Pictorial meaning involves not just resemblance, but also pictorial skills, pictorial acts, practices, and performance. Especially in the classroom setting, at all levels of education, it is essential to realize that teaching with pictures and learning through pictures is a practical enterprise where thinking is embedded in doing. Promoting visual learning means to be a visionary, and to take on an enormous educational challenge. But while adaptation and innovation are inevitable in a world where technological changes are rapidly and radically (...) altering the learning environment, educational science and the everyday practice of education clearly need to retain a measure of conservatism. And any conservatism worth the name has to take account of visuality, visual thinking, and visual learning. (shrink)

Some twenty years after the term <I>iconic turn has been coined, and with a deluge of digital images, videos and animations surrounding, indeed invading, the learning environment, it appears that educational science, and the everyday practice of education, still very much labour under the impact of the past dominance of alphabetic literacy. But while educators clearly need to retain a measure of conservatism, maintain an acute sense for the logic of the written text and preserve the ability to handle extended (...) hardcopy documents, they have to rise to the task, also, of exploiting the potentials of online networked communication, the constant presence of images, both static and moving, and the continuous interplay of words and images. (shrink)

The present online volume contains the papers prepared for the 11th Budapest Visual Learning Conference – ENVISIONING AN ELECTRIFYING FUTURE – held in a physical-online blended form on Nov. 13, 2024, organized by the University of Pécs (represented by Prof. Gábor Szécsi, Dean, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Education and Regional Development), and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (represented by Prof. Kristóf Nyíri, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). Nyíri and Szécsi were responsible for sending out the call for abstracts (...) and inviting plenary speakers, Szécsi organized the physical surroundings. Nyíri’s task was to build up and continuosly update the conference website, as well as to edit the accepted submissions. As we indicated in the call for submissions, the conference was planned as an interdisciplinary encounter of communication and media theory, cultural sciences, sociology, psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, history, political science, picture theory, and other disciplines. We insisted on achieving new scholarly results. Especially with AI now complementing, or intruding into, the world of the internet, what image of the future can we conceive of, what new patterns of life and in particular forms of education should we strive to create? (shrink)

The changing conditions for the accumulation and transmission of knowledge in the age of multimedia networks make it inevitable that old philosophical problems become formulated in a new light. Above all, the problem of the unity of knowledge is once again a topical issue. The situation-dependent acquisition of knowledge that is made possible by mobile learning transcends the boundaries of traditional disciplines, linking the domains of text, diagram, and picture. Database integration and multimedia search become central problems in the epistemology (...) of the 21st century, while handheld devices are emerging as vital technologies for supporting collaborative learning. -- Kristóf Nyíri has published widely on Wittgenstein, Austrian intellectual history, and the philosophy of communication. He directs the interdisciplinary research program COMMUNICATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY, conducted jointly by the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Westel Mobile Telecommunications, Budapest. (shrink)

There is the tension between, on the one hand, Wittgenstein’s not giving theoretical weight to metaphor, and on the other, his exuberant use of it. On a more fundamental level, there is a straightforward contradiction between Wittgenstein’s claim of the primordial literalness of everyday language, and his stress on the multiplicity and flexibility of language-games. Wittgenstein’s problem was that he did not succeed in making his ideas on metaphor, and indeed his ideas on metaphor and images, converge with the main (...) drift of TS 227 (the so-called ‘Part I’ of the so-called ‘Philosophical Investigations’). It was this divergence, I believe, that prevented him from rounding out his later philosophy. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of networks in cognition on two levels: on the level of the organization of ideas, and on the level of interpersonal communication. Any interesting system of ideas forms a network: ideas presented in a linear order (the order forced upon us by verbal expression) will necessarily convey a distorted picture of the underlying patterns of thought. Networks of ideas typically consist of a great number of nodes with just a few links, and a small number (...) of hubs with very many links; that is, they are, to employ Albert-László Barabási's term, "scale-free." Barabási fits into a specific tradition: Hungarians had an early influence on the philosophy of networks, and on the philosophy of communication as developed at Marshall McLuhan's Toronto Circle. In fact, this was the circle in which certain Hungarian and Austrian ideas on mediated collective thinking first came together—a telling testimony to the conditions of disturbed communication and idiosyncratic networking typical of East-Central Europe, past and present. The nodes-and-hubs pattern is characteristic, too, of social networks, in particular of scholarly and scientific networks. The paper analyses the role of "invisible colleges"—informal groups of scientific elites through whom the communication of information both within a field and across fields is channelled. By way of conclusion the notion of a new type of personality, the "network individual," is discussed: the network individual is the person reintegrated, after centuries of relative isolation induced by the printing press, into the collective thinking of society—the individual whose mind is manifestly mediated, once again, by the minds of those forming his/her smaller or larger community. (shrink)

