Orthodox neurocognitive accounts of the bodily sense of agency suggest that the experience of agency arises when action-effects are anticipated accurately. In this paper, I argue that while successful anticipation is crucial for the sense of agency, the role of unsuccessful prediction has been neglected, and that inefficacy and uncertainty are no less central to the sense of agency. I will argue that this is reflected in the phenomenology of agency, which can be characterized both as the experience of efficacy (...) and effort. Specifically, the “sense of efficacy” refers to the perceptual experience of an action unfolding as anticipated. The “sense of effort”, in contrast, arises when an action has an uncertain trajectory, feels difficult, and demands the exertion of control. In this case, actions do not unfold as anticipated and require continuing adaptation if they are to be efficacious. I propose that, taken individually, the experience of efficacy and effort are insufficient for the sense of agency and that these experiences can even disrupt the sense of agency when they occur in isolation from each other. I further argue that a fully-fledged sense of agency depends on the temporally extensive process of prediction error-cancelation. This way, a comparator account can accommodate both the role of accurate prediction and prediction error and thus efficacy and effort. (shrink)

There is the tension between, on the one hand, Wittgenstein’s not giving theoretical weight to metaphor, and on the other, his exuberant use of it. On a more fundamental level, there is a straightforward contradiction between Wittgenstein’s claim of the primordial literalness of everyday language, and his stress on the multiplicity and flexibility of language-games. Wittgenstein’s problem was that he did not succeed in making his ideas on metaphor, and indeed his ideas on metaphor and images, converge with the main (...) drift of TS 227 (the so-called ‘Part I’ of the so-called ‘Philosophical Investigations’). It was this divergence, I believe, that prevented him from rounding out his later philosophy. (shrink)

The present online volume contains the papers prepared for the 11th Budapest Visual Learning Conference – ENVISIONING AN ELECTRIFYING FUTURE – held in a physical-online blended form on Nov. 13, 2024, organized by the University of Pécs (represented by Prof. Gábor Szécsi, Dean, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Education and Regional Development), and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (represented by Prof. Kristóf Nyíri, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). Nyíri and Szécsi were responsible for sending out the call for abstracts (...) and inviting plenary speakers, Szécsi organized the physical surroundings. Nyíri’s task was to build up and continuosly update the conference website, as well as to edit the accepted submissions. As we indicated in the call for submissions, the conference was planned as an interdisciplinary encounter of communication and media theory, cultural sciences, sociology, psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, history, political science, picture theory, and other disciplines. We insisted on achieving new scholarly results. Especially with AI now complementing, or intruding into, the world of the internet, what image of the future can we conceive of, what new patterns of life and in particular forms of education should we strive to create? (shrink)

The study focuses on the ethical aspects of decision-making by national elites in the context of the thinking of Ján Kollár (1793–1852) and Ľudovít Štúr (1815–1856) on the issue of Slavism. Attention is paid to the issue of responsibility for preserving the greatness and unity of the nation in the context of the formation of national identity and individuality. The concepts of the mentioned authors had an impact on the cultural-civilizational orientation of Slovak elites with an emphasis on the role (...) of moral obligations in shaping the value orientation of the nation. In this context, the analysis focuses on the works Reciprocity between the various tribes and dialects of the Slavic nation and Slavdom and the world of the future, which, at the same time, represent alternative concepts of the cultural and political orientation of the Slavs. The study simultaneously analyses these concepts as alternative programs of cultural and political development of national identity, as well as concepts aimed at humanist and political goals. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of networks in cognition on two levels: on the level of the organization of ideas, and on the level of interpersonal communication. Any interesting system of ideas forms a network: ideas presented in a linear order (the order forced upon us by verbal expression) will necessarily convey a distorted picture of the underlying patterns of thought. Networks of ideas typically consist of a great number of nodes with just a few links, and a small number (...) of hubs with very many links; that is, they are, to employ Albert-László Barabási's term, "scale-free." Barabási fits into a specific tradition: Hungarians had an early influence on the philosophy of networks, and on the philosophy of communication as developed at Marshall McLuhan's Toronto Circle. In fact, this was the circle in which certain Hungarian and Austrian ideas on mediated collective thinking first came together—a telling testimony to the conditions of disturbed communication and idiosyncratic networking typical of East-Central Europe, past and present. The nodes-and-hubs pattern is characteristic, too, of social networks, in particular of scholarly and scientific networks. The paper analyses the role of "invisible colleges"—informal groups of scientific elites through whom the communication of information both within a field and across fields is channelled. By way of conclusion the notion of a new type of personality, the "network individual," is discussed: the network individual is the person reintegrated, after centuries of relative isolation induced by the printing press, into the collective thinking of society—the individual whose mind is manifestly mediated, once again, by the minds of those forming his/her smaller or larger community. (shrink)

