European Sciences Research Articles

On the Periphery of the European Social Sciences—A Scientometric Analysis of Publication Performance, Excellence, and Internal Bias in Social Sciences in the Visegrad Countries

On the Periphery of the European Social Sciences—A Scientometric Analysis of Publication Performance, Excellence, and Internal Bias in Social Sciences in the Visegrad Countries

Genealogy as an Ethic of Self-determination: Husserl and Foucault

The way in which Foucault confronts Husserl helps to highlight the instance that drives Foucauldian research and its current legacy. Foucault inscribes his work through Husserl within a broader tradition, namely, that of the critical thinking that has crossed all of modernity from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and up to phenomenology. His main legacy can be identified precisely in the way he relaunches and radicalises this tradition by intensifying its critical gaze. We will follow the steps of The Crisis of European Sciences to evoke the underlying purposes of Husserl's work, showing how his genealogical analysis of scientific knowledge, as a mix of historically determined practices, is guided by the ethical aim of self-determination. Later we will show how Foucault takes up this instance in a completely original way, and we will analyse which analogies and differences can be traced between the two authors’ approaches to the problem of an individual's self-determination in his relationship with the network of knowledge-power in which he is immersed. In fact, both authors consider that there can be no emancipation and self-determination of the individual without a preliminary historical-critical retrospective on knowledge and on the ways in which its contents have been constituted. But this retrospective, which we could define generically as genealogical (genetic-phenomenological in Husserl's terms), is played out differently by the two authors and implemented by Foucault with a greater degree of radicalism.

Making a Case for Trade: Shi Shipiao’s Map of the Eastern and Southern Oceans

Abstract In the early eighteenth century, the Kangxi emperor was presented with two maps in Chinese, one each from the officials Gioro Mamboo and Shi Shipiao. The maps showed southern China and Southeast Asia and were based on Dutch charts. The officials presented the maps at a time when the emperor had recently issued a law restricting Chinese trade in Southeast Asia. The map presented by Shi Shipiao adds information about sailing routes and export goods that were subject to the trade restrictions imposed by the emperor. This article argues that rather than being intended to provide a representation of seafaring knowledge, Shi aimed to use the map he presented to convince the emperor to lift the restrictions he had imposed on trade. This therefore provides an example of how maps could be used for political ends. In contrast to many other Chinese maps influenced by European sciences, these two maps show no Jesuit involvement but resemble the Selden Map as well as Japanese and Buginese charts, representing a maritime perspective in the history of knowledge exchange.

Dialectical thinking in contemporary spirituality: Reconciling contradictory beliefs through metamodern oscillations between two ways of thinking

Psychologists are paying increasing attention to a distinction between two ways of thinking. Cognitive psychologists discern between non-reflective “intuitive” and critical reflective “analytic” thinking. Cultural psychologists discern between context-focused “holistic” and object-focused “analytic” thinking. Both find the former strongly correlated with religious beliefs and Asian cultures, the latter with secular beliefs and Euro-American cultures. Yet, recent studies convincingly suggest: first, that analytic thinking does not just relate to secular beliefs but also to alternative beliefs that straddle the boundaries between secular and religious worldviews; second, that critical reflective thinking includes both the holistic context-focus of Asian religions and the analytic object-focus of European philosophies and sciences. This article supports these recent studies in the psychology of religion based on recent studies from the history and sociology of religion and a discourse analysis of interviews with members of a small-scale twenty-first-century spiritual group, as an example. We show that people who identify as spiritual in a metamodern context use both holistic and analytic thinking in creating alternative worldviews, which dialectically reconcile beliefs that many within modern western cultures would consider contradictory. We conclude that this both/and logic challenges theories and stereotypes about “secular versus religious” and “eastern versus western” thinking.

Sri Aurobindo on Nationalism- A Perspective

The long mendicant era of the Indian National Congress (1885-1905) created a need for a leader in Indian nationalist politics who could rally the populace to struggle for political independence from the British. Sri Aurobindo fulfilled that space and employed his ideas of nationalism that has been the subject of scholarly debate for a long period. His inclusive national strategies to stir the entire nation played a key role. But his conception of nationalism goes beyond the struggle for freedom. He was on a mission to create a new country based on India's rich spiritual and cultural heritage and modern European sciences. As far as India’s diversity is concerned, the task seemed greater than anything else. His writings especially in his journal Bande Mataram created waves among the masses. He appealed to the then-fragmented population to ascribe to the identity of one nation. His nationalism aimed at the Indian Renaissance through both political freedom and spiritual regeneration. This study will highlight most of the salient features of his nationalism.

