Most philosophers believe that testimony is not a fundamental source of knowledge, but merely a way to transmit already existing knowledge. However, Jennifer Lackey has presented some counterexamples which show that one can actually come to know something through testimony that no one ever knew before. Yet, the intuitive idea can be preserved by the weaker claim that someone in a knowledge-constituting testimonial chain has to have access to some non-testimonial source of knowledge with regard to what is testified. But (...) even this weaker claim has a counterexample which I develop in close connection with a safety-account of knowledge. Thus, testimonial statements can sometimes enable us to know something for which none of our informants has any source of knowledge available. I conclude that my counterexample nevertheless does not affect the core of our intuitions about testimony, although it establishes that testimony can indeed be a fundamental source of knowledge. (shrink)

Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. The notion of othering spread from feminist theory and post-colonial studies to other areas of the humanities and social sciences, but is originally rooted in Hegel’s dialectic of identification and distantiation in the encounter of the self with some other in his “Master-Slave dialectic”. In this paper, after reviewing the philosophical (...) and psychological background of othering, I distinguish two kinds of othering, “crude” and “sophisticated”, that differ in the logical form of their underlying arguments. The essential difference is that the former is merely self-other distantiating, while the latter – as in Hegel’s dialectic – partially depends on self-other identification. While crude othering is closer to the paradigmatic notion of othering, sophisticated othering is closer to Hegel’s, but so is quasi-othering, which is nearly identical in form to sophisticated othering, but which misses the defining feature of othering – attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness. Because Hegel’s dialectic applies to any encounter of an interpreting self with some other, sophisticated or quasi-othering is at least potentially a very common occurrence in the interpretation of others, especially of those who do not belong to the in-group. However, although othering is usually undesirable, the Hegelian varieties can provide a “mirror”, which can be used as a tool to improve understanding of both the other and the interpreting self, and the malignant aspects of othering can be avoided through charity. (shrink)

Two of the most fundamental distinctions in metaphysics are (1) that between reality (or things in themselves) and appearance, the R/A distinction, and (2) that between entities that are fundamental (or real, etcetera) and entities that are ontologically or existentially dependent, the F/D distinction. While these appear to be two very different distinctions, in Buddhist metaphysics they are combined, raising questions about how they are related. In this paper I argue that plausible versions of the R/A distinction are essentially a (...) special kind of F/D distinction, and conversely, that many F/D distinctions imply an R/A distinction. Nevertheless, while this does suggest that the F/D distinction is more basic than the R/A distinction, it does not favor a particular understanding of the F/D distinction. There are many kinds of existential or ontological dependence that cannot be meaningfully combined into a single notion, and reality does not force us to accept any specific kind of dependence as more fundamental. Consequently, what we consider to be ‘real’, ‘fundamental’, or ‘really existing’ is not entirely given by reality, but partially up to us. (shrink)

Episodic memory (EM) involves re-experiencing past experiences by means of mental imagery. Aphantasics (who lack mental imagery) and people with severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) lack the ability to re-experience, which would imply that they don't have EM. However, aphantasics and people with SDAM have personal and affective memories, which are other defining aspects of EM (in addition to re-experiencing). This suggests that these supposed aspects of EM really are independent faculties or modules of memory, and that EM is a (...) composite faculty rather than a natural kind. Apparent varieties of (normal and "defective") EM (as well as some closely related kinds of memory) are different combinations of these modules, and the EM construct itself adds little if any explanatory value to these modules. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, Uchiyama Gudō, Seno’o Girō, Lin Qiuwu, and others advocated a Buddhism that was radical in two respects. Firstly, they adopted a more or less naturalist stance with respect to Buddhist doctrine and related matters, rejecting karma or other supernatural beliefs. And secondly, they held political and economic views that were radically anti-hegemonic, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary. Taking the idea of such a “radical Buddhism” seriously, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism asks (...) whether it is possible to develop a philosophy that is simultaneously naturalist, anti-capitalist, Buddhist, and consistent. Rather than a study of radical Buddhism, then, this book is an attempt to radicalize it. The foundations of this “radicalized radical Buddhism” are provided by a realist interpretation of Yogācāra, elucidated and elaborated with some help from thinkers in the broader Tiantai/Tendai tradition and American philosophers Donald Davidson and W.V.O. Quine. A key implication of this foundation is that only this world and only this life are real, from which it follows that if Buddhism aims to alleviate suffering, it has to do so in this world and in this life. Twentieth-century radical Buddhists (as well as some engaged Buddhists) came to a similar conclusion, often expressed in their aim to realize “a Buddha land in this world.” Building on this foundation, but also on Mahāyāna moral philosophy, this book argues for an ethics and social philosophy based on a definition of evil as that what is or should be expected to cause death or suffering. On that ground, capitalism should be rejected indeed, but utopianism must be treated with caution as well, which raises questions about what it means – from a radicalized radical Buddhist perspective – to aim for a Buddha land in this world. (shrink)

The debate about truth in Chinese philosophy raises the methodological question How to recognize "truth" in some non-Western tradition of thought? In case of Chinese philosophy it is commonly assumed that the dispute concerns a single question, but a distinction needs to be made between the property of /truth/, the concept of TRUTH, and the word *truth*. The property of /truth/ is what makes something true; the concept of TRUTH is our understanding of /truth/; and *truth*· is the word we (...) use to express that understanding. Almost all human beings over the age of 2 have the concept of TRUTH, and therefore, the question whether some tradition has the concept of TRUTH is moot, but that doesn't imply that every language has a (single) word for *truth*. Furthermore, recognizing *truth* is complicated by the conceptual neighbors of TRUTH. What distinguishes *truth* from its neighbors is disquotationality. Theories of /truth/ similarly need to be distinguished from theories about adjacent notions. If a theory is more plausibly interpreted as a theory of /justification/, then it is not a theory of /truth/. (shrink)

Saṃvega is a morally motivating state of shock that -- according to Buddhaghosa -- should be evoked by meditating on death. What kind of mental state it is exactly, and how it is morally motivating is unclear, however. This article presents a theory of saṃvega -- what it is and how it works -- based on recent insights in psychology. According to dual process theories there are two kinds of mental processes organized in two" systems" : the experiential, automatic system (...) 1, and the rational, controlled system 2. In normal circumstances, system 1 does not believe in its own mortality. Saṃvega occurs when system 1 suddenly realizes that the "subjective self" will inevitably die (while system 2 is already disposed to affirm the subject's mortality). This results in a state of shock that is morally motivating under certain conditions. Saṃvega increases mortality salience and produces insight in suffering, and in combination with a strengthened sense of loving-kindness or empathic concern both mortality salience and insight in suffering produce moral motivation. (shrink)