Whether understood as an adherence to the given, as an appeal to observe traditions, or as the wish to return to some bygone age, conservatism is bedevilled by paradoxes. The present essay attempts to overcome these paradoxes by putting forward a new conception of conservatism, identifying it as a worldview bent on the preservation of the totality of human knowledge with the aim of enhancing the survival chances of future generations. Conservatism thus understood targets the achievement of real knowledge. Hence (...) by necessity it must associate itself with a realist epistemology and ontology. I argue that any realism worthy of the name is common-sense realism, and that common-sense realism takes into account not merely the verbal level of cognition but also its visual and motor dimensions. The paper devotes special attention to Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose work has been intensively discussed in recent decades in the context both of conservatism and realism. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the connection of images to natural theology, demonstrating how images fulfil an essential role in revealed religions and examining the role of images at the level of nonrevealed religion. The attempt to provide a rudimentary overview of the ways in which images function in natural religion, is in a sense a sequel to Farrer's philosophy of sacred images. It is, also, a kind of protest against contemporary work in natural theology, which has use neither for images, nor (...) for mental imagery. (shrink)

The thesis according to which technologies of communication have implications not just for the form, but also for the content and indeed for the overall logic of what is being communicated rests on a set of general philosophical assumptions as regards the relation between thought and its medium. The paper shows that formulating these assumptions, and elaborating them, has been a characteristic concern of Austro‐Hungarian philosophy; that between the philosophers who played a role in the relevant endeavours there obtained significant, (...) sometimes mutual, influences; and that Austro‐Hungarian realities ‐ basically, the phenomenon of disturbed communication within the Habsburg Empire ‐ had a marked effect on their thought. (shrink)

The iconic revolution changing the routine of everyday communication is gradually leading to the creation of a linguistic structure that combines visual and verbal tools in both formal and semantic aspects. Computer and mobile applications today enable high-tech imaging that ensures the spread of iconic communication in mundane interactions and the possibility of a creative combination of verbal and iconic codes for language users who navigate in a world of images in an increasingly confident manner. The iconic revolution that accompanies (...) this expansion of new communication technologies thus leads to serious changes in language use, thereby enhancing the transmission of verbal and iconic language to become a key element of mundane communication. This article argues that this turn in communication technology guided the attention of Kristóf Nyíri, an eminent figure in contemporary Hungarian philosophy, to the problem of the relationship between icon, language, and tradition. The aim of the present essay is twofold: to shed light on the relevance of Nyíri’s analysis and thoughts on the relationship between tradition and language in the history of communication, and to identify, using Nyíri’s model of pictorial meaning as a starting point, the relevant aspects of the conception of technological determinism in answering questions from the philosophy of language and mind. (shrink)

Building on the writings of Wittgenstein on rule-following and deviance, Kristóf Nyíri advanced a theory of creativity as consisting in a fusion of conflicting rules or disciplines. Only such fusion can produce something that is both intrinsically new and yet capable of being apprehended by and passed on to a wider community. Creativity, on this view, involves not the breaking of rules, or the deliberate cultivation of deviant social habits, but rather the acceptance of enriched systems of rules, the adherence (...) to which presupposes simultaneous immersion in disciplines hitherto seen as being unrelated. The paper presents a demonstration of the fruitfulness of this theory by means of an account of some of the political, cultural and intellectual peculiarities of the Habsburg Monarchy. (shrink)

This wide-ranging collection of essays contains eighteen original articles by authors representing some of the most important recent work on Wittgenstein. It deals with questions pertaining to both the interpretation and application of Wittgenstein s thought and the editing of his works. Regarding the latter, it also addresses issues concerning scholarly electronic publishing. The collection is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction which lays out the content and arguments of each contribution. Contributors: Knut Erik Tranoy, Lars Hertzberg, Georg Henrik von Wright, (...) Marie McGinn, Cora Diamond, James Conant, David G. Stern, Eike von Savigny, P.M.S. Hacker, Hans-Johann Glock, Allan Janik, Kristof Nyiri, Antonia Soulez, Brian McGuinness, Anthony Kenny, Joachim Schulte, Herbert Hrachovec, Cameron McEwen.". (shrink)

Papers presented at a Hungarian Academy of Sciences online workshop held on May 27, 2021.

