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

People do, quite naturally and not uncommonly, speak of other people as deceiving themselves, as being their own dupes. A man's child is ill and growing constantly worse. The father keeps talking optimistically about the future, keeps explaining away the evidence, and keeps pointing to what he insists are signs of improvement. We can easily imagine ourselves deciding that he has deceived himself about his son's condition. Nor is it the case that talk of self-deception is appropriate only in connection (...) with other people. We can easily imagine the father admitting, say, after the son's death, that he has deceived himself about the child's condition. Thus the notion of self-deception obviously has application. Furthermore, ordinarily talk of self-deception is not thought to be puzzling. (shrink)

Is self-deception always immoral? That it is always immoral to deceive oneself seems to have been the ‘received’ view amongst philosophers. Such a view was vigorously supported by Bishop Butler in the eighteenth century. Recently, Herbert Fingarette has argued for a similar position. In this paper I wish to examine Butler's and Fingarette's arguments and contend that no morally sensitive and reasonable person can possibly accept them without thereby ceasing to be morally sensitive and reasonable.

Es wird ausgegangen von den in den empirischen Wissenschaften vorkommenden Satzarten. Die Abhängigkeit der Kennzeichnungen "vollständig" bzw. "hinreichend verifiziert" von den Kriterien der benützten Überprüfungsverfahren wird untersucht. Die irrigen Voraussetzungen extremer Verallgemeinerungen, wie der "Verifikations-these" Wittgensteins und der "asymmetrischen Falsifikationstheorie" Poppers, werden aufgezeigt. Die methodologische Symmetrie von Verifikation und Falsifikation wird durch den Hinweis auf die gleicherweise unerläßliche Bedeutung der induktiven Schritte und des kontrollierenden Aufsuchens von Unverträglichkeiten für den wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt begründet. Unter Berücksichtigung dieser Kriterien werden empirische Allsätze als (...) die Beschreibung der realen Ordnung empirischer Phänomene gedeutet. (shrink)

This book paints a portrait of Ludwig Wittgenstein that is very different from conventional portraits that narrowly depict him as a philosopher's philosopher silent about social, ethical and cultural questions.

RésuméCet article examine diverses façons d'exploiter l'éthique aristotélicienne pour rendre compte philosophiquement de l'hypocrisie. Aristote lui-même n'apas dit grand chose d'explicite à ce sujet, mais nous nous employons à identifier et à scruter les passages qui sont les plus pertinents pour un traitement distinctif de l'hypocrisie, élucidant en cours de route un certain nombre de confusions à propos d'Aristote. Nous envisageons divers domaines d'émotion et d'action qui pourraient fournir un lieu propre au vice de l'hypocrisie, ceux en particulier de l'engagement (...) personnel, du souci à l'égard des opinions d'autrui, et de la sincérité. Nous concluons de cet examen que la doctrine du juste milieu ne fournit pas une explication satisfaisante de l'hypocrisie. Nous proposons alors que si un système moral comme celui d' Aristote doit rendre compte de la moralité dans son entièreté, il lui faut trouver place pour des phénomènes qui excèdent les limites de la doctrine du juste milieu. L'hypocrisie, selon nous, appartient précisément à cette famille de phénomènes. Finalement, nous esquissons une approche de l'hypocrisie qui fait usage d'éléments aristotéliciens, mais sans pour autant s'y confiner. (shrink)

In this note I argue that although Rorty's programme (Inquiry, Vol. 15, No. 4) to bring into focus the role that belief plays in self?deception is a salutary one, her actual claims obscure that role. It is also contended that Rorty fails to de?mythologize self?deception, since her account is either paradox?ridden or else describes a concept recognizably distinct from the concept of self?deception.

Words can mean different things to different people. This can be problematic, mainly for those working together in a bureaucratic institution, such as the secret service. Shared, certified, explicit and codified definitions offer a counter to subjective, solitary and/or culturally dominant definitions. It’s true that codified secrecy terms for secret services can be seen to involve a number of political, cultural, subcultural “languages”, but if words come from unclassified or declassified files, memorandums and/or records, one needs a deep understanding of (...) the secret services. A remarkable feature of this bureaucratic language is the evolving nature of, certain “keywords” as important signifiers of historical transformation. Thus, the changes in the language of the secret services depends at least as much on the internal changes of the secret services as on the transformation in the external political-social environment. In spite of the confusion of Hungarian secret services in the revolutions of 1918–1919 and the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, in the early 1920’s became a stable system. Between the two World Wars, the Hungarian State Police directed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Military Intelligence and Counter-Espionage directed by the Ministry of Defence, and the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie directed by both of the Ministries had their own operational service. This structure existed unchanged until 1945. Simultaneously with the forward advance of the soviet troops, government began to re-establish the former system of the secret services in the eastern part of the country. After WWII, in 1946, the “State-protection Department” as political police became independent from the police. However, from the beginning, they remained under the control of the Communist Party. After 1950, the State Security Authority provided special services for the MIA and the Military Political Directorate of the MoD. After quashing the revolution in 1956, in the spring of 1957, the MIA Political Investigation Department was established which—with slight modifications—kept the structure created during the “state protection era”. The MIA III. The State-Protection General Directorate was established in 1962. The reorganization was finalized in the middle of the 1960’s, which resulted in the new system, which—with the structure of Directorates—became the ultimate structure of the state secret police until the abolishment of the MIA General Directorate III in January 1990. These organizational transformations were largely the result of exogenous historical-political changes. Moreover, each new period had a major impact on the organizational communication, language use and vocabulary of the secret services. This study seeks to interpret these historical transformations. (shrink)

