Tamas Demeter

Research Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophy of Science, Faculty Member

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Csilla Markója

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Laszlo Perecz

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

András Kiséry

City College of New York

Windhager Ákos

Bertalan Bordás

Pécsi Tudományegyetem

Laura Klára Lukács

University of Pécs

Kerényi Károly Szakkollégium

University of Pecs

Boglárka Daradics

University of Pécs

Bálint Vlasics

University of Pecs

István Csabay

University of Pécs

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Books by Tamas Demeter

David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism: Methodology and Ideology in Enlightenment Inquiry, Leiden: Brill, 2016.

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsih

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Books in Hungarian by Tamas Demeter

A társadalom zenei képe: A magyar zeneesztétika szociologizáló hagyománya, Budapest: Rózsavölgyi, 2017.

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A szociologizáló hagyomány: A magyar filozófia főárama a XX. században, Budapest: Századvég, 2011.

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Mentális fikcionalizmus, Budapest: Gondolat, 2008.

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Books edited by Tamas Demeter

The Sociological Heritage of the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh: EUP, 2024.

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Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations, ed. by Tamás Demeter, T. Parent, Adam Toon, London: Routledge, 2022.

by Tamas Demeter and Ted Parent

What are mental states? When we talk about people's beliefs or desires, are we talking about what... more What are mental states? When we talk about people's beliefs or desires, are we talking about what is happening inside their heads? If so, might cognitive science show that we are wrong? Might it turn out that mental states do not exist? Mental fictionalism offers a new approach to these longstanding questions about the mind. Its core idea is that mental states are useful fictions. When we talk about mental states, we are not formulating hypotheses about people's inner machinery. Instead, we simply talk "as if " people had certain inner states, such as beliefs or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This is the first book dedicated to exploring mental fictionalism. Featuring contributions from established authors as well as up-and-coming scholars in this burgeoning field, the book reveals the exciting potential of a fictionalist approach to the mind, as well as the challenges it faces. In doing so, it offers a fresh perspective on foundational debates in the philosophy of mind, such as the nature of mental states and folk psychology, as well as hot topics in the field, such as embodied cognition and mental representation. Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations is essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals alike.

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Conflicting Values of Inquiry: Ideologies of Epistemology in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Tamás Demeter, Kathryn Murphy, Claus Zittel, Leiden: Brill, 2015.

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Intellectuals, Inequalities and Transitions: Prospects for a Critical Sociology, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2020.

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Essays on Wittgenstein and Austrian Philosophy, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004.

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Molnár Antal, A zeneesztétika feladata, szerk. Demeter Tamás, Windhager Ákos, Budapest: MMA Kiadó, 2022.

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ELMEFILOZÓFIA Szöveggyűjtemény

by Tőzsér János and Tamas Demeter

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Special issues edited by Tamas Demeter

Humeanisms, ed. by Tamás Demeter, László Kocsis, Iulian Toader, Synthese 198, 2021.

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The Uses and Abuses of Mathematics in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by Tamás Demeter, Eric Schliesser, Synthese 196, 2019/9.

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Between Physiology and Ethics: The 'Science of Man' as a Middle-Range Discipline, Early Science and Medicine 22, 2017/2-3.

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The Marxist Roots of Science Studies, Studies in East European Thought 67, 2015/1-2.

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Mental Fictionalism, Monist 96, 2013/4.

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The Origins of Social Theories of Knowledge, Studies in East European Thought 64, 2012/1-2.

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Trends and Traditions of Intellectual History Writing, Studies in East European Thought 62/2, 2010.

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Challenges for Representational Theories of Mind and Consciousness, ed. by Tamás Demeter, János Tőzsér, European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 5, 2009/2.

by Tamas Demeter and Tőzsér János

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The Sociological Tradition of Hungarian Philosophy, Studies in East European Thought 60, 2008/1-2.

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David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism: Methodology and Ideology in Enlightenment Inquiry, Leiden: Brill, 2016.

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bsih

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A társadalom zenei képe: A magyar zeneesztétika szociologizáló hagyománya, Budapest: Rózsavölgyi, 2017.

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A szociologizáló hagyomány: A magyar filozófia főárama a XX. században, Budapest: Századvég, 2011.

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Mentális fikcionalizmus, Budapest: Gondolat, 2008.

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The Sociological Heritage of the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh: EUP, 2024.

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Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations, ed. by Tamás Demeter, T. Parent, Adam Toon, London: Routledge, 2022.

by Tamas Demeter and Ted Parent

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Conflicting Values of Inquiry: Ideologies of Epistemology in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Tamás Demeter, Kathryn Murphy, Claus Zittel, Leiden: Brill, 2015.

