In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William Robertson’s History of Manners in German, 1770–1795László KontlerThe work I have had in preparing this new edition of Robertson’s History of Charles V has not been very agreeable. To compare an already existing translation line by line with the original... costs more trouble than a new translation would require. I do not flatter myself that I have noticed everything that could have been improved, and would hardly undertake (...) such a task for a second time.... 1Anybody familiar with the frustrating side of editorial work can only sympathize with the sentiments expressed in these sentences by Julius August Remer, the editor of the second German edition of William Robertson’s The History of the Reign of Emperor Charles V in 1779. What makes this complaint somewhat peculiar is that just shortly before its author had spoken very highly about their object: “The translator, the late councillor Mittelstedt had too much wisdom and common sense, and was too proficient in both languages... to produce a translation that is not faithful,” and the “excellent book” only needed to be supplemented with a few notes in order to improve its accuracy. 2 Nevertheless, a few years later Remer thought it appropriate to revise Robertson’s work completely, radically changing its structure and its organizing principles and adding substantially to its size. In the process much of the meaning of the [End Page 125] original was lost; and what was gained instead bore the imprint of the environment, the personality, and the limitations of the stature of the new author. At the same time Robertson’s History—in the original, in Mittelstedt’s translation, and in Remer’s version alike—was held in considerable esteem in German-speaking areas well into the nineteenth century. 3A study of the patterns of thought involved in its several incarnations may offer an insight into the way of the transmission of ideas through cultural boundaries. Looking at the German publishing history of the celebrated Scottish historian William Robertson’s greatest accomplishment between the 1770s and the 1790s, this article is intended as a contribution to the study of the limits of translatability as well as of the intellectual horizons of cultural exchanges, through translation, between such different enlightened intellectual communities as those of late-eighteenth-century Scotland and North Germany. 4Although it is only recently that William Robertson has started to emerge from the obscurity he suffered in the shadow of the more glittering names of the Scottish Enlightenment, an analysis of the ways in which he was influential no longer needs either to be defended or prefaced by a survey of his various activities. Robertson is the protagonist of Richard B. Sher’s study of Church, academe, and polite society in Edinburgh; and his character and oeuvre as a historian have been analyzed from several points of view. 5 Robertson’s contemporary admirers already placed him on a par with Hume and Smith, describing him as a chief component in Scotland’s “strong ray of philosophic [End Page 126] light.” 6 His “combination of philosophy and history” was said to have avoided, more successfully than all others, “the inconveniences which it threatens.” 7 Indeed, his History of Charles V was one of the most formidable eighteenth-century attempts to use “stadial” or conjectural history—which figured prominently not only in the thought of the Scottish theorists but also of the French physiocrats and the German-Swiss thinker Isaak Iselin—as a conceptual background to his account of the historical process as a result of which the foundations of modernity were laid.Such development studies were deemed essential to the proper understanding of contemporary commercial society; and especially in the long introduction of Robertson’s work, A View of the Progress of Society in Europe from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century, “descriptive and narrative history” 8 were magisterially interwoven to produce a richly documented piece of historiography. It also offered an overview of the natural succession of various stages in people’s mode of subsistence from hunting through shepherding and agriculture to commerce and the ways in which these gave rise... (shrink)

The Scottish historian William Robertson's works on European encounter with non-European civilizations (History of America, 1777; Historical Disquisition [?] of India, 1791) received a great deal of attention in contemporary Germany. Through correspondence with Robertson, as well as by reviewing and translating his texts, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg took an active part in this process. The younger Forster also became simultaneously involved in a debate which was unfolding on the German intellectual scene concerning the different or equal (...) ?value? (Wert) of the various ?races of mankind? (Menschenrassen), engaging especially the relevant views advanced by the Göttingen historian Christoph Meiners and Immanuel Kant. The debate was firmly embedded in the context of an emerging ?science of man? in the German Enlightenment, to which Forster contributed an almost incomparable richness of empirical knowledge as well as theoretical sophistication. Forster's direct engagement with Robertson's work during the same period (mid-1780s to the early 1790s) creates a context through which the Wissenschaft vom Menschen in the Aufklärung and the Scottish version of the science of man ? built on the neighbour disciplines to which Robertson's historiography was crucially indebted ? is set in an interesting comparative light. This paper, part of a comprehensive project tracing the German reception of Robertson as an instance of inter-cultural exchange in the Enlightenment, will exploit the opportunities presented by one particular and documented case for a general comparison of enlightened ?sciences of man? (shrink)