Pickering & Garrod (P&G) propose that inner speech monitoring is subserved by predictions stemming from fast forward modeling. In this commentary, we question this alignment of language prediction with the inner speech monitor. We wonder how the speech monitor can function so efficiently if it is based on incomplete representations.

We welcome Blair's argument that the relationship between fluid cognition and other aspects of intelligence should be an important focus of research, but are less convinced by his arguments that fluid intelligence is dissociable from general intelligence. This is due to confusions between (a) crystallized skills and g, and (b) universal and differential constructs. (Published Online April 5 2006).

This is a book about intellectuals in late twentieth-century Hungary. Altough not strictly a work of intellectual history, it is very much of interest to intellectual historians of the Soviet and p...

Open peer commentary on the article “Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness” by Michael D. Kirchhoff & Daniel D. Hutto. Upshot: We agree with Kirchhoff and Hutto that phenomeno-physical identities have to be motivated to approach the hard problem of consciousness. We propose that REC will do a better job in motivating these identities if intentionality and phenomenality are considered inseparable. We suggest that the notion of dispositional flexibility motivates these phenomeno-intentional identities and (...) opens up a practical avenue for neurophenomenology. (shrink)

Oblak, Boyadzhieva, and Bon claim that fractality is a modal property of the experience of perceptual presence. I will instead argue that the concept of fractality implies amodality and that modal ….

Some twenty years after the term <I>iconic turn has been coined, and with a deluge of digital images, videos and animations surrounding, indeed invading, the learning environment, it appears that educational science, and the everyday practice of education, still very much labour under the impact of the past dominance of alphabetic literacy. But while educators clearly need to retain a measure of conservatism, maintain an acute sense for the logic of the written text and preserve the ability to handle extended (...) hardcopy documents, they have to rise to the task, also, of exploiting the potentials of online networked communication, the constant presence of images, both static and moving, and the continuous interplay of words and images. (shrink)

Contemporary public discourses are, despite the growing array of technologies and spaces for participation, becoming increasingly characterized by polarization – the formation of two distinct and r...

The paper focuses on the thinking of Jonáš Záborský (1812–1876) and Štěpán Launer (1821–1851), which were marginalized in Slovak national-forming thinking. Emphasis is placed on the comparison between non-romantic nationalism and Štúr’s ethnic enthusiasm. Attention is paid to the value of their thinking, which can be analyzed in the context of reflections in the role of cultural identity in Štúr’s conception of culture and its place in relation to European cultural and civilizational affiliation. At the same time, the critique of (...) romantic thinking draws attention to the issue of the responsibility of nation-forming elites for the concept of civic development, which holistically approaches social change. Launer’s and, partly Záborský’s thinking draws attention to the dangers associated with the romantic search for ethnocultural specifics, which may result in the questioning the importance of civil liberties and Western cultural and civilizational affiliation. (shrink)

What if language was an autonomous historical being? What if language’s use was not solely dependent on the intentions of the one who speaks? In this text I will test these provocative statements. Specifically, I will investigate whether language’s proclaimed historical independence can be traced in the usage of the concept of ‘secularisation’, and I will try to unveil the consequences of this operation.Contribution: Has Christianity abandoned the public stage in the ‘secularised’ and industrialised world? In this article I intend (...) to demonstrate that this is not the case. The continuous operative presence of Christianity in our socio-political language is used as the model to prove this argument. (shrink)

As narrative conceptions of selfhood have gained more acceptance within various disciplines including philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences, so too have these conceptions been critically appraised. Chief among those who are suspicious of the overall viability of ‘narrative identity’ is the philosopher, Galen Strawson. In this paper, I develop five arguments underlying Strawson’s critique of narrative identity, and respond to each argument from the perspective of the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricœur. Though intuitive, I demonstrate that none of Strawson’s (...) arguments are cogent. The confrontation between these two figures highlights a deep conceptual disagreement about our epistemic access to the self, which has thus far gone unrecognized in the Anglo-American discussion, so that it raises a new problem for the metaphysics of personal identity. (shrink)