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual 'Brill' typeface. With over 5,100 character... more

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Intellectuals, Inequalities and Transitions: Prospects for a Critical Sociology, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2020.

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Essays on Wittgenstein and Austrian Philosophy, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004.

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Molnár Antal, A zeneesztétika feladata, szerk. Demeter Tamás, Windhager Ákos, Budapest: MMA Kiadó, 2022.

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ELMEFILOZÓFIA Szöveggyűjtemény

by Tőzsér János and Tamas Demeter

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Humeanisms, ed. by Tamás Demeter, László Kocsis, Iulian Toader, Synthese 198, 2021.

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The Uses and Abuses of Mathematics in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. by Tamás Demeter, Eric Schliesser, Synthese 196, 2019/9.

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Between Physiology and Ethics: The 'Science of Man' as a Middle-Range Discipline, Early Science and Medicine 22, 2017/2-3.

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The Marxist Roots of Science Studies, Studies in East European Thought 67, 2015/1-2.

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Mental Fictionalism, Monist 96, 2013/4.

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The Origins of Social Theories of Knowledge, Studies in East European Thought 64, 2012/1-2.

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Trends and Traditions of Intellectual History Writing, Studies in East European Thought 62/2, 2010.

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Challenges for Representational Theories of Mind and Consciousness, ed. by Tamás Demeter, János Tőzsér, European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 5, 2009/2.

by Tamas Demeter and Tőzsér János

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The Sociological Tradition of Hungarian Philosophy, Studies in East European Thought 60, 2008/1-2.

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The Foundational Document of the Sociology of Knowledge in Tamás Demeter (ed.), The Sociological Heritage of the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh: EUP, 2024.

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The social and the medical in Hume, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 2023

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Philosophical Methods in Aaron Garrett, James Harris (eds.), Scottish Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.

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Sympathetic Organizations: Body, mind, and society in Robert Whytt and David Hume, Notes and Records — The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 77, 2023

This paper argues that Robert Whytt's concepts of 'particular' and 'general sympathy' in animate ... more This paper argues that Robert Whytt's concepts of 'particular' and 'general sympathy' in animate bodies are homologous with a less-discussed concept of sympathy in David Hume. There are at least three different concepts of sympathy in Hume's Treatise of human nature. Hume is rather critical of alleged sympathies between different bodies, but he elaborates a much-discussed theory of sympathy explaining the interpersonal exchange of sentiments. He invokes a third concept to designate the phenomenon of mutual responsiveness between, and coordination for a common end among, the parts of the mind while suggesting that the mind's unity and identity is of the same kind as the unity of organized living bodies. Without deploying this concept explicitly, he speaks a remarkably identical language while discussing social coordination and convention. This third concept is congruent with the physiological sympathies that Whytt finds in animate bodies. According to the unfolding picture, Whytt and Hume provide conceptually highly integrated accounts of living bodies, minds, and societies inspired by an idea of vital matter.

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Plea for an Integrated Historiography of Natural and Moral Philosophy in Enlightenment Scotland, Journal of Scottish Philosophy 20, 2022/3

I begin with a diagnosis. Present-day scholarly work on the Scottish Enlightenment is bifurcated:... more I begin with a diagnosis. Present-day scholarly work on the Scottish Enlightenment is bifurcated: it is either focused on the areas of moral philosophy or of natural philosophy, broadly construed in both cases. The aspiration to combine these inquiries is rare and unsystematic. This paper makes a case for the need and possibility of a perspective that conceives moral and natural inquiry as integrated enterprises in the period. It also suggests that potentially useful interpretive devices can be adopted from the historiography of science and philosophy, as well as science studies.

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What is Mental Fictionalism?

by Tamas Demeter and Ted Parent

Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations, 2022

This chapter introduces several versions of mental fictionalism, along with the main lines of obj... more This chapter introduces several versions of mental fictionalism, along with the main lines of objection and reply. It begins by considering the debate between eliminative materialism (“eliminativism”) versus realism about mental states as conceived in “folk psychology” (i.e., beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.). Mental fictionalism offers a way to transcend the debate by allowing talk of mental states without a commitment to realism. The idea is to treat folk psychology as a “story” and three different elaborations of this are reviewed. First, prefix semantics paraphrases a sentence like ‘Biden believes that Trump lost’ as ‘According to folk psychology, Biden believes that Trump lost’, whereby ontological commitment to belief is avoided. Similarly, pretense theory suggests that we do not assert ‘Biden believes that Trump lost’, but only pretend to assert it. Third, affective theory proposes that such discourse is used in a metaphorical way to understand a person’s affective and dispositional states vis-a-vis the community. The main objections concern whether folk psychology has the features of storytelling, and whether mental fictionalism ends up being self-refuting. The chapter also recaps a less discussed fictionalist view about “qualia” or phenomenal states, and closes by summarizing the papers contained in the volume.

