Various approaches have been taken recently to a reinterpretation of the European reception of China and the sinophilia-sinophobia dichotomy (Hung 2003, Millar 2010, Jacobsen 2013). In the present article, a nineteenth-century approach to China is examined using Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) as examples. It will be argued that this approach differs from earlier attitudes. First, the central currents will be surveyed in the European reception of China between the Jesuit missionaries and early nineteenth-century philosophies of (...) history, introducing an interpretational framework that differentiates between various approaches to China, namely a _universalistic_ and a _progression-based approach_. Then, first Tocqueville's and then Mill's depictions of China in comparison with the concepts of preceding centuries will be analyzed. It will be argued that Tocqueville and Mill's understanding of China represents a third view that I will call _relation-based_. (shrink)

This book presents the psychological basis, methodology, and application of Marton's phenomenographic approach to the theory of learning.

_Freedom of the Will_ provides a novel interpretation of G. E. Moore’s famous conditional analysis of free will and discusses several questions about the meaning of free will and its significance for moral responsibility. Although Moore’ theory has a strong initial appeal, most metaphysicians believe that there are conclusive arguments against it. Huoranszki argues that the importance of conditional analysis must be reevaluated in light of some recent developments in the theory of dispositions. The original analysis can be amended so (...) that the revised conditional account is not only a good response to determinist worries about the possibility of free will, but it can also explain the sense in which free will is an important condition of moral responsibility. This study addresses three fundamental issues about free will as a metaphysical condition of responsibility. First, the book explains why agents are responsible for their actions or omissions only if they have the ability to do otherwise and shows that the relevant ability is best captured by the revised conditional analysis. Second, it aims to clarify the relation between agents’ free will and their rational capacities. It argues that free will as a condition of responsibility must be understood in terms of agents’ ability to do otherwise rather than in terms of their capacity to respond to reasons. Finally, the book explains in which sense responsibility requires self-determination and argues that it is compatible with agents’ limited capacity to control their own character, reasons, and motives. (shrink)

This book provides a critical survey of measurement theories and a clear exposition of the concerning philosophical questions. The author offers a new, constructive interpretation for measurement in both physics and the social sciences, arguing for a constructivist approach.

This volume - the joint effort of the research groups on practical philosophy and the history of political thought of the Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - brings together scholarly essays that attempt to face the challenges of the contemporary situation. The authors come from rather divergent disciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, law, history, literature and the social sciences, from different cultural and political contexts, including Central, Eastern and Western Europe, (...) and belong to different generations. But they all share an interest to bravely answer the large topical issues concerning universal morality, here and now. (shrink)

This essay – although aware of the contradiction in terms of the concept of conservative theory – tries to pick out some key notions within the conservative political mindset, and offers an analysis of them by relating them to one another. Beside Aristotelian phronesis or practical wisdom, it focuses on kairos, or the right moment for action. It points out that due to the time constraint inherent in the realm of political action, agents need to acquire a kind of tacit, (...) practical knowledge of how to deal with pressing issues, and phronesis is a term which covers this sort of practical ability. The paper then tries to show that individual action is closely connected to communal interests, differentiates between formal and informal forms of communal knowledge and ends up by referring to Oakeshott’s, MacIntyre’s and Tocqueville’s ideas of communal wisdom and practice. (shrink)

The Political Philosophy of the European City offers a wide-ranging panorama of urban political culture in Europe. Its historical scope ranges from the ancient polis through Italian city-states to the ideal of “small is beautiful” in the 20th century. As a political theory, it offers an analysis of conservative, urban republicanism.

I n t r o d u c t i o n This volume contains papers on general linguistics written by Hungarian scholars. The term 'general linguistics' is not easy to define. Is a paper on Hungarian at the same time a study in general linguistics? Certainly not.

Introductory essay / Peter Jones -- The usefulness of the arts and the humanities : the case of Descartes / Gábor Boros -- Roads of remembrance : the treatment of imagination and memory in Gerard's Essay on genius / Zsolt Komáromy -- Diderot's untimeliness / László Kisbali ; transl. Márton Dornbach -- Melody vs. harmony : Rousseau, or, The aesthetics of vowels / Mária Ludassy ; transl. Zsolt Komáromy -- Judgement and taste : from Shakespeare to Shaftesbury / Ferenc (...) Hörcher -- Lord Shaftesbury's "aesthetic freedom" / Endre Szécsényi -- Why one should imitate the Greeks : on Winckelmann / Sándor Radnóti ; transl. Márton Dornbach -- Beauty or beast, or, Monstrous regiments? : Robertson and Burke on women and the public scene / László Kontler -- The concept of nature and the theodicy problem in the Malebranche-Arnauld-Leibniz debate / Dániel Schmal -- Lessing's anti-candide : between reason and revelation / Krisztina Utasi ; transl. Márton Dornbach. (shrink)

