July 2000

5 July 2000

Dear Mr Lee

Herewith we are informing you that on 7-8 September, 2000 an International Conference "New Prospects of scientific and technological and production cooperation of Russia with foreign states" is to be held in Nizhny Novgorod.

To participate in the forthcoming Conference we are glad to invite a representative from your Ministry and two persons representing business circles.

The working languages of the Conference are Russian, German and English. For further information please contact Ms Golovina (tel.: 456 899 01)

Looking forward for your prompt reply, I remain

Sincerely yours,

Vladimir Yugin

Minister

аспирантура (канд. экз.)

Экзаменационный билет (на 2 листах) по дисциплине

английский язык

(специальность: онтология и теория познания)

Task I. Translate from English into Russian in writing using a dictionary. Your time is 45 minutes

Whatever the content of the ideal-type ... it has only one function in an empirical investigation. Its function is the comparison with empirical reality in order to establish its divergencies or similarities . . . and to understand and explain them causally.

However, Weber never really makes clear what kind of explanatory pay-off this procedure actually yields. Merely to show that there is indeed a lack of correspondence between ideal-type and empirical reality is not a discovery guaranteed to set the pulse racing. In the first place, there is almost bound to be such lack of fit, given the way that ideal-types are constructed. If we are required to select a few key components from among the possible range of components, and to give these what Weber calls a "one-sided accentuation", then it follows that almost any empirical case will diverge from the pure type. More­over, it is by no means obvious what possible causal inferences could be drawn from this fact. Indeed, the very notion of causality seems out of place here. Any divergences between ideal-type and reality are a direct function of the manner in which the ideal-type was originally con­structed. Had we chosen to select and emphasize a different set of elements we should have discovered a different set of discrepancies. How could we be sure that the discrepancies we found were not 'caused' simply by the sloppiness of our original construct?

Material research

Material research is not new, but the interdisciplinary as­pects of materials research now are receiving considerable emphasis. It has been only since chemists, physicists, metallurgists, ceramicists, polymer chemists, and other scientists began studying the detailed structure and properties of materials that the fundamental relationships underlying basic materials phe­nomena have begun to be understood.

It was not until recently that it has become increasingly evident that the rapid exploitation of new discoveries and their incorporation into the technology depends largely on the com­bined effects of research scientists and engineers drawn from several different disciplines.

Task II. Translate the letter from English into Russian without a dictionary. Your time is 5-7 minutes

Sadovaya'Kudrinskaya str.

Russian Federation

Dear Minister

Thank you for your interest to meet representatives of the Brandenburg State Government, especially Prime Minister Dr. Manfred Stoipe, during your stay in the Federal Republic of Germany from April 25"' to April 26"' 2000.

It is my pleasure to invite you to the state of Brandenburg. A copy of your request has been.mailed to the office of the Prime Minister for coordinating purposes.

Sincerely yours

Dr. Wolfgang FьrniЯ

аспирантура (канд. экз.)

Экзаменационный билет (на 2 листах) по дисциплине

английский язык

(специальность: онтология и теория познания)

Task I. Translate from English into Russian in writing using a dictionary. Your time is 45 minutes

What counts as a social fact is very much determined by the moral spectacles through which we view the world. Weber is sca­thingly dismissive of those theorists who urge us to evacuate our minds of all presuppositions in order that we might perceive social reality in all its purity. This was a doctrine that even Durkheim, of all people, occasionally espoused. In his own treatise on method, Durkheim says that when investigating social life "All preconceptions must be eradi­cated. [This is] ... the basis of all scientific method." His repeated emphasis on the need to treat social facts as 'things' also implies a sturdy, no-nonsense approach to the problem.

For Weber, on the other hand, since the eradication of all pre­conceptions was not humanly possible, the social construction of facts was extremely problematic. Because social facts only existed by virtue of the concepts employed to define and organise them, we could in effect bring new facts into being and dispose of others simply by altering our conceptual frame of reference. Entities like social classes, for example, could be abolished at a single conceptual stroke. Now you see them, now you don't.

Weber's insistence that all theoretical constructs are shot through with biases of one kind or another is not easy to reconcile with the explanatory claims he makes on behalf of ideal-types.

The overwhelming problems of today are forcing the disciplines to seek advice from one another.

Not only does the blending of various disciplines result in enhanced research, but modern materials systems themselves often are created from the integration of two or more materials. These systems do result in new materials having properties not previously available.

It is the lack of materials that are adequate to meet the needs imposed on them that many of the holding problems in our technological development stem from.

