This review addresses the 100-year-old Hill equation (published in January 22, 1910), the first formula relating the result of a reversible association (e.g., concentration of a complex, magnitude of an effect) to the variable concentration of one of the associating substances (the other being present in a constant and relatively low concentration). In addition, the Hill equation was the first (and is the simplest) quantitative receptor model in pharmacology. Although the Hill equation is an empirical receptor model (its parameters have (...) only physico-chemical meaning for a simple ligand binding reaction), it requires only minor a priori knowledge about the mechanism of action for the investigated agonist to reliably fit concentration-response curve data and to yield useful results (in contrast to most of the advanced receptor models). Thus, the Hill equation has remained an important tool for physiological and pharmacological investigations including drug discovery, moreover it serves as a theoretical basis for the development of new pharmacological models. (shrink)

Recensendo nel 1923 il film Phantom di Murnau (1922), Balazs lo descrive come «un buon film tedesco»: tedesco non a causa del luogo in cui è stato prodotto ma del suo «stile» particolare, caratterizzato dal tentativo di «spiritualizzare la tecnica cinematografica». Questa possibilità di conciliare spirito e tecnica si fonda, secondo Balazs, sulla capacità del film di captare fotograficamente la Stimmung - termine intraducibile, che renderemo a volte con ‘tonalità affettiva’, ‘situazione’ o ‘a...

Dans cet article, nous nous plongeons dans l’angoisse suscitée par l’apparition des formes d’intelligences artificielles. Elle s’exprime comme une crainte de l’automatisation des machines algorithmiques, c’est-à-dire l’exclusion de l’humain des processus internes, des fonctionnements, des passages d’information qu’ils produisent. La crainte est celle de ne plus pouvoir intervenir dans l’activité machinique et, surtout, de ne plus la comprendre. Cette réaction émotionnelle n’est pas nouvelle et se retrouve dans les discours théoriques liés à l’apparition d’autres réalités techniques, telles que le cinéma. (...) Ce constat du retour des discours nous permet de faire recours à la conception plastique de la sensibilité telle qu’elle émerge des écrits cinématographiques de Béla Balázs et de la philosophie de la technicité de Gilbert Simondon : l’esthétique du sujet se construit avec et par le milieu technique environnant, ce qui en fait une faculté relationnelle. L’angoisse apparaît alors un moteur au potentiel créatif qui permet de construire avec les réalités techniques au-delà de leur automatisation. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationship between film and reality, which on the author’s view cannot be grasped without taking into account the viewer. For Béla Balázs the viewer is a part of the film world. Jean Epstein goes even further in his substituting an actor for a viewer. Balázs develops the concept of identification while Epstein’s idea is to subvert the viewer’s world of peace and certainties. Benjamin shows that watching a film is a two-way effect. Barthes’ (...) aim is to show the place, from which this effect comes. Lyotard describes another particularity of the film. The stasis represents a situation when the film shows the limits of perception. (shrink)

Today’s film scholars draw from a dizzying range of theoretical perspectives—they’re just as likely to cite philosopher Gilles Deleuze as they are to quote classic film theorist André Bazin. To students first encountering them, these theoretical lenses for viewing film can seem exhilarating, but also overwhelming. _Thinking in the Dark _introduces readers to twenty-one key theorists whose work has made a great impact on film scholarship today, including Rudolf Arnheim, Sergei Eisenstein, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, and Judith Butler. Rather than (...) just discussing each theorist’s ideas in the abstract, the book shows how those concepts might be applied when interpreting specific films by including an analysis of both a classic film and a contemporary one. It thus demonstrates how theory can help us better appreciate films from all eras and genres: from _Hugo _to_ Vertigo_, from _City Lights _to _Sunset Blvd._, and from _Young Mr. Lincoln_ to _A.I. _and _Wall-E_. The volume’s contributors are all experts on their chosen theorist’s work and, furthermore, are skilled at explaining that thinker’s key ideas and terms to readers who are not yet familiar with them. _Thinking in the Dark _is not only a valuable resource for teachers and students of film, it’s also a fun read, one that teaches us all how to view familiar films through new eyes. Theorists examined in this volume are: Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, Roland Barthes, André Bazin, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Stanley Cavell, Michel Chion, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Douchet, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean Epstein, Michel Foucault, Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Lacan, Vachel Lindsay, Christian Metz, Hugo Münsterberg, V. F. Perkins, Jacques Rancière, and Jean Rouch. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe general assumption that people fail to notice discrepancy between their answer and the normative answer in the conjunction fallacy task has been challenged by the theory of Logical Intuition. This theory suggests that people can detect the conflict between the heuristic and normative answers even if they do not always manage to inhibit their intuitive choice. This theory gained support from the finding that people report lower levels of confidence in their choice after they commit the conjunction fallacy compared (...) to when their answer is not in conflict with logic. In four experiments we asked the participants to give probability estimations to the options of the conflict and no-conflict versions of the tasks in the original set-up of the experiment or in a three-option design. We found that participants perceive probabilities for the options of the conflict version less similar than for the no-conflict version. As people are less confident when choosing between more similar options, this simil.. (shrink)

