Research funding and sneaking

Posted on by Herbert Hrachovec Leave a comment

A remarkable document has been published yesterday in pusztaranger. A so-called PusztaLeaks-Kollektiv offers an extensive background review of crucial components of the recent attacks on Hungarian philosophers. Two points made in this German-language report seem particularly pertinent.

  • The impression has been created that a group of six philosophers has been granted illegitimate support from a fund that was established to support technical innovation. But the national budget for grants in the Humanities was 2003 incorporated into the general NKTH framework with the proviso that 1,5 Mrd HUF should be spent on the Humanities. The lists of projects receiving grants in 2004 and 2005 show that the six philosophers are by no means the only ones concerned. Furthermore, a list of grant recipients politically close to the present government has been drawn up.
  • There is a crucial link between a complaint filed by a philosopher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Tamás Demeter, against one of the supported projects and the more general campaign led by “Magyar Nemzet” and Gyula Budai. Demeter had used an antisemitic slur against a colleague working on this project and had been forced to retract his remarks in writing. This happened 2009/10. The indictment filed by Gyula Budai on Jan. 5th, 2011 contains text identical to the complaint filed by Tamás Demeter in the previous case. The obvious conclusion is yours to draw, since Tamás Demeter, who has been made  deputy director of the Institute of Philosophy by János Boros , has threatened legal action if it were spelled out here.

Job security in Budapest. Two letters

Posted on by Herbert Hrachovec Leave a comment

János Boros, Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has been named in Laszlo Tengelyi’s open letter as responsible for the dismissal of a number of philosophers at his institution. The letter, furthermore, suggested a close connection between these decisions and the more recent debate about the new Hungarian media law and the Orban government in general. Boros has replied to Tengelyi’s remarks in a letter that has yesterday become available to non-Hungarian readers.

Statement Boros (German and English)

Boros makes some important points:

  1. Certain members of the institute were demonstrably unqualified for the job they were holding
  2. He had been appointed before the spring elections 2010
  3. He is in no way responsible for the actions taken by Gyula Budai in investigating the embattled six philosophy projects of which just one was granted to the Academy institute (and finished before his appointment)

Point (1) seems to have some validity. I have not seen the CVs of the persons fired, but I assume that Boros does not make up the cases he mentions. Point (2) is also correct, but has to be put into perspective. József Pálinkás, president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has been minister of education in the first Orban administration. The appointment of János Boros was due to him, against the majority of the members of the Institute.

Point (3) is the most contentious one and Tengelyi addresses it in a reply, dated 2011.01.30:

Tengelyis Antwort auf Boros (German)

Tengelyi’s reply (English)

The following circumstances deserve to be mentioned:

  1. The conflict concerning Boros’ appointment and the discovery of alleged shortcomings in the one philosophy project granted to the Academy predates the Budai investigations
  2. This internal conflict was gladly taken up and enhanced by Gyula Budai in his more encompassing campaign against irksome philosophers
  3. Instead of calling for restraint (let alone defend fellow philosophers) János Boros was clearly siding with the disproportionate public campaign orchestrated by Gyula Budai and “Magyar Nemzet”
  4. Which is not really surprising given the bitter infight preceding his appointment

Ungarische Verhältnisse. Brief der Vorsitzenden der ÖGP

Posted on by Herbert Hrachovec Leave a comment

Die Vorsitzende der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Philosophie (deren Homepage eine Aktualisierung benötigt :-)) hat an die Mitglieder den folgenden Brief geschrieben.

Hier die Webseite des angesprochene Kongresses. Hier ein Eintrag mit den neuesten Scheusslichkeiten der rechtsgerichteten Budapester Presse.

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,

viele von Ihnen werden in den letzten Tagen und Wochen die Ereignisse in Ungarn verfolgt haben. Die Regierung hat sechs Philosophinnen und Philosophen, die in den letzten Jahren geförderte Projekte durchgeführt haben, beschuldigt, die Gelder nicht ordnungsgemäß verwendet zu haben. Einige von ihnen sind, soviel wir wissen, bei der Polizei angezeigt worden.