Wolność to idea, w imię której toczy się dzisiaj proces wyzwalania się Europy Wschodniej. Jest to potężna idea, która jednak w obecnych warunkach kryje w sobie również pewne niebezpieczeństwo, ponieważ podczas wyzwalania się spod dyktatury, uniezależniania się od wpływów Rosji i przebijania się ku klasycznym wartościom wolnosci obywatelskiej, można łatwo osiągnąć pozorne zwycięstwo; bezużyteczne zwycięstwo na peryferiach historii. Trzeba sobie obecnie zdac sprawę z tego, że Europa Wschodnia nie jest wcale widownią wydarzeń, mających zasadnicze znaczenie dla świata jako całości. Trzeba (...) uświadomić sobie, że dzisiaj inna, nowa rewolucja odciska swe piętno na historii swiata. Jest to rewolucja technologiczna, która rozgrywa się na calkiem innej płaszczyźnie; rewolucja, która przemienia nowoczesne przemysłowe społeczeństwo w post-nowoczesne społeczenstwo informacji. Przekształca się ono w społeczenstwo, w którym źródłem bogactwa nie jest już surowiec i kapitał, lecz wiedza - dostęp do informacji i umiejętność obchodzenia się z nią. „Nowa cywilizacja wkracza w nasze życie" - tak brzmią znane słowa Alvina Tofflera. (shrink)

Denken vollzieht sich nicht bloß in Wörtern, sondern auch - wesentlich - in kinästhetisch fundierten mentalen Bildern. Unsere alltäglichen Zeitmetaphern entsprechen bildlich vermittelten leiblichen Erfahrungen und führen zu einer Common-Sense-Auffassung der Wirklichkeit der Zeit, welche von der Philosophie nicht widerlegt, sondern gerechtfertigt werden sollte. Kristóf Nyíri argumentiert auf der Grundlage einer nicht-konventionalistischen Auffassung der bildlichen Bedeutung für die These der Realität der Zeit. Er zeigt: Die Grenzen des Vorstellbaren fallen sowohl in der Religion als auch in der Wissenschaft mit den (...) Grenzen des Verbildlichbaren zusammen. (shrink)

Die Demarkationslinie, jenseits welcher wissenschaftliche Theorien nicht als wahre Beschreibungen der Welt aufgefasst werden sollten, sondern bloß als mathematische Instrumente, mit deren Hilfe man zu richtigen praktischen Voraussagen kommt, ist nicht die viel diskutierte Grenze zwischen beobachtbar/nicht-beobachtbar, sondern vielmehr die Grenze zwischen dem, was wir uns als perzeptuelle Bilder in der Tat vorstellen können, und dem, was sich allein durch abstrakt-symbolische Ausdrücke formulieren lässt.

The associative theory of creativity states that creativity is associated with differences in the structure of semantic memory, whereas the executive theory of creativity emphasises the role of top-down control for creative thought. For a powerful test of these accounts, individual semantic memory structure was modelled with a novel method based on semantic relatedness judgements and different criteria for network filtering were compared. The executive account was supported by a correlation between creative ability and broad retrieval ability. The associative account (...) was independently supported, when network filtering was based on a relatedness threshold, but not when it was based on a fixed edge number or on the analysis of weighted networks. In the former case, creative ability was associated with shorter average path lengths and higher clustering of the network, suggesting that the semantic networks of creative people show higher small-worldness. (shrink)

The present article investigates the rhythm of study as described by Giorgio Agamben in ‘The idea of study’, present in Idea of prose. In this short treatise, Agamben presents Melville’s scrivener Bartleby as the exemplary embodiment of study. Bartleby’s paradigmatic status, according to Agamben’s interpretation, does, however, exclude him from belonging to the ‘class of study’. Bartleby’s exclusion leads to the discovery of an unmentioned member of the ‘class of study’: Eros. The surprising absence of Eros dissolves, however, once he (...) is recuperated as the image of ‘The idea of the work’. Bartleby’s exclusion and Eros’s absent inclusion and presence as the ‘The idea of the work’ not only demonstrate the close relation between study and work, but also explain Agamben’s considerations on the connection between study and the nature of his own work. The article concludes with a call for the remaining importance of Agamben’s festina lente, the rhythm of study, within the broader context of our contemporary university institutions. Once the incessant shuttling between passion and action has been called to a halt—in favour of one of the two extremities—study becomes impossible. (shrink)