This interesting book is a compilation of the lectures and discussions held during a four-day event "Grand Challenges for Science in the 21st Century" organized by Para Limes at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The elite group of speakers included Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner who called on all scientists to adopt a truth-seeking approach and not be afraid of challenging assumptions. The other panellists were Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and past President of the Royal Society, the much-cited Terrence Sejnowski (...) from the renowned Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the well-known keynote speaker in economics and complexity sciences Brian Arthur, the former President of the European Research Council Helga Nowotny and the Director of the Parmenides Center for the Conceptual Foundations of Science Eors Szathmary. The lively sessions were moderated by the Danish writer Tor Norretranders. The panel tackled topics from evolution and the origin of the universe to modern technologies and artificial intelligence. The challenges presented during the event are bound to get the reader thinking about what may lie ahead in our future. (shrink)

Physicalism is often characterized as an empirical hypothesis. But according to an alternative conceptualization, it is instead a stance or an attitude. I analyze Roy Wood Sellars’s materialist philosophy in order to show that it is a counterexample to a specific physicalist empirical hypothesis: the minimal completeness of the physical. However, it is arguably not reducible to a stance: it is a meaningful metaphysical thesis with substantive cognitive content.

Three distinct turning points (“bottleneck breakings”) in universal evolution are discussed at some length in terms of “self-reference” and (corresponding) “Reality Principles.” The first (origin and evolution of animate Nature) and second (human consciousness) are shown to necessarily precede a third one, that of Marxist philosophy. It is pointed out that while the previous two could occupy a natural (so in a sense neutral) place as parts of human science, the self-reference of Marxism, as a _social_ human phenomenon, through its (...) direct bearings on the _practice_ of society, did have a stormy history. I conclude that the fall of Bolshevism was unavoidable, and still, we might uphold our hope for a truly free society of humankind, just on the very basis of what we have learned of the fate of Marxist philosophy as such, as a _recursively evolving_ social _practice_: the freedom of humankind of its own ideological burdens (constraints). (shrink)

The notion of common cause closedness of a classical, Kolmogorovian probability space with respect to a causal independence relation between the random events is defined, and propositions are presented that characterize common cause closedness for specific probability spaces. It is proved in particular that no probability space with a finite number of random events can contain common causes of all the correlations it predicts; however, it is demonstrated that probability spaces even with a finite number of random events can be (...) common cause closed with respect to a causal independence relation that is stronger than logical independence. Furthermore it is shown that infinite, atomless probability spaces are always common cause closed in the strongest possible sense. Open problems concerning common cause closedness are formulated and the results are interpreted from the perspective of Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to initiate the exploration of debiasing methods applicable in real-life settings for achieving lasting improvement in decision making competence regarding multiple decision biases. Here, we tested the potentials of the analogical encoding method for decision debiasing. The advantage of this method is that it can foster the transfer from learning abstract principles to improving behavioral performance. For the purpose of the study, we devised an analogical debiasing technique for 10 biases (covariation detection, insensitivity to (...) sample size, base rate neglect, regression to the mean, outcome bias, sunk cost fallacy, framing effect, anchoring bias, overconfidence bias, planning fallacy) and assessed the susceptibility of the participants ( N = 154) to these biases before and 4 weeks after the training. We also compared the effect of the analogical training to the effect of ‘awareness training’ and a ‘no-training’ control group. Results suggested improved performance of the analogical training group only on tasks where the violations of statistical principles are measured. The interpretation of these findings require further investigation, yet it is possible that analogical training may be the most effective in the case of learning abstract concepts, such as statistical principles, which are otherwise difficult to master. The study encourages a systematic research of debiasing trainings and the development of intervention assessment methods to measure the endurance of behavior change in decision debiasing. (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)

