in the early decades of the twentieth century. I argue that this concept, namely Weltanschauung, is used to refer to some conceptually unstructured totality of feelings, which they take to be a condition of possibility of intellectual production, and this understanding is contrasted to an alternative construal of the term that presents it as logically structured, quasi-theoretical (...) background knowledge. This concept has Kantian reminiscences: it is a condition of possibility of intellectual production in general. The young Mannheim and Lukács rely on 'Weltanschauung' so understood as a phenomenon mediating between the facts of society and individual intellectual production and reception: it is seen as being conditioned by sociological facts and therefore as a historical and sociological category through which, and therefore indirectly, society enters into intellectual production. (shrink)

Here I challenge the philosophical consensus that we use folk psychology for the purposes of metarepresentation. The paper intends to show that folk psychology should not be conceived on par with fact-stating discourses in spite of what its surface semantics may suggest. I argue that folk-psychological discourse is organised in a way and has conceptual characteristics such that it cannot fulfill a fact-stating function. To support this claim I develop an open question argument for psychological interpretations, and I draw attention (...) to the central role of rationality, the conceptual connections, and the essential evaluative content inherent in folk psychological ascriptions. As a conclusion I propose that a fictionalist account of the discourse would fit its characteristics better than a factualist-realist interpretation. (shrink)

An evolutionary theory of socialization suggests that children from father-absent families will mature earlier, and form less-stable pair bonds, compared with those from father-present families. Using a sample of about 1,000 persons the recent study focuses on elements of father-absent children’s behavior that could be better explained by a Darwinian approach than by rival social science theories. As a result of their enhanced interest in male competition, father-absent boys were found to engage in rule-breaking behavior more intensively than father-present boys. (...) Compared with father-present children, adolescents from widowed households (both boys and girls) showed a higher intensity of various kinds of noncompliant behavior, which can be linked to their earlier maturation. School attendance, age at marriage, and marital success proved to be influenced by the children’s early family experiences, governed by adapted evolutionary strategies. Father-absent daughters conceived more children than those whose fathers were present during their childhood. As evolutionary theory predicts, reproductive behavior of individuals from divorced households differed from that of individuals who grew up in widowed households. Finally, the strong correlation found between spontaneous abortion/stillbirths and family arrangement indicates that father absence has certain direct impacts on the neurohormonal processes of child development. (shrink)

To establish Optimality Theory as a framework in anthropology, or as a general model of higher human cognition, researchers have to demonstrate OT is convincing in a number of ways. This commentary summarizes some of them including factorial typologies, exact formulation of candidate sets and constraints, and computational plausibility.

The paper contrasts Robert Brandom’s account of rationality with that of Daniel Dennett. It argues that neither of them is tenable, and sketches an alternative outlook that avoids the problems. In spite of their fundamental differences, both Brandom and Dennett employ a robust, i.e. explanatory and predictive notion of rationality, and for different reasons they both fail to offer a plausible theory supporting it. The lesson offered here is that rationality should not be treated alongside other norms prescribing behaviour, as (...) it cannot be accounted for in the same terms. Instead of ascribing rationality a robust role in a philosophical understanding of behaviour, it should be assigned a more modest one: its function should be located not in the context of explaining and predicting behaviour, but in the context of narratives folk psychological interpretation offers. (shrink)

It is essential for social robots to fit in the human society. In order to facilitate this process we propose to use the family dog’s social behaviour shown towards humans as an inspiration. In this study we explored dogs’ low level social monitoring in dog-human interactions and extracted individually consistent and context dependent behaviours in simple everyday social scenarios. We found that proximity seeking and tail wagging were most individually distinctive in dogs, while activity, orientation towards the owner, and exploration (...) were dependent on the context and/or the activity of the owner. The functional analogues of these dog behaviours can be implemented in social robots of different embodiments in order to make them acceptable and more believable for humans. Keywords: dog-owner interaction; social robotics; low-level social monitoring; greeting behaviour; individually distinctive behaviours. (shrink)

_Essays on Wittgenstein and Austrian Philosophy_ is presented for the 60th birthday of professor Christoph Nyíri. The essays presented here for the first time are focused on Austrian intellectual history, and on Wittgenstein’s philosophy – the two main areas of Professor Nyíri’s interests. Typically, the contributors are outstanding scholars of the field, including among others David Bloor, Lee Congdon, Newton Garver, Wilhelm Lütterfields, Joachim Schulte, Barry Smith. The volume is of primary interest for Wittgenstein scholars and those studying the 19th (...) and 20th century Austrian intellectual history. As the volume is presented for Professor Nyíri, the papers collected here reflect his interests in Wittgenstein and Austrian philosophy. Beginning with an introductory chapter on Nyiri’s achievements in this field of scholarship, the volume is in four parts. The first part contains essays on Austrian philosophy broadly understood, more precisely on its socio-historical context (Barry Smith and Wolfgang Grassl), on the relation between Marxism and Arnold Hauser’s philosophy and sociology of art (Lee Congdon), and Neurath’s connection to naturalistic epistemologies (Thomas Uebel). The second part presents Wittgenstein's philosophy in context. Jaakko Hintikka’s paper argues that Wittgenstein’s probable dyslexia can be seen as an external influence on and a source of his philosophy. David Bloor discusses Wittgenstein’s philosophy in the context of Edmund Burke’s conservatism, which can be read as a background of Nyiri’s influential interpretation of Wittgenstein as a conservative philosopher. Newton Garver also touches on the problem of conservatism while discussing passages of _On Certainty_ in the context of Kant, Moore, and T.S. Eliot. Klaus Puhl’s essay connects Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following to Freud’s concept of retroactivity, and argues that rules emerging from empirical regularities can be seen as retroactive constructions. The papers in the third part of the volume offer close readings of Wittgenstein’s works. Rudolf Lüthe offers two readings of Wittgenstein’s criticism of philosophy in the _Tractatus_ can be read in two ways with different consequences, among them is the appearance of philosophy inspired by art rather than the sciences. Joachim Schulte offers an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s use of ’natural history’ that can accommodate all of his remarks containing this concept. Herbert Hrachovec discusses the relation of pictorial and linguistic representations in Wittgenstein’s _Nachlass, _arguing that there is no pronounced opposition between the two. The forth part of the book, containing three papers in German, continues the close inspection of Wittgenstein’s later works. Wilhelm Lütterfelds reconstructs Wittgenstein’s philosophy of time as pointing out memory being the very source of time. Katalin Neumer inspects Wittgenstein’s frequent references to photographs in the context of aspect-seeing and compares them with other remarks on theatre, painting, and music. She concludes that there are no philosophically important structural differences between them. Peter Keicher’s paper offers a comprehensive view on Wittgenstein’s prefaces in the context of his various book-projects. The volume ends with a select bibliography of Professor Nyiri’s works. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to the life and work of Ernest Nagel counted among the influential twentieth-century philosophers of science. Forgotten by the history of philosophy of science community in recent years, this volume introduces Nagel’s philosophy to a new generation of readers and highlights the merits and originality of his works. Best known in the history of philosophy as a major American representative of logical empiricism with some pragmatist and naturalist leanings, Nagel’s interests and activities went beyond these limits. (...) His career was marked with a strong and determined intention of harmonizing the European scientific worldview of logical empiricism and American naturalism/pragmatism. His most famous and systematic treatise on, The Structure of Science, appeared just one year before Thomas Kuhn’s even more renowned, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. As a reflection of Nagel’s interdisciplinary work, the contributing authors’ articles are connected both historically and systematically. The volume will appeal to students mainly at the graduate level and academic scholars. Since the volume treats historical, philosophical, physical, social and general scientific questions, it will be of interest to historians and philosophers of science, epistemologists, social scientists, and anyone interested in the history of analytic philosophy and twentieth-century intellectual history. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology comprises a wide area of theories and researches. One area focuses on the universal and comprehensive mechanisms of selection which can be utilized to interpret cultural phenomena. Memetic selection, epidemiology of representations, naturalistic approach to culture, and evolutionary epistemology use various principles and methods to explain the origin and spread of the cultural traits. Csaba Pléh, one of the representatives of Darwinian approach to social sciences, has made an effort to integrate these theoretical frameworks. He emphasizes the continuity (...) among biological evolution, hominid development, and cultural differentiation and change. Indeed, understanding mental, behavioral, and material commonalities shared across individuals or groups of individuals requires a multi-level explanation at different types and levels of evolutionary processes that are based on the same organizational principles but also imply quite distinctive procedures for acquiring, interpreting and using information derived from the social world. (shrink)

The theory of consciousness proposed by O'Brien & Opie is open to the Sorites paradox, for it defines a consciousness system internally in terms of computationally relevant units which add up to consciousness only if sufficient in number. The Sorites effect applies on the assumed level of features.

Explores the impact of Enlightenment philosophers in Scotland on the development of sociology The first collection to look at the significance of the Scottish Enlightenment for sociological thought, this book explores how and what sociological ideas were developed during this period. It also analyses how the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment would emerge and develop in subsequent traditions of sociology. Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed and refined a descriptive-explanatory approach and methodology to explore social and economic processes, an approach that was (...) different from the normative and justificatory aspirations of 17th- and 18th-century social and political philosophies. This distinct contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment is frequently overlooked, even if some of its central figures - Adam Ferguson, David Hume, Adam Smith, to name but three - are acknowledged as important forerunners of contemporary social sciences. This book offers both a synoptic perspective on individual contributions and a connective view of theoretical achievements that are otherwise typically treated in isolation. Tamás Demeter is Professor of Philosophy at the Corvinus University of Budapest and Senior Research Fellow at the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest. (shrink)

The Hungarian health care system is scheduled to undergo dramatic structural changes, emphasizing preventive medicine, health education, and competition among providers. Keywords: cost control, health care reform, health education, Hungary, market system, preventive medicine CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

According to Fichte’s early science of knowledge, man is a free and independent being who becomes somebody not through the power of nature, by developing his innate skills and abilities, or through external influence, but by his own power. Since the essence of human beings is I-hood, the individual, having defeated the not-I or nature living in him, has to strive towards the absolute I, which is nothing else but the being created by himself. This process is Bildung, the details (...) of which are elaborated in Fichte’s philosophy of education, whereby he opposes his point of view to Rousseau. Although Fichte emphasizes the activity of the student, he sees the assistance of an educator as indispensable. The role of the educator can be apprehended from the foundations of the science of knowledge. Thus, in order to be able to posit ourselves as free beings we require another being who summons us. ‘The summons to engage in free self-activity is what we call upbringing.’. (shrink)

It is essential for social robots to fit in the human society. In order to facilitate this process we propose to use the family dog’s social behaviour shown towards humans as an inspiration. In this study we explored dogs’ low level social monitoring in dog-human interactions and extracted individually consistent and context dependent behaviours in simple everyday social scenarios. We found that proximity seeking and tail wagging were most individually distinctive in dogs, while activity, orientation towards the owner, and exploration (...) were dependent on the context and/or the activity of the owner. The functional analogues of these dog behaviours can be implemented in social robots of different embodiments in order to make them acceptable and more believable for humans. Keywords: dog-owner interaction; social robotics; low-level social monitoring; greeting behaviour; individually distinctive behaviours. (shrink)

The aim of this study is an analysis of the possible adaptive consequences of delivery of low birth weight infants. We attempt to reveal the cost and benefit components of bearing small children, estimate the chance of the infants’ survival, and calculate the mothers’ reproductive success. According to life-history theory, under certain circumstances mothers can enhance their lifetime fitness by lowering the rate of investment in an infant and/or enhancing the rate of subsequent births. We assume that living in a (...) risky environment and giving birth to a small infant may involve a shift from qualitative to quantitative production of offspring. Given high infant mortality rates, parents will have a reproductive interest in producing a relatively large number of children with a smaller amount of prenatal investment. This hypothesis was tested among 650 Gypsy and 717 non-Gypsy Hungarian mothers. Our study has revealed that 23.8% of the Gypsy mothers had low birth weight (<2,500 g) children, whose mortality rate is very high. These mothers also had more spontaneous abortions and stillbirths than those with normal weight children. As a possible response to these reproductive failures, they shortened birth spacing, gaining 2–4 years across their reproductive lifespan for having additional children. Because of the relatively short interbirth intervals, by the end of their fertility period, Gypsy mothers with one or two low birth weight infants have significantly more children than their ethnic Hungarian counterparts. They appear to compensate for handicaps associated with low birth weights by having a larger number of closely spaced children following the birth of one or more infants with a reduced probability of survival. The possible alternative explanations are discussed, and the long-term reproductive benefits are estimated for both ethnic groups. (shrink)