In this paper our aim is to examine whether research conducted on human participants with LSD-25 raises unique research ethical questions or demands particular concerns with regard to the design, conduct and follow-up of these studies, and should this be the case, explore and describe those issues. Our analysis is based on reviewing publications up to date which examine the clinical, research and other uses of LSD and those addressing ethical and methodological concerns of these applications, just as some historical (...) examinations of this subject. The first chapters of the paper give an overview regarding the history of LSD-research with human participants, healthy volunteers and patients alike. The remaining chapters have a focus on questions regarding the potential ethical issues of such human trials in the contemporary research ethics framework. We also consider briefly political and regulatory issues regarding this substance that possibly affect its clinical and research applications. (shrink)

Intertemporal choice involves deciding between smaller, sooner and larger, later rewards. People tend to prefer smaller rewards that are available earlier to larger rewards available later, a phenomenon referred to as temporal or delay discounting. Despite its ubiquity in human and non-human animals, temporal discounting is subject to considerable individual differences. Here, we provide a critical narrative review of this literature and make suggestions for future work. We conclude that temporal discounting is associated with key socio-economic and health-related variables. Regarding (...) personality, large-scale studies have found steeper temporal discounting to be associated with higher levels of self-reported impulsivity and extraversion; however, effect sizes are small. Temporal discounting correlates negatively with future-oriented cognitive styles and inhibitory control, again with small effect sizes. There are consistent associations between steeper temporal discounting and lower intelligence, with effect sizes exceeding those of personality or cognitive variables, although socio-demographic moderator variables may play a role. Neuroimaging evidence of brain structural and functional correlates is not yet consistent, neither with regard to areas nor directions of effects. Finally, following early candidate gene studies, recent Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) approaches have revealed the molecular genetic architecture of temporal discounting to be more complex than initially thought. Overall, the study of individual differences in temporal discounting is a maturing field that has produced some replicable findings. Effect sizes are small-to-medium, necessitating future hypothesis-driven work that prioritizes large samples with adequate power calculations. More research is also needed regarding the neural origins of individual differences in temporal discounting as well as the mediating neural mechanisms of associations of temporal discounting with personality and cognitive variables. (shrink)

What is the difference between doing philosophy and doing the history of philosophy? Where should the line be drawn between ?using? previous philosophers to make one's point and discussing what past philosophers claimed? In trying to confront these questions, this essay starts with a reflection on the difference between doing philosophy and doing the history of philosophy as proposed by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and confronts it with a different one derived from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The ideas (...) developed by Heidegger will then lead to a definition of ?philosophy? and to some etymology-based reflections on what a ?philosopher? is that Plato proposes in his ?Symposium?. The essay continues by arguing that, when doing philosophy, it is necessary to return to philosophy's past in order to recoup philosophical momentum. The essay concludes with some reflection on the possible similarities between Plato's characterization of Eros as the first philosopher and the difference between doing philosophy and doing the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Fairness in machine learning (ML) is an ever-growing field of research due to the manifold potential for harm from algorithmic discrimination. To prevent such harm, a large body of literature develops new approaches to quantify fairness. Here, we investigate how one can divert the quantification of fairness by describing a practice we call “fairness hacking” for the purpose of shrouding unfairness in algorithms. This impacts end-users who rely on learning algorithms, as well as the broader community interested in fair AI (...) practices. We introduce two different categories of fairness hacking in reference to the established concept of p-hacking. The first category, intra-metric fairness hacking, describes the misuse of a particular metric by adding or removing sensitive attributes from the analysis. In this context, countermeasures that have been developed to prevent or reduce p-hacking can be applied to similarly prevent or reduce fairness hacking. The second category of fairness hacking is inter-metric fairness hacking. Inter-metric fairness hacking is the search for a specific fair metric with given attributes. We argue that countermeasures to prevent or reduce inter-metric fairness hacking are still in their infancy. Finally, we demonstrate both types of fairness hacking using real datasets. Our paper intends to serve as a guidance for discussions within the fair ML community to prevent or reduce the misuse of fairness metrics, and thus reduce overall harm from ML applications. (shrink)

The observation that our world is signed by a lasting crisis is as much underwritten as it is questioned. This book offers a new and provocative thesis by taking recourse to the religious discourse of Limbo, and by investigating the temporal and spatial structures of crisis and modernity. Modernity reveals itself to be the state of perennial crisis, and we all live in an immanentized state of Limbo.