The Enlightenment can usefully be conceived as a confrontation with eroding Christian and classical republican ethics. It was permeated with assumptions about women and the gendered dichotomy between public and private spheres. While William Robertson and Edmund Burke, along with many of their contemporaries, remained committed to Christian- and republican-based conceptions of virtue, they were working within a new Enlightenment paradigm. Its political agenda has to be understood by way of its configurations of beauty, taste, and morality as these relate (...) to the imperatives and needs of modern societies of a high level of sophistication and differentiation. An examination of two themes in the work of Robertson and Burkesavagecivilizedbeauty in distressreveals how long-held convictions about the character of women, especially with regard to their capacity and right to appear in the public domain, were modified and adjusted to the idea of progress, and became central to an enlightened affirmation of modern European civilization. The result had its ironies. On the one hand, a positive public and indeed political role was invented for women that is central to understanding the overall thrust of a political discourse based on politeness, civility, refinement and similar values specifically associated with modern commercial societies. On the other hand, though the complexity of this model of society gave ample scope to informal and spontaneous vehicles of social disciplining, whatever room was left for the more traditional ways of governing polities through the direct exertion of political power remained closed to women: the very features that opened for them the opportunity to play political roles through sociability in the public sphere also circumscribed them. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article examines a translation of the Scottish historian William Robertson’s probably most famous text in the journal of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in the 1830s, as a case study on continuity between the Enlightenment and the era of liberal reform in Central Europe. It underlines the benefits of the comparative study of Scotland in Robertson’s time and Hungary in the Reform Age as partners in composite polities at the opposite ends of Europe, where patriotic projects of overcoming limitations (...) of political sovereignty via cultural and economic improvement were pursued. The belated reception of Robertson in Hungary took place within a larger initiative of progress and refinement, associated with the liberal Count István Széchenyi, in an environment where many potential sympathizers with his programme were ambivalent about the values of cosmopolitanism and commerce promoted by Robertson, indebted as they remained to more archaic modes of patriotism. In view of the peculiarities of translation, and selection the Hungarian rendering of the View of the Progress was attuned to the sentiments of this constituency, and may be interpreted as a set of discursive gestures aimed at conquering it for the cause of ‘liberalism as refinement.’. (shrink)

This volume advances a better, more historical and contextual, manner to consider not only the present, but also the future of ‘crisis’ and ‘renewal’ as key concepts of our political language as well as fundamental categories of interpretation.

Translations, Histories, Enlightenments is an excellent example of a work that starts with a tightly defined research focus and then ripples outwards to leave many important issues looking somewhat...

This chapter enters into a debate with the analytic theory of action, especially the version developed by Donald Davidson, who makes it clear that the upsurge of a desire to perform a specific action is a natural event that is causally responsible for the action in question. The narrative interpretation of selfhood was initiated by Hannah Arendt. Selfhood is certainly assured on a passive and affective plane. Edmund Husserl maintains that in the passive sphere, a self is constituted preceding active (...) reflection. As Paul Ricœur clearly determines, the complicity with reality entails a ‘decentred self’ that is strictly opposed to the self-centred, self-controlled, and self-assured ego of modern philosophy. Emmanuel Levinas never accepted Wittgenstein's constraint on philosophy to remain silent with regard to the ‘unsayable’. (shrink)

I will sketch a possible way of empirical/operational definition of space and time tags of physical events, without logical or operational circularities and with a minimal number of conventional elements. As it turns out, the task is not trivial; and the analysis of the problem leads to a few surprising conclusions.

This essay presents an argument, which it calls the Bias Argument, with the dismaying conclusion that (almost) everyone should significantly reduce her confidence in (too many) philosophical beliefs. More precisely, the argument attempts to show that the most precious philosophical beliefs are biased, as the pervasive and permanent disagreement among the leading experts in philosophy cannot be explained by the differences between their evidence bases and competences. After a short introduction, the premises of the Bias Argument are spelled out in (...) the first part. The second part explains why the objections to the Bias Argument are not compelling. Even though the essay does not adopt the conclusion of the Bias Argument, partly because it seems to be self-defeating, the authors know no plausible way to refute its premises. Thus, the primary aim of the essay is to clarify why the aporetic situation of the Bias Argument arises. (shrink)

The evidential problem of evil involves a rarely discussed challenge, namely the challenge of defending theism against the hypothesis of a morally indifferent creator. Our argument uses a Bayesian framework and it starts by showing that if the only alternative to classical theism is naturalistic atheism, then fine-tuning can render theism virtually certain, even in the face of evil. But if the alternatives include the hypothesis of a morally indifferent creator, theism is defeated even if the fine-tuning premise is accepted. (...) The resulting version of the evidential problem is unsolvable using the tools that are currently deployed by theists against evil. (shrink)

Explores the truth of human existence and human consciousness, presenting a view of our lives as an infinite existence in spacetime and beyond spacetime to resolve the paradoxes of our commonly held scientific conceptions of the nature of the cosmos and show a way toward a sustainable global civilization.

