On the benefit of the humanities

a) Let us begin with the exceptions: certain research directions reveal facts and relationships which can be directly exploited in policy development, especially in economics, sociology and political and legal science, and often the researchers themselves formulate suggestions for policy makers. Research is partly initiated by public administration authorities, who hope that reliable results are to be received from researchers who are theoretically and methodologically well-prepared, have been selected on their scientific excellence and are politically independent. Another group which is an exception is linguistic research, the results of which are widely used in several fields, from information science to the medical sciences. Certain types of research in economics, such as the exploration of networks or mechanism planning, also provide results directly applicable to economic life. The benefit of the humanities is indicated by the fast-growing need for philosophers, men of letters, text analysts specialised in the development of the mentalisation skills of company executives and artificial intelligence (see Appendix below).

b) However, such directly applicable results are not expected from research in the humanities, history, archeology, and the majority of research in economics, sociology or legal science – either in Hungary or abroad. These sciences serve humanity in a different manner: they reveal social facts only detectable with scientific methods, they enrich our knowledge about the past and the present, they help in the maintenance and understanding of Hungarian cultural heritage, and they create and spread theoretical frameworks. For example, the Max Planck Research Networks maintain and finance institutes in the following fields: history; sociology; art history; linguistics; archeology; legal science; demography; anthropology; pedagogy; public health; minority studies; psycholinguistics; gerontology; public welfare; public finances and social policy.

c) Irrespective of the field, high-level research in the humanities and social sciences creates extensive international relationship networks. This brings foreign currency into the country, finances wages and taxes, contributes to the view that Hungary is part of the civilised world and also broadens the knowledge of its participants and, as such, that of the whole society.

d) At least one-third of the study time of students passing their final exam after twelve years of schooling is spent studying humanities-based subjects. High-quality teaching materials can only be produced if the results of research which takes place in the research institutes of the Academy (i.e. Institutes for History, Literary Studies, Musicology, Philosophy, Linguistics) are taken into consideration.

Naturally, it is imperative that, in accordance with Article X of the Fundamental Law of Hungary, the Academy’s institutes dealing with the humanities and social sciences should be regularly evaluated by independent groups made up of Hungarian and foreign scientists and political analysts. If the results are not satisfactory, definite steps should be taken. Concerning the frequency and organisational questions and criteria of these evaluations, a well-established agreement should be reached by MTA, the government representing the interests of taxpayers, the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (ITM) and EMMI, which is the ministry responsible for culture, education, social affairs, family and youth issues, and health, and also the Ministry of Finance (PM). It should be taken into consideration that the Academy’s institutes for humanities and social sciences pursue research in order to explore and understand problems and the historical and present day development of fields managed by EMMI and PM.

Appendix: three examples the humanities’ economic utilisation

Computational linguistics

Computational linguistics is a very important application of linguistic research. This field includes machine translation between languages and the understanding of spoken language and the generation of answers by computers. As Gábor Prószéky put it: “A fast and precise text-analysing programme may provide invaluable help for professionals whose task is very complex and special. A neurosurgeon, for example, might require extra information while performing surgery, which might help him make a good decision in seconds.” These applications are based on basic linguistic research, the creation of large corpora and the analysis of these data with the help of machine learning algorithms. Research into Hungarian and the building of different corpora enhance the effectiveness and precision of computational programs analysing spoken Hungarian or the translation of text into spoken form. Furthermore, such programmes also help speakers of Hungarian in their work or other activities. Applications of computational linguistics are themselves innovative market services. Basic and applied research pursued in the MTA Institute for Linguistics play a fundamental role in these fields.

Innovation, management and marketing decisions in the market

The wide range of tools in economics offers the opportunity for decision-making support to Hungarian companies in terms of innovation. Joint projects with basic research experts are often desirable, as companies get cheap access to knowledge which is fresh, readily applicable and which cannot be obtained from consulting companies, as they are not motivated in the exploration of these new directions and are not research experts. The widely developed database of the MTA Research Centre for Economic and Regional Studies (KRTK), which is unique in Europe, helps to find answers to questions such as what work experience and what kind of social network a new employee should have so that they can make the company more profitable. The researchers in the Institute of Economics, MTA KRTK, cooperate with several innovative Hungarian companies to create new methods of identifying opinion leaders among the company’s customers who can promote the products and services of the company in their environment. The exploration and identification of such partners can help widen the market for the products of innovative Hungarian companies.

Coaching executive managers and the development of artificial intelligence

Mentalisation is the ability to identify different mental states (ideas, knowledge, feelings such as longing or disgust, pretence or openness, anger or adoration, knowledge or confusion), both in ourselves or others. With the help of this ability we can understand how and why others’ mental states are different from our own. The experimental results published in Science by Kidd and Castano (2013) prove that the mentalisation ability of people is enhanced by reading quality literary texts. The development of mentalisation skills is a field gaining more and more importance in the professional coaching process of executive leaders of companies. This is indicated by the growing demand for professionals in the humanities, for example, philosophers, literary scientists, and art historians in their respective fields (Hartley, S.: The Fuzzy and the Techie. Why Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital world. New York: Mariner Books, 2017). The development of mentalisation skills also plays a crucial role in the research into artificial intelligence. This skill is needed, for example, for self-driving cars to making good decisions in complex traffic situations, including human reactions.

30 January 2019

Written by János Köllő, with help from Károly Fazekas, Attila Havas, Balázs Lengyel and Balázs Muraközy.