The “Problem of the Rock” (PoR) is a famous objection to Higher-Order (HO) theories of consciousness. According to PoR, the HO theorists’ claim that a mental state is conscious iff there is a higher-order mental state about it implies that a rock is also conscious iff there is a higher-order mental state about it. In this paper I show that this argument confuses two grammatically distinct attributions of consciousness, and that if the consequent equivocation fallacy is avoided, PoR is either (...) a straw man argument or has an unproblematic conclusion. (shrink)

In (2011) McLeod suggested that the first century Chinese philosopher Wang Chong 王充 may have been a pluralist about truth. In this reply I contest McLeod's interpretation of Wang Chong, and suggest "quasi-pluralism" (albeit more as an alternative to pluralism than as an interpretation of Wang Chong), which combines primitivism about the concept of truth with pluralism about justification.

Putnam and Davidson both defended coherence theories of justification from the early 1980s onward. There are interesting similarities between these theories, and Putnam’s philosophical development lead to further convergence in the 1990s. The most conspicuous difference between Putnam’s and Davidson’s theories is that they appear to fundamentally disagree on the role and nature of conceptual schemes, but a closer look reveals that they are not as far apart on this issue as usually assumed. The veridicality of perceptual beliefs is a (...) cornerstone of both Davidson’s and Putnam’s later (but not earlier) coherentism. However, this thesis introduces a form of weak foundationalism into their theories, and consequently, those are strictly speaking not pure coherence theories, but hybrids between coherentism and foundationalism. (shrink)

The most common way of dealing with the fear of death is denying death. Such denial can take two and only two forms: strategy 1 denies the finality of death; strategy 2 denies the reality of the dying subject. Most religions opt for strategy 1, but Buddhism seems to be an example of the 2nd. All variants of strategy 1 fail, however, and a closer look at the main Buddhist argument reveals that Buddhism in fact does not follow strategy 2. (...) Moreover, there is no other theory that does, and neither can there be. This means that there is no tenable theory that denies death. There may be no universally psychologically acceptable alternative, however, which would mean that if denying death is incoherent, this is an unavoidable incoherence. (shrink)

This paper presents a simple model to estimate the number of languages that existed throughout history, and considers philosophical and linguistic implications of the findings. The estimated number is 150,000 plus or minus 50,000. Because only few of those remain, and there is no reason to believe that that remainder is a statistically representative sample, we should be very cautious about universalistic claims based on existing linguistic variation.

The historical period of the avant-garde art movements coincided with two phenomena which can be interpreted as the failure of the rationalism characteristic for the modern, capitalist system. One of these is Taylorism, which dehumanized and robotized the person involved in the work process, and the other is the First World War. Several movements of the avant-garde related critically to reason and conscience (expressionism, surrealism), but the most radical was Dada. The manifestos and Dadaist activities reveal that the Dada wants (...) to do away not only with the heritage of the past, but also with the linguistic and logical structures which form the texture of society. Bruitist poems, meaningless words and sentences, simultaneous poems, and the various uses of sound are all aimed at tearing apart language itself. The refusal of logic is most evident in the manifesto of Tristan Tzara, in which the series of mutually contradictory affirmations is concluded with an exceptionally clear statement: “I hate common sense.” Logic, argumentation, and dialectics are all dismissed in the name of freedom and life, which are characterized by Tzara in the following way: “the interweaving of contraries and all contradictions, freaks and irrelevancies: LIFE” (Tzara 1918). In my paper, I supplement the thesis of Peter Burger on the failure of the avant-garde (which is explained by him through its artistic success) by calling attention to the failure of its fight against reason, which is most evident in the search for meaning as an essential part of artistic reception. Thus, Dada is only interesting as long as the meaningless phenomenon is associated with some kind of meaning during the artistic reception. (shrink)

This chapter proceeds from the standard picture of the relation between intuitions and experimental philosophy: the alleged evidential role of intuitions about hypothetical cases, and experimental philosophy’s challenge to these judgments, based on their variation with philosophically irrelevant factors. I will survey some of the main defenses of this standard picture against the x-phi challenge, most of which fail. Concerning the most popular defense, the expertise defense, I will draw the bleak conclusion that intuitive expertise of the envisaged kind is (...) largely a myth. Next, I will consider the mischaracterization objection, which has mainly been developed by Deutsch and Cappelen on the basis of textual evidence: that philosophers do not appeal to intuitions as evidence for their case judgments, but instead argue for them. This would render the x-phi challenge mostly irrelevant, due to its focus on intuitions about hypothetical cases. I will then consider a few instructive replies to the mischaracterization objection, which are all unconvincing on further inspection. Finally, I will discuss some potential normative consequences of the mischaracterization objection, and I will argue that it recommends a shift away from the excessive focus on intuitions about cases in metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy, towards more work on the role of argumentation in the method of cases. More speculatively, I claim that philosophers should always argue for their case judgments, even if they have strong intuitions about them, because an argument-based methodology would be more transparent and philosophically fruitful than one that mainly relies on intuition. (shrink)

In “Real Patterns” Daniel Dennett developed an argument about the reality of beliefs on the basis of an analogy with patterns and noise. Here I develop Dennett’s analogy into an argument for descriptivism, the view that belief reports do no specify belief contents but merely describe what someone believes, and show that this view is also supported by empirical evidence. No description can do justice to the richness and specificity or “noisiness” of what someone believes, and the same belief can (...) be described by different sentences or propositions (which is illustrated by Dennett’s analogy, some Gettier cases, and Frege’s puzzle), but in some contexts some of these competing descriptions are misleading or even false. Faithful (or truthful) description must be guided by a principle (or principles) related to the principle of charity: belief descriptions should not attribute irrationality to the believer or have other kinds of “deviant” implications. (shrink)

The notion of “relational aesthetics” was created by Nicolas Bourriaud in 1995 to describe the new artistic phenomena of the nineties. According to Bourriaud the manifestations of relational art create temporary communities, thus turning art into a social laboratory. This paper investigates the communities arising through these artistic endeavors. My hypothesis is that the empty communities motivated solely by the artistic event are not more consistent than the audience of a play or a performance, furthermore, they do not transcend the (...) elite public of galleries and exhibitions. On the other hand, when the artistic endeavor expresses a social message in addition to the artistic purpose, the possibility of real – though, also temporary – communities arises. (shrink)