Diese Studie führt einen Dialog mit dem französischen Philosophen Gilles Deleuze, um anhand seines Denkens die Erscheinungsweisen von Ereignis zeit- und sprachphilosophisch zu beschreiben. Ereignis, dieses Begriffswort, das sich jeder Definition naturgemäß entzieht, wird in der jüngeren Praktischen Theologie und in der Systematischen Theologie seit Karl Barth häufig gebraucht und selten bestimmt. In dieser Studie geht Ferenc Herzig dem Ereignis nach, ohne es mit einer „Was-ist“-Frage einzuzäunen. Die Konsequenzen für liturgische und homiletische Grundfragen werden daraufhin ebenso dargestellt wie der (...) Versuch unternommen, die Frage nach Gott unter poststrukturalistischen Vorzeichen zu stellen. (shrink)

The paper addresses the problem whether arts, sciences and humanities can be regarded as useful. First it examines the means-ends relation and argues that some means are not causally but rather constitutively connected to ends. Second, it specifies two dimensions along which the problem of values will be addressed. One is the issue about the relation between values and desirability, the other is the active and affective conceptions of valuation. Third the paper offers a concise reconstruction of the answers to (...) the question of usefulness formulated during the enlightenment. It will be argued that traditionally usefulness was understood causally and not on the individual, but rather on the social level. In the final section the paper contends that values should be understood in terms of activities rather than in terms ofdesire satisfaction and that this interpretation can bring us closer to answering the question whether and why arts and sciences are useful. (shrink)

In this new book, Fr. Damian Ference proposes a more precise lens for decoding Flannery O'Connor's narrative art, one that originates in O'Connor's own words about herself: Hillbilly Thomism. The author examines the various ways in which St. Thomas Aquinas and the philosophical tradition of Thomism shaped not only O'Connor's view of reality but also the stories she told to help us see and know it."--from inside front flap.

The question of the relationship of the State and the law is one of the oldest questions of the history of the theory of state. It is one of those fundamental issues which can be regarded as real dividing lines: the decision one takes in this theoretical question determines a lot in the thinker's later theory. It is difficult to find the reasons for this phenomenon. One might argue that this is so because these two concepts are so basic, that (...) while one has to use them quite frequently, one would hardly dare to define them. But even if we accept this aversion from clearcut definitions, the explanation of why the relationship of these two concepts is so important is an unavoidable task for a number of reasons. (shrink)

Eigentlich ist es offenkundig, dass Hegel keine Ethik hat. Es ist allgemein bekannt, dass die Individualitat der Person, die vom Person abhangige Aspekte der moralischen Wahl bei Hegel in der menschlichen Gattung--im allgemeinobjektiven Wertcharakter deren--aufgehoben werden. Ebensowohl ist es wahr, dass eine moderne Sozialontologie und ontologisch fundierte Ethik ohne Hegel nicht moglich ist. Die Philosophie Hegels bringt im Rahmen der Geschichte der Philosophie eine ontologische Wendung zustande, als er in den Mittelpunkt der gesellschaftsphilosophischen Untersuchung die menschliche gegenstandliche Tatigkeit stellt.(edited).

The paper comments on a rather uncommon approach to mathematics called physicalist formalism. According to this view, the formal systems mathematicians concern with are nothing more and nothing less than genuine physical systems. I give a brief review on the main theses, then I provide some arguments, concerning mostly with the practice of mathematics and the uniqueness of formal systems, aiming to show the implausibility of this radical view.

Marxist philosophers have always given great attention to theoretical questions concerning the historical role and significance of the state and to the processes by which the types and political forms of states have changed. As we know, historical materialism demands both concrete analysis of the political organization of the society of a given socioeconomic system and the discovery of certain general patterns that manifest themselves in the course of world history. Marx's thesis that reality can truly be understood only on (...) the basis of a theoretical study of history retains its full significance to this day for philosophical analysis of the complex and diverse problems of the theory of the state. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it raises the issue whether and how contractarian political theory can justify political obligations toward some particular political authority. Second, it attempts to draw some brief conclusion from this regarding the prospect of Europe as a political community. The paper argues that there is a common assumption to almost all contemporary versions of contractarian political theory which must be dropped in order to make room for the contractarian justification of such obligations. The assumption of (...) mutual unconcern seems to make it impossible for such theories to rationally justify particular obligations towards a particular political authority. I suggest that this limitation can be theoretically overcome. But I also suggest that the feeling of mutual concern of citizens towards each other is a necessary condition of their rationally justifiable obligations towards the decisions of a political authority. The development of this social emotion is a precondition of Europe as a political community. (shrink)