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Conflicts and democracy: Considerations on political conflicts and the need of their delimitation
8-24Views:51According to our common experience of political life, the relationship between politics and
conflicts seems to be obvious. However, it is also common to think about delimiting the intensity
of conflicts in a democratic context. This kind of complexity of the relation of democracy and
conflicts can be cexplained from two theoretical perspectives. First, in order to protect democratic
order, conflicts may lose their relevance in comparison to the value of consent or compromise. Second, even if we accept the importance of conflicts, we also should take into account the limits
of their intensity. These theoretical problems arise in the context of contemporary politics which
nature is eminently public and in which every announcement is open to discussion. This is what
discourse as a theoretical horizon means. The core concept for theorizing the conflictual character
of politics in a discursive manner is political debate. The article explores three kinds of debate
and communicative conflicts: John Stuart Mill, as a classical nineteenth century liberal, sheds
light on the importance of debate in issues of collective truth-seeking and emotional devotion
to our personal values. Márton Szabó, a leading theorist of political discourse in Hungary, also
treats debate as a core concept of political discourse studies, and theorizes debate not only as
a series of singular acts in the realm of politics, but as a mode of existence of politics itself.
Contrary to other contemporary ideas of communication and politics, discourse is therefore
inherently conflictual in its character. Similarly, but more embedded in contemporary debates
over democracy, Chantal Mouffe, one of the eminent theorists of agonism, interprets conflicts
in the context of democratic order, and emphasises the democratic conditions for constructing
democratic identities. Her ideas on agonistic democracy can fathom the relation of valuable
conflicts and their limits in a democratic regime. -
Thomas Hobbes and the dilemmas of the natural state Second chapter: The tipology of the state of nature
3-22Views:81The primary purpose of this paper is to reflect upon four aspects of the Hobbesian state of nature. Firstly, the question is whether we can interpret this original state as a mythical, abstract,
imaginative and timless state, focusing only on the final conclusion of the Hobbesian theory, or
it may contain a well-defined timspan, having its own historical development based on a clear
logical construction. Secondly, this study aims at examining the natural character of man in
the state of nature, and his harmony with his environment in respect with their „naturalness”.
Thirdly, it tries to describe the assumed interpersonal relationships within the „primitve” state.
Fourthly, the paper presents different states of nature reasoned out from a close reading of the
text. All four aspect may help us to get a better understanding of the ambivalent character of the
Hobbesian state of nature. -
Thomas Hobbes and the dilemmas of the natural state: First chapter – The axiomatic nature of total war
3-24Views:96The purpose of this paper is to reflect on some the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, one of the founders
of modern political philosophy, best known for his masterpiece, Leviathan. The aim of this essay
is not to provide a full scale analysis of Hobbes’ main work, nor to present his moral or political
philosophy, nor to reflect on the significance of his impact on later political thinkers. The aim is
more modest, and the theme under scrutiny is more narrow: the paper is devoted to a critical
analysis of the main premise (state of the nature) of Hobbes’ theory of power, including the
ambivalent character of the state of nature, as well as the logical dilemmas that arise during
the analysis.After a general presentation of Hobbes’s philosophy and of the logical construction of his
work, I will tend to focus on two aspects of the state of nature: firstly, I will analyse the assumed
analogy between the state of nature and the Book of Genesis; secondly, I will examine whether
the „war of all against all” is an axiomatic outcome of the „primitive” state. It turns out, that the
answers for these questions are not so unanbiguous. -
The Civis and the In-migrants: Spatial Patterns of Industrial Modernization in Debrecen 1870
186-241Views:72Scholars engaged in research into the history of Debrecen have long been eager to get an
answer – beyond their specific research inquiries – to the question whether the development of
the city had had unique features and if they had what would hallmark the unique character of
development? Was there or is there a kind of “Debrecenness”?
My study examines – with the help of a GIS relational database (DTTTA1870) – what
peculiarities can be grasped in the transformation of the traditional spatial and social structure
of Debrecen enforced by the political change and industrial modernization processes two
decades after the change of feudal regime (1848/49).
The analysis focuses on whether the alteration process of the factors determining the social
status (residential segregation, neighborhood, spatial segregation and coexistence, other spatial
and social hierarchical characteristics) in the cases of the “deep-rooted Debrecen residents”
(cívis) and of the settlers showed specific types described in the literature or showed specific
features. -
„I have to be constantly disciplined” – a possible hypothetical model for pedagogical characters
160-172Views:50How discipline the teachers in the primary schools in Hungary? How should they discipline to
meet the expectations, values and norms of our society? According to my research, in today’s
primary schools there are significant differences between discipline and conflict management.
I analyse the differences and I set the behavior patterns of the teachers into three distinct types.
These three characters are controlled from traditions, outside and inside. These three types are
distinctly distinct in everyday life of schools, with different effects on students’ socialization. In
this paper, I present this hypothetical model, its operation in the dimension of discipline. The
interviews that underlie the analysis were prepared by village teachers teaching in the Vásárosnamény micro-region.
