The Response of Debrecen New Orthodoxy to Liberal Theology in Hungary. The Reformed Church of Hungary was not exempt from the impact of various theological schools of Western Europe during the nineteenth century. The historical theological school of Tübingen, the Swiss liberal and moderate theology and the Dutch ‘moderne theologie’ held a great sway on Hungarian Protestantism in particularly Reformed Theology. Parallel to this development another and distinct trend appeared as a response to the challenges posed by liberal theology, which (...) preferred traditional theological stances. In consequence not only liberal theology but also orthodox, evangelical, and pietist theologies were transferred from England, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany and France to Hungary. While Germany experienced already in the 1840s and 1850 serious theological debates, Hungarian Protestantism was late to encounter a similar debate due to the political-historical situation. It is only after the Ausgleich, the Agreement between Austrian and Hungarian aristocracy that in the era of political and national freedom theological debates surfaced and became really intense. The fiercest theological debate unfolded between the liberal theologians led by Mór Ballagi, a professor in Budapest, and the neo-orthodoxy of Debrecen Reformed University where Imre Révész sen., a local minister and Ferenc Balogh, professor of Dogma and Church History became the leading voices. This pioneering study seeks to demonstrate how the response of Debrecen neo-orthodoxy came into being in response to extremely liberal form of theology, which was organised and promoted by Mór Ballagi, a convert from Judaism to Christianity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to scrutinise the two aspects of the debate which took place between Hungarian liberal theology and neo-orthodoxy from 1860s onwards. First, it discusses the liberal concept of what the essence of Christian religion was and its orthodox critique which led to the Declaration of Faith in Debrecen (1875). Secondly, it investigates the arguments on what basis liberal theologians rejected confessions. The paper argues that both trends interpreted very differently the Reformed principle ‘ecclesia semper reformari (...) debet with ecclesia semper transformari debet’ and throws light on how it is best to understand their way of thinking. (shrink)

This study seeks to explore the origin and formation of the so called “Hungarian traditional” theology within the Reformed Church of Hungary from the 1840s till the 1860s. The research paper also throws light on how the new orthodoxy movement of Debrecen grew out of this trend from the 1870s which had an enormous impact on the Protestant theological landscape of Hungary, the largest Protestant community in Central Europe. Hungarian new orthodoxy precedes both the orthodoxy developed by Kuyper and the (...) Barthian neoortodoxy which is a much later theological trend. It also points out that Western European Protestant theological trends did have a great impact on the Hungarian theological context. This work aims to demonstrate how the doctrinal views of Hungarian traditional theology were developed through the works and life of selected influential leaders like Imre Révész senior, Lajos Filó, József Heiszler while debating with liberal theology. Reference will be made to the foreign impact of conservative theologies represented by evangelical, Pietist and mediating theologies of Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Britain. The doctrinal debates appeared in contemporary journals. Analysing the texts, it is possible to delineate what the stance of traditional theology was about: inspiration of the Scripture, the uniqueness of Revelation, the doctrine of original sin, the necessity of atonement, deity of Jesus Christ, the confession of Trinity, faith in the last judgement and Christ’s second return and the reality of miracles. (shrink)

The current research paper seeks to investigate how Evangelicals and Pietist, the most fervent of Protestants sought to ‘educate’ the masses outside the educational framework of ecclesiastical and state structures within the Hungarian Kingdom. More specifically the study intends to offer a concise overview of the history of Protestants who spread the gospel through the distribution of affordable Bibles, New Testaments and Christian tracts. It shows how various denominations worked together as well as directs attention to their theological outlook which (...) transcended ethnic boundaries. It is a well-known fact in mission and church history that such undertakings were carried out to stir revivalism. The study also throws light on how influential role the Scottish Mission as well as Archduchess Maria Dorothea played in stirring revivalism through the aforementioned means. The history of these kinds of endeavours, especially that of the most significant ones like the work of the British and Foreign Bible Society and Religious Tract Society has not been treated adequately by historians of religion and education, intellectual historians and social historians. This research output is a contribution to give an account of the multi-ethnic and transdenominational work of Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Slovaks and Romanians working for a common goal. (shrink)

