The paper examines the difference between János Bolyai’s and Lobachevskii’s notion of non-Euclidean parallelism. The examination starts with the summary of a widespread view of historians of mathematics on János Bolyai’s notion of non-Euclidean parallelism used in the first paragraph of his Appendix. After this a novel position of the location and meaning of Bolyai’s term “parallela” in his Appendix is put forward. After that János Bolyai’s Hungarian manuscript, the Commentary on Lobachevskii’s Geometrische Untersuchungen is elaborated in order to see (...) how Bolyai and Lobachevskii’s notions of parallelism differ. The careful examination of the Commentary reveals a seeming incoherence of Bolyai’s translation, and finally the explanation of this incoherence offered by the Received View and that of the novel position will be compared and assessed. L’article examine la différence entre la notion du parallélisme non-Euclidean de János Bolyai et celle de Lobachevskii. Tout d’abord le travail s’occupe de l’opinion répendue parmi les historiens de géometrie (le « Received View » ), selon laquelle János Bolyai précise la notion du parallélisme non-Euclidean dans le premier paragraph de l’Appendix. Ensuite une pointe de vue toute neuve sera présentée concernant la place et le sens du terminus technicus,,paralella” de Bolyai dans l’Appendix. Enfin on va analyser les Commentaires (un manuscrit hongrois) de János Bolyai sur le livre Geometrische Untersuchungen de Lobachevskii àfin de voir jusqu’à quel point la notion de parallelisme de Bolyai se diffère de celle de Lobachevskii. L’analyse bien fondue des Commentaires va nous relever un apparent incohérence de la traduction de Bolyai. On examine et on compare l’opinion répendue dans le vaste public avec la nouvelle interpretation de l’Appendix, et on discute les explications probables de cet incohérence. (shrink)

Linguistic Modelling of Scenarios proposes a paradigm change from the 'systemic VIEW' to 'systems SCIENCE', so as to extend the methodology of conventional science of physics into the domains hitherto beyond the reach of this kind of treatment. The book: I. Identifies the problematic issues in current approaches to the 'systemic or structural view' of parts of the world as opposed to the 'quantitative/qualitative views' of conventional science of physics and the arts whereby introducing the 'third culture'. II. Locates the (...) position of the structural view in the context of 'human intellectual endeavour'. III. Discusses the fundamental questions raised by modelling aspects of human behaviour. IV. Introduces the basic ideas and the symbolism of linguistic modelling which are then applied to turning descriptions of scenarios as a story or narrative into reasoning schemes. V. Describes a methodology of 'problem solving' of which design thinking and the operation of purposive systems are seen as essential ingredients. Problem solving is a universal activity of living in particular human beings through innovation, invention and creativity. Lack of this activity leads to death! Problem solving is regarded as pivotal point which may propel the spread of the modified structural view into social, technical, cultural and educational awareness. VI. Shows the location of aspects of conventional science within the scheme of systems science whereby achieving a 'continuity of the scientific endeavour'. VII. Outlines a teaching scheme for 'linguistic modelling'. Janos Korn explains how a view can be converted into a science which can lead to a possibility of 'organised speculation' or simulation of behaviour, exploring the effects of variation of parameters on performance, and the occurrence of outcomes of operations, beneficial or not, of dynamic structures. Static and dynamic structures are expressed in more rigorous and computable terms so that the results of analysis and design of human activity scenarios could be exposed to at least thought experiments. Linguistic Modelling of Scenarios is an informative read for any professionals, teachers and students of engineering, social science, management, business and production. (shrink)

Philosophy begins and ends in disagreement. Philosophers disagree among themselves in innumerable ways, and this pervasive and permanent dissent is a sign of their inability to solve philosophical problems and establish substantive truths. This raises the question: What should I do with my philosophical beliefs in light of philosophy's epistemic failure? In this open-access book, János Tozsér develops four possible answers into comprehensive metaphilosophical visions and argues that we cannot find peace either by committing ourselves to one of these visions (...) or by abandoning our philosophical beliefs. Tozsér calls this disheartening insight "the experience of breakdown", making the case that philosophy's truth-seeking and justificatory tools are unsuitable for establishing truths. Shedding light on the epistemic status of our philosophical beliefs, Tozsér adopts a broad approach to assess the metaphilosophical visions used by philosophers to interpret their own activity and determine their epistemic self-esteem. Open access was funded by the Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungary. (shrink)

The goal of constructing artificial photosynthetic assemblies is to use sunlight for the generation of hydrogen from water; the hydrogen obtained should be an ideal energy source. The use of surfactant vesicle entrapped‐catalyst coated colloidal semiconductors and sacrificial electron donors for photosensitized water reduction illustrates how chemists mimic photosynthesis.

