RésuméCeux qui s'intéressent à l'heuristique peuvent trouver dans les œuvres de Descartes — plus spécialement dans ses Regulae ad directionem ingenii — des pensées dont l'élaboration pourrait faire avancer cette science nouvellement développée. Descartes, toujours formellement opposé à la logique traditionnelle, peut ětre considéré comme l'un des fondateurs de l'heuristique orientée du cǒté mathématique. Il étudia le mécanisme psychologique de la pensée inventive, mais principalement sa structure logique, et il essaya d'encourager et d'inspirer la pensée inventive et productive.Ses plus importantes (...) découvertes dans ce domaine sont: la nécessité de limiter et de clairement définir le problème; la nécessité d'utiliser des analogies, des modèles et des hypothèses dans la solution des problèmes; l'importance à accorder au rǒle des « expériences de pensée » et — en connexion avec cela — le rejet des manières schématiques de penser. Descartes reconnut que la pensée théorique est semblable à certaines opérations de l'esprit obéissant à des tendances ludiques ou pratiques, aussi bien en ce qui concerne ses motifs psychologiques que sa structure logique.Les analyses cartésiennes des formes et des structures de pensée sont très instructives; ici également il devança des tentatives ultérieures dans ce domaine.Those concerned with heuristic ars inveniendi may find in the works of Descartes—especially in his Regulae ad directionem ingenii—thoughts, the elaboration of which might well promote this newly developing science. Descartes, always sharply opposed to traditional logic, may be considered to be one of the founders of mathematically oriented heuristic. He investigated the psychological mechanism of inventive thinking, but mainly its logical structure, and he tried to encourage and to inspire inventive, productive thinking.His most important findings in this respect are: the necessity of limiting and clearly defining the problem; the necessity of applying analogies, models and hypotheses in problem solving; the stressing of the rǒle of Gedankenexperimente and—in connection with this—the rejection of schematic ways of thinking. Descartes recognized that theoretical thinking is similar to certain operations of the mind with a playful or pratical tendency, with regard both to its psychological motives and often also its logical structure.Descartes' analyses of forms and structures of thought are very instructive; he also forestalled herewith later endeavours in the field. (shrink)

Since the 1990s there have been a number of government and market led initiatives to improve the welfare of layer hens in the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA. The focus of these regulatory and market initiatives has been a shift away from the dominant battery-cage system to enriched cages, barn/aviary and free-range production systems. Government regulations have played an important role in setting some minimum welfare standards and the banning of battery cages in the UK and in some US (...) states. However the commodification and market segmentation of higher welfare standards has also seen the growth in production and demand of cage-free and free-range eggs in all three countries. This paper maps and compares the developments in government regulation and market segmentation of layer-hen welfare in the UK, Australia and the USA. The role of labelling and certification in facilitating commodification and market segmentation will be examined, including the public controversies and legal conflicts over egg labelling. The key state, market and civil society actors in each country will also be identified, and their role in driving or resisting higher standards examined, including the increasingly influential role of animal welfare organizations and food corporations. (shrink)

We analyze a frequent but undertheorized form of structural injustice, one that arises due to the difficulty of reaching numerically equitable representation of underrepresented subgroups within a larger group. This form of structural injustice is significant because it could occur even if it were possible to completely eliminate bias and overt discrimination from hiring and recruitment practices. The conceptual toolkit we develop can be used to analyze such situations and propose remedies. Specifically, based on a simple mathematical model, we offer (...) a new argument in favour of quotas, explore implications for policy-making, and consider the wider philosophical significance of the problem. We show that in order to reach more equitable representations, quota-based recruitment may often be practically unavoidable. Assuming that members of groups in statistical minority are more likely to quit due to their marginalization, their proportions can stabilize at a low level, preventing a shift towards more equal representation and conserving the minority status of the subgroup. We show that this argument has important implications for addressing, preventing, and remediating the structural injustice of unfair representation. (shrink)

How does cultural knowledge shape the development of human minds and, conversely, what kind of species-specific social-cognitive mechanisms have evolved to support the intergenerational reproduction of cultural knowledge? We critically examine current theories proposing a human-specific drive to identify with and imitate conspecifics as the evolutionary mechanism underlying cultural learning. We summarize new data demonstrating the selective interpretive nature of imitative learning in 14-month-olds and argue that the predictive scope of existing imitative learning models is either too broad or too (...) narrow to account for these findings. We outline our alternative theory of a human-specific adaptation for ‘pedagogy’, a communicative system of mutual design specialized for the fast and efficient transfer of new and relevant cultural knowledge from knowledgeable to ignorant conspecifics. We show the central role that innately specified ostensive-communicative triggering cues and learner-directed manner of knowledge manifestations play in constraining and guiding selective imitation of relevant cultural knowledge that is both new and cognitively opaque to the naive learner. (shrink)

