REF.07 own project · centralconcepts.org · 2026
A 200-concept atlas with an evidentiary taxonomy of intellectual lineage
A bilingual atlas of 200 concepts and 1,131 relations pairing conceptual briefings with an explicit classification of Central European intellectual lineages — separating documented influence from anticipation, parallel discovery and counterpoint.
- T1–T2Regional author · Documented influenceIntellectual formation · citation trail
- T3–T4Anticipation · Parallel discoveryCausal claim explicitly barred
- T5–T6Historical experience · CounterpointTranslation bridge PL / EN / orig.
- Concepts / graph edges
- 200 / 1,131
- Relation types / evidence states
- 6 / 4
- Titles restored in canonicalisation
- 63
- Bilingual corpus (PL + EN)
- 2 × 200
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Problem
Histories of ideas from a specific region easily slip into two traps: either claiming local influence wherever a superficial thematic resemblance appears, or adopting late Anglo-American labels with no trace of earlier intellectual formation. Without a strict taxonomy of relation types, every coincidence looks like proof of dependency.
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Approach
A corpus of 200 concepts across 10 categories was distilled from six independent synthesis runs and connected into a single connected graph component (1,131 edges, zero isolated nodes). For the lineage layer, six mutually exclusive relation types were defined (regional author, documented influence, anticipation, parallel discovery, historical experience, counterpoint) alongside three investigation states and four evidentiary statuses. A boundary rule qualifies individuals by intellectual formation in the region rather than birthplace alone, and forbids implying causal influence under "anticipation" without a citation or correspondence trail.
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Outcome
Shipped as two twin editions — "Styl myślowy" (PL) and "Central Concepts" (EN) — with 200 briefings in each language, 200 illustrations and a