This paper offers a concise overview of the impact made by Scottish evangelicalism of the Free Church of Scotland on the theology, piety and practice of Hungarian Reformed faith within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They planted a kind of piety that was foreign, at least in its language and expressions, to most of the Hungarian Reformed people until the arrival of Scottish missionaries in 1841. Their conduct of practical Christianity, praxis pietatis materialised itself in Christian evangelism and social action. In this (...) paper the focus is on the period between 1865 and 1914. To demonstrate the nature and form of this impact, first the paper outlines some key features of Scottish evangelicalism. Then, it investigates the theological and ecclesiastical impact of Scottish evangelicalism made through the establishment of voluntary societies and examines influence on the piety and praxis of Reformed faith in Hungary. (shrink)

This paper develops and motivates a unification theory of metaphysical explanation, or as I will call it, Metaphysical Unificationism. The theory’s main inspiration is the unification account of scientific explanation, according to which explanatoriness is a holistic feature of theories that derive a large number of explananda from a meager set of explanantia, using a small number of argument patterns. In developing Metaphysical Unificationism, I will point out that it has a number of interesting consequences. The view offers a novel (...) conception of metaphysical explanation that doesn’t rely on the notion of a “determinative” or “explanatory” relation; it allows us to draw a principled distinction between metaphysical and scientific explanations; it implies that naturalness and fundamentality are distinct but intimately related notions; and perhaps most importantly, it re-establishes the unduly neglected link between explanation and understanding in the metaphysical realm. A number of objections can be raised against the view, but I will argue that none of these is conclusive. The upshot is that Metaphysical Unificationism provides a powerful and hitherto overlooked alternative to extant theories of metaphysical explanation. (shrink)

Chapter 20 David Kovacs’ “Essence, Grounding, and Explanation” sets out four different ways in which essence might be taken to relate to the notion of grounding or metaphysical explanation, i.e., the type of connection that is often expressed by means of non-causal “in virtue of” or “because”-claims: (i) Unity: essence and grounding belong to a unified set of explanatory concepts; (ii) Supplementation: essence and grounding both contribute in their own way to a distinctive type of explanation; (iii) Independence: essence (...) is a sui generis notion with no straightforward conceptual links to grounding; and (iv) Irrelevance: essence is not an explanatory notion at all and therefore should not be viewed as connected to explanatory notions like grounding. As Kovacs brings out in the chapter, a wide variety of attitudes are represented in the literature even among philosophers who are sympathetic to the recent “hyperintensional” turn in metaphysics when it comes to the question of how the notions of essence and grounding interact with one another. (shrink)

Accepting a promise is normatively significant in that it helps to secure promissory obligation. But what is it for B to accept A’s promise to φ? It is in part for B to intend A’s φ-ing. Thinking of acceptance in this way allows us to appeal to the distinctive role of intentions in practical reasoning and action to better understand the agency exercised by the promisee. The proposal also accounts for rational constraints on acceptance, and the so-called directedness of promissory (...) obligation. Finally, the proposal, conjoined with Cognitivism about intentions, addresses recent criticism of Scanlon’s expectation-based view of promissory obligation. (shrink)

One of the main driving forces in the era of cyber-physical systems is the introduction of massive sensor networks into manufacturing processes, connected cars, precision agriculture, and so on. Therefore, large amounts of sensor data have to be ingested at the server side in order to generate and make the “twin digital model” or virtual factory of the existing physical processes for predictive simulation and scheduling purposes usable. In this paper, we focus on our ultimate goal, a novel software container-based (...) approach with cloud agnostic orchestration facilities that enable the system operators in the industry to create and manage scalable, virtual IT platforms on-demand for these two typical major pillars of CPS: server-side framework for sensor networks and configurable simulation tool for predicting the behavior of manufacturing systems. The paper discusses the scalability of the applied discrete-event simulation tool and the layered back-end framework starting from simple virtual machine-level to sophisticated multilevel autoscaling use case scenario. The presented achievements and evaluations leverage on the synergy of the existing EasySim simulator, our new CQueue software container manager, the continuously developed Occopus cloud orchestrator tool, and the latest version of the evolving MiCADO framework for integrating such tools into a unified platform. (shrink)

