CONTENTS - NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 1999

A r t i c l e s

JOZEF KELEMEN: Simple Social Interactions and the Emergence of Rationality ...97
LADISLAV KVASZ: Mathematics and the History of Religion ...110
RÓBERT ROŠKO: Marx´s Hypothesis under the Scalpel of Marshall´s Theory of Three Developmental Stages of Civil Society ...126
SVATOPLUK ŠTÚR: Struggles, Swings, and Wrong Ways ...139
ALEXANDER I. SYCH: Quo vadis Intelligentsia in Post-communist Countries? ...154
VLADIMÍR BAKOŠ: Slovak Thought on the Threshold to Modernity ...162
MARÍNA MIKULAJOVÁ: The Systemic Approach in Vygotsky´s Work ...173
JARMILA DROZDÍKOVÁ: Islam in Unity and Diversity ...185

B o o k  R e v i e w s

Systems, new paradigms for the Human Sciences Edited by Gabriel Altmann-Walter Koch By Viktor Krupa...197
Jozef KOLEMBUS: Riešenie disku z Faistu By Viktor Krupa...200

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SIMPLE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF RATIONALITY

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.
pp. 97-109

MATHEMATICS AND THE HISTORY OF RELIGION

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.
pp. 110-125

MARX’S HYPOTHESIS UNDER THE SCALPEL OF MARSHALL’S THEORY OF THREE DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES OF CIVIL SOCIETY

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.
pp. 126-138

STRUGGLES, SWINGS AND WRONG WAYS

+ 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.
pp. 139-153

QUO VADIS INTELLIGENTSIA IN POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES?

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.
pp. 154-161

SLOVAK THOUGHT ON THE THRESHOLD TO MODERNITY

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.
pp. 162-172

THE SYSTEMIC APPROACH IN VYGOTSKY’S WORK

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.
pp. 173-184

ISLAM IN UNITY AND DIVERSITY

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.
pp. 185-196

BOOK REVIEWS
pp. 197-200

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