This article deals with some phenomena of the Hungarian legal language from a historical point of view, with special regard to the terminology of private law going back to Roman law tradition. The author aims, on the one hand, to present the historical background of the current terminology of Hungarian private law by means of some representative examples. On the other hand, it is attempted at demonstrating that “false friends” and some further misunderstandings in the current terminology of Hungarian private (...) law can be led back to the historical determination of the concepts/terms in question. A certain Hungarian legal language existed already in the 16th c., however it reached the common European level by the middle of the 19th c. This development took place mainly under the influence of the Austrian and German law and legal science. Due to the translation of foreign legal terms to Hungarian since the 19th c. there emerged some “global” difficulties of legal terminology also in the Hungarian legal language. As the most important example, the reception of bona fides can be mentioned. It was an amendment of the Hungarian Civil Code in 2006 which tried to eliminate the misunderstandings as regards the principle of good faith conceived formerly by many Hungarian jurists exclusively in subjective sense. The history of reception of the German notions of Gültigkeit and Wirksamkeit in Hungary is extremely intriguing, too. Hungarian jurists did not follow the pattern of the German BGB but developed this pair created by Windscheid by drawing a clear distinction between the validity and effectiveness of legal transactions, similar to the Italian terminology. Sometimes the reception of German notions happened in a less successful way. Despite the important foreign, especially German impacts, the Hungarian legal language is an autonomous one having several remarkable features which deserve attention also in comparison with terminology of the Western legal cultures. (shrink)

The study focuses on the ethical aspects of decision-making by national elites in the context of the thinking of Ján Kollár (1793–1852) and Ľudovít Štúr (1815–1856) on the issue of Slavism. Attention is paid to the issue of responsibility for preserving the greatness and unity of the nation in the context of the formation of national identity and individuality. The concepts of the mentioned authors had an impact on the cultural-civilizational orientation of Slovak elites with an emphasis on the role (...) of moral obligations in shaping the value orientation of the nation. In this context, the analysis focuses on the works Reciprocity between the various tribes and dialects of the Slavic nation and Slavdom and the world of the future, which, at the same time, represent alternative concepts of the cultural and political orientation of the Slavs. The study simultaneously analyses these concepts as alternative programs of cultural and political development of national identity, as well as concepts aimed at humanist and political goals. (shrink)

People seem to differ in their visual search performance involving emotionally expressive faces when these expressions are seen on faces of others close to their age compared to faces of non-peers, known as the own-age bias. This study sought to compare search advantages in angry and happy faces detected on faces of adults and children on a pool of children and adults. The goals of this study were to examine the developmental trajectory of expression recognition and examine the development of (...) an OAB. Participants were asked to find a target face displaying an emotional expression among eight neutral faces. Results showed that children and adults found happy faces significantly faster than angry and fearful faces regardless of it being present on the faces of peers or non-peers. Adults responded faster to the faces of peers regardless of the expression. Furthermore, while children detected angry faces significantly faster compared to fearful ones, we found no such difference in adults. In contrast, adults detected all expressions significantly faster when they appeared on the faces of other adults compared to the faces of children. In sum, we found evidence for development in detecting facial expressions and also an age-dependent increase in OAB. We suggest that the happy face could have an advantage in visual processing due to its importance in social situations and its overall higher frequency compared to other emotional expressions. Although we only found some evidence on the OAB, using peer or non-peer faces should be a theoretical consideration of future research because the same emotion displayed on non-peers’ compared to peers’ faces may have different implications and meanings to the perceiver. (shrink)

Contemporary public discourses are, despite the growing array of technologies and spaces for participation, becoming increasingly characterized by polarization – the formation of two distinct and r...

Neanderthal extinction is a matter of intense debate. It has been suggested that demography (as opposed to environment or competition) could alone provide a sufficient explanation for the phenomenon. We argue that demography cannot be a ‘stand-alone’ or ‘alternative’ explanation of token extinctions as demographic features are entangled with competitive and environmental factors, and further because demography should not be conflated with neutrality.