(First paragraph.) Ontology is often described as the inquiry into what exists, but there is some disagreement among (meta-) ontologists about what “existence” means and whether there are different kinds or senses of “existence” or just one; that is, whether “existence” is equivocal or univocal. Furthermore, there is a growing number of philosophers (many of whom take inspiration from Aristotle’s metaphysical writings) who argue that ontology should not be concerned so much with what exists, but with what is fundamental or (...) real (or something similar). Each of the positions in this debate is centered on a concept or small class of concepts that is intended to capture what ontology is about. Examples of such ontological core concepts are: existence, subsistence, Dasein, being, independent being, being real, being fundamental, being a fundamental constituent of reality, being irreducible. This paper intends to answer the twofold question of what (kind of notions) these ontological core concepts are, and how (and how much) they (can) differ. I will argue that there can be no difference between such concepts other than differing domains, and that any domain is a restriction in a maximally expanded universe, and therefore, equivalent to a (restricting) property. Furthermore, such differences between domains (or restricting properties) are intertranslatable, and consequently, there is not much room for substantial difference. Whatever difference remains is largely due to differences in focus or differences in the (phrasing of) questions ontologists try to answer. (shrink)

Othering is the construction and identification of the self or in-group and the other or out-group in mutual, unequal opposition by attributing relative inferiority and/or radical alienness to the other/out-group. Othering can be “crude” or “sophisticated”, the defining difference being that in the latter case othering depends on the interpretation of the other/out-group in terms that are applicable only to the self/in-group but that are unconsciously assumed to be universal. The Mass Noun Thesis, the idea that all nouns in certain (...) languages are grammatically and folk-ontologically similar to mass nouns in English, is an example of such sophisticated othering. According to this Thesis, (a) count nouns refer to discrete objects and mass nouns to stuffs; (b) the other’s language has only mass nouns and thus no count nouns; and therefore, (c) the other’s folk-ontology is an ontology of mass stuffs only. There is much evidence, however, that folk-ontology is independent from language. This paper argues that the Mass Noun Thesis is a case of sophisticated othering rooted in a conflation of grammatical and ontological conceptions of mass and count nouns that is applicable to the language of the interpreter/self but not to the languages of the relevant others, and that othering in this case is driven by a need to create some radically alien other to support a scientific or philosophical theory. (shrink)

This paper argues that Davidson's argument against conceptual schemes fail against so-called "Applied Relativisms", i.e. theories of conceptual relativism found outside philosophy such as Whorf's. These theories make no metaphysical claims, which Davidson seems to assume. Ultimately, the misunderstanding (and resulting strawman argument) illustrates (the effect of) differences in conceptual schemes more than that it undermines it.

This paper analyzes some grammatical aspects of the English verb "to mean" and its nominalizations, and based on that, argues that meaning is something that people do rather than something that words have.

Philosophy once started as the critical reflection on relatively ordinary human concerns. Increasing specialization has moved the discipline farther and farther away from these concerns, however, undermining its relevance outside the academy, but has also resulting in an ever increasing fragmentation. This fragmentation has further divided the field into a large number of esoteric communities that hardly understand each other. "Further divided", because philosophy was already divided into schools and traditions that seem to speak mutually unintelligible languages. In addition to (...) these problems for philosophy as a discipline or "cultural genre" (Rorty), this situation also creates a problem for individual philosophers who are driven primarily by the "big" and ordinary concerns that once founded the field, but that do not fit well in contemporary academic philosophy. In this essay, I suggest - but ultimately do not fully endorse - metaphilosophical anarchism as a possible solution to these problems. Metaphilosophical anarchism requires transparency and rejects opacity, but so do all other approaches to philosophy - at least officially - and if that is right, then anarchism has nothing new or different to offer. (shrink)

(First paragraphs.) — The notion of “mental time” refers to the experience and awareness of time, including that of past, present, and future, and that of the passing of time. This experience and awareness of time raises a number of puzzling questions. How do we experience time? What exactly do we experience when we experience time? Do we actually experience time? Or do we infer time from something in, or some aspect of our experience? And so forth. These and many (...) related questions in the “philosophy of mental time”, the topic of this special issue of the Annals of the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science, are not purely philosophical questions. Or at least, they are not likely to be satisfactorily answered by philosophers alone. Rather, they also need the input of neuroscientists, psychologists, physicists, linguists, and others. And conversely, answers to these questions may have implications outside the scope of philosophy. The papers in this special issue illustrate this inherent multi- or interdisciplinarity of the philosophy and science of mental time. In this theme introduction, we want to give a few more examples to illustrate this interdisciplinarity, but also to point out that much of the field is still wide open—that is, these illustrations raise more questions than answers. (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosophers claimed that the particular task of art was mimesis. This kind of view about the relation between art and the world was dominant until the beginning of the 19th century. The theory of genius rethought this relation, and it did not presume that art needs to mirror the world. On the contrary, it expected originality, that is, the creation of a new world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the artworld operates under a wider notion of (...) the ‘work of art’, e.g. Duchamp’s “readymade” and “institutional readymade”, which are linked to outsider art. In both cases, the creation of an object and the creation of an art piece are separate actions performed by different individuals. This paper attempts to tackle these problems and prove that the contemporary art does not relate primarily to the world, but mainly to the artworld. Thus, the path from art to the world goes through the artworld. (shrink)

This is my reply to McLeod’s reply (2015a) to my (2015) paper commenting on his (2011) interpretation of Wang Chong 王充 as an alethic pluralist.