Nun ist es selbstverständlich nicht leicht, eine solche Situation von außen richtig einzuschätzen. Es ist jedenfalls überaus merkwürdig, dass aus den vielen Projektträgern, die Gelder erhalten haben, ausgerechnet sechs Personen beschuldigt werden, die alle für ihre kritische Haltung gegenüber der Regierung bekannt sind. Und es ist beunruhigend, dass in der philosophischen Community in Budapest große Angst vor Repressalien zu herrschen scheint. Viele Personen, die der Regierung kritisch gegenüberstehen, wollen ihre Sicht der Dinge nicht mehr öffentlich aussprechen.

…

Ob es in der Angelegenheit Aktivitäten in den österreichischen Philosophieinstituten außerhalb Wiens gibt, ist mir nicht bekannt. Das Institut in Wien überlegt Einladungen, will aber zunächst noch mehr Informationen einholen. Ich halte das für vernünftig, weil man in der gegebenen Situation den Personen, die man unterstützen will, mit manchen Aktionen auch schaden könnte. Gleichzeitig werden wir im Vorstand der ÖGP ueberlegen, ob es eine Möglichkeit gibt, die Sache auf unserem Kongress im Juni zu thematisieren, und zwar in einer Form, die für die Betroffenen möglichst nützlich ist.

Mit besten Grüßen

Elisabeth Nemeth

Hier eine Radiostellungnahme von Laszlo Tengelyi, dessen offener Brief die Aufmerksamkeit auf die Situation in Budapest gelenkt hat.

Laszlo Tengelyi: Radiostatement

Gyula Budai: The one thing on his mind

Posted on by Herbert Hrachovec Leave a comment

Listening to voices coming from Budapest I sometimes think that the philosophers concerned may be overreacting. But then, consider the above Homepage of Gyula Budai (Jan. 28th). It is almost entirely made out of references to reports published in “Magyar Nemzet”. The section titles translate like this:

Philosophy projects: new indictments can be made 2011.01.17

Millions were spent to translate from Hungarian into Hungarian 2011.01.15

Nietzsche was more important than the Roma’s cause 2011.01.14

Chaos reigned at the department of philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 2011.01.11

Moral low in philosophy 2011.01.10

To repeat: all those titles are direct “Magyar Nemzet” quotes. If this is how a government official presents his work to the public there is good reason to be alarmed.

Budapest Background: Budai

Posted on by Herbert Hrachovec Leave a comment

Concern about the campaign directed against six Hungarian philosophers (three more scholars have in the meantime to be added to the list) has spread. Blogs have taken up the issue in at least three languages:

There is, however, little outside knowledge about the institutional mechanism at work. Julian Nida-Rümelin, in his programmatic appeal talks about the Hungarian government initiating procedures against members of the incriminated group. The following remarks attempt a closer look at the procedural details.

Dictators discard legal safeguards right away; democracies are built on due process. The case at issue falls somewhere in between.

See also: this excellent account which comes to conclusions similar to those presented here.

Read more

Funding Philosophy in Budapest

Posted on by Herbert Hrachovec Leave a comment

Updates: one, two, three, four, five.

Bálint Magyar is, to all appearances, an energetic politician. He was Hungarian Minister of Education and Science from 2002 – 2006 and is currently a member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology. One of his initiatives was the founding of a National Office of Research and Technology. And one of the activities of this office was to publish a call for projects “to explore the national heritage and social challenges facing us today”.

Bálint Magyar is persona non grata for the current right-of-center Hungarian government. Magyar Nemzet, on the other hand, is a daily with close ties to FIDESZ. On January 8th it featured this quartett:

Magyar Nemzet (“Hungarian Nation”) claimed that those philosophers had missused funds on a large scale. All of them are considered “liberal”, i.e. skeptical about the present homeland politics of their country. It seems that after considerable philosophical infighting some insider has triggered a police investigation into the finances of six projects carefully selected to incite a maximum of populist indignation. Magyar Nemzet runs an almost daily campaign on behalf of the Orban government, insinuating that an elitist intellectual clique has taken control of Hungarian academic life. (Alas, still an effective type of accusation.)

It is easy to whip up resentment against money spent on philosophy. Mihaly Vajda’s project was on “The Spirit of European Totalitarism”; Agnes Heller’s on Nietzsches, Lukács and Heidegger. Another scholar, Kornél Steiger had undertaken new translations of Plato. What a waste of taxpayers money, since a translation is already available. 🙂

Laszlo Tengelyi, a native Hungarian, teaching philosophy in Germany, has addressed an open letter to the most important German philosophical associations in order to draw attention to what he calls revenge against political opponents. It is a disturbing story. Here are some links (English an German):

Update:

Mihaly Vajda’s youtube statement (in German).