In this article I offer an interpretation of the fundamental problem of phenomenology in terms of a philosophy of revelation proposing in this way the renewal of the last important development of Western philosophy both in terms of its metaphysical aspiration and scientific relevance. After the general introduction, I outline the philosophical problem of revelation. I show how this philosophy influenced early phenomenology. I explain the underlying subject matter in the history of phenomenology, i.e. the notion of disclosure. I also (...) outline what I term “apocalyptic phenomenology” in order to focus on the understanding of revelation. In this part I offer details of the notion of newness and the appropriate method applied here. Finally, I summarize the scientific relevance of my approach in the context of logic, methodology, disciplinarity with a special emphasis on the study of religion. (shrink)

This mixed-methods study examines the integration of ChatGPT within academic discourse, focusing on its role in education. ChatGPT, an AI chatbot using the GPT model, offers significant benefits such as enhanced plagiarism detection and improved accuracy in academic work. However, it also presents ethical challenges related to academic integrity. The research explores factors influencing student adoption, including perceived usefulness, ease of use, overall attitude, and anxiety related to ChatGPT usage. Additionally, the study investigates how gender, educational context, and prior AI (...) experience affect ChatGPT usage and perception among a sample of 607 Hungarian university students. It also examines the potential relationship between students’ willingness to use ChatGPT and their willingness to plagiarize. The findings reveal a generally positive attitude towards ChatGPT but also highlight concerns about potential misuse. This study aims to contribute to the responsible integration of AI in education by providing insights and recommendations to balance technological innovation with the preservation of academic integrity. (shrink)

Hawthorne, Landes, Wallmann and Williamson argue that the Principal Principle implies a version of the Principle of Indifference. We show that what the Authors take to be the Principle of Indifference can be obtained without invoking anything which would seem to be related to the Principal Principle. In the Appendix we also discuss several Conditions proposed in the same paper.

The original proposal of H. H. Pattee (1971) of basing quantum theoretical measurement theory on the theory of the origin of life, and its far reaching consequences, is discussed in the light of a recently emerging biological paradigm of internal measurement. It is established that the "measurement problem" of quantum physics can, in principle, be traced back to the internal material constraints of the biological organisms, where choice is a fundamental attribute of the self-measurement of matter. In this light, which (...) is shown to be a consequence of Pattee's original suggestion, it is proposed that biological evolution is a gradual liberation from the inert unity of "subject" and "object" of inanimate matter (as "natural law" and "initial conditions"), to a split biological existence of them and, as a consequence, the "message of evolution" is freedom, rather than complexity in itself. Some classical philosophical systems are brought into context to show that the epistemologies of several strictly philosophical systems of the social sciences are well acquainted with the problem and their solutions support our conclusions. (shrink)

We call attention to different formulations of how physical laws relate to what is physically possible in the philosophical literature, and argue that it may be the case that determinism fails under one formulation but reigns under the other. Whether this is so depends on our view on the nature of laws, and may also depend on the inter-theoretical relationships among our best physical theories, or so shall we argue.

Biró, B. and I. Sain, Peano arithmetic as axiomatization of the time frame in logics of programs and in dynamic logics, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 63 201-225. We show that one can prove the partial correctness of more programs using Peano's axioms for the time frames of three-sorted time models than using only Presburger's axioms, that is it is useful to allow multiplication of time points at program verification and in dynamic and temporal logics. We organized the paper (...) as follows: 1. Preliminaries, 2. The main result, 3. Peano arithmetic with bounded multiplication, 4. Connections with temporal logics and dynamic logics, Acknowledgements, References. (shrink)

The volume, stemming from the long-term cooperation of scholars working on East Central European intellectual history, discusses the patterns of patriotic and national identification in the light of the multiplicity of levels of ethnic, cultural and political allegiances characterizing this region in the early modern period.

