Theory in closer contact with industrial life: American institutional economists on competition theory and policy

This paper investigates the views on competition theory and policy of the American institutional economists during the first half of the 20th century. These perspectives contrasted with those of contemporary neoclassical and later mainstream economic approaches. We identify three distinct dimensions to an institutionalist perspective on competition. First, institutionalist approaches focused on describing industry details, so as to bring theory into closer contact with reality. Second, institutionalists emphasized that while competition was sometimes beneficial, it could also be disruptive. Third, institutionalists had a broad view of the objectives of competition policy that extended beyond effects on consumer welfare. Consequently, institutionalists advocated for a wide range of policies to enhance competition, including industrial self-regulation, broad stakeholder representation within corporations, and direct governmental regulations. Their experimental attitude implied that policy would always be evolving, and antitrust enforcement might be only one stage in the development toward a regime of industrial regulation.

“Aleksei Alekseichi” of Bunin’s short stories: integration elements of an unassembled cycle

The paper analyzes I. A. Bunin’s short story “Alexey Alekseich,” which is the central element of the unassembled cycle with a hero named Alexey Alekseevich. The cycle also includes short stories “The Archival File” and “Inscriptions.” A reconstruction of the writer’s strategy of composing the cycle expressed in Bunin’s metaposition towards literature as an aesthetic activity is carried out. Bunin actualizes the expressiveness of the authors’ proper noun (patronymic name) to hold a dialogue with his predecessors and intensify a debate with contemporaries in the literary field. On the one hand, in “Alexey Alekseich,” Bunin diminishes the role of a literary word in culture by parodying authoritative pretexts and polemics with them (L. N. Tolstoy). In this way, the writer invokes the specific theme of modernists – experimental attitude to the literary sign (Potekhin’s character). In addition, he introduces motifs of tomfoolery and oratorical behavior (with allusions to M. Gorky). On the other hand, comparing the different editions of “Alexey Alekseich” and its linkage with other two texts of the unassembled cycle shows that Bunin rehabilitates an artistic word and literary activity by applying onomatopoetic and narrative devices in the poetics of his short story. In this aspect, the role of the literary sign in culture is justified by its unique ability to confront death and oblivion. Thus, Bunin’s short story “Alexey Alekseich” reveals extensive use of the meaningforming possibilities of the proper name.

Rohault, Jacques (1617–72)

Rohault belongs (with Régis and de Cordemoy) to a generation which did much to consolidate the position of Cartesian physics in France. He is particularly famous for his experimental attitude. He contributed to the debate over the physical interpretation of the Eucharist.

The Pop-Up Museum of Legal Objects project: an experiment in ‘socio-legal design’

This article explores the strategies underlying the Pop-Up Museum of Legal Objects, a project based on two collaborative events in which design-based practices were deployed to further socio-legal research. Like other endeavours focusing on legal objects, the Pop-Up project produced a collection of object-based commentaries of diverse geographical, historical and material origins – from Australia to Canada to Egypt, 1200 BCE to the present day, bark to gold to plastic. What renders the Pop-Up project distinctive among interventions in the ever-deepening legal object landscape is, first, that it aims not only to generate new knowledge about objects and about law, but also to transform research behaviours; and, second, that it pursues those aims by adopting design-based practices and experimental attitude. The paper sets out the specific roles played by model-making in each event and the experience design underpinning the project as a whole. Participant feedback collected during and after the events is used to widen the perspective throughout. The article concludes with an indication of how such model-making might extend beyond the museum into fieldwork, using an example from the author’s own practice around an ox-hide copper ingot from Cyprus.

Discontinuities and Resynchronisations

This chapter explores three distinct attempts in Polish film history to use the medium for research into synaesthesia. The first can be found in the films of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson made before the Second World War and after their emigration to Great Britain. Their experimental attitude is exposed through analysis of their work from 1944 entitled The Eye and the Ear. Second, the Experimental Studio of Polish Radio, established in the wake of Stalinism, became an important space where new approaches into investigating of the sound and vision relationship could develop. Primarily oriented towards electroacoustic composition, the studio was also used for producing scores for popular cinema. The third site for exploration was the Workshop of Film Form, a group of artists-filmmakers based in Łódź whose work exposed the primary elements of film language. Their research resulted in some of the best-developed experiments in synaesthesia.

Spiritual Exercises, Improvisation, and Moral Perfectionism

Beginning with Pierre Hadot’s idea of spiritual exercises and Stanley Cavell’s conception of moral perfectionism, this essay argues that improvisation can be understood as a practice of spiritual self-transformation. Focusing on the example of Sonny Rollins, the essay investigates the ways in which Rollins’ improvisations embody a series of philosophical concepts and practices: the care of the self, the Stoic exercise of cosmic consciousness, the problem of moral exemplarity, the ideas, found in the later Foucault, of a limit attitude and an experimental attitude, and so on. The underlying claim of the essay is that improvisation is not only an aesthetic exercise, but also a social and ethical practice that can give rise to existential transformations.

Meditatív nyelvi kísérletek

The first book of Szilárd Borbély, Adatok (1988), did not receive much attention from the readers and the critics, so it has not received any professional reviews. It is a book with eclectic genres, stylistic peculiarities and pathetic tones of the voice, that did not meet the readers’ expectations in the time of regime change. Critics of Borbély’s later books consider it an experiment. No comprehensive interpretations have been written and its place in the oeuvre has not been determined. The book is divergent at the first reading, yet this divergence is consistent. The style is often anachronistic, but the setting is full of experimental solutions, therefore the texts rely heavily on the experimental attitude of avant-garde poems. The study of the text corpus with its essayistic and lyrical details help to rehabilitate the first chapters of the lifework and to discover the topics, motifs and motivations of Borbély’s subsequent books. This essay takes a closer look at the first and only edition of Adatok, including the (essay)poems and related visual parts, the characteristics of Borbély’s first publications prior to this volume, and also the connections between Borbély’s early poems and the avant-garde.

Participation and Causality

A recurring debate within discussions of religion, science, and magic has to do with the existence of distinct modes of thought or “orientations” to the world. The thinker who initiated this debate, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, distinguished two such orientations, one characterized as “participatory” and the other as “causal.” The present essay attempts to clarify what a participatory orientation might involve, making use of the social-psychological category of a “schema.” It argues that while the attitude to which Lévy-Bruhl refers is to be distinguished from an explicit body of doctrine, it does have a cognitive dimension and can embody causal claims. It follows that if such a distinction is to be made, it is not helpfully characterized as a contrast between participation and causality. A better distinction might be that between a mythical and an experimental attitude to the world.