My concern here is to motivate some theses in the philosophy of mind concerning the interpersonal character of intentions. I will do so by investigating aspects of shared agency. The main point will be that when acting together with others one must be able to act directly on the intention of another or others in a way that is relevantly similar to the manner in which an agent acts on his or her own intentions. What exactly this means will become (...) clearer once we understand what it is to act directly on one’s own intentions. But I take it to be a fundamental assumption of the prevailing individualism of the theory of action—one at the core of its conception of the separateness of individuals—that one person cannot act directly on another’s intention. I agree that there is an important way in which we are or can be separate and autonomous thinkers and agents. But the way the individualist tries to capture this separateness is misguided. (shrink)

Several philosophers have developed theological perspectives out of Heidegger's ontology. Yet the question of God in Heidegger's thought itself has never received full elucidation. In this revealing new study, George Kovacs poses the problem of analyzing the idea of God as a process of questioning and thus subjects Heidegger's phenomenological existentialism to a process of exposition Heidegger himself employed.

Several philosophers have developed theological perspectives out of Heidegger's ontology. Yet the question of God in Heidegger's thought itself has never received full elucidation. In this revealing new study, George Kovacs poses the problem of analyzing the idea of God as a process of questioning and thus subjects Heidegger's phenomenological existentialism to a process of exposition Heidegger himself employed.

One important thesis Ásta defends in Categories We Live By is that social properties and categories are somehow dependent on our thoughts, attitudes, or practices—that they are inventions of the mind, projected onto the world. Another important aspect of her view is that the social properties are related to certain base properties; an individual is placed in a category when the relevant base properties are thought to hold of them. I see the relationship between the social and the base as (...) connected to the problem of explaining how the social properties are sufficiently stable so as to be taken seriously, both in theoretical endeavors as well as in practical matters of how we relate to each other. In this light, I identify stability constraints for an adequate account of social categories. I argue that certain distinctive aspects of Ásta's conferralist view of social categories, such as the radical contextualism in her account of gender, undermine the stability of categories and are at odds with taking social categories seriously. I end with the suggestion that a distinctive “sheltered” form of normativity might help us do justice to Ásta's insights while avoiding some of the destabilizing elements of conferralism. (shrink)

The reasons for which I act are normally my reasons; I represent goal states and the means to attaining them, and these guide me in action. Can your reason ever be the reason why I act? If I haven’t yet taken up your reason and made it mine by representing it for myself, then it may seem mysterious how this could be possible. Nevertheless, the paper argues that sometimes one is entitled to another’s reason and that what one does is (...) to be explained in terms of it. The case for this draws on aspects of the interplay between reasons and intentions in individual agency that have not received the attention they deserve. The paper closes by exploring the limits of interpersonal entitlement to reasons by formulating a hypothesis about which reasons one might be entitled to, and by considering how defeaters can undermine entitlement. (shrink)

What is it for a duty or obligation to be directed? Thinking about paradigmatic cases such as the obligations generated by promises will take us only so far in answering this question. This paper starts by surveying several approaches for understanding directed duties, as well as the challenges they face. It turns out that shared agency features something similar to the directedness of duties. This suggests an account of directedness in terms of shared agency – specifically, in terms of the (...) so-called practical intimacy that holds between individuals when they act together. The final section addresses a challenge to the shared agency approach posed by legal wronging in tort law. (shrink)