(First paragraphs.) The idea that our language somehow influences our thought can be found in philosophical and scientific traditions of different continents and with different roots and objectives. Yet, beyond the mere theoretical, explorations of the idea are relatively scarce, and are mostly limited to relations between very concrete conceptual categories and subjective experiencing and remembering – to some kind of ‘psychologies of folk-ontology’. Thought as process, reasoning or ‘thinking’, and the role of more complex or abstract concepts in (such) (...) thought tend to be mostly ignored in psychology and philosophy. Conceptual and intellectual history, on the other hand, cannot be accused of such neglect, but the common lack of a comparative perspective in those fields precludes any generalized inference. Furthermore, while a comparative study on the role of complex or abstract concepts in thought as process and its products (the aggregate ‘thought’ of schools, ages, and regions) could result in a considerable enrichment of our understanding of the relationships between language and thought, it would not necessarily be recognized as such because of a fundamental difference in the nature of the concepts involved, affecting the boundary of ‘language’ in the pair ‘language and thought’. More concretely, while the concepts of the ‘psychologies of folk-ontology’ are rather concrete categories of ‘things’ or aspects of experienced reality (hence, ‘folk-ontology’), the abstract concepts of (comparative) conceptual history, such as ‘society’ or ‘reason’, are categories of ideas. Consequently, conceptual history is inseparably tied to the history of ideas, and there is no strict boundary line between concepts, theories, ideas, and aggregate thought in general. It could, therefore, be argued that a comparative conceptual history would be a study of the influence of ideas on thought, rather than of language on thought. That argument, however, would either void language of content, or make the dubious claim that folk-ontology is a fundamentally different type of content than theoretical content. The ‘psychologies of folk-ontology’ study the influence of folk-ontological categories on folk-ontological thought (experiencing and remembering), and a comparative conceptual history would study the influence of theoretical categories (or conceptualized ideas) on theoretical thought (thinking, reasoning, etc.), and there does not seem to be a good reason to exclude either type of categories from ‘language’. Perhaps it should be argued instead that the ambiguous term ‘language’ in the pair ‘language and thought’ would better be replaced with ‘concepts’ or ‘categories’. (shrink)

This is the published version of a talk on meta-ontology in a conference of a multidisciplinary research project on "logic and sensibility". It argues against univocalism about "existence" and for a variety of perspectivism.

The culture-economy dialectic (CED) – the opposition of the concepts and phenomena of culture and economy – is one of the most important ideas in the modern history of ideas. Both disciplinary boundaries and much theoretical thought in social science are strongly influenced or even determined by the CED. For that reason, a thorough analysis and evaluation of the CED is needed to improve understanding of the history of ideas in social science and the currently fashionable research on the cultural (...) influences on economic differences between countries and regions. This thesis is an attempt to do just that. The concepts of “culture” and “economy” (and related concepts) and the (assumed) relations therebetween are compared and analyzed. Empirical results from earlier studies are summarized and some new test are presented. These new tests are partly based on a measurement of Dutch regional culture. However, most theories of the CED are (nearly) impossible to verify (empirically). There appears to be some influence of wealth on specific cultural phenomena (such as individualism and post-materialism), but the often assumed influence of culture on entrepreneurship and economic growth remains unconfirmed. Moreover, from an analysis of the theories themselves, it appears that most of these cannot be falsified and are, therefore, hardly 'scientific'. Many of the theories of the CED and, in fact, many theories of social science in general are of a conceptual rather than a causal nature. These theories cannot be falsified (or verified) by empirical means alone, but must be studied by means of conceptual analysis. In the final conclusions, this thesis, therefore, argues for conceptual analysis in – and a more anarchist approach to – social science. (shrink)

Any social and political arrangement depends on acceptance. If a substantial part of a people does not accept the authority of its rulers, then those can only remain in power by means of force, and even that use of force needs to be accepted to be effective. Gramsci called this acceptance of the socio-political status quo “hegemony.” Every stable state relies primarily on hegemony as a source of control. Hegemony works through the dissemination of values and beliefs that create acceptance (...) and that serve the interests of the state and/or the ruling elite (the “hegemones”). Hegemony is most efficient if it remains invisible. A key hegemonic belief is the idea that there is no alternative to the current socio-political status quo or that the way things are is “natural.” The current hegemony – that is, the set of values and beliefs that bolster the current socio-political status quo – is a hegemony of psychopathy: it promotes “cultural psychopathy” and destroys empathy and compassion, thus threatening everything that makes us human. The hegemony of psychopathy is responsible for massive human suffering. It must be fought and replaced with a counter-hegemonic set of values and beliefs that promote compassion and care. Fighting hegemony requires fighting the “pillars” that support it. Most important among these are the mass media and culture industry, and mainstream economics. The former is responsible for a continuous stream of hegemonic propaganda; the latter – among others – for providing a pseudo-scientific justification for the false belief that there is no alternative. The book concludes with some considerations on tactics and strategy in the struggle against the hegemony of psychopathy, but does not – and cannot – offer any concrete advice. (shrink)

Differing worldviews give interdisciplinary work value. However, these same differences are the primary hurdle to productive communication between disciplines. Here, we argue that philosophical issues of metaphysics and epistemology subserve many of the differences in language, methods and motivation that plague interdisciplinary fields like educational neuroscience. Researchers attempting interdisciplinary work may be unaware that issues of philosophy are intimately tied to the way research is performed and evaluated in different fields. As such, a lack of explicit discussion about these assumptions (...) leads to many conflicts in interdisciplinary work that masquerade as more superficial issues. To illustrate, we investigate how philosophical assumptions about the mind may influence researchers in educational neuroscience. The methods employed by researchers in this field are shaped by their metaphysical beliefs, and arguments around these issues can threaten accepted disciplinary ontologies. Additionally, how a researcher understands reduction in the special sciences and how they place their colleagues in this ontology constrains the scope of interdisciplinary projects. In encouraging researchers to explicitly discuss the philosophical assumptions underlying their research we hope to alleviate some of the conflict and establish realistic expectations for collaborative projects. (shrink)

Technical reproduction in general, and photography in particular have changed the status and practices of art. Similarly, the expansion of Web 2.0 interactive spaces presents opportunities and challenges to artistic communities. Present study focuses on artistic activism: socially sensitive artists publish their creation on the internet on its most interactive space – social media. These artworks carry both artistic and social messages. Such practices force us to reinterpret some elements of the classical art paradigm: its autonomy, authorship, uniqueness (as opposed (...) to copies and series), and the social role of art. The analysis is aimed at Hungarian and Romanian online artistic projects from Transylvania region of Romania, relevant as intercultural communication endeavours. Our research question is the way they differ from the traditional artistic paradigm. (shrink)