Recent neurophysiological observations are giving rise to the expectation that in the near future genuine biological experiments may contribute more than will premature speculations to the understanding of global and cognitive functions. The classical reflex principle — as the basis of neural functions — has to yield to new ideas, like autopoiesis and/or self-organization, as the basic paradigm in the framework of which the essence of the neural can be better understood. Neural activity starts in the very earliest stages of (...) development well before receptors and afferent input become functional. Under suitable conditions, both in nervous tissue cultures and in embryonic tissue recombination experiments, the conditions of such initial autopoietic activity can be studied. This paper tries to generalize this elementary concept for various neural centers, notably for the spinal segmental apparatus and the cerebral cortex. (shrink)

Genesis 2:4–25, the story of the creation of man and woman, has received great attention in modern theology. The text indeed contains the most fundamental teaching of the Bible on the relation between man and woman, on sexuality, and on marriage. In this article, however, I attempt to highlight some of the theoretical/philosophical potential of the text. While I accept the main theological teaching of Genesis 2 about the equality of the sexes, I argue that the text goes beyond the (...) mere presentation of this theological doctrine, and provides a structure that allows for a dynamic interplay between the sexes. I contend, furthermore, that this structure and the ensuing dynamics can be interpreted as a subtle treatment of the issue of the same and the other. Finally, I argue that in this way the biblical text can provide a description of the experience of love and an account of human creativity. In other words, it accounts for the possibility of realizing our divine likeness, the divinity of the human. (shrink)

This essay tries to review the main elements of the concept of public reason as presented by John Rawls with reference to his latest book (The Law of Peoples with The Idea of Public Reason Revisited) and simultaneously brings up the arguments for and against this concept that have been put forward by the literature. Many of the arguments presented here are not new, but what this essay aims at is a reassessment of the debate by confronting many of the (...) interpretations and points of view raised around the concept of public reason. Based on the argumentation that if ‘right’ precedes this leaves room for the (different existences of) ‘good’ I propose that public reason ought to be conceived more as a political concept and less of a comprehensive account of morality. (shrink)

This letter contains suggestions for editors and software providers to help avoid affiliation bias in the initial and concluding stages of the peer review process. Submission management systems have a responsibility to ensure protection against affiliation bias. This can be achieved by automatically withholding the author’s identity and affiliation information from all editors, including the Editor-in-Chief, until a decision about publication has been made. Journals relying on email-based submissions are in a more difficult situation. Not having external support in confirming (...) the submitting author’s identity, this dilemma can be resolved through the implementation of strict instructions and guidelines concerning manuscript submission and handling. In this case the “human factor” cannot be fully eliminated, while automated processes can only be changed intentionally and with a certain delay. Therefore, with the suggested steps, submission management systems could become a strong guard against unconscious bias while also making conscious bias more difficult to impact the peer review process. (shrink)

Gene-technology was developed in the eighties and stimulated an overmuch heated social debate. Let's think such problems as cloning, transgenic organisms, Human Genom Project, DNA diagnostics and therapy, the geneticalisation of society etc. While the gene manipulation develops rapidly the necessary social control is missing. Regarding the social co-ordination of gene technology, the decision-makers still excessively trust in the institution of market and in the experts' competence.