The habit of giving a gratuity became so frequent at the end of the 1950's that counter-measures were enacted. These have been completely ineffective. Although granting and accepting gratuities is forbidden by law, the wages of doctors have been fixed since 1954, for so long that accepting gratuities has come to be considered part of the wages, even in semi-official comments and in the media. The author is of the opinion that, in view of this anomaly, a fundamental transformation of (...) the health provision system (sickness insurance) is needed. The doctor should be paid according to the number of patients in his or her charge, instead of the mere number of the sick. By transforming the provision of medical care in this way, the giving and accepting of gratuities for doctors could be terminated, not only in law but also in the economy. Keywords: gratuity, Hungary, Marxism-Leninism, medical ethics, remuneration CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

We analyze a frequent but undertheorized form of structural injustice, one that arises due to the difficulty of reaching numerically equitable representation of underrepresented subgroups within a larger group. This form of structural injustice is significant because it could occur even if it were possible to completely eliminate bias and overt discrimination from hiring and recruitment practices. The conceptual toolkit we develop can be used to analyze such situations and propose remedies. Specifically, based on a simple mathematical model, we offer (...) a new argument in favour of quotas, explore implications for policy-making, and consider the wider philosophical significance of the problem. We show that in order to reach more equitable representations, quota-based recruitment may often be practically unavoidable. Assuming that members of groups in statistical minority are more likely to quit due to their marginalization, their proportions can stabilize at a low level, preventing a shift towards more equal representation and conserving the minority status of the subgroup. We show that this argument has important implications for addressing, preventing, and remediating the structural injustice of unfair representation. (shrink)

The book addresses the constitution of the high culture of modernity as an uneasy unity of the sciences, including philosophy, and the arts. Their internal dynamism and strain is established through, on the one hand, the relationship of the author - work - recipient, and, on the other, the respective roles of experts and the market.

György Lukács first published the original Hungarian language version of Soul and Form in 1910. It included eight of the ten essays later to be published in subsequent German, Italian, and English editions. This current centennial edition adds to the mix one additional Lukács essay, "On Poverty of Spirit", written at roughly the same time as the others and bearing a vital relationship to them. Finally, in this edition we have added to the Lukács material an important introductory essay by (...) Judith Butler, as well as a concluding essay, by Katie Terezakis, which draws out connections between the Lukácsian concept of form and its elaboration and critique in Lukács’s own work and in works of critical theory and philosophy up to the present. (shrink)

Attemts to explain causal paradoxes of Quantum Mechanics (QM) have tried to solve the problems within the framework of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). We will show, that this is impossible. The original theory of QED by Dirac (Proc Roy Soc A117:610, 1928) formulated in its preamble four preliminary requirements that the new theory should meet. The first of these requirements was that the theory must be causal. Causality is not to be derived as a consequence of the theory since it was (...) a precondition for the formulation of the theory; it has been constructed so that it be causal. Therefore, causal paradoxes logically cannot be explained within the framework of QED. To transcend this problem we should consider the following points: Dirac himself stated in his original paper (1928) that his theory was only an approximation. When he returned to improve the theory later (Proc Roy Soc A209, 1951), he noted that the new theory “involves only the ratio e / m , not e and m separately”. This is a sign that although the electromagnetic effects (whose source is e ) are magnitudes stronger than the gravitational effects (whose source is m ), the two are coupled. Already in 1919, Einstein noted that “the elementary formations which go to make up the atom” are influenced by gravitational forces. Although in that form the statement proved not to be exactly correct, the effects of gravitation on QM phenomena have been established. The conclusion is that we should seek a resolution for the causal paradoxes in the framework of the General Theory of Relativity (GTR)—in contrast to QED, which involves only the Special Theory of Relativity (STR). We show that causality is necessarily violated in GTR. This follows from the curvature of the space-time. Although those effects are very small, one cannot ignore their influence in the case of the so-called “paradox phenomena”. (shrink)