A Chemistry of Human Nature: Chemical Imagery in Hume’s Treatise 

Early Science and Medicine, 2017

David Hume’s ‘science of man’ is frequently interpreted as an enterprise inspired in crucial resp... more David Hume’s ‘science of man’ is frequently interpreted as an enterprise inspired in crucial respects by Newton’s Principia. However, a closer look at Hume’s central concepts and methodological commitment suggests that his Treatise of Human Nature is much more congruent with the research traditions that arose in the wake of Newton’s Opticks. In this paper I argue that the label Hume frequently attached to his project, ‘anatomy of the mind,’ is a metaphor that, considered in itself, seems to be expressing a commitment to the study of human nature in analogy with organic living nature. In this vein, Hume’s anatomy relies on conceptual and methodological resources derived from a chemical and physiological perspective on the natural cognitive and affective functioning of human beings. Since the idea of natural functioning provides various options for deriving normative considerations, Hume’s account can be seen as a middle-range theory that connects the discourses of organic nature and ...

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Psychological Understanding, in Adam Tuboly (ed.), The History of Understanding in Analytic Philosophy, London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

Psychology is widely thought to have epistemic benefi ts. It is taken to be a fi eld of inference... more Psychology is widely thought to have epistemic benefi ts. It is taken to be a fi eld of inferences about a putative domain of facts pertaining to the causal processes that produce behavior. Knowledge of these facts is thought to be deployed in explanations and predictions about ourselves and others and, thereby, facilitates navigation in the social world. 1 We might call this the widely shared "metarepresentational presupposition": Psychology facilitates social interaction by providing knowledge of the internal mechanisms responsible for behavior. In this chapter, I will offer an alternative account of psychological discourse. To remove the spell of this presupposition, we might derive inspiration from Jaegwon Kim's ([1989] 1993 : 240, n. 4, 263, n. 46) passing remarks: he suggests, without spelling this out in any detail, that psychological propositions can be seen as facilitating noncausal understanding and evaluation of behavior. I will develop my account in this spirit. The core idea is this: psychological understanding is an affective process whose benefi ts are not of an epistemic but of a social nature. I will argue that by engaging in psychological discourse, we can do two things: resolve affective tensions that arise in the course of social interactions and provide CHAPTER 11

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Sympathies for common ends: The principles of organization in Hume's psychology and political economy, in Gábor Bíró (ed.), Humanity and Nature in the History of Economic Thought, London: Routledge, 2022.

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Varieties of Humeanism: an introduction

by László Kocsis and Tamas Demeter

Synthese, 2022

An introduction to the Synthese topical collection "Humeanisms"

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David Landy, Hume’s Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation, with Krisztián Pete, HOPOS 9, 2019/2

by Krisztián Pete and Tamas Demeter

The uses and abuses of mathematics in early modern philosophy: introduction

Synthese

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Nyíri, J.C., Tradition and Individuality: Philosophical Essays, “Synthese Library”; Nyíri, Kristóf, A hagyomány filozófiája (The Philosophy of Tradition); Neumer, Katalin, Gondolkodás, beszéd, írás (Thought, Language, and Writing)

Studies in East European Thought

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From Classical Studies towards Epistemology: The Work of József Balogh

Studies in East European Thought

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Scholarship and the Medium of Thought On the growing interest in communication in Fin-De-Siècle Hungary

Studien zu den ungarischen Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften um 1900, 2000

The various aspects of communication-related problems occupy a central position in Hungarian scho... more The various aspects of communication-related problems occupy a central position in Hungarian scholarship in the first half of the twentieth century. This exhilarated attention to the modes, traditions, technologies and the history of communication, as well as to their consequences regarding the history of ideas, the history of style and social history, were present at the same time in the fields of philosophy, classical scholarship, literary theory, history, sociology etc., and contributed significantly with new ideas and insights to all of these disciplines. In the present paper I attempt to sketch some of the leading ideas in this field, and to formulate some hypotheses concerning the origins of the problems characteristic to these areas, and its sociologically relevant context. While an exact answer may elude us when attempting to explain the causes and the validity of István Hajnal's diagnosis, which claims that "it was Hungarian scholarship that brought up the cultural historical problem of literacy, and helped to position it as a fruitful problem in the research on European development" (Hajnal 1993, 444), yet I hope that possible elements of an answer might be fruitfully gestured toward.