By means of the Rollback Argument, this paper argues that metaphysically robust probabilities are incompatible with a kind of control which can ensure that free actions are not a matter of chance. Our main objection to those (typically agent-causal) theories which both attribute a kind of control to agents that eliminates the role of chance concerning free actions and ascribe probabilities to options of decisions is that metaphysically robust probabilities should be posited only if they can have a metaphysical explanatory (...) role but probabilities can explain anything only if chance has a role. First, we reconstruct the Rollback Argument. Second, we criticize the standard ways of reconciling non-chancy control with metaphysically robust probabilities. Finally, we respond to those worries that are related to the thought experiment of the Rollback Argument. (shrink)

In my paper, I spell out which types of libertarian theories can be refuted by Libet-style experiments and which cannot. I claim that, on the one hand, some forms of deliberative libertarianism and restrictive libertarianism cannot even in principle be denied on the basis of these experiments; and on the other hand, standard libertarianism, along with some versions of restrictive and deliberative libertarianism, can in principle be refuted by these experiments. However, any form of restrictive libertarianism can be refuted in (...) the future only if researchers perform new and “untraditional” Libet-style experiments. This is because “traditional” Libet-style experiments investigate decisions in Buridan-type situations. But these decisions are irrelevant with regard to free will, according to the restrictivists. -/- In the first section, I clarify some terminological issues in order to set the stage for a precise analysis. In the second, I attempt to show what the main reason is for thinking that Libet-style experiments seem to be problematic for libertarian theories. Although showing that actions are unconsciously initiated does not pose a real challenge for the elaborated philosophical theories of free will, Libet-style experiments may be problematic for most libertarian theories because, pace Roskies and Nahmias, libertarians have good reasons for saying that local determinism and free will are incompatible. In the third section, I argue that because some versions of deliberative libertarianism do not claim that decisions about actions are the center of freedom-relevant indeterminism, Libet-style experiments are unable to refute them after all. In the fourth, I attempt to show why standard centered libertarianism according to which there are no relevant metaphysical differences between different types of conscious decisions is in principle vulnerable to Libet-style experiments to a greater extent. Fifth, I point out the reasons why restrictivist centered libertarianism is less vulnerable to these experiments. Still, I argue that moderate-restrictivism can in principle be denied by Libet-style experiments if these experiments are modified in an important respect. However, proponents of hard-restrictivism should not worry about the possible results of these experiments because these theories restrict the set of free decisions to such a great extent that they cannot be subjected to a proper empirical test. (shrink)

It is an increasingly popular view among philosophers that moral responsibility can, in principle, be attributed to unconscious autonomous agents. This trend is already remarkable in itself, but it is even more interesting that most proponents of this view provide more or less the same argument to support their position. I argue that as it stands, the Extension Argument, as I call it, is not sufficient to establish the thesis that unconscious autonomous agents can be morally responsible. I attempt to (...) show that the Extension Argument should overcome especially strong ethical considerations; moreover, its epistemological grounds are not too solid, partly because the justifications of its premises are in conflict. (shrink)

1. Meghatározások a vallásról -- 2. A politika elmélete.

The relationship between humans and non-human animals has received considerable attention recently. Animal advocates insist that non-human animals must be included in the moral community. Consequently, eating meat is, at least in most cases, morally bad. In an article entitled “In Defense of Eating Meat”, Hsiao argued that for the membership in the moral community, the “root capacity for rational agency” is necessary. As non-human animals lack this capacity, so the argument runs, they do not belong to the moral community. (...) Consequently, harming non-human animals for human nutrition can be justified. In this short comment I would like to highlight some of the most important errors of the above argument, primarily from the perspective of a biologist. I conclude that assuming the existence of a mysterious “root capacity for rational agency” is a biological nonsense. It cannot be verified, and it only obscures reality. In my opinion, the greatest problem with Hsiao’s argument is that it tries to defend anthropocentrism, a view that has presumably been the very cause of the spoiled non-human–human relationships. Perhaps adopting a vegan lifestyle is a better solution than quieting one’s conscience. (shrink)

The interpretations of sustainability are varied. In most cases, the focus is on reinterpretations and transformations of human attitudes towards the natural environment and certain (unacceptable) social practices and conditions, i.e. the task would be to shape these spheres of human existence in the interests of sustainability. However, the creation and widespread use of the Internet is fundamentally changing human life that is no longer confined to the natural and social spheres. Web life, as a third sphere of human existence (...) created by the universal use of the Internet, is also a component of human condition, both in itself and through its interactions with the natural and social spheres. It is essential to take this into account: the sustainability of these “three spheres” should be addressed together. The continuous construction of web life can be decisive for the sustainability of the whole human existence. (shrink)