I argue that Wittgenstein was no lifelong musical formalist. I further contend that the attribution of musical formalism obscures, while the break with it I propose explains, the role that music played in the development of his philosophy of language. What is more, I sketch a perspective on the later Wittgenstein’s remarks on the music and musical understanding that supports my claims. Throughout my discussion, rather than assimilating Hanslick’s and Wittgenstein’s views on music, I point to similarities and differences between (...) them, suggesting that taking snapshots and putting them side by side sheds more light on how they are related to each other. (shrink)

Not so long ago it was fashionable to claim that it is not the moral philosopher's business to say what things are good or what actions we should perform. This view is succinctly stated by A. J. Ayer:There is a distinction, which is not always sufficiently marked, between the activity of a moralist, who sets out to elaborate a moral code, or to encourage its observance, and that of a moral philosopher, whose concern is not primarily to make moral judgments (...) but to analyse their nature.On the other hand, in direct opposition to this, recently many philosophers actively moralize, in the sense that they argue for substantive normative ethical positions. In doing this they tend to assume but not to explore seriously two views: that the notion of moral expertise is unproblematic, and that moral philosophers in particular are moral experts. My aim in this paper is to promote the exploration of these questions. is logically prior to. Nevertheless I begin with discussing ; for puzzles about expertise in morals naturally emerge when one examines the credentials of candidates for the job. (shrink)

In this study, we investigated whether control of the conflict between incongruent heuristic and analytical answer options in a reasoning task is modulated by the presence of conflict on previous trials. In two experiments, we found that the incongruency of the previous trial has a significant effect on the control exhibited on the current trial. Our data also showed that this adaptation effect is modulated by the incongruency of the previous series of trials. These results demonstrate the same control adaptation (...) effects for a reasoning task as observed for standard response interference tasks. Coinciding control effects in the two research areas suggest that cognitive control might be an important mechanism underlying performance on reasoning tasks. Based on these results we argue that the study of cognitive control in reasoning could potentially facilitate the refinement of empirical predictions and provide a new tool to explore the exertion of top-down control in human thinking. (shrink)

The essay undertakes to explore the possibilities of mutually fruitful dialogue between moral philosophy and ontology, in particular, the ontology of relations. The latter copes with the question of how relations relate, whereas moral philosophy often ignores the ontological implications of such crucial relations as love and interpersonality. The paper proceeds as follows. First, the ontology of relations is discussed. Second, various examples are analysed. From this, a conception of relation instantiation emerges, according to which to determine which relation actually (...) obtains, one has to take into account (a) the context, (b) the specific content or meaning of the relation, and (c) some action or decision or mode of existence of the relata. This conception suggests that relation instantiation cannot be explained by a single formula. By the help of this conception, Hume''s thesis of the identity of killing relations between human and nonhuman beings is questioned. Then, the relation of love is analysed. It is shown that love as a moral relation is perfectly explicable in terms of ontology. Moreover, its essence is best captured by the interrelation of the particulars, the relation of love as a universal, and by the relating action of the particulars. Finally, the alleged relation of universal fraternity (interpersonality as such), linking up each human being to all other human beings, is discussed. (shrink)

We investigate Maxwell's attempt to justify the mathematical assumptions behind his 1860 Proposition IV according to which the velocity components of colliding particles follow the normal distribution. Contrary to the commonly held view we find that his molecular collision model plays a crucial role in reaching this conclusion, and that his model assumptions also permit inference to equalization of mean kinetic energies, which is what he intended to prove in his discredited and widely ignored Proposition VI. If we take a (...) charitable reading of his own proof of Proposition VI then it was Maxwell, and not Boltzmann, who gave the first proof of a tendency towards equilibrium, a sort of H-theorem. We also call attention to a potential conflation of notions of probabilistic and value independence in relevant prior works of his contemporaries and of his own, and argue that this conflation might have impacted his adoption of the suspect independence assumption of Proposition IV. (shrink)

There are three major themes in the dialogue thought to be Plato’s Statesman: the nature of statesmanship, the difference between perfect and less than perfect regimes and the method of division. In this paper I focus on the first two themes. I argue, first, that the dialogue makes a plausible case for what it takes to be a wise statesman. In doing so, I play down the importance of the second theme: the difference between regimes. In fact, I consider this (...) discussion to be deeply flawed and even irrelevant to the argument of the first. My main purpose is to provide a critical analysis of the political theory articulated in the dialogue. My analysis is made plausible by abandoning the traditional view that the Statesman was written Plato in its entirety as a unified whole. In my view, a close reading of the text supports the hypothesis that it is, at best, semi-authentic; namely, that it is most likely a collage of fragments written at different times by Plato and other members of the Academy. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 86-102.

