Electronic Library of
Scientific Literature Electronic Library of
Scientific Literature
Volume 9 / No. 2 / 1999
Jozef Kelemen
Department of Applied Informatics, University of Economics, 852 35 Bratislava, Slovakia
and Institute of Computer Studies, Silesian University, 746 01, Opava, Czechia
Understanding rationality that manifests itself in the adequacy of the action of agents to the goals pursued in their environment, has become the aim of a number of the branches of modern science. Primarily the disciplines which concentrate on knowing humans and societies which they created, economic formations, in particular. Technology including computers also helps us to know the essence and the character of rationality on a very low level. Technology even allows us to experiment with this phenomenon. This paper indicates some possibilities for experimenting with agents, whose rationality emerges mainly as a result of their interactions with the milieu, in which they act and which they share.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 97-109
Ladislav Kvasz
Department of Humanities, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Comenius University,
Mlynská dolina, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia
The aim of the paper is to describe some common patterns in the development of religion and of mathematics. We consider religion to be the place, where a culture establishes its contact with the transcendent reality. Nevertheless the objects of mathematics such as numbers or geometrical figures also transcend the physical world. This means that mathematics is also based on transcendence of physical reality. We try to show that this common basis, namely the transcendence of the physical world, gives rise to some common patterns in the development of religion and of mathematics. In our opinion, religion creates the basic means and ways of transcendence, which are used in the whole culture, including mathematics. So the common patterns in the development of religion and mathematics are not accidental. They belong to the very nature of these subjects.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 110-125
Róbert Roško
Institute for Sociology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava,
Slovakia
After the failure of the experiment with the reconstruction of civil society according to the communist ideology, Slovakia has to cope critically with the sociological message of K. Marx, chiefly with his normativistically formulated theory of the three stages of the post-feudal process of modernization: class society - dictatorship of the proletariat - communism. The author’s contribution is the introduction of the method of the comparison of Marx’s scheme with Marshall’s much later but comparable theory of the three stages of modern English civil society and citizenship: civil - political - social. The advantage of Marshall’s segmentation consists in the fact that he gives a brief account of the real story of one civil society undergoing modernization, whose way was not that of any experimentation with communism. It holds up a perfect critical mirror to the experiment and helps to uncover weak points of the collapsed experimental hypothesis. Simultaneously, it provides a key to understanding of the infavourable causes, conditions, and circumstances which overshadowed Marx’s correct future outlooks and misled him to a wrong path with no prospects.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 126-138
+ Svätopluk Štúr
Svätopluk Štúr (1901-1981) is definitely one of the most penetrating modern Slovak
thinkers. His philosophical work bears evidence of an exceptional intellectual activity of
immense erudition interconnected with analytical insight into the core of problems, where
theoretical conclusions were always developed in collaboration with the reflection of
value aspects inclusive of the omnipresent moral consequences. Štúr was a philosopher of
modern society, a sensitive diagnostician of the periods of crisis of his times, a
witness, able to recognize the historical lines of tensions and controversies in immediate
shocks. Štúr was a man of high moral principles and therefore it was not a coincidence
that his career as a university professor of philosophy was interrupted by implacable
conflicts with totalitarian regimes. Only today do we have an opportunity to look at his
message in a more comprehensive manner and to evaluate it. We find that in spite of the
limited possibilities to publish he had to face during long decades, his works (Problém
transcendentna v súčasnej filozofii, 1938, Rozprava o živote, 1946, Zmysel
slovenského obrodenia, 1948, Nemecká vôľa k moci, 1967, etc.) are connected
by a remarkable developmental continuity.
His work Zápasy a scestia moderného človeka (Struggles and wrong ways of modern man),
published only recently for the first time, clearly reflects all the basic features of his
philosophizing. Against the background of the development of European philosophy, Štúr
explores how the modern crisis developed from unsuccessful attempts to integrate
particular aspects and human being leading to the absolutization of some of its
determinations. In the period of pressing need for a global approach to economic and
social processes, the ideas of S. Štúr again become topical. Two samples from the book
are published here.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 139-153
Alexander I. Sych
Faculty of History, J. Fedkovich University, Kotsiubinsky Street, 273032 Chernivtsy,
Ukraine
The status and the role of the intelligentsia in the social life of European countries were rather clearly defined in the nineteenth century. The intelligentsia as a social class with the highest level of education was the bearer of the intellectual potential and occupied a special place in the socio-political structure largely independent of state institutions. Defending the preservation and development of national culture, coming with the ideas of national liberation struggles, promoting democratic ideals, often playing a decisive role in the opinion-making of the particular country, the intelligentsia was regarded as the bearer of national consciousness. The current politicization of life conditioned by the political, economic and social transformation in post-communist countries has been negatively reflected in the status of the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia became a sort of hostage of the existing overpoliticized milieu. Its members experience pressure not only from state power but also from various political forces and unstable moods of the wider public.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 154-161
Vladimír Bakoš
Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava,
Slovakia
In the early twentieth century the process of differentiation of ideas in the Slovak society strengthened. The ideological and theoretical starting points and attitudes of the conservative current of the national-political movement, closely linked with traditionalism, Hegelian-mesianistic, speculative thinking clashed with the modernist world-and-life view of a ”progressivist” group of young intellectuals, gathered around the journals Hlas and Prúdy, promoting Masaryk’s realism and activism. At the controversy of these two currents of the national-emancipatory movement manifested itself the deepening divergency of ideological concepts and several features of the forthcoming process of modernization of Slovak society as well. New, modernist initiatives such as the promotion of a scientific world-view, of rationality, evolutionism, secularism, democratic liberalism, a pro-western orientation, represented elements of a modernist ”agenda”, which, however, in the Hlasist programme and praxis has not been unfolded without several ambiguous features on its intellectual, social, and national-political dimension.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 162-172
Marína Mikulajová
Department of Speech and Language Pathology, Faculty of Education, Comenius University,
Moskovská 13, 813 34 Bratislava, Slovakia
Vygotsky is assessed from the perspective of the development of his ideas in various fields of psychology and the bordering disciplines. A brief outline of Vygotsky’s professional career and his commitment in various areas of science characterizes him as an interdisciplinary scientist of the first third of the twentieth century. Vygotsky created a special methodology of sciences about man. He is the author of a cultural-historical theory which is today a subject of great interest in western countries. He predetermined researches in different fields: in neuropsychology and aphasiology, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, social psychology, special education and speech pathology. His modern and inspiring work is of general validity.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 173-184
Jarmila Drozdíková
Záhrebská 6, 811 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Behind the seeming unity of Islam there is today, as in the past, a rich diversity of interpretations, manifestations and applications. Change is a reality in contemporary Islam and in Muslim societies.
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 185-196
HUMAN AFFAIRS, 9, 1999, 2, 197-200