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Three genres of sociology of knowledge and their Marxist origins

Studies in East European Thought, 2015

In the present paper I sketch three genres of sociology of knowledge and trace their roots to Mar... more In the present paper I sketch three genres of sociology of knowledge and trace their roots to Marx and Marxist literature while reconstructing two causal and one hermeneutic strand in this context. While so doing the main focus is set on György Lukács and György Márkus and their interpretation of Marx's contribution to sociologically minded theories of knowledge. As a conclusion I point out that Marx-inspired sociologies of knowledge are more sensitive to the relation of larger-scale social and historical processes than to the actual practices of knowledge production, and that recent developments in science studies tend to integrate larger-and smaller-scale sociological sensitivities.

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Weltanschauung as a priori: sociology of knowledge from a ‘romantic’ stance

Studies in East European Thought, 2012

In this paper I reconstruct the central concept of the young Lukács's and Mannheim's sociology of... more In this paper I reconstruct the central concept of the young Lukács's and Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, as they present it in their writings in the early decades of the twentieth century. I argue that this concept, namely Weltanschauung, is used to refer to some conceptually unstructured totality of feelings, which they take to be a condition of possibility of intellectual production, and this understanding is contrasted to an alternative construal of the term that presents it as logically structured, quasi-theoretical background knowledge. This concept has Kantian reminiscences: it is a condition of possibility of intellectual production in general. The young Mannheim and Lukács rely on 'Weltanschauung' so understood as a phenomenon mediating between the facts of society and individual intellectual production and reception: it is seen as being conditioned by sociological facts and therefore as a historical and sociological category through which, and therefore indirectly, society enters into intellectual production.

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The search for an image of man

Studies in East European Thought, 2010

The present paper offers a narrative of the post-World War II development of Hungarian philosophy... more The present paper offers a narrative of the post-World War II development of Hungarian philosophy, and argues that it is characterized by a double, historical and anthropological orientation under Marx's influence. The resulting amalgam is an intellectual history that looks beyond the ideas themselves, searching for underlying images of man which are represented as ideological backgrounds to theories of nature, society, cognition, etc. The most important works of this approach interpret ideas and anthropologies within a Marxist framework, and see them as closely linked to the social-historical circumstances in which they develop; yet, these approaches represent an alternative attitude quite different from the official ideology of dialectical materialism.

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Agency, ethics and politics in Aurel Kolnai’s philosophy

Studies in East European Thought, 2008

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The sociological tradition of Hungarian philosophy

Studies in East European Thought, 2008

In this introductory paper I sketch the tradition, several early aspects of which are discussed i... more In this introductory paper I sketch the tradition, several early aspects of which are discussed in the following essays and reviews. I introduce the main figures whose work initiated and maintained the sociological orientation in Hungarian philosophy thereby tracing its evolution. I suggest that its sociological outlook, if taken to be a characteristic tendency that gives Hungarian philosophy its distinctive flavour, provides us with the framework of a possible narrative about the history of Hungarian philosophy in the broader context of Central European philosophy. This narrative, in turn, suggests a way of integrating the latter into the history of Western philosophy rather than restricting its scope to a handful of canonical works only.

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Scientia, with Benedek Láng and Dániel Schmal, in Marco Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, Cham: Springer, 2015.

by Tamas Demeter, Benedek Lang, and Benedek Láng

Scientia" is a long-standing heritage of Aristotelian logic and denotes an epistemic ideal pursue... more Scientia" is a long-standing heritage of Aristotelian logic and denotes an epistemic ideal pursued through several centuries. According to Posterior Analytics, knowledge that conforms to this ideal must consist of propositions that are universally and necessarily true. This necessity can be demonstrated through syllogistic inferences that proceed from premises containing the cause of the conclusion. Accordingly, scientia consisted in a systematic, demonstrative presentation of why things behave the way they do, and not in the discovery of the causes from which demonstrations followed. This ideal started to erode in the Renaissance period. Its various aspects had been challenged and alternative ideals of inquiry had been proposed. As the emphasis shifted from the demonstration of phenomena in accordance with Aristotelian logic and metaphysics to the production of useful

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Georg Lukács, in George Ritzer & Chris Rojek (eds.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020

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Georg Lukács und die Budapester Schule in Michael Quante, David Schweikard (eds.), Marx-Hadbuch, Stuttgart: Metzler, 2015.