Stimulating innovation and growth in the so-called ‘creative economy’ is a current policy objective for national regulators. One policy lever traditionally applied to the creative sector is intellectual property, in particular the scope and term of protection offered by copyright. Opposition to expansion and further enclosure of the copyright public domain was previously articulated in terms of access to a commons of information. Since the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property in 2011, copyright reform in the UK context is increasingly framed (...) in the language of economics. This paper reviews two prevailing economic theories shaping how policy makers discuss the public domain in debates about IP reform: a welfare economics approach which weighs increases in producer and consumer surplus under different policy configurations and an economics of innovation approach which considers the value of the public domain as a reservoir of ideas for individuals and firms. I argue that economic definitions should be augmented by a consideration of the democratic requirement of access to information. The consequences of this re-figuration of the public domain for the public interest and access to information are discussed. (shrink)

We present the first comprehensive taxonomic revision and review the biology of the olingos, the endemic Neotropical procyonid genus Bassaricyon, based on most specimens available in museums, and with data derived from anatomy, morphometrics, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, field observations, and geographic range modeling. Species of Bassaricyon are primarily forest-living, arboreal, nocturnal, frugivorous, and solitary, and have one young at a time. We demonstrate that four olingo species can be recognized, including a Central American species (Bassaricyon gabbii), lowland species with (...) eastern, cis-Andean (Bassaricyon alleni) and western, trans-Andean (Bassaricyon medius) distributions, and a species endemic to cloud forests in the Andes. The oldest evolutionary divergence in the genus is between this last species, endemic to the Andes of Colombia and Ecuador, and all other species, which occur in lower elevation habitats. Surprisingly, this Andean endemic species, which we call the Olinguito, has never been previously described; it represents a new species in the order Carnivora and is the smallest living member of the family Procyonidae. We report on the biology of this new species based on information from museum specimens, niche modeling, and fieldwork in western Ecuador, and describe four Olinguito subspecies based on morphological distinctions across different regions of the Northern Andes. (shrink)

Papers presented at a Hungarian Academy of Sciences online workshop held on May 27, 2021.

Though the problem of conceptual idolatry has captivated contemporary scholarship on the relationship between philosophy and theology, these discussions’ doctrinal consequences remain underdeveloped. I intervene in these debates by engaging and elucidating Martin Luther’s critique of scholastic metaphysics, a critique which foregrounds ontotheology’s spiritual and ecclesial detriments. Luther’s reforming works, from his pivotal 1525 De servo arbitrio to his last major project, the 1545 Genesis commentaries, reveal how a metaphysical theology based on natural reason leads to Pelagianism by generalizing faith (...) to a rational conceptual norm, the moral Law. Returning, however, to Scripture’s “grammar” – which, when read plainly, deconstructs natural reason’s vanity – allows us to encounter Christ ‘in person’ rather than in the concept. Luther thus suggests sola scriptura as a method for resisting ontotheology, but with dramatic dogmatic consequences, such as justification by faith alone. These consequences complicate modernity’s, and especially modern philosophy’s, theological origins and implications. (shrink)

The dialectical-theological origins of the politically- and ethically-charged concept of alterity are well-known within the philosophy of religion. Intellectual histories of this concept tie it too exclusively to the notion of distance or διάστασις in Karl Barth’s early Römerbrief, however, and so miss Barth’s Trinitarian reinterpretation of God’s otherness in his later work. Taking as my hermeneutical key a cipher, the ‘sign of Jonah,’ that emerges in Church Dogmatics IV/1, I show that Barth’s mature doctrines of temporality and filiation understand (...) alterity as a moment of divine life. Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane marks the climax of Barth’s self-reinterpretation: world history inheres within the Christological situation of paternal abandonment. The political-theological conclusions Barth draws from the ‘sign of Jonah’ dovetail with alterity discourses’ antitotalitarian aspirations but suggest that these aspirations’ structural coherence rest on the magisterial Reformers’ Christological and ecclesiological commitments. (shrink)