Es wird die Entwicklung von Positivismus und Empirismus, beginnend vom Anfang des vorigen Jahrhunderts, untersucht. Als das "Gegebene" wollte der ältere Positivismus allein die Erlebnisdaten gelten lassen. Die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der kantischen Einteilung der Satzformen führte nicht nur zur Gegenüberstellung der empirischen Daten und der analytischen Strukturen als "gegebenen" Bereichen, sondern ließ auch die sprachlogisch-hypothetische Form der Ausdrücke und Sätze über die objektive Realität erkennen. Die erkenntnislogische Analyse gelangte so zur Unterscheidung dreier gegebener Bereiche: der Erlebnisdaten , der logisch-mathematischen (...) Formen und der objektiven Realität. Bezogen auf diese drei Bereiche gewinnen wissenschaftliche Grundbegriffe wie "Raum", "Zeit", "Wahrheit", "Wahrscheinlichkeit" u.a.m. unterschiedliche Bedeutungen, wodurch die Grundlagenfragen in ganz neuem Sinne gestellt werden müssen. Der logisch fundierte Positivismus und Empirismus erweisen sich so als eine erkenntnisanalytische Methode, die von den Satzarten der Wissenschaften und des Alltags, den Methoden ihrer Gewinnung und Nachprüfung und den zu ihrer Darstellung benutzten sprachlogischen Elementen als dem "Gegebenen" ausgeht. (shrink)

This paper argues, first, that one can render Protagoras’s view on the teach ability of political virtue coherent by distinguishing between the affect required for achieving it and the capacity for developing these affect into fully fledged virtues. Second, the paper argues that by focusing on Books II - III of the Republic one might see an affinity between between Protagoras’s suggestion that virtuous citizens might give advice, without ruling it, in the affairs of the city and Plato’s conservative practical (...) political theory. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to evaluate the level of select ethical issues in Visegrad Four (V4) countries (Czech republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary) and quantify the differences in the attitudes of entrepreneurs in the field of business ethics in these countries. Empirical research was conducted in June 2022 in the V4 countries. Data collection was carried out by the renowned external company MNFORCE using "Computer Assisted Web Interviewing" (CAWI Research Method), according to the questionnaire created by the research (...) team. The total number of respondents was 1,398, of which 347 were from the Czech Republic, 322 from Slovakia, 381 from Poland, and 348 from Hungary. Statistical hypotheses were verified using descriptive statistics, chi-square, and Z-scores at a α = 5% significance level. The preliminary results of this study can be evaluated as follows: The ethical level of entrepreneurs in V4 countries is high because the dominant group showed a positive attitude towards the defined issues in the field of business ethics. The attitudes of these entrepreneurs showed that they not only perceived the importance of business ethics, but also implemented and promoted these practices in managerial decision-making. Moreover, they feel good when they behave ethically, which is a significant motivating factor. In this study, it was found that Hungarian SMEs presented the highest level of business ethics. In contrast, the Czech Republic presented the lowest level of perception and enforcement of business ethics. (shrink)

This article offers a detailed reading Gascoigne and Thornton’s book Tacit Knowledge, which aims to account for the tacitness of tacit knowledge while preserving its status as knowledge proper. I take issue with their characterization and rejection of the existential-phenomenological Background—which they presuppose even as they dismiss—and their claim that TK can be articulated “from within”—which betrays a residual Cartesianism, the result of their elision of conceptuality and propositionality. Knowledgeable acts instantiate capacities which we might know we have and of (...) which we can be aware, but which are not propositionally structured at their “core”. Nevertheless, propositionality is necessary to what Robert Brandom calls, in Making It Explicit and Articulating Reasons, “explicitation”, which notion also presupposes a tacit dimension, which is, simply, the embodied person, without which no conception of knowledge can get any purchase. On my view, there is no knowledgeable act that can be understood as such separately from the notion of skilled corporeal performance. The account I offer cannot make sense of so-called “knowledge-based” education, as opposed to systems and styles which supposedly privilege “contentless” skills over and above “knowledge”, because on the phenomenological and inferentialist lines I endorse, neither the concepts “knowledge” nor “skill” has any purchase or meaning without the other. (shrink)