This study focuses on the Hungarian impact of the 2017 “Me Too” movement, offering an analysis of some relevant online texts and of their comments. The theoretical framework is provided by the anthropological linguistic approach (Balázs 2009), linguistic world view research (Kövecses 2017, Banczerowski 2008, 2012, Magyari 2015), and discourse analysis (Berger 1998, Nemesi 2016). The research method is based on participant observation and on text analysis, which also offers the possibility of content analysis, if the researcher applies a corpus-centred (...) perspective (Balaskó 2005). The research questions point in two directions. The linguistic approach deals with the question of how the “Me Too” movement is discussed. How do the victim and the offender appear in online media, and how is their image represented by commenting readers? According to our hypothesis, information is not always controlled in online space, and opinion formation becomes almost even more important than the fact itself. Hence, the knowledge fixed within language and language use changes as well. Our research attaches great importance to the reconstruction of linguistic images, leading to the exploration of underlying values systems, also pointing out cultural phenomena such as the dichotomy between silence and speaking out, conceptualized as social phenomena in an anthropological and ethnographic framework. At the same time, from the perspective of argumentation and rhetoric, we are interested in the emerging positions and in the typical arguments supporting these, in their conflict, and in the most frequently occurring means of persuasion. We also presuppose that the positions and modes of reasoning are clearer and relatively restrained in the online press, while the discourse of the comments is more emotionally charged. (shrink)

This paper provides new tools for philosophical argument analysis and fresh empirical foundations for ‘critical’ ordinary language philosophy. Language comprehension routinely involves stereotypical inferences with contextual defeaters. J.L. Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia first mooted the idea that contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences from verbal case-descriptions drive some philosophical paradoxes; these engender philosophical problems that can be resolved by exposing the underlying fallacies. We build on psycholinguistic research on salience effects to explain when and why even perfectly competent speakers cannot help making (...) stereotypical inferences which are contextually inappropriate. We analyse a classical paradox about perception, suggest it relies on contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences from appearance-verbs, and show that the conditions we identified as leading to contextually inappropriate stereotypical inferences are met in formulations of the paradox. Three experiments use a forced-choice plausibility-ranking task to document the predicted inappropriate inferences, in English, German, and Japanese. The cross-linguistic study allows us to assess the wider relevance of the proposed analysis. Our findings open up new perspectives for ‘evidential’ experimental philosophy. (shrink)

The contemporary agonist thinker, Chantal Mouffe argues that conflicts are constitutive of politics. However, this position raises the question that concerns the survival of order and the proper types of conflicts in democracies. Although Mouffe is not consensus-oriented, consensus plays a role in her theory when the democratic order is at stake. This suggests that there is a theoretical terrain between the opposing poles of conflict and consensus. This can be discussed with the help of concepts and theories that seem (...) to be standing between the two, namely compromise, debate and the borders of democracy. I will argue that we can reveal this position with the theoretical analysis of compromise in the works of F. R. Ankersmit on the historical origin of representative democracy, and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson on the role of compromise in divided communities. J. S. Mill’s view of colliding opinions offers a moderate agonistic understanding of politics, while the concept of debate plays a similar role for Márton Szabó, a contemporary Hungarian political theorist. Finally, Mouffe’s position stands at the conflictual end of this spectrum, although conflicts are delimited on the normative ground of democracy. (shrink)

In his “On the Metaphysics of Knowledge” (this volume), Sven Bernecker presents a novel ‘identificationist’ account of knowledge. In this paper, I will not directly address the epistemological adequacy of Bernecker’s identificationism. Rather, I want to focus on its substantial metaphysical commitments, especially on the problematic idea that our epistemic reasons identify the truthmaker of our respective belief when we know something. My conclusion will be that being a truthmaker for p is metaphysically more demanding than being an epistemic reason (...) for p. A truthmaker for p must necessitate the truth of p, while an epistemic reason for p must merely indicate the truth of p. Thus, we should not expect that epistemic reasons identify the truthmakers of our knowledge-constituting beliefs in the way Bernecker suggests. (shrink)

The problem of identity in the world of art is relevant from many perspectives. This paper aims at discussing the identity of the work of art. The discussion is built in three steps: the problem of identification of an object as work of art, the problem of the relevant properties of a work of art and the question of the author of the work of art as decisive (or not) for the identification of a work of art. These issues are (...) raised with the evolution of artistic practice and art theory in the last century. The appearing of the “ready-made” destabilized the firm identity of a work of art and now we have to decide what the difference is between a work of art and its perceptually identical pair. Traditionally relevant perceptual features lost their importance in conceptual art, so we have to decide what relevant properties belong, even today, to works of art. Finally, the practice of appropriation in postmodern art challenges the notion of the artist and of the meaning of genuine creation. (shrink)

The ‘museal’ approach to art has been attacked from many angles in the last decade; the main issue raised by most of these attacks was that such an approach would promote a certain idea of art which has little to do with real-life or the layman’s interest. Some artists have protested by stepping out of the museum space with projects deliberately designed as non-museum items (performance, land-art, public art etc.). Art, however, is always meant for a public, so, as an (...) “unfortunate” consequence, those artists who wished to become famous were not able to avoid certain art institutions, such as museums, galleries, curators or critics. Until now. The internet, especially Facebook, provide genuinely new options/ opportunities for the virtual display of art pieces, an option that artists are eager to take advantage of. In the following, I will present the process of expansion of the public artistic sphere, I will attempt to show why Facebook serves well as a public artistic arena, and finally, I will present some salient Facebook-art-projects. The presented projects will include works by a street artist (Banksy), a performance artist (Gusztáv Ütő) and a graphic designer (Dan Perjovsky). These three artists are intrigued by current social issues, which are usually reflected in their works, also they all wish to spread their messages to the widest possible public. On of their favorite channels is the Facebook Wall. (shrink)

On the Periphery of the Artworld. The Case of the 55th Venice Biennale -/- The Venice Biennale is sort of a patent agency for art: if a work is exhibited at the Biennale, it is already regarded as being in the center of the contemporary artworld. This year the peculiarity of the Biennale was the emphasis on peripheral works: outsider art is brought to the center of the artworld. The notion of outsider art is paved with contradictions – it’s difficult (...) to find its place either in traditional art theory, or in avant-garde conceptions. This paper aims at making a parallel between outsider art and the readymade, highlights the similarities and differences, and proposes a new term instead of outsider art: “institutional readymade”. (shrink)