Is there something special about one’s attitude toward a prospective action when deciding or intending to do it? Philosophers often appeal to the idea of settling to distinguish intention from other attitudes toward some prospective action, such as expecting it, or desiring it. But 'settle' has become a term of art invoked in divergent ways. The first use of the term concerns the more immediate upshot of a decision on the psychology of the agent. Once a decision has been made (...) and an intention formed, the agent is settled on a course of action to pursue. She stops considering alternatives and attends to means for bringing it about. Decision and intention thus play a distinctive role in the agent’s psychology and practical reasoning. Call this intransitive settling. In contrast, the transitive use of the term involves the thought that when, for example, you decide and intend to attend a lecture tomorrow, what you’re settling goes beyond your psychology, to take in worldly matters such as your being at the lecture. If we take this idea seriously, as I think we should, it might seem that we are led to an implausible picture of the agent reaching outside the temporal order to determine in direct fashion some future state of affairs. We can avoid this consequence while maintaining a robust transitive conception of settling. This will require articulating how one can act directly on a prior intention, and appreciating the role of intention in preserving reasons for action. (shrink)

Heidegger’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy and science is expressed in his claim that they are not hostile towards each other, i.e., that philosophy is neither for nor against science, though they differ in ambition, strength, and methodology. Their interaction, as this essay suggests, may contribute to the range and diversification of philosophical thinking and to a deeper grasp of the strength and boundary (potential and limitation) of scientific inquiry and knowing. Heidegger’s rethinking of science, especially in his twenty-four (...) “propositions about science”, includes a critical assessment of the status of science in the epoch of modernity; it discerns (discovers, discloses) the truth of science in its relation to the measure of truth in beings, and to the truth of be-ing. The entire inquiry at hand is grounded in be-ing-historical thinking and mindfulness. (shrink)

A survey of the connection between grounding and modality, in particular supervenience. The survey explores three possible connections between grounding and supervenience: (1) supervenience can be analyzed in terms of grounding, (2) grounded facts supervene on their grounds, and (3) grounding and supervenience overlap in their theoretical roles.

The answer is surprising, and what we're about to learn will wake us up to a reality most of us never knew existed.The reason we're so oblivious is because we've all been operating at human speed, relying on our own physical power and our five senses. But there is something extremely important we've all been missing. It holds the key to everything good--the key to life, success, happiness, peace of mind, and understanding beyond our wildest imagination. It's perhaps the best-kept (...) secret in the history of mankind and it packs a staggering, invigorating message that can change your life for the better--improving understanding, eliminating anxiety, and helping to extend your living years indefinitely. All we have to do is open our eyes and ears.We're all inundated with this secret at all times. It's present in our favorite songs and movies, the stories we tell our children, and even in every commercial campaign! The secret is broadcast in famous news stories including the coronavirus pandemic, the sinking of the Titanic, or the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11. It's in ordinary life activities such as breathing, sleeping, waking up, traveling, sex, and getting married and changing one's name.Now, bestselling author and award-winning journalist Joe Kovacs reveals the solution--cracking the divine code that shifts our minds from operating at slow, human speed and making the jump to the incredibly quick "God speed."Hundreds of ancient mysteries and prophecies are instantly unsealed as the master key that unlocks the mystery of everything is now in your hands. (shrink)

What are the implications for agency – and in particular, the idea of acting for reasons – if we are to take seriously the notion of collective responsibility? My thesis is that some cases of individuals subject to a collective form of responsibility and blame will force us to make sense of how it is that an individual can be entitled to collective reasons for action, i.e. entitled to a reason had in the first place by a plurality of individuals (...) together rather than any one of them alone. This entitlement makes it possible for the collective reason to be a reason for which one acts, even if one’s contribution on its own makes little or no difference in the collective effort. Although a full defense of this entitlement cannot be undertaken here, I will gesture at how this might work by suggesting that intentions function to preserve reasons for action. . (shrink)