The relationship between the universal and the particular church was the subject of a comprehensive public debate between two German bishop theologians, namely Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper. The debate was initially occasioned by an official document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the church as communion . The debate has clearly exposed ecclesiology’s complexities and tensions. Ratzinger taps biblical and theological sources in order to valorise unity or universality in an era of farreaching pluralisation. (...) His argumentation culminates in an endeavour to counter unilateral and horizontal ecclesiologies with an axiomatic ‘ontological and temporal primacy of the universal church over the particular churches’. Kasper recognizes genuine dangers in the one-sided ‘horizontalisation’ and fragmentation of ecclesiology. Rooted in his pastoral and oecumenical experience, he is of the opinion that the theological space created by Vatican II for the particular churches and the diocesan bishops should be claimed to the full. He detects a centralistic deformation of Vatican II in Ratzinger’s axiom. For Ratzinger Kasper’s standpoint can be the first step in an empirical reduction of ecclesiology. In this contribution, I have tried to demonstrate that Kasper’s ecclesiological perspective cannot be suspected of ‘de-theologisation’. Indeed, ‘re-theologisation’ can be understood as the central theme of his theology. The problem of determining the relationship between the universal church and the particular churches is given concrete form in the problem of determining the relationship between the office of bishop, the college of bishops in union with the pope, and the Petrine office. Kasper’s insistence on a legitimate degree of latitude for diocesan bishops does not imply that his goal is to decentralise the Petrine office both theologically and pastorally. At a certain moment in the debate, both theologians recognized that their differing perspectives were more a matter of theological opinion than of essential doctrinal conflict. Their mutual support of the idea of the ‘priority of internal unity’ is a crucial and unmistakable key concept for the correct understanding of the debate. (shrink)

Denken vollzieht sich nicht bloß in Wörtern, sondern auch - wesentlich - in kinästhetisch fundierten mentalen Bildern. Unsere alltäglichen Zeitmetaphern entsprechen bildlich vermittelten leiblichen Erfahrungen und führen zu einer Common-Sense-Auffassung der Wirklichkeit der Zeit, welche von der Philosophie nicht widerlegt, sondern gerechtfertigt werden sollte. Kristóf Nyíri argumentiert auf der Grundlage einer nicht-konventionalistischen Auffassung der bildlichen Bedeutung für die These der Realität der Zeit. Er zeigt: Die Grenzen des Vorstellbaren fallen sowohl in der Religion als auch in der Wissenschaft mit den (...) Grenzen des Verbildlichbaren zusammen. (shrink)

Whether understood as an adherence to the given, as an appeal to observe traditions, or as the wish to return to some bygone age, conservatism is bedevilled by paradoxes. The present essay attempts to overcome these paradoxes by putting forward a new conception of conservatism, identifying it as a worldview bent on the preservation of the totality of human knowledge with the aim of enhancing the survival chances of future generations. Conservatism thus understood targets the achievement of real knowledge. Hence (...) by necessity it must associate itself with a realist epistemology and ontology. I argue that any realism worthy of the name is common-sense realism, and that common-sense realism takes into account not merely the verbal level of cognition but also its visual and motor dimensions. The paper devotes special attention to Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose work has been intensively discussed in recent decades in the context both of conservatism and realism. (shrink)

The present article investigates the rhythm of study as described by Giorgio Agamben in ‘The idea of study’, present in Idea of prose. In this short treatise, Agamben presents Melville’s scrivener Bartleby as the exemplary embodiment of study. Bartleby’s paradigmatic status, according to Agamben’s interpretation, does, however, exclude him from belonging to the ‘class of study’. Bartleby’s exclusion leads to the discovery of an unmentioned member of the ‘class of study’: Eros. The surprising absence of Eros dissolves, however, once he (...) is recuperated as the image of ‘The idea of the work’. Bartleby’s exclusion and Eros’s absent inclusion and presence as the ‘The idea of the work’ not only demonstrate the close relation between study and work, but also explain Agamben’s considerations on the connection between study and the nature of his own work. The article concludes with a call for the remaining importance of Agamben’s festina lente, the rhythm of study, within the broader context of our contemporary university institutions. Once the incessant shuttling between passion and action has been called to a halt—in favour of one of the two extremities—study becomes impossible. (shrink)