Task II. Translate the letter from English into Russian without a dictionary. Your time is 5-7 minutes

July 18,2000

Dear Mr. Petrov

I would like to inform you that I left my position as Minister of International Trade and Industry on July 4.

Mr. Hiranuma has been appointed as my successor. I hope that you will accord him the same goodwill and assistance you have granted me.

Please accept my best wishes. Respectfully yours,

Takashi Fukaya

Ministry of International Trade and Industry

аспирантура (канд. экз.)

Экзаменационный билет (на 2 листах) по дисциплине

английский язык

(специальность: онтология и теория познания)

Task I. Translate from English into Russian in writing using a dictionary. Your time is 45 minutes

Suppose, for example, we wished to construct an ideal type of 'democracy'. One possibility would be to highlight features such as free elections, competing political parties, legal right of opposition, the separation of powers, and the guarantee of civil liberties. Using this as our ideal-type of democracy, we would find that communist or socialist systems diverged considerably from it. Western political systems, by contrast, would show a much closer approximation to it. On that basis, we could conclude that western capitalist systems were more democratic than socialist systems. However, it would be quite feasible to construct an ideal-type of democracy that gave one-sided emphasis to a different set of criteria. The key features could be regarded as the absence of a property-owning or exploiting class, and the absence of those gross inequalities of wealth that effectively concentrate power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many, notwithstanding the latter's purely formal liberties and rights. Measured against this conceptual yardstick, western capitalist states would tend to show greater divergence from the pure type than many socialist states. Socialist states could thus be judged more democratic. Because both constructs are morally slanted, and inevitably so, it is hard to see how either of them could claim explanatory superiority over the other. This is the problem with all ideal-types.

Design for decision

Throughout this book I must have been critical of people who produce beautiful thoughts with little or no data behind them. Some readers may have felt that the decision-maker is a cold-hearted, even grim, method of making decisions. These readers might admit that a machine may be all right for making the scientific decisions or even commercial decisions, but they may have felt that Statistical Decision had no place in their world, that it is meaningless insofar as personal, governmental, or international decisions are concerned.

I disagree with this point of view. I think that Statistical Decision must have played a useful role in a wider class of decisions which have a direct influence on all of us.

Task II. Translate the letter from English into Russian without a dictionary. Your time is 5-7 minutes

Dear Mrs. Fonaryova:

The 37^th World Advertising Congress, "London 2000", will be held in London from 6 June through 9 June. This biennial Congress, is very the traditional gathering place of top professionals.

We believe that your participation in this event of world importance will be important.

Considering your great contribution to the development of the Russian advertising business, we are confident that your contacts with leaders of the advertising industry from around the world will have a positive effect on the further development of the advertising market in Russia.

Sincerely,

аспирантура (канд. экз.)

Экзаменационный билет (на 2 листах) по дисциплине

английский язык

(специальность: онтология и теория познания)

Task I. Translate from English into Russian in writing using a dictionary. Your time is 45 minutes

It is at least arguable that ideal-types tell us less about social reality than about the inbuilt preconceptions of the investigator. Weber virtually says this much himself. To pit one version of reality against another involves, ultimately, a conflict of moralities.

It must be recognized that general views of life and the universe can never be the products of increasing empirical knowledge, and that the highest ideals, which move us most forcefully, are always formed only in the struggle with other ideals which are just as sacred to others as ours are to us.

This being the case, Weber would not seem to be the most likely candidate to champion the cause of 'value-free' social theory. How could sociology ever attain neutrality if its operational tools were saturated with the observer's own values and preconceptions? Given his views on the status of knowledge as an inescapably social and moral construct, it is at first blush puzzling that Weber should have raised such loud and insistent demands for the exclusion of value-judgements from sociological observations.

The puzzle is only partly resolved when it becomes apparent that Weber's demands on this score were rather modest and limited in scope. All he really asked was that scholars should refrain from openly pro­claiming their personal views on matters of social fact.

I certainly do not consider Statistical Decision to be a panacea. It is one method among many methods of reaching decisions. It is not necessarily the best method; there are situations in which intuitive procedures lead to more effective decisions than any existing Decision-Maker. In fact, I think that most people must have already used many of the principles in making their decisions. You may have felt that such con­cepts as mathematical expectations were new and unfamiliar. However, I am sure that you have had to make decisions on the basis of expectations, when you have had to combine probabilities and desirabilities (though you may not have used these names).

Task II. Translate the letter from English into Russian without a dictionary. Your time is 5-7 minutes

To: Mr Takashi KOEZUKA

Deputy Secretary General

Re: 10^th Anniversary of Antimonopoly Bodies.