The Crisis of the Form. The Paradox of Modern Logic and its Meaning for Phenomenology

The goal of this paper is to provide an account of the role played by logic in the context of what Husserl names the “crisis of European sciences.” Presupposing the analyses offered in the Krisis, I look at Formale und Transzendentale Logik to demonstrate that the crisis of logic stems from the deviation of its original meaning as a “theory of science” and from its restriction to a mere “theoretical technique.” Through a comparison between Aristotelian syllogistic and modern logic, I show why the modern discovery of the purely formal dimension of knowledge which makes possible such a mathematical technization is a positive achievement that hinders at the same time the disclosure of the truly philosophical nature of logic. The correct appraisal of this ambiguous phenomenon will explain why the rise of modern logic represents a decisive challenge for the success of Husserl’s late phenomenological project.

Addressing disparities in European Social Sciences & Humanities research on climate, energy and mobility: insights from a Call for Evidence survey and analysis workshops on the challenges and opportunities of working in Southern and Central & Eastern Europe.

Despite the efforts of the EU, disparities remain in terms of the participation of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) researchers from both Southern and Central & Eastern Europe in research collaborations, as compared to Northern and Western European scholars. To better understand these disparities, the EU Horizon Europe SSH CENTRE project ran a Call for Evidence over December 2022 to March 2023. Specifically, respondents were asked about the challenges they faced in conducting SSH research on climate, energy and/or mobility, as well as the ways in which these challenges could be addressed. The Call's online survey was focused on maximising diversity, and it gathered views and experiences of 137 Southern and Central & Eastern European SSH researchers. The sample was balanced across genders (71 men, 66 women) and the three main themes (82 energy, 88 climate, 53 mobility), and included at least one respondent from each of the 27 target countries. The highest numbers of respondents were from Hungary (19) and Spain (21). To ensure that interpretation and analysis of the data was grounded in regional contexts, we ran two parallel analysis workshops hosted in a hybrid format (combining online and in-person participants): one in Pécs for Central & Eastern European SSH researchers (34 participants); and one in Bilbao for Southern European SSH researchers (26 participants). These workshops focused on discussing the relationship between SSH-STEM disciplines, analysing the institutional contexts, and discussing the implications for domestic and EU research funding relations. During the workshops, data collected through the survey were collectively analysed and the most important reflections were gathered into a common structure of 'Challenges' and 'Ways forward'. Key messages from the workshop are being distilled into a Position Statement that focuses on the common elements while also emphasising possible differences between Southern and Central & Eastern Europe.

Islamic Theology and the Crisis of Contemporary Science: Naquib al-Attas’ “Metaphysical Critique” and a Husserlian Alternative

ABSTRACT This article evaluates the “metaphysical critique” of contemporary science by the Islamic philosophical theologian Naquib al-Attas in his Prolegomena to a Metaphysics of Islām. I argue that al-Attas' critique is dialectically inappropriate because it relies on specific, and non-publicly verifiable, interpretations of revelation and spiritual intuition. I contrast this with the work of Edmund Husserl, especially in his The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, which I show can sustain a viable critique of science through the phenomenological grounding of public reason. I also assess the prospect for Islamic engagement with Husserl on this topic.

Minding the Shift: Some Thoughts on the Human and the Not Too Human Mind

Abstract Software systems that claim to think for themselves may prove to be Frankenstein’s nightmare come true. When Amazon used algorithms to read digital letters of job applicants, it turned out that mentioning women sports in the category of one’s favourite leisure activities was detrimental to getting the job, i.e., the algorithm favoured male applicants. What if AI becomes able to and will in fact take over cars, elevators and other electronic devices with devastating results for their human owners or operators? In this article, I aim to address the differences between, and the possible clashes of the human and the AI minds (and their souls and hearts) by means of some examples, including a.o., drones, ADS (automatic driving systems) and our recent Artificial Friend, Kazuo Ishiguro’s fictional robot Klara, and I do so by focussing on the narratives involved, on the view that new technologies need a legal hermeneut. This article is inspired, firstly, by the novelist Samuel Butler and the today not so fictional question that he raised, i.e., whether “because mechanical life is a very different thing from ours, therefore it is not life at all?” (Samuel Butler, Erewhon [1872]. Harmondsworth UK: Penguin, 1954, 175), because Butler adds that if it is considered life it could have a will of its own as well and that may lead to dire consequences also from a point of view of law; secondly, because the topic of AI also invites us to consider the interdisciplinary question why new technologies need the humanities. As the philosopher Edmund Husserl claimed, a determination of the world by the positive sciences as took place in the second half of the nineteenth century occasioned “an indifferent turning-away from the questions which are decisive for a genuine humanity. Merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people” (Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy [1954], trans. David Carr. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1970, 6).