Les pensées de la différence selon Gilles Deleuze et Jacques Derrida se touchent dans leur sujet même, le Sujet qui « fait des histoires et des scènes » construisant le même système différentiel, le monde. C’est ce qui assure une sorte de continuité entre les deux philosophies. Concernant les « thèses » il n’y a aucune différence entre Deleuze et Derrida. Et pourtant, ils ne se laissent pas unir dans une seule et même philosophie de la différence. Les deux histoires (...) ne se laissent pas identifier dans un seul et même discours, elles exigent deux discours différents. Leur Sujet se raconte de deux façons, se joue sur deux scènes parallèlement, alternativement – cela relève d’une différence minime, différence de genre, de style, de geste, qui pourtant change tout. Penser pour Deleuze consiste à entrer dans le jeu, dans l’acte de la différence, à « faire la différence » – pour Derrida c’est comprendre la différence. Une philosophie comme celle de Derrida suspend les philosophies comme celle de Deleuze – une philosophie comme celle de Deleuze ne prend pas au sérieux une philosophie comme celle de Derrida. Leurs pensées s’excluent réciproquement tout en faisant signe l’une vers l’autre - comme le dirait Derrida : selon un certain graphique de la supplémentarité. Renverser le platonisme : changer son ontologie « en hauteur » pour une ontologie « en profondeur » , c’est un jeu immanent de l’ontologie. Le renversement deleuzien du platonisme est de se déplacer insidieusement en lui, mais aussi de se décaler légèrement par rapport à lui, lui ouvrir la porte, y instaurer une autre série de pensée divergente, constituer un para-platonisme, en d’autres mots : le déconstruire. L’effet en sera, selon Foucault, un « Theatrum Philosophicum » de fantasmes, de simulacres, d’événements, d’effets corporels où Freud et Artaud entrent en résonance même en s’ignorant. Derrida joue un tout petit peu différemment, du dehors, ou plutôt à la limite de son dehors. Si on se sert de l’allégorie de Rodolphe Gasché : Derrida s’installe au bord de la réflexion, dans le tain du miroir – on peut dire alors que Deleuze se déplace dans le miroitement, entre les images reflétées. Ils tiennent tous les deux, chacun à leur manière, à la limite de la réflexion, limites internes et externes. L’exemplarité de la relation Deleuze/Derrida réside en ceci : c’est une image de la doublure en soi de la pensée qui tente ses limites. Elle « illustre » la doublure inévitable de la pensée – doublure qui, par ailleurs, appelle à la déconstruction et à son mimétisme. (shrink)

Abstract The awakening of art to self-awareness and the statement of its autonomy are modern phenomena. The way we think about art in the modern age may be derived from the Kantian “beauty without concept”. Beautiful art is the work of the genius, who creates a work of art that is valuable in itself and is admired in museums by the public. That which I call here “the modern paradigm of art” is based on an absence: the non-conceptuality of the (...) beautiful, i.e., the fact that objective qualities cannot define the beautiful. This absence establishes originality as the essential requirement for modern art and creates the possibility for artists to push the boundaries of the modern paradigm. Thus, the 20thcentury sees the appearance of strategies for overriding or substituting originality. The artist withdraws from behind her work, and the work of art is no longer an unapproachable object with an aura, just as the museum is also no longer the temple of the arts. But do these experiments overcome the frontiers of art’s modern paradigm? And, more generally, can this paradigm be overcome at all? Here I deduct three elements of the modern paradigm of art from the idea of “beauty without concept”: (1) the original artist, who is seen as a genius, (2) the work of art with an aura, and (3) the museum as the temple of art. Then I present how artists, based on the requirement of originality, worked on dismantling the frontiers of the modern paradigm. (shrink)

Arthur C. Danto convincingly argued that works of art are not differentiated from common objects by aesthetic properties. With this he broke down the system of aestheticism, which discussed art as a sub-category of the aesthetic experience, looked for the universal, historically and culturally unconditioned significant form in works of art. At the same time, Danto’s theory can also be read as one considering the aesthetic point of view irrelevant for the essence of art. The paradigmatic starting point of Danto’s (...) theory is Andy Warhol’s Brillo Box. However it was the Brillo Box that created the opportunity for the questioning of this anti-aesthetic consequence, both Andy Warhol, when he created the Brillo Box, as well as Arthur C. Danto, when he chose it to be the starting point of his art philosophy, were driven by aesthetic motives. This inconsistency can be resolved by accepting that common objects are “transfigured” in the framework of an art theory, while adding that from the moment they have transfigured into a work of art, their (new) aesthetic properties become substantial. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant és Marcel Duchamp munkássága egyaránt értelmezhető úgy, mint a művészet világát átrendező új kezdet, új távlatok forrása. Kant Az ítélőerő kritikája című munkájára úgy tekintek, mint a művészet modern paradigmájának forrására. E paradigma három alapja – a zseniális alkotó, a műalkotás és a múzeum mint a művészet temploma – levezethető a fogalom nélküli szépből. Mivel a szépnek nincs definíciója és nincsenek szabályai, az alkotó szükségszerűen eredeti kell, hogy legyen. Ezáltal a zseniális művész adja a szépművészetnek a szabályt, és (...) alkotására rávetül a zsenialitás fénye. Ezt az alkotást imádják a művészetek templomában, a múzeumban. A művészet modern paradigmáját mozgató zseniális alkotó ettől fogva a kísérletezésre van ítélve, és előbb-utóbb ennek a kísérletezésnek a tárgya maga a művészet paradigmája lesz. A huszadik századi művészek destabilizálják a művészet paradigmájának mindhárom pillérét, és ebben úttörő (kútfő) szerepet játszik Marcel Duchamp. Munkásságában megtaláljuk a műtárgy hagyományos fogalmának megszüntetésére, a művészeti világ intézményrendszerének szabotálására és a művész-szerep átértelmezésére irányuló kísérleteket. Duchamp úgy folytatja Kant művészetfelfogását, hogy a legtöbb ponton szakít vele. (shrink)

The necessary condition for the reception of art is aesthetic distance, which paradoxically relies on direct experience: one has to be there in front of the artwork, has to live the experience. Therefore, the current pandemic and the practice of social distancing, which attempts to slow it down, is a serious challenge for the arts. This text analyses the ways in which artists and the institutions which mediate art react to the conditions caused by the pandemic. I will present some (...) creative practices which turn the adversity of the pandemic into an asset (the White Cuib Facebook project and the series by Sándor Bartha). So, there are projects which mine the gap (social distancing) and use it creatively. Then I will analyze the practice of some museums and galleries, focusing on the positive examples (e.g., the “Stay at Home Museum”) as well as on the difficulties. The examined cases will reveal the fact that while the artists were able to react in creative ways to the constraints and to create artworks which point beyond the contextual value, art institutions generally attempted merely to get through this period, hoping that they would soon be able to get back to life as usual. (shrink)

Proceedings of the Sixth Argumentor Conference held in Oradea/Nagyvárad, Romania, 11–12 September 2020.