Nochmals: Seeblick

Posted on by zubin 3 Comments

Hans Pechar hielt gestern am “Center for Teaching and Learning” die friday lecture zum Thema „Humboldt in der Massenuniversität? Vom Elend der neuhumanistischen Bildungsreligion“. Seine Überlegungen erinnern an die Geschichte vom kleinen Jungen, der auf der Straße einen Würdenträger sieht: “Aber der ist doch nackt!” Ähnlich entwaffnend waren zwei Bemerkungen, mit denen er den gewöhnlichen Schwulst der Bildungsdebatte durchschnitt.

Read more

Wenn die Konturen verschwinden. Zwei Instanzen

Posted on by zubin 3 Comments

Akademische Gemeinschaft. Einerseits ist sie gewillt und wird sie gedrängt, sich in lokale Bedingungen einzupassen. Andererseits erwartet man von Akademikerinnen, sich vermittels Argumente und unter Berufung auf Erkenntnisprozesse der nahtlosen Einpassung in ihre Umgebung und ihren Forderungen zu widersetzen: Ich habe herausgefunden, dass… Es zeigt sich, dass…  Die Studie  hat ergeben, dass…

a.) Diese Art der Wider-setzung wird, um es noch einmal zu sagen, erwartet. Sie wird von Medien aufgegriffen (public intellectuals) und konstituiert ein weltweites Feld der scientific community mit globalen Bedingungen. Es ist nicht unabhängig von den lokalen Gegebenheiten, doch es eröffnet einen neuen argumentativen Spielraum zugunsten akademischer Institutionen – speziell, wenn es um das Budget geht:  “Um im internationalen Vergleich mithalten zu können, brauchen wir von der Öffentlichkeit xyz Milliarden €.”

b.) Gestern wurde ich per Mail gefragt, warum wir nicht eine Spendenaktion à la Crowd-Funding für die österreichischen Universitäten starten? Man kann seine Spende an einen bestimmten Zweck (Institut, Forschungsgruppe, Lehrveranstaltung) binden – und guten Ideen eine Chance geben. Anstatt Studiengebühren: “Zahl, was du willst.” Unabhängig von der Mittelvergabepolitik der Entscheidungsträger in Universitäten und des Ministeriums soll das (zahlungskräftige) Volk mitentscheiden, woran geforscht und gelehrt wird.

Was heißt im internationalen Vergleich mithalten? Was heißt gute Idee? Geht es dabei um Wahrheit, um Bedürfnisbefriedigung – oder ist die Opposition zu flach?

—

Im Bild eine andere Opposition, die von Leben und Arbeit, in einer merkwürdigen Einheit.

Man kann darüber streiten, ob das gelungen ist 🙂

—

Ein anderes Beispiel, näher am Thema, ist die Symbiose zwischen der Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule in Lausanne (EPFL) und Logitech:

Logitech is opening a new research and development center – its largest worldwide – at EPFL. […] There have always been interactions between the company and the university, and these have grown stronger with the years. Daniel Borel is a former student, and the outstanding success of Logitech is mainly due to the invention of the mouse, which came out of the research performed by Jean-Daniel Nicoud, a professor at EPFL. He developed the first prototype, equipped with a ball and sensors, in the 1970s and Logitech created a production model for Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s.

Since then, Daniel Borel has actively supported the development of the university. In 2008, via the association Defitech – created with his wife – he donated 2.5 million Swiss francs to the future center for neuroprosthetics. A few days ago, the researchers demonstrated the prototype of a wheelchair that maneuvers by thought – artificial intelligence at the service of handicapped people.
[…]
This new level of cooperation between EPFL and Logitech will bring significant innovation for the future.

(Quelle)

Angst machen

Posted on by zubin 2 Comments

“mein Name ist XY und ich habe in Ihrer VO-L 180185 Cyberplatonismus einen Platz bekommen, kann nun aber zum ersten Termin aufgrund von gleich zwei Prüfungen nicht erscheinen.


Müssen Sie nun meinen Platz an jemand anderen übergeben, oder kann ich trotzdem an der VO-L teilnehmen, wenn ich nur diesen einen Termin versäume?

Ich entschuldige mich schon im Vorraus für entstandene Unannehmlichkeiten und bedanke mich für Ihre Antwort.”

Read more