Bu makale, Sözde-Aristoteles’in Risâletü’t-Tüffâha veya Kitâbü’t-Tüffâha’sını (Lat. Liber de Pomo) tarihçesi, muh- temel yazarı ve yazmaları itibarıyla incelemekte, içeriği hakkında genel bir bakış sunmakta ve daha önce tahkikli neşri yapılmamış olan Arapça tam versiyonunun tahkikli neşrini içermektedir. Tahkikte, risalenin orijinal Arapça versiyonuna en yakın yazma nüshası esas alınmış ve ikinci bir tam nüsha ile karşılaştırma yapılmıştır. Makalede Risâletü’t-Tüffâha’nın ilk olarak Kindî-çevresinde Arapça telif edildiği, ardından Bâtınî-İsmâilî ve Hermetik gelenek- lerde alımlandığı ve hikemiyât literatüründe ve tabakat eserlerinde dolaşıma girdiği öne sürülmektedir. (...) Bununla birlikte, bilimsellik vurguları ve risalenin sözde bir eser olduğuna dair farkındalıkları sebebiyle Meşşâî filozoflara göre Risâletü’t-Tüffâha makbul bir risale değildir. Ayrıca, İbrânî-Latin geleneğinin risaleye ilgisi felsefenin Yahudi ve Hıristiyan toplumlarında kabul görmesini kolaylaştıracak şekilde Aristoteles’in tüm eserlerini alımlamaya yönelik geniş çaplı gayretlerinin bir parçası olduğu için dikkate değerdir. Sonuç olarak, Sözde-Aristoteles’in Risâletü’t-Tüf- fâha’sı felsefeyle dinin uzlaştırılmasını kolaylaştıran dinî-felsefî bir eser olup İslâm, Yahudi ve Hıristiyan çevrelerde özellikle bu nedenden dolayı dolaşıma girmiştir. (shrink)

János Kornai, a distinguished Hungarian economist, began his adult life as an ardent believer in socialism and then became a critic of the communist political and economic system. He lost family members in the Holocaust, contributed to the ideological preparation for the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and became an influential theorist of the post-Soviet economic transition. He has been a journalist, a researcher prohibited from teaching in his home country, and a tenured professor at Harvard. By Force of Thought traces Kornai's (...) lifelong intellectual journey and offers a subjective complement to his academic research.Disenchanted with communism, Kornai published Overcentralization, the first book written by someone living behind the Iron Curtain to be openly critical of Soviet-style economics. Although it was attacked in Hungary, it was hailed by Western economists. The Kornai-Lipták theory on two-level planning captured the attention of mathematical economists. Kornai went on to publish the controversial Anti-Equilibrium, a critique of the general equilibrium theory underpinning mainstream economic analyses of markets, Economics of Shortage, The Road to a Free Economy, and the summary of his lifetime research, The Socialist System. An intellectual emissary between East and West, Kornai commuted between Harvard and Budapest for many years.Kornai's memoir describes his research--including his present-day evaluation of his past work--as well as the social and political environments in which he did his work. The difficulties faced by a critic of central planning in a communist country are made especially vivid by material from newly opened secret police files and informers' reports on his activities. By Force of Thought will be an essential resource for students of economic thought, socialist systems, and postsocialist transition, and for readers interested in Eastern European intellectual life before, during, and after communism. (shrink)

In ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, Berlin wavered between two readings of the concept of positive liberty. In the first one, ‘positive liberty’ is a distinct concept, different from that of ‘negative liberty’. Those who advocate liberty in the negative sense and those who advocate it in the positive sense do not disagree on which interpretation of the same thing – ‘liberty’ – is the correct one; they speak about different things. Both defend valid ideals, although those ideals may not be (...) simultaneously achievable. In the second reading, negative and positive liberty are competing interpretations of the same concept, the defenders of negative liberty being involved in a substantive disagreement with the advocates of positive liberty on what the same term – ‘liberty’ – really means. On this understanding, negative and positive liberty cannot both be valid ideals: one of them (negative liberty) is a genuine value, the other (positive liberty) being nothing but the perversion of it. My article aims to uncover the roots of this ambiguity in unresolved difficulties in Berlin’s account of the history of the ideas of negative and positive liberty and, more importantly, in his conception of value pluralism. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze some of the policies implemented by Mexico, a country that has not pursued a total lockdown, although it has implemented different partial confinement policies. Such approach to the confinement has been criticized by some authors as morally inappropriate. Our focus is to show that cultural, political and economic conditions shape the governmental response to the pandemic. While these can be judged on the basis of their efficiency, it seems to us that underlying principles are also (...) ethically acceptable. (shrink)

Dedication. A version of this paper has been discussed in 2007, in Dunabogdány (Hungary), on the occasion of an informal meeting, organized by Jeff Bernard. It was the last occasion I had the chance to meet him, one of my closest friends during many years, to whose memory I dedicate this essay.