The reception of Kant began in Croatia at the turn of the 19th century with the writings of J.B. Horváth, whose textbooks were in use at that time in Croatia and Hungary. Unlike Horváth's decidedly negative attitude toward Kant, Šimun Čučić (Simeon Chuchich), in his systematic work Philosophia Critice Elaborata (1815), adopted some aspects of Kantian philosophy. This includes, for example, the formalistic conception of logic, Kantian apriorism and subjectivism, the formalistic approach to the moral law, and the (...) like. However, since these elements were incorporated into a schoolbook type of text, they could not always be consistently implemented. The beginning of the reception of Kant in Croatia coincided with the revival of Croatian national self-awareness. -- Die Kantrezeption setzte in Kroatien an der Wende zum 19. Jahrhundert ein mit den Schriften J. B. Horváths, dessen Lehrbuecher in Kroatien und Ungarn damals in Gebrauch waren. Im Unterschied zu Horváth's ausgeschprochen negativer Einstellung zu Kant hat Šimun Čučić in seinem systematischen Werk Philosophia critice elaborata (1815) einige Aspekte der Kantischen Philosophie uebernommen. Dies betrifft z.B. die formalistische Auffassung der Logik, die Uebernahme des kantianischen Apriorismus und Subjektivismus, die formalistische Auffassungsweise des moralischen Gesetzes und dgl. Da nun diese Momente in ein schulmaeßig konzipiertes Buch aufgenommen wurden, konnten sie nicht immer konsequent durchgefuehrt werden. Der Beginn der Kantrezeption in Kroatien koinzidierte mit der Wiedererweckung des kroatischen nationalen Selbsbewußtseins. (shrink)

It has been pointed out that Gettier case scenarios have deviant realizations and that deviant realizations raise a difficulty for the logical analysis of thought experiments. Grundmann and Horvath have shown that it is possible to rule out deviant realizations by suitably modifying the scenario of a Gettier-style thought experiment. They hypothesize further that the enriched scenario corresponds to the way expert epistemologists implicitly interpret the original one. However, no precise account of this implicit enrichment is offered, which makes the (...) proposal somewhat ad hoc. Drawing on pragmatic theory, I argue that the content of Grundmann and Horvath’s modified scenario corresponds to the default interpretation of the original scenario and that epistemological expertise is not required to access the deviance-proof interpretation. This Default Interpretation proposal offers thus a more general and independently motivated solution to the Problem of Deviant Realizations. (shrink)

In an era of digital revolution, artificial intelligence, big data and augmented reality, technology has shifted from being a tool of communication to a primary medium of experience and sociality. Some of the most basic human capacities are increasingly being outsourced to machines and we increasingly experience and interpret the world through digital interfaces, with machines becoming ever more ‘social’ beings. Social interaction and human perception are being reshaped in unprecedented ways. This book explores this technologisation of the social and (...) the attendant penetration of permanent liminality into those aspects of the lifeworld where individuals had previously sought some kind of stability and meaning. Through a historical and anthropological examination of this phenomenon, it problematises the underlying logic of limitless technological expansion and our increasing inability to imagine either ourselves or our world in other than technological terms. Drawing on a variety of concepts from political anthropology, including liminality, the trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, participation, and the void, it interrogates the contemporary technological revolution in a manner that will be of interest to sociologists, social and anthropological theorists and scholars of science and technology studies with interests in the digital transformation of social life. -/- Table of Contents -/- Introduction: The Technologisation of the Social: A 21st-Century Megamachine? Paul O’Connor -/- 1. Communication as Theatricalisation: Self-Presentation in the Digital Age Arpad Szakolczai -/- 2. Parasites of the Social: Digital Disruptions of the Labour Market Tom Boland -/- 3. Possessed by Technology: The Metastasis of Absence Agnes Horvath -/- 4. Technologisation of the Social: Symbiosis, Parasitism, or Predation? Daniel Gati -/- 5. J'accuse Zéro: The Technology of Zero and the Making of a Personal Void Ray Griffin -/- 6. Digital Affordances and the Liminal Stephen Turner -/- 7. The Smart Womb: Digital Technologies and the Maze of Trickster Politics Marius Ion Benta -/- 8. Brave New Industry? The Dark Side of Dematerialisation and Industry 4.0 Thomas S.J. Smith -/- 9. ‘What Have You Caught?’: Nannycams and Hidden Cameras as Normalised Surveillance of the Intimate Janos Mark Szakolczai -/- 10. Coercive Visibility: Discipline in the Digital Public Arena Paul O’Connor -/- Conclusion: Is There a Way Out of the Technologisation of the Social? Marius Ion Benta. (shrink)