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József Balogh in K. Pollman (ed.), Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, Oxford: OUP, 2013.

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John H. Zammito. The Gestation of German Biology: Philosophy and Physiology from Stahl to Schelling, with Gábor Zemplén, ISIS 110, 2019/2

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David Landy, Hume’s Science of Human Nature: Scientific Realism, Reason, and Substantial Explanation, with Krisztián Pete, HOPOS 9, 2019/2

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Newton for philosophers, Metascience 24, 2014.

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Relativism for philosophers and sociologists, Metascience 22, 2013.

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Agency, ethics and politics in Aurel Kolnai’s philosophy

Studies in East European Thought, 2008

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Studies in East European Thought, 1999

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A Touch of the Dramatic in Josef Steiff (ed.), Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy, Chicago: Open Court, 2011.

Please note the change of title.

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Wine in Safia Azzouni et al. (eds.), Eine Naturgeschichte für das 21. Jahrhundert. Zu Ehren Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Berlin: Alpheus Verlag, 2014.

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What Mary Didn't Know in Adam Barkman, Robert Arp (eds.), Downton Abbey and Philosophy, Chicago: Open Court, 2016.

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Az “új zene” szellemtörténeti szociológiája, Korunk 31, 2020/7.

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A szociologizáló hagyomány körvonalai, Országút 1, 2020/8

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Hume tudománytörténeti jelentősége, Korunk 30, 2019/8.

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Az állam két illiberális koncepciója: Szekfű és Lukács 1920-ban, in Orbán Balázs, Szalai Zoltán (szerk.), Ezer éve Európa közepén: A magyar állam életrajza, Budapest: MCC - Tihanyi Alapítvány, 2019

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Ami A szociologizáló hagyományból kimaradt, in Rigán Lóránd, Ungvári Zrínyi Imre (szerk.), Az értelem anyanyelvén: Magyar filozófusok a 20. és 21. században, Kolozsvár: Komp-Press - Korunk, 2016

A szociologizáló ha gyo mány cí mû köny vem -mely rõl meg tisz te lõ mó don a Ko runk fo lyó irat... more A szociologizáló ha gyo mány cí mû köny vem -mely rõl meg tisz te lõ mó don a Ko runk fo lyó irat ban je lent meg az egyik el sõ re cen zió 1 -ar ra tett kí sér le tet, hogy egy olyan narratíva ke re te it fo gal maz za meg, amely ben a 20. szá za di magyar fi lo zó fia tör té ne te ko he ren sen el be szél he tõ, s amely be leg je len tõ sebb ered mé nyei szer ve sen be il leszt he tõk. Eb bõl kö vet ke zõ en -ahogy ar ra egy némely re cen zens he lye sen rá is mu ta tott 2 -no ha a kö tet mo nog ra fi kus, még is nyílt vé gû vál lal ko zás is, amennyi ben a narratíva újabb ele mek kel to vább szõhe tõ. Eb ben az írás ban azo kat az irá nyo kat sze ret ném kör vo na laz ni, ame lyekben a ki bõ ví tést je len leg a leg in kább szük sé ges nek és sür ge tõ nek lá tom.

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Az elidegenedés regényelmélete: A fiatal Lukács György és a polgári társadalom irodalma, Irodalomtörténet 96, 2015/2

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Morál, standardok és közösség: A filozófiai teljesítmény külső értékelésének védelmében, Századvég 77, 2015.

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Conference: Enlightenment vitalism and its futures

by Charles Wolfe and Tamas Demeter

org. T Demeter (MTA) and C.T. Wolfe (IAS, CEU) CEU Budapest, May 23-24

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Morals, Standards, and Communities: A Plea for External Evaluation in Philosophy (paper accepted for The Monist issue on 'Evaluating Philosophy', scheduled to appear in 2014; the issue has never appeared)

Initially, the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) have been compiled by specialis... more Initially, the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH) have been compiled by specialist panels of the European Science Foundation (ESF) with the conviction that 'The ERIH lists will help to identify excellence in Humanities scholarship and should prove useful for the aggregate benchmarking of national research systems, for example, in determining the international standing of the research activity carried out in a given field in a particular country.' 2 This is clearly an aspiration to set up a framework for the evaluation of scholarly excellence.

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Tamas Demeter

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Books by Tamas Demeter

Books in Hungarian by Tamas Demeter

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