Aims of the Research Project

Modern Western political thought is obsessed with the state. However, since Aristotle, it is obvious that the primary scale for human politics is the city (town, polis, city-state, etc). While modern and post-modern challenges to the state opened up new, even wider vistas (empire, global governance), the local is still very much in the shadow in theory and in practice as well. The Reasearch Group in Moral and Political Philosophy of the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences started this research project to bring the intellectual history and political theory of the city back to scholarly and public discussion.

Ferenc Hörcher, senior researcher, director

Upcoming Events

Hamlet in Wittenberg: Civic and Princely Education in Early Modern Europe (Budapest, date: TBA)

Earlier events

Polgári öntudat, városfejlesztés és önkormányzati modellek Magyarországon és Európában. A közepes és kisebb városok példája (Balatonfüred, 6-7 April 2018)

Ratio Civilis: The Transformation of Urban Political Cultures in the Age of the Reformation (Budapest, 17-18 November 2017)

Modern Capitals and Historical Peripheries: Central Europe from the Perspectives of Contested Modernities (Budapest, 201-21 October 2017)

Earlier and present cooperating partners

Department of Philosophy and Communication, Faculty of Creative Industries, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University
Department of Urban Planning and Design, Budapest Technical University
Hungarian Society for Urban Planning
The Journal Tempevölgy
The Local Council of Balatonfüred

A BTK Lendület Morál és Tudomány Kutatócsoport honlapja ide kattintva érhető el.

Submissions are invited for the conference "Modern Capitals and Historical Peripheries - Central Europe from the Perspective of Contested Modernities" to be held on 20-21 October 2017 at the Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The details of the CFP are available here.

A Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Filozófiai Intézete tisztelettel meghívja

Peter Stachel (Osztrák Tudományos Akadémia, Bécs)
"In the End, are all Sociologists Fatalists?”
Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838 - 1909): An Old-Austrian Pioneer of Early Sociology

című előadására.
Időpont: 2017. március 13. 16.00
Helyszín: 1097 Budapest, Tóth Kálmán u. 4., 7.16-os "Trapéz/Tárgyaló"

Absztrakt:
Kraków-born Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838-1909), professor of law at Graz University, was one of the pioneers of early sociology. In books like Der Rassenkampf (1883) and Grundriss der Sociologie (1885) he analyzed human culture and social institutions as parts of a “natural process” according to “eternal laws”. Highly acclaimed at his lifetime, not only in Austria, but as well in the United States and France, his theories later were rated as social-darwinistic and even as an intellectual basis of fascistic ideology. But this verdict is based on a very generalized understanding of his theories and in fact not true.