Reedition of papers in English spanning from 1986 to 2009 /// Historical background -- An imposed legacy -- Twentieth century contemporaneity -- Appendix: The philosophy of teaching legal philosophy in Hungary /// HISTORICAL BACKGROUND -- PHILOSOPHY OF LAW IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE: A SKETCH OF HISTORY [1999] 11–21 // PHILOSOPHISING ON LAW IN THE TURMOIL OF COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN HUNGARY (TWO PORTRAITS, INTERWAR AND POSTWAR: JULIUS MOÓR & ISTVÁN LOSONCZY) [2001–2002] 23–39: Julius Moór 23 / István Losonczy 29 // (...) ON THE SURVIVAL OF ILMAR TAMMELO’S LETTER AND MANUSCRIPT ADDRESSED TO PROFESSOR MOÓR [2009] 41–44 // PROFESSIONAL DISTRESS AND SCARCITY: ALEXANDER HORVÁTH AND THE LEGACY OF NATURAL LAW IN HUNGARY [2005] 45–50 // HUNGARIAN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 20TH CENTURY [2011] 51–72: I. The Pre-war Period [1. Bódog (Felix) Somló (1871–1920) 52] / II. The Inter-war Period [2. Gyula (Julius) Moór (1888–1950) 54 / 3. Barna Horváth (1896–1973) 55 / 4. József Szabó (1909–1992) 57 / 5. István Bibó (1911–1979) 58 / 6. Tibor Vas (1911–1983) 59 / 7. István Losonczy (1918–1980) 60] III. The Post-war Period (Communism) 61 [8. Imre Szabó (1912–1991) 62 / 9. Vilmos Peschka (1929–2006) 63 / 10. Kálmán Kulcsár (1928–2010) 65] IV. Contemporary Trends and Perspectives 66 [11. Csaba Varga (b. 1941) 66 / 12. András Sajó (b. 1949) 69 / 13. Béla Pokol (b. 1950) 70] V. Our Understanding of the Law Today 71 --- AN IMPOSED LEGACY -- LOOKING BACK [1999] 75–94: 1. On Ideologies and Marxism in general 75 / 2. Life of an Intellectual in Communism 79 / 3. On Marxism and its Socialist Cultivation in Particular 82 / 4. Legal Philosophising [4.1. Approaches to Law 87 / 4.2. Arriving at a Legal Ontology 91] 5. Conclusion 94 // LEGAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE MARXISM OF SOCIALISM: HUNGARIAN OVERVIEW IN AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE [2003] 95–151: I. Development and Balance of Marxist Philosophising on Law in Hungary [1. Preliminaries (until 1948) 96 / 2. Stalinism (from the Soviet Occupation on) {a) Liquidation of the »Residues« 98 / b) Soviet-type Uniformisation [Gleichschaltung] 99 / c) Denial of the Past, with a Dual Effect 99 / d) »Socialist Legality«, Drawn from the Progressive Past of Western Europe 103 / e) Search for the Germs of Scholarly Evolution 103} 3. Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation (from the 1960s) [a) Epigonism Becoming the Scholarly Ideal 104 / b) Stalinism in a Critical Self-perspective 105 / c) Disciples Diversified Launching their own Trends 107 / d) Comparatism 110 / e) (Re)discovery of the Western Legal Philosophy as a Competitor 112 / f) A Leading Mediatory Role within the »Socialist World Order« 114} 4. Disintegration (in the 1980s) {a) Attempt at Laying New Foundations for Marxism with Epigonism Exhausted 115 / b) Competitive Trends Becoming Exclusive 115 / c) Western Legal Philosophy Acknowledged as a Fellow-traveller within the Socialist Orbit Proper 116 / d) Hungarian Legal Theory Transforming into a National Corpus 118 / e) The Practical Promotion of Some Balance 119} 5. End-game for a Substitute State Religion (in the 1990s) 120] II. Marxist Legal Philosophising in an International Perspective [Ad 1: To the Preliminaries 122 / Ad 2: To Stalinism 124 / Ad 3: To Institutionalisation Accompanied by Relaxation {a) Late Separation from Vishinskiy’s Theory 125 / b) From Ideological Self-closure to an Apparently Scholarly Openness 127 / c) From Political Ideology to Genuine Scholarship 130 / d) International Recognition of Socialist Jurisprudence as an Independent Trend 135 / e) Together with Western Trends 137} Ad 4: To Disintegration {a) Loss of Attraction as Mere Epigonism 139 / b) Exclusivity of Competing Trends 139 / c) Fellowship with »Bourgeois« Trends 140 / d) An own Trend, Internationally Recognised 141 / e) A yet Progressive Role 142} Ad 5: To the Present state 143] III. A Temporary Balance 145 // AUTONOMY AND INSTRUMENTALITY OF LAW IN A SUPERSTRUCTURAL PERSPECTIVE [1986] 151–175: 1. The Strange Fate of Concepts 151 / I. A Relational Category 2. Basis and Superstructure: The Genuine Meaning 154 / 3. Exerting Social Influence as a Conceptual Minimum 156 / 4. Relationships within the Prevailing Totality 158 / 5. Attempts at Interpretation in Hungary 159 / 6. The Lukácsian Stand 162 / 7. Lukács’s Recognitions 168 / 8. Some Criticism 169 / II. The Law’s Understanding 171 / 9. Law Interpreted as Superstructure 171 / 10. Conclusions Drawn for the Law’s Understanding 173 // LEGAL THEORY IN TRANSITION (A PREFACE FROM HUNGARY) [2000] 177–186 // DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN HUNGARY AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM [2006] 187–215: 1. International Environment 188 / 2. The Situation in Hungary 190 / 3. Outlook I: The Historical-comparative Study of Legal Cultures and of the Lawyerly Way of Thinking 203 / 4. Outlook II: The Paradigmatic Enigma of the Transition to Rule of Law 207 / 5. Incongruity in Practice 213 / 6. Perspectives 214 --- TWENTIETH CENTURY CONTEMPORANEITY -- CHANGE OF PARADIGMS IN LEGAL RECONSTRUCTION: CARL SCHMITT AND THE TEMPTATION TO FINALLY REACH A SYNTHESIS [2002] 219–234: 1. Dangers of Intellectualism 219 / 2. Schmitt in Facts 221 / 3. Schmitt and Kelsen 222 / 4. On Bordering Conditions 226 / 5. With Kelsen in Transubstantiation 230 / 6. Polarisation as the Path of Theoretical Development 232 // KELSENIAN DOCUMENTS IN HUNGARY: CHAPTERS ON CONTACTS, INCLUDING THE GENESIS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY [2006] 235–243: 1. Preludes 235 / 2. The Search for Moór’s Bequeath 235 / 3. Moór’s Collegiality 238 / 4. Bibó as a Disciple Translating 241 // THE »HART-PHENOMENON« [2002] 245–267: I. The Hart-miracle 246 [1. The Scene of Britain at the Time 247 / 2. The Personal Career 250 / 3. The Opus’ Career 252 / 4. Verbal Sociologism 255 / 5. Growing into the British Pattern 259] II. The Hart-phenomenon 260 [6. Origination of a Strange Orthodoxy 261 / 7. Mastering Periods of the 20th Century 263 / 8. Raising the Issue of Reception in Hungary 365] // LITERATURE? A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGAL PHILOSOPHY? [2007] 269–287: 1. The Enigma of Law and its Study 269 / 2. “Law and Literature” 271 / 3. Varieties of “Law and Literature” 274 / 4. The German Study of Artistic Representations 280 / 5. Some Literary Reconsiderations 285 / 6. Conclusion 287 --- APPENDIX -- THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN HUNGARY [2007] 291–320: I. Why and How to Philosophise in Law? 291 / II. The State of Teaching Legal Philosophy 294 / III. The Philosophy of Teaching Legal Philosophy 296 / IV. Programme at the Catholic University of Hungary 300 [1. Graduate Studies 300 {a) Basic Subjects 301 / b) Facultative Seminars 305 / c) Closing Subjects 309 / d) Written Memoranda and the Thesis 312} 2. Postgraduate Studies 313 / 3. Conclusion 317] V. Perspectives 318 /// Index of Subjects 321 / Index of Normative Materials 328 / Index of Names 329 . (shrink)