Jeffrey conditioning is said to provide a more general method of assimilating uncertain evidence than Bayesian conditioning. We show that Jeffrey learning is merely a particular type of Bayesian learning if we accept either of the following two observations: – Learning comprises both probability kinematics and proposition kinematics. – What can be updated is not the same as what can do the updating; the set of the latter is richer than the set of the former. We address the problem of (...) commutativity and isolate commutativity from invariance upon conditioning on conjunctions. We also present a disjunctive model of Bayesian learning which suggests that Jeffrey conditioning is better understood as providing a method for incorporating unspecified but certain evidence rather than providing a method for incorporating specific but uncertain evidence. The results also generalize over many other subjective probability update rules, such as those proposed by Field and Gallow. (shrink)

We argue that the truth of determinism is not an interpretation-free fact and we systematically overview relevant interpretational choices that are less known in the philosophical literature. After bypassing the well known interpretational problem that arises in quantum mechanics we identify three further questions about the representational role of the mathematical structures employed by physical theories. Finally we point out that even if we settle all representational issues the received view of physical possibility may also allow the truth of determinism (...) to depend on prior philosophical convictions, notably on one's philosophical account of the nature of laws. (shrink)

Religion After Auschwitz is a philosophical approach to the notion of revelation. Following such authors as A. Dulles, R. Swinburne, or K. Ward, Balazs Mezei investigates some of the main problems of revelation and connects them to the general problem of religion today. Religion is considered in the perspective of the age "after Auschwitz", an expression coined by Hans Jonas and further elaborated by J. B. Metz. Mezei develops the insights of these philosophers and investigates various aspects of religion and (...) revelation "after Auschwitz": contemporary theistic philosophy, phenomenology, art, mysticism, and the question of university education today. A fascinating amalgam of subjects and approaches, Religion and Revelation After Auschwitz is an important contribution to contemporary discussions on the possibility of Catholic philosophy. (shrink)

Die Intention meiner Arbeit ist, einige Elemente in Miltons und Lockes politischen Schriften aufzuweisen, abhängig von ihren Einstellungen zu diversen Medien. Milton hat in seiner Argumentierung gegen die Zensur darzulegen, dass alle historischen Instanzen der Zensur – gewöhnlich zitiert in seinem Jahrhundert – als Beispiele eines anderen Phänomens ausgedeutet werden können. Demgegenüber erkennt Milton, indem er unterschiedliche Loci in Platons Der Staat sowie einigen biblischen Themen analysiert, die Reichweite als auch Gewichtigkeit der nichtbegrifflichen, ungedruckten, nichtverbalen Kommunikationsformen; er schildert sie als (...) Zeichen des kindischen, weiblichen oder ungebildeten Verhaltens, als wertlose Phänomene aus dem Blickwinkel der in der Pressefreiheit verkörperten politischen Libertät. John Lockes Einstellung ist übereinstimmend. Ich erläutere eine Ideenkette, analog zu jener Miltons, in seinen Werken Zwei Abhandlungen über die Regierung und Epistola de tolerantia, indem ich die Analyse auf den Begriff der Adiaphora fokussiere. (shrink)

In der umfangreichen Literatur zur Globalisierung gehen die Autoren gemeinhin von der These aus, dass die Konzepte von ‘Raum’, ‘Zeit’ und ‘Selbst’ in den letzten Jahrzehnten im Rahmen des Globalisierungsprozesses eine drastische Veränderung durchgemacht haben. Der vorliegende Text bietet eine Analyse verschiedener zur Debatte stehender Themen, wobei die genannten Begriffe metaphorisch gebraucht werden. Die Analyse konzentriert sich zunächst auf die berühmten von Manuel Castells eingeführten Begriffe ‘Raum der Ströme’ und ‘zeitlose Zeit’ sowie auf den eher klassischen Terminus des ‘Selbstverlusts’ bei (...) Hannah Arendt. Anhand einer Analyse dieser Begriffe in der Verwendung der genannten Autoren und ihrer Anhänger möchte der Verfasser dieses Textes Folgendes zeigen: Die angeführten Begriffe sind zu verschwommen, um als Musterkonzepte benutzt werden zu können, und daher nur als reine Metaphern akzeptabel; die Begriffe sind im wohlbekannten literarischen Diskurs der klassischen Moderne verankert und insofern keine globalisierungsspezifischen Begriffe. Der letzte im Text besprochene Autor ist der schottische Mediziner und Professor Andrew Ure aus dem 19. Jahrhundert. Gemäß seiner Sprache, die er zur Schilderung seiner Welt verwendet und die an die oben erwähnten Begriffe von M. Castells und H. Arendt erinnert, gehört er zum Diskurs der klassischen Moderne, dem eine radikal andersartige Evaluierung zuschreiben ist. (shrink)