Some of the reasons one acts on in joint action are shared with fellow participants. But others are proprietary: reasons of one’s own that have no direct practical significance for other participants. The compatibility of joint action with proprietary reasons serves to distinguish the former from other forms of collective agency; moreover, it is arguably a desirable feature of joint action. Advocates of “team reasoning” link the special collective intention individual participants have when acting together with a distinctive form of (...) practical reasoning that purports to put individuals in touch with group or collective reasons. Such views entail the surprising conclusion that one cannot engage in joint action for proprietary reasons. Suppose we understand the contrast between minimal and robust forms of joint action in terms of the extent to which participants act on proprietary reasons as opposed to shared reasons. Then, if the team reasoning view of joint intention and action is correct, it makes no sense to talk of minimal joint action. As soon as the reason for which one participates is proprietary, then one is not, on this view, genuinely engaged in joint action. (shrink)

Tomas Abraham inicia una pesquisa filosofica y no se detiene ante las impugnaciones que dictan el buen gusto y la conveniencia (la que esconde las contradicciones para simular seriedad y rigor intelectual). Nada lo detiene. Observa, analiza, compulsa. Sus preguntas no interrogan esas zonas del discurso para las cuales se han inventado ya benevolas excusas, sino las otras, las peligrosas.Desde 1989, reflexiona Abraham, el factor economico es la clave que permite descifrar los anhelos y las frustraciones de la (...) sociedad. Por que? Porque el factor economico no se reduce a la economia, no se limita a la produccion y a la distribucion de riquezas sino que acusa la visible emergencia de nuevas formas de vida. El factor economico revela el diagrama de las mutaciones culturales. En este ensayo filosofico en el que coexisten una cantidad asombrosa de estilos y tonos, el autor analiza y discute la empresa como nuevo monumento cultural, la demonizacion del estado, las batallas etico-politicas entre intelectuales y economistas culturales, la tarea de los expertos en calidad de vida y su funcion en una nueva sociedad terapeutica. De las historias de vida de los archimillonarios al encuadre historico de la ideologia empresarial, de la puesta en sorna (con el mayor respeto) de la literatura de autoayuda a la meditacion sobre la moral y el dolor en los campos de exterminio, La empresa de vivir, como los libros anteriores del autor, traza una linea osada y firme e incorpora al pensamiento argentino una nueva manera de hacer las cosas. Una nueva manera capaz de abrir discusiones aparentemente concluidas o censuradas, de expandir los efectos de un conflicto intelectual hacia areas desprestigiadas oignoradas, de inaugurar una pasion para abolir la ironia autoindulgente y los entredichos ufan. (shrink)

In this book, Abraham argues that a theological imagination can expand the contours of postcolonial theory through a reexamination of notions of subjectivity, gender, and violence in a dialogical model with Karl Rahner. She raises the question of whether postcolonial theory, with its disavowal of religious agency, can provide an invigorating occasion for Catholic theology.

INTRODUCTION WERNER ABRAHAM, LACI MARÁCZ, SJAAK DE MEY & WIM SCHERPENISSE University of Groningen The Groningen Conference on Topic, ...

This chapter contains section titled: Causal Inference and Justification The Traditional View: Skepticism and Unreflective Inference Causal Inference is not always Immediate and Unreflective Reflective Causal Inference What was Hume arguing in Treatise 1.3.6? The Skeptical Reading The Anti‐rationalist Reading The Causal/Explanatory Reading (1) The Causal/Explanatory Reading (2) Notes References and further reading.

