Kristóf Nyíri

Kristóf Nyíri was born and raised in a Budapest suburb and now lives in the village of Dunabogdány in the Danube Bend, with his wife Ilona Tibay (married since 1973) and many pet dogs and cats. He received his MA in philosophy and mathematics from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and his PhD in Philosophy and DSc in Philosophy from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1978 and 1985 respectively.

Prior to his current position as Professor of Philosophy, in the Department of Technical Education, at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Nyíri held the following positions: From 1995–2005 he was Director of the Institute for Philosophical Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,[14] and later, from 2005 to 2007 became a research professor there. From 1971- 2004 Nyíri held roles at Eötvös Loránd University, as Assistant Professor (1971–78), Associate Professor (1978–86), and as full Professor of Philosophy (1986–2004).

In 2009, Nyíri was awarded the Széchenyi Prize, a prize given in Hungary by the state, in recognition of those who have made an outstanding contribution to academic life in Hungary, and received an honorary degree from the University of Pécs, Hungary.

He was elected as member of the Institut International de Philosophie in 2006,[15] that same year (2006/07) he was elected as Leibniz Professor at the University of Leipzig.[2] In 1994 Nyíri was a visiting Fellow at the IFK-International Research Center for Cultural Studies, Vienna and in 1993 he was a European visiting Research Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh at the University of St. Andrews, Centre for Philosophy and Public Affairs.[16]

Nyíri also has held and holds various board memberships: From 1995 to present he is the Honorary President of the Hungarian Wittgenstein Society,[17] Budapest, Hungary. From 1993 to 1998 he was President of the Hungarian Philosophical Association, Budapest, Hungary, and since 1987 he has been an Advisory Board Member at Forschungsstelle für österreichische Philosophie in Graz, Austria.

From the works of Plato, Dewey, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, Nyíri reads that social communication has always been a decisive philosophical question. Nyíri claims that today's dominant communication media, the cell phone, with its ability to transmit multimedia messages that convey far more than speech alone, is a unique device satisfying primordial human needs.[8] In Wittgenstein's work Nyíri finds the theoretical background for modern mobile communication. A main thesis in Wittgenstein is that pictures are an important component in communication; rather than explicit speech, which has a clear temporal direction, pictures also have a spatial dimension, and in particular a sequence of images is a natural carrier of meaning and can convey complex conceptual messages unambiguously. Devices that transmit multimedia messages can contain speech but also images and sounds that describe states of affairs with a richness not found before. Nyíri presents the mobile phone as the instrument which makes possible a new integration of imagery, orality and literacy, a new art of collective thought, and one that defines a new sense of space and time.[8] Nyíri was also heavily influenced by the works of Wilfrid Sellars, Eric Havelock and Walter J. Ong.

Nyíri's work has been criticized on two main points, namely his position that Wittgenstein was a philosopher of conservatism and his interpretation that images can convey meaning without the accompaniment of words.

Nigel Pleasants opposes Nyiri's beliefs that Wittgenstein was a philosopher of conservatism.[18] Pleasants contends that “the extent to which Wittgenstein can be said to be conservative lies in his rigorous skepticism regarding the power of philosophical theory to yield representation of the ‘essential nature’ of mental and epistemic phenomena,”[19] (Current Issues in Political Philosophy, Justice and Welfare in Society and World Order, Papers of the 19th International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg am Wechsel, 1996, p. 292).

In the compendium, Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy, Nyiri is referenced repeatedly. In the introduction, Cressida Heyes mentions Nyiri’s interpretation of the later Wittgenstein’s writings as supporting a conservative worldview, in alignment with his social circle and their intellectual predilection in Vienna at the time; she goes on to cite similar views (e.g. Gellner, Bloor and Winch) as well as opposing views (e.g. Eagleton)[20] (p. 4,5). In a further article, the Limits of Conservatism, David Cerborne opposes Nyiri’s views as he claims “the pictures at the heart of the conservative-mind reading must be shown to be a target of Wittgenstein’s criticism rather than a cornerstone of it.” (p 48, 51).

In the volume Essays on Wittgenstein and Austrian Philosophy: In Honour of J.C. Nyíri, Herbert Hrachovec debates the interpretation of the later Wittgenstein that images can convey meaning without the accompaniment of words. As Hrachovec sees the matter, "Nyíri's tendency to paint Wittgenstein as an, albeit hesitant, pictorialist" (p. 205), is definitely an exaggeration.[21]