The historical power of the natural science collection of Dominik Bilimek at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)

The scientific world of the nineteenth century was shaped by far-reaching discoveries, expeditions, travel and collection activities as well as by the development of extensive natural scientific social networking. During the 1840s, Dominik Bilimek (1813–1884) arose as a key personality in European natural sciences, with a significant impact on the biological, geoscientific and even archaeological communities. The Bilimek collection at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna encompasses thousands of specimens and provides a large number of original labels with date, locality and companions in the field. This set of collection labels was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively with respect to its historical value to increase our knowledge about the explorer's life and his social network. The study also focuses on Bilimek's so far unknown social links, which were recovered by the processing of the collection, probably resulting in the use of these data for a social network analysis of a nineteenth-century scientific network.

Phenomenological and Dialogic Thinking in Spiritual Reading: Spiritual Paradigms of Selected Biblical Figures

The paper explores spiritual reading through the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, Dialogue of Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas, as the transition from phenomenology to dialogic thinking. This is fundamentally anchored on Kees Waaijman’s design for the discipline of spirituality in his book Spirituality. Forms, Foundations and Methods. The investigation centers on the movements, moments, and layers involved in the spiritual dynamic relationship. This is articulated more through the examination of selected biblical figures. As the paper draws to an end, it describes phenomenologically what spiritual reading is, including the layers involved both in the reality of God and the human person.ReferencesBuber, M., I and Thou. New York 1970, (First Touchstone Edition 1996).The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, (Ed. B. Smith & D. Smith), Cambridge, 1995.Catholic Church., Catechism of the Catholic Church: Revised in Accordance with the Official Latin Text Promulgated by Pope John Paul II., Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000.Husserl, E., Experience and Judgment. Investigation in the Genealogy of Logic. Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1973.______., Cartesian Mediations, the Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967.______., Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy (1st book), The Hague -Boston-Lancaster: Springer, 1983.______., The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970. Levinas, E., Beyond the Verse. Talmudic Readings and Lectures, Bloomington-Indianapolis, 1994.______., Emmanuel Levinas. Basic Philosophical Writings, (Ed. A Peperzak, S. Critchley, & R. Bernasconi), Bloomington-Indianapolis, 1996.______. Of God who comes to Mind, Stanford, 1998.______., Totality and Infinity, Pittsburgh, 1969.John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, in Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (transl. K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez), Washington D.C.,1979.Moran, D., Introduction to Phenomenology, New York, 2000.The New American Bible, Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002.New Revised Standard Version, Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989.Welzen, H., Biblical Spirituality, Contours of a Discipline, Leuven: Peeters, 2018.______., Contours of Biblical Spirituality as a Discipline, Acta Theologica, 15 (2011), 37-60.Waaijman, K., Spirituality. Forms, Foundations, Methods., Leuven: Peters, 2002.

Ideas I: Transcendental Turn in Phenomenological Philosophy

The paper deals with transcendental turn in the development of the phenomenological philosophy witch the founder of phenomenology Edmund Husserl made in his work “Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology”. From this moment until the very end of his life, Husserl defined his philosophy as transcendental phenomenology. This is particularly evident in the title of his last unfinished treatise “The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy”. The author tries to clarify the historical and philosophical background of this turn and its influence on the phenomenology and other philosophical trends until now. On the one hand, the transcendental turn in the development of the phenomenological philosophy is the result of the long philosophical tradition that based on Descartes rationalism and Kantian transcendental philosophy and at the same time on the empiricism by Berkley and Hume. On the other hand, this transcendental turn is very important for the modern discussion about the problem of consciousness not only in the phenomenological research, but also in the contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. For example, the “explanatory gap” problem as one of the most crucial consequence of the mind-body problem can be seen in a new light from the phenomenological point of view. So it is argued that phenomenology is one of the most elaborated version of the transcendental philosophy of experience, and that it is possible to create on the base of transcendental phenomenology the universal methodology of humanities and to bring something new even to the formulation of the fundamental problems of natural sciences.

«Концептуальный каркас» экономической теории: история, потенциал, перспективы использования

Conceptual framework stands as a pivotal notion in the methodological landscape of European sciences, having found productive applications in physics, mathematics, linguistics, and sociology. In the realm of economics, however, its potential remains underexplored, making it imperative to explore its heuristic value and integrate this methodological concept in contemporary research. This article aims to outline the conceptual framework of economic theory at different stages of its development and explore how it can organize the structure of economic science. The study analyzes the evolution of conceptualism in a sequence. This journey starts with classical education, shaping a scholar’s worldview, and classical science, combining rational (descriptive) and experimental (explanatory) research. It extends to modern (non-classical) scientific concepts, like neoclassical, evolutionary, and neo-institutional economic theory. The article examines different viewpoints, including those of positivists (E. Mach, R. Carnap, etc.), postpositivists (K. Popper, T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos), and economists (K. Marx, L. Walras, D. North). It identifies and describes the conceptual framework of Marxism, which is based on materialist dialectics and historical materialist perspectives. The article also shows how using the conceptual worldview and fundamental concepts effectively structures normative economics, classical political economy, neoclassicism, and other areas of economics.