Emotions are in as a philosophical topic. Yet the recent literature is bent on grand theorizing rather than attempting to explore particular emotions and their roles in our lives. In this paper, I aim to remedy this situation a little by exploring the emotion of embarrassment. First, I critically examine R.C. Solomon’s conceptual sketch and try to distinguish “embarrassment” from “shame”, “humiliation” and “being amused”. Secondly, I argue that “private embarrassment” is a coherent and useful idea and social scientists and (...) philosophers who dismiss it as unintelligible are mistaken. Thirdly, I discuss the question why is embarrassment (unlike other emotions) catching. Fourth, I make the heretical suggestion that doing philosophy is essentially embarrassing for Socratic interlocutors. Throughout the paper there is a discussion of possible links between embarrassment and loss of self-esteem. (shrink)

What is it to be a hypocrite? Gilbert Ryle's answer is the by now commonly held one: to be hypocritical is to “try to appear activated by a motive other than one's real motive”; again, it is “deliberately to refrain from saying what comes to one's lips, while pretending to say frankly things one does not mean.” Can this be the right answer? My aim is to show that it cannot. In doing this I hope to gesture towards a richer (...) understanding of our notion of hypocrisy. (shrink)

Namjera je ovog rada pokazati neke elemente Miltonovih i Lockeovih političkih spisa, ovisno o njihovim odnosima prema različitim medijima. Milton u svojoj argumentaciji protiv cenzure mora pokazati da se sve drevne instance za cenzuru, često citirane u njegovom stoljeću, mogu interpretirati kao primjeri drugog fenomena. Međutim, Milton prepoznaje, analizirajući mjesta u Platonovoj Državi i nekim biblijskim temama, doseg i značaj nepojmovnih, netiskanih, neverbalnih oblika komunikacije; on ih opisuje kao znakove djetinjastog, ženskog ili neobrazovanog ponašanja, kao beznačajne fenomene iz perspektive političke (...) slobodne utjelovljene u slobodi tiska. Stav Johna Lockea je isti. Pokazat ću lanac ideja, sličan Miltonovom, u njegovim djelima Dvije rasprave o vladi i Pismo o toleranciji, fokusirajući analizu na pojam adijafore. (shrink)

L’objectif de cet article est de mettre en lumière quelques éléments tirés des écrits politiques de John Milton et de John Locke, en fonction de leur attitude à l’égard des différents médias. Dans son argumentation contre la censure, John Milton doit démontrer que toutes les anciennes instances de censure, citées souvent à son époque, peuvent être interprétées comme des exemples d’un autre phénomène. Cependant, John Milton reconnaît, en analysant les lieux communs dans la République de Platon ainsi que dans certains (...) textes bibliques, la portée et la signification des formes nonconceptuelles, nonimprimées, nonverbales de communication ; il les décrit comme des signes d’un comportement enfantin, féminin ou inculte, comme des phénomènes sans importance d’un point de vue de liberté politique incarnée dans la liberté de la presse. La position de John Locke est la même. Je montrerai l’enchaînement des idées, similiaire à celui de Milton, dans ses ouvrages Deux traités du gouvernement et Lettre sur la tolérance, en focalisant mon analyse sur le concept d’adiaphora. (shrink)

While Wittgenstein commentators dismiss his remarks on women and femininity as trivial and unworthy of attention, I focus exactly on what they consider parenthetical and of no philosophical value. First, I document Wittgenstein’s attitudes toward women and femininity, and subject his remarks to critical analysis. Secondly, I retrieve and explore some aspects of Otto Weininger’s influence on Wittgenstein. Thirdly, by introducing considerations of chronology and circumstance, I argue that while the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus endorsed Weininger’s views on women (...) and sex, the mature Wittgenstein of the Investigations repudiated them without ceasing to adrnire his work or its spirit. Finally, I sketch crucial, unnoticed differences between Weininger and the mature Wittgenstein concerning femininity and philosophical method. The author’s intention is to contribute to the project of challenging the supposed divide between the understanding of philosophical thought, on the one hand, and socio-cultural contexts and biography on the other. (shrink)

For many Enlightenment thinkers, discerning the relationship between commerce and peace was the central issue of modern politics. The logic of commerce seemed to require European states and empires to learn how to behave in more peaceful, self-limiting ways. However, as the fate of nations came to depend on the flux of markets, it became difficult to see how their race for prosperity could ever be fully disentangled from their struggle for power. On the contrary, it became easy to see (...) how this entanglement could produce catastrophic results. This volume showcases the variety and the depth of approaches to economic rivalry and the rise of public finance that characterized Enlightenment discussions of international politics. It presents a fundamental reassessment of these debates about 'perpetual peace' and their legacy in the history of political thought. (shrink)

When Istvan Hont died in 2013, the world lost a giant of intellectual history. A leader of the Cambridge School of Political Thought, Hont argued passionately for a global-historical approach to political ideas. To better understand the development of liberalism, he looked not only to the works of great thinkers but also to their reception and use amid revolution and interstate competition. His innovative program of study culminated in the landmark 2005 book Jealousy of Trade, which explores the birth of (...) economic nationalism and other social effects of expanding eighteenth-century markets. Markets, Morals, and Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont's contemporaries to assess his influence, ideas and methods. Richard Tuck, John Pocock, John Dunn, Raymond Geuss, Gareth Stedman Jones, Michael Sonenscher, John Robertson, Keith Tribe, Pasquale Pasquino, and Peter N. Miller contribute original essays on themes Hont treated with penetrating insight. (shrink)

I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how? What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders; when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far (...) exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day. (shrink)

Can one mistrust one's own belief? Wittgenstein says ‘No.’ He remarks: ‘One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own belief.’It is natural to think that this is not meant merely as a remark about our psychological abilities or inabilities; viz., that one can not, as a matter of psychological fact, help but trust one's own belief. Rather, one is inclined to take it as a ‘grammatical remark’ to the effect that it makes no sense to speak of trusting (...) or mistrusting one's own belief. (shrink)

This book provides the first in-depth exploration of the importance of music for Ludwig Wittgenstein’s life and work. Wittgenstein’s remarks on music are essential for understanding his philosophy: they are on the nature of musical understanding, the relation of music to language, the concepts of representation and expression, on melody, irony and aspect-perception, and, on the great composers belonging to the Austrian-German tradition. Biography and philosophy, this work suggests that Wittgenstein was a composer of philosophy who used the musical form (...) as a blueprint for his own writing and thought. For Wittgenstein music is not alone, but connects and resonates with our cultural forms of life. His relation to composers, especially to Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler, enables Wittgenstein to address the question of how to do philosophy and compose music in the breakdown of tradition. Unlike his conservative musical sensibility, Wittgenstein’s philosophy is open to musical experiments. Reflecting on his remarks on music makes it possible to compare the therapeutic aim of his philosophical activity with that of music, and thus notice affinities between Wittgenstein and John Cage. Béla Szabados has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Calgary and is professor of philosophy at the University of Regina. His publications include Wittgenstein Reads Weininger (2004), Wittgenstein at the Movies (2011) and Wittgenstein on Race, Gender, and Cultural Identity: Philosophy as a Personal Endeavour (2010). (shrink)

Business ethics represents an important aspect that influences each country’s socio-economic system, and is important to society, environment, and economy. The present article aims to define significant attributes of business ethics in the sector of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and compares their attitudes within the three most significant business sectors in the Visegrad Group countries (V4 countries: Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland, and Hungary). An empirical study, focusing on the attitudes of small and medium-sized firms, was conducted in June (...) 2022 in Visegrad Group countries through the reputable hired company MNFORCE, using the Computer Assisted Web Interviewing research method. The total number of respondents in the Visegrad Group countries was 1,398. Statistical hypotheses were tested using descriptive statistics, chi-square, and Z-score at a significance level of α = 5%. The most important conclusion of this research is that there are no significant differences in the approach of SMEs to business ethics based on the sector in which the companies operate. Some notable differences in attitudes among SMEs in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were identified, but these were marginal. Therefore, differences in the transformation process within selected economic sectors do not impact the formation of attitudes of small and medium-sized companies in business ethics. It is evident that business ethics is significantly determined primarily by the personal characteristics of the owner/manager of the company, and the specificities of individual sectors do not influence this field. (shrink)

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

This paper has two aims: to show the affinities between Schopenhauer’s and Spinoza’s ethics and ontology, and to show that Spinoza’s position, where it is in conflict with it, is superior to Schopenhauer’s. The main focus is on Schopenhauer’s attacks on the affirmation of the will-to-live. It is argued that these attacks are not even convincing in terms of what he says about “better knowledge”, namely, that they are valid only against vulgar forms of affirmations of the Will. Also, it (...) is argued that Schopenhauer’s attacks on Spinoza do not carry much weight. For, they are either the result of misunderstandings or, when they are not, they are based on assumptions rejected by Spinoza himself. In conclusion, it is claimed that Schopenhauer’s synthesis of Plato’s, Kant’s and Hindu philosophy into a “single thought” is neither as original nor as convincing as he took it to be. (shrink)