Before one can give a fully adequate account of action, one must know where the action is. This amounts to understanding the nature of basic or unmediated action, the performance of which does not require performing any other act as a means. There is little consensus on what sort of act is basic. Volitionists such as H. A. Prichard, Brian O'Shaughnessy, Jennifer Hornsby and Carl Ginet, hold that a special type of mental act is basic and underlies all overt bodily (...) action. They believe that action, in its fundamental form, occurs in the head or mind of the agent that performs it. "Corporealists" like Donald Davidson hold that the basic act is one of bodily movement. Finally, "environmentalists" include events beyond the body as part of the basic act. ;The dissertation is devoted to establishing the viability and exploring the ramifications of the environmentalist conception of basicness. Ideas of various theorists are discussed, including Donald Davidson, G. E. M. Anscombe, George Wilson, Gilbert Harman, John Searle, Alfred Mele, Tyler Burge, and John Perry. I address a number of arguments for volitionism or corporealism which draw upon some aspect of action, such as its individuation , its description , its rationalization , and its intentionality or content--in particular its self-referential content . Discussions of these topics serve to further articulate the environmentalist notion that in acting we can have an unmediated or direct effect upon our surroundings. A defense of environmentalism offers, in turn, a new understanding of these various aspects of action. (shrink)

This book examines reason and unreason in the legal and political responses to terrorism. Terrorism is often perceived as sheer madness, unreasonable use of extreme violence and senseless, futile political action. These assertions are challenged by this book. Combining ‘traditional’ thought on reason and unreason in terrorism with empirical explorations of post-modern terrorism and its use of communication platforms the work uses interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary dimensions to provide a multidimensional picture of critical issues in current politics and a deeper (...) examination of their implications than previously available. The book looks at various aspects of modern politics, from terrorism to protest, from decision-making to political discourse, applying the perspective of philosophical thought. To do so, political issues and actions are examined by using concepts such as reason, emotions, madness, magic, morality, absolutism, extremism, psychopathology, rationality and others. The analysis is rooted in theories and concepts derived from history, philosophy, religion, art, sociology, psychology, and political science. This book, which was mostly written by the late Abraham Kaplan, an American philosopher, and edited and updated by Gabriel Weimann, will be of much interest to students of political violence/terrorism, philosophy, war and conflict studies and political science in general. (shrink)

The present study explored the types of stressors faced by rhythmic gymnastics athletes, their parents, and coaches. Semi-structured interviews with 12 participants—four gymnasts, five coaches, and three parents—were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis in a theory-driven framework. The categorizations of sport-related stressors for the parents, coaches, and gymnasts were based on existing theories. The results showed that both the gymnasts and the coaches predominantly noted mastery-avoidance goals in terms of performance, while the interviews with parents mostly indicated performance-avoidance goals. All (...) three groups of participants consistently reported a detrimental atmosphere in rhythmic gymnastics. For instance, they emphasized the stress related to inadequate communication between the concerned parties. Moreover, all parties believed that having a lean body was linked to success in the competitive world of rhythmic gymnastics. The present study provides insight into some of the potential major stressors and the related subjective experiences affecting athletes socializing in the same sporting environment. (shrink)

The book discusses the development of reproductive medicine from the perspective of the parent-child relationship. -/- A könyv a reprodukciós medicina fejlődését vizsgálja a szülői felelősség szempontjából.

In 246 we should, as Dodds suggests, get rid of the feeble δεινς and adopt Mau's δειν κγχνης. Verdenius, Mnemos. 41, 254, defends the reading of the MSS., saying that δεινς serves to distinguish the noose of punishment from that of suicide, but this is untenable: why is one noose more ‘terrible’ than the other, and who on hearing ‘worthy of the terrible noose’ would draw conclusions about it that could not be drawn from ‘worthy of the noose’? The question (...) raised about the kind of noose is important but cannot be answered by these means. (shrink)

In 246 we should, as Dodds suggests, get rid of the feeble δεινς and adopt Mau's δειν κγχνης. Verdenius, Mnemos. 41, 254, defends the reading of the MSS., saying that δεινς serves to distinguish the noose of punishment from that of suicide, but this is untenable: why is one noose more ‘terrible’ than the other, and who on hearing ‘worthy of the terrible noose’ would draw conclusions about it that could not be drawn from ‘worthy of the noose’? The question (...) raised about the kind of noose is important but cannot be answered by these means. (shrink)