Each work of Kafka's is so rich in "interrelationships" that it is virtually impossible to engage in reasoning about them without analysis of notions "pertaining to content." Here an estheticist, even one who regards the immanent approach as obligatory, faces a dilemma that, as a general rule, confronts only someone just starting a career as critic: whether, upon having analyzed a work, to leave it to the reader himself to draw the conclusions in social philosophy, or whether to construct his (...) analysis directly on the basis of historical, sociological, philosophical, esthetic, and psychological reasoning. (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)

The worldwide development of the revolution in science and technology is still in its initial stage. However, the characteristics of a qualitatively higher stage are already becoming evident in the area of the development of the system of labor, and therefore systematic philosophical study on the basis of the available data is a pressing task. Theory plays a special role precisely in periods when a phenomenon is not yet evident in final form. It is especially then that an acute need (...) arises for scientifically foreseeing, in its major outlines, the course of its development in the future. Within the bounds of the present article we shall attempt to do this with respect to certain aspects of the process of interaction between man and nature. (shrink)

Zeno’s Dichotomy aporia says: “Motion is impossible, because an object in motion must reach the half-way point before it gets to the end ”. In the recent philosophical literature there are several kinds of interpretations: negative and positive dialectics, atomism, radical empiricism, finitism, infinitism, indefinitism, etc. The scientific reflections on the paradoxes time to time produce different types of “resolutions” of these problems.[1] Most of these treatments use some kind of measure concept which can be questioned.[2] Instead of resolution, we (...) suggest to apply Zeno’s results which can be explored by some kind of interpretation. (shrink)

Smullyan wrote his famous book of puzzles before the boom in automated theorem proving and he solved the puzzles by hand. Hence it is interesting to investigate whether all the puzzles can be solved with one method or not. The paper shows how this can be done with analytic tableaux.

Penrose’s Spin Geometry Theorem is extended further, from SU(2) and E(3) (Euclidean) to E(1, 3) (Poincaré) invariant elementary quantum mechanical systems. The Lorentzian spatial distance between any two non-parallel timelike straight lines of Minkowski space, considered to be the centre-of-mass world lines of E(1, 3)-invariant elementary classical mechanical systems with positive rest mass, is expressed in terms of E(1, 3)-invariant basic observables, viz. the 4-momentum and the angular momentum of the systems. An analogous expression for E(1, 3)-invariant elementary quantum mechanical (...) systems in terms of the basic quantum observables in an abstract, algebraic formulation of quantum mechanics is given, and it is shown that, in the classical limit, it reproduces the Lorentzian spatial distance between the timelike straight lines of Minkowski space with asymptotically vanishing uncertainty. Thus, the metric structure of Minkowski space can be recovered from quantum mechanics in the classical limit using only the observables of abstract quantum mechanical systems. (shrink)

This study offers an overview of ‘the nationalities question’ in the Habsburg Empire, with special focus on its treatment by the Austrian social democrat, Otto Bauer, and the Hungarian ‘radical’ or ‘liberal socialist’, Oszkár Jászi. Analysing and comparing the writings of these intellectuals published between 1907 and 1918, this article shows how the contrasting legal and political contexts in Austria (Cisleithenia) and in Hungary (Transleithenia) led these authors to create contrasting alternative solutions to the problems posed by the multi-ethnic composition (...) of the Habsburg Empire. It is argued that these thinkers’ positions were fundamentally defined by Austria’s status as a ‘nationalities state’, Hungary’s identity as a nation-state, and the authors’ own affiliations with the dominant nationalities within their respective states. The article underscores the important temporal component at work in their respective pre-1918 assessments of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary and its effect on their stances on the reign of the Habsburgs. Whereas Bauer saw the Hungarian king and Austrian emperor Franz Joseph as a possible strong ally for the implementation of his ideas, Jászi viewed the acts of the Habsburg dynasty as alien to Hungarian interests and therefore as a source of potential danger. (shrink)

Although the free will debate of contemporary analytic philosophy lacks almost any kind of historical perspective, some scholars have pointed out a striking similarity between Stoic approaches to free will and Frankfurt’s well-known hierarchical theory. However, the scholarly agreement is only apparent because they disagree about the kind of similarity between the Stoic and the Frankfurtian theories. The main thesis of my paper is that so far, commentators have missed the crucial difference between the Stoics’ approach to free will and (...) Frankfurt’s, a difference that makes the former the superior approach. (shrink)

Review of Aleš Havlíček and Filip Karfík , Plato’s Parmenides. Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium Platonicum Pragense, OIKOYMENH, Prague, 2005.