How does cultural knowledge shape the development of human minds and, conversely, what kind of species-specific social-cognitive mechanisms have evolved to support the intergenerational reproduction of cultural knowledge? We critically examine current theories proposing a human-specific drive to identify with and imitate conspecifics as the evolutionary mechanism underlying cultural learning. We summarize new data demonstrating the selective interpretive nature of imitative learning in 14-month-olds and argue that the predictive scope of existing imitative learning models is either too broad or too (...) narrow to account for these findings. We outline our alternative theory of a human-specific adaptation for ‘pedagogy’, a communicative system of mutual design specialized for the fast and efficient transfer of new and relevant cultural knowledge from knowledgeable to ignorant conspecifics. We show the central role that innately specified ostensive-communicative triggering cues and learner-directed manner of knowledge manifestations play in constraining and guiding selective imitation of relevant cultural knowledge that is both new and cognitively opaque to the naive learner. (shrink)

On the basis of these findings, I suggest that the structure and organisation of the field of Hungarian economics under state socialism should be described as a case of “partitioned bureaucracy”.9 The compromise between research economists and the political elite in the New Course era between 1953 and 195510 survived the post-1956 reaction in so far as political economy, with its predominantly legitimatory and ideological functions, remained partitioned from the other sectors in the field through the remainder of the state-socialist (...) period. This secured considerable protection both for Marxist-Leninist political economy—which faced the destabilising effects of exposure to the findings of serious empirical research—and for the other sectors, which were professionally oriented and earnestly interested in the pursuit of unbiased empirical research, free from stifling agitprop interference. Our data concerning the reputational control of the field reflects only one, although very important, aspect of this partitioning. Another and much plainer aspect is that, from the early 1960s, the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee no longer exercised control over the field, except in the political economy sector.The proposition about the “mechanism paradigm” should not be taken seriously as a statement of a Kuhnian type of intellectual organisation of Hungarian economics, with “reform economics” at its “hard theoretical core”. But it should certainly be taken seriously as a reflection of the sociopolitical structure which emerged and developed from the mid-1950s onwards. Neither the politicians nor the economists saw as necessary or even contemplated the integration of Hungarian economic research with Western mainstream economic thought. In exchange for the professional expertise and socio-economic intelligence necessary for the exercise of power, Hungary's state-socialist political class offered their economists relative autonomy and freedom from interference. The price the economists had to pay was partly to refrain from openly and systematically challenging the beliefs perpetuated by the political economy of socialism, and partly to accept in their research the paramountcy of policy orientation. But this burden they assumed willingly since it made them the only group within Hungary's academic intelligentsia—indeed, the only group in Hungarian society outside the political class—with the privilege of being coopted to the institutions with power over some restricted domains of policymaking. After 1989, especially under the conservative Antall government, this proved less than advantageous.11 Although the benevolence of many critics is open to question, it could greatly benefit the field if the economists' expulsion from contemporary politics went hand in hand with provision of the material, intellectual and institutional conditions for a new approach where a fundamentally scientific orientation is paramount. (shrink)

Originally published in Common Knowledge 11, no. 2 (Fall 2005), this essay is reprinted in 2022 as the prelude to the first installment of a project titled “Antipolitics” and dedicated to the author's memory. “To really know” what a writer “is like,” Konrád writes here, “he would have to look back on his biography from after death” — and in this piece he hauntingly does so. Explaining that he composed his first autobiography upon being expelled from university in Hungary after (...) Stalin's death in 1953, he defines the process as “the main event in the ritual of political detention.” In an overview of the writer's life, he describes any act of writing as like scratching one's initials “into the brick of a prison wall” in an effort “to avoid dying completely.” The editors of Common Knowledge, of whose editorial board Konrád was a founding member, chose to reprint this statement at the head of a symposium whose purpose is, in no small part, to help secure his posthumous existence. (shrink)

The ArgumentContemporary natural sciences succeed remarkably well in ensuring a relatively continuous transmission of their cognitively relevant traditions and in creating a widely shared background consensus among their practitioners – hermeneutical ends seemingly achieved without hermeneutical awareness or explicitly acquired hermeneutical skills.It is a historically specific – emerging only in the nineteenth century – cultural organization of the Author-Text-Reader relation which endows them with such an ease of hermeneutical achievements: an institutionally fixed form of textual and intertextual practices, normatively posited (...) ways of adequate reception and criticism, etc. The same organization also explains a number of their often-discussed epistemic and cultural characteristics: their depersonalized objectivity, the social closure of their discourse and their reduced cultural significance, the shallow historical depth of their activated traditions, etc.The cognitive structure and the social function of contemporary natural sciences are intimately interwoven with a set of sui generis cultural relations that are partially fixed in the textual characteristics of their literary objectivations. A comparative hermeneutical analysis of natural sciences as a specifically constituted and institutionalized cultural genre or discourse-type brings into relief those contingent cultural conditions and relations to which some of their fundamental epistemological characteristics are bound, or at least with which they are historically closely associated. (shrink)