What’s so European about the Crisis of the European Sciences?

What’s so European about the Crisis of the European Sciences?

Justice, Science and Sociology of Economic Systems: Transformation of Revelation into Dogma

The subject of the study is the transformation of the concept of justice. The object of the study is to identify the content of the concept of «Justice» depending on the cultural and historical context. The authors consider in detail several interrelated parts of humanitarian research with special emphasis on the transformation of thinking patterns: virtue and justice Post-Newtonian transformation of science; Prophet and teacher: from revelation to dogma; Insight, conversion and the sociology of non-capitalism. The article examines and compares the changes that have occurred in the ideas of justice, economic development, and science. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the problem of the correlation of «moral luck» and «moral catastrophe» as components of the very concept of justice. The novelty of the research lies in the hypothesis put forward by the authors, which consists in the fact that the transformations that happened to the ideas of social justice in some way correspond to the transformation of the European sciences created by the Royal Society of London during the time of Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke. The main conclusion was that there is one difficulty in actualizing the object of theoretical research — the presence of «invisible» transformations of the idea of Justice that involves implicit retrospection and «tipping into the past» of current ideas about morality and justice.

What is Modern in the Crisis of European Sciences?

Although the notion of the crisis of European sciences has a general meaning, Husserl mainly focuses on this phenomenon in relation to the modern establishment of a mathematical natural science. However, he does not provide a definitive clarification of how its new method is specifically involved in bringing about such a crisis. Without trying to offer a faithful exegetical contribution, this paper further elaborates on Husserl’s analyses in the Krisis to give a possible answer to this question. After defining the concept of crisis in general, I single out why algebraic thinking is the core of the method that essentially characterizes mathematical physics. Then, I compare this method to a case of pre-modern discipline (namely, Euclidean geometry) to show that the sedimentation of meaning at work in the progressive technization of algebra is exceptional and sufficient to explain the specificity of the modern character of the crisis of the exact sciences. The exclusively technical development of formal mathematics, in fact, elicits those shifts of meaning (such as objectivism) that phenomenology is required to amend to overcome the crisis and to establish an authentic form of knowledge. On the basis of these results, I conclude by suggesting a few consequences that are useful for the understanding of the project of phenomenology of the later Husserl.

The Crisis of Philosophy and the Meaning of the Sciences for Life

Despite the significant number of critical analyses devoted to the subject, the precise definition of the famed crisis-notion that lies at the heart of Husserl’s last work remains controversial. The aim of this article is to defend and expand the account of Husserl’s notion of the crisis of philosophy and of the resulting crisis of the European sciences that I have developed in a number of publications. This will be done by further exploring the notion of the meaningfulness of the sciences for life as well as its relation to their scientificity. Based on this result, I will then respond to some objections advanced against my proposal, and I will present further arguments to the effect that the crisis of philosophy consists in the collapse of its pretension to be scientific, and the consequent crisis of the European sciences consists in the resulting enigmatic character of their scientificity.

Introducing empirically grounded types into the study of school choice

ABSTRACT I propose that the grounded types analytical method (GTAM) is a systematic and useful means of typology construction for qualitative studies. GTAM arose within European social sciences in response to a need to schematize qualitative typology and to explicate qualitative types more precisely. GTAM is applicable to a variety of qualitative situations. I illustrate in this paper GTAM’s applicability through my study of school choice in the Paris suburbs. I argue then for its inclusion in the qualitative study of U.S. primary and secondary school choice because it is a credible form of analysis that would provide a new lens for viewing how behaviours and beliefs enter into choices.

Science and the Lebenswelt on Husserl’s Philosophy of Science

Abstract I here present and discuss Husserl’s clarification of the genesis of modern empirical science, particularly its mathematical methods, as presented in his last work, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Although Husserl’s analyses have as their goal to redirect science to the lifeworld and to reposition man and his immediate experiences at the foundation of the scientific project so as to overcome the “crisis” of science, I approach them from a different perspective. The problem that interests me here is the applicability of mathematics in empirical science, to assess Husserl’s treatment of this issue in order to see if it can be sustained from a strictly scientific point of view regardless of philosophical adequacy. My conclusion is that it cannot. What Husserl takes as the “crisis” of science is inherent to the best scientific methodology.

'Almost a Statesman': East Central Europe's geography experts and the Paris Peace Conference

Although the centenary of the 1919–1920 Paris Peace Conference reignited interest in this pivotal post-war event, the perspective of East Central European geographical sciences remains little investigated. In 1918 and 1919, rather unexpectedly, geography turned out to be a confidante of the knowledge that shaped the future of the world, and it was geographers from new states that emerged in the Eastern and South-Eastern part of the continent that largely contributed to this development. The article assesses the limits of their impact while it also characterises the tensions between their understanding of ‘science’ and their nationalism.