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)

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)

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.

Emotional reactions are rather flexible, due to the schema-like organization of complex socio-emotional situations. Some data on emotion development, and on certain pathological conditions such as alexithymia, give further support for the psychological constructivist view put forward by Lindquist et al. Narrative organization is a key component of this schematic organization. The self-related nature of narrative organization provides scaffolding to the contextual dependency of emotions.

Ilan Pappe, one of the New Historians in Israel, answers Amaya et Bacha’s questions concerning the disciplinary proceedings initiated against him by the administration of the University of Haifa. Pappe argues that the measures taken against him were the result of his critique of Israeli academia for its lack of independence, as well as of his scholarly work on the « Nakba » and, in particular, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian village of Tantura at the founding of the state (...) of Israel. In an academic milieu characterized by conformism and cowardice, the work of the New Historians is less and less tolerated by the Israeli authorities. (shrink)

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)

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...

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.

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)

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)

The practice of prenatal diagnosis has brought with it the utilization of pregnancy termination as a preventive approach. In this paper the genetic/teratologic, fetal and maternal indications for termination of pregnancy used in Hungary are described, as well as the legal requirements and the proposed mode of termination at the different stages of gestation. The author is the director of the largest prenatal genetic counseling service in Hungary. Keywords: elective abortion, medico-legal aspects, prenatal diagnosis, genetic disorders, Hungary, bioethics CiteULike Connotea (...) Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Single-pulse and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation are used in clinical practice for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. However, rTMS-based therapies that lead to a significant and sustained reduction in neuropsychiatric symptoms remain scarce. While it is generally accepted that the stimulation frequency plays a crucial role in producing the therapeutic effects of rTMS, less attention has been dedicated to determining the role of the electric field strength. Conventional threshold-based intensity selection approaches, such as the resting motor threshold, produce variable stimulation intensities (...) and electric fields across participants and cortical regions. Insufficient standardization of electric field strength may contribute to the variability of rTMS effects and thus therapeutic success. Computational approaches that can prospectively optimize the electric field and standardize it across patients and cortical targets may overcome some of these limitations. Here, we discuss these approaches and propose that electric field standardization will be instrumental for translational science frameworks aimed at deciphering the subcellular, cellular, and network mechanisms of rTMS. Advances in understanding these mechanisms will be important for optimizing rTMS-based therapies in psychiatry. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Structural injustice is injustice produced by largescale social structures and processes that create systemic disadvantages for large groups of people. Individuals have duties to counteract structural injustice. These duties are more demanding for people privileged by unjust social structures than for non-privileged individuals, even when the latter have equal ability to contribute. What explains this? I review and reject two common explanations, i.e., the Reparation Account and the Restitution Account. I offer a third view, the Domination Account; it holds that (...) the privileged have more demanding duties because they pose a constant threat of domination to non-privileged individuals by virtue of their structural positions. (shrink)

This paper argues that Michael Polányi’s account of how science, as an institution, establishes knowledge can provide a structure for a future institution capable of countering misinformation, or fake news, and deepfakes. I argue that only an institutional approach can adequately take up the challenge against the corresponding institution of fake news. The fact of filtering news and information may be bothering. It is the threat of censorship and free speech limitation. Instead, I propose that we should indicate reliable information (...) with a trademark and news signing-approved information and brand equity. I offer a method of creating a standard for online news that people can rely on (similar to high-quality shopping products). (shrink)

Proofs have been given that the light-cone approximation can be analyzed in terms of the extended quantum-mechanical description of the space-time measurements by the complex numbers. It is then proved that the so established description is able to support both the asymptotical scale-invariant cross sections and the threshold behavior of the high-energy production processes.

Proofs have been given that the underlying background of the scale-breaking contributions of the Pauli-Jordan functions and of the Feynman propagators is the existence of an energy dependent dispersion of the canonical scale dimension, respectively. The energy dependence of these dispersions can be established by taking into account the existence of the time dispersion, too. For the interacting fields the above functions are subject to the scale invariance restoration around the underlying proper-time dispersions, in so far as the short space-like (...) space-time region is considered. (shrink)

Plato claimed that the regular solids are the building blocks of all matter. His views, commonly referred to as the geometric atomistic model, had enormous impact on human thought despite the fact that four of the five Platonic solids can not fill space without gaps. In this paper we quantify these gaps, showing that the errors in Plato’s estimates were quite small. We also develop a mean field approximation to convex honeycombs using a generalized version of Plato’s idea. This approximation (...) not only admits to view convex mosaics in$$d=3$$d=3dimensions as a continuum but we also find that it is quite accurate, showing that Plato’s geometric intuition may have been remarkable. (shrink)

Many authors argue that refugees should be enfranchised independently of citizenship. The enfranchisement of refugees is often seen as crucial for affirming their agency in the politics of asylum. However, most arguments in the literature do not explain why precisely it matters that they exercise their agency in the realm of democratic decision-making, i.e. why it matters that refugees participate in collectively wielding the public power to which they are subjected, rather than passively enjoy protection against the excessive and intrusive (...) exercise of this power. This leaves it unclear what value refugee enfranchisement realises precisely, and what function or role it is meant to play within the overall provision of asylum. My goal is to propose a plausible explanation of the significance of democratic inclusion from the viewpoint of refugees' agency. I argue that refugee enfranchisement affirms refugees' agency by advancing their interest in acting as makers of justice within the political context in which they find themselves. (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)

Democracy is the form of government in which citizens have an equal say in political decision-making. But what does this mean precisely? Having an equal say is often defined either in terms of equal power to influence political decision-making or in terms of appropriate consideration, i.e., as a matter of attributing appropriate deliberative weight to citizens’ judgement in political decision-making. In this paper I argue that both accounts are incomplete. I offer an alternative view according to which having an equal (...) say is having a say as an equal. That is, having an equal say is to be defined in terms of citizens’ occupying a role of political decision-makers, i.e., the political office of the democratic co-ruler of the polity, such that no citizen is a secondary or auxiliary decision-maker; they rule together as equals. This view aligns with the traditional understanding of democracy as rule by the people while providing a coherent conceptual framework for specifying what it means for democratic citizens to have an equal say which incorporates the strengths of alternative accounts and overcomes some of their challenges. (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)

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)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a specific aspect of a Japanese rite of passage called Shichigosan. Although its origins go back to premodern Japan, its contemporary pattern truly reflects the modern living conditions of the Japanese. Today the ritual is one of the most popular family celebrations. Commercialization has significantly influenced the pattern of celebration in the postwar period and as a result, consumption practices have become inherent parts of the ritual. The paper examines this development from a historical perspective. Furthermore, (...) it discusses the process through which consumption practices contribute to the event’s significance, not diminishing but rather enhancing its importance in the observers’ eyes. Conspicuous consumption thus becomes a creative two-directional process, one which is sustained by families’ aspirations and desires, and one which is informed by forces emanating from the commercial sector and from the media. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with what I believe is the epistemological mission of Kant’s doctrine of taste. The third Critique inherits two problems from the first. The evident one is that the categorial constitution of nature must be complemented with the notion of purposiveness. The less evident one is that the transcendental theory of experience needs a common sense in order to secure a common objectivity. The judgment of taste, conceived of by Kant as a ‘cognition in general’ not restricted (...) to either the particular subject or the particular object, offers a solution. It turns out to be a judgment that cannot be made without assuming the purposiveness of nature and the uniformity of the cognizing subjects. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss an often-neglected topic in the literature on the ethics of voting. Our aim is to provide an account of what states are obligated to do, so that voters may fulfil their role as public decision-makers in an epistemically competent manner. We argue that the state ought to provide voters with what we call a substantive opportunity for competence. This entails that the state ought to actively foster the epistemic capabilities that are necessary to achieve competent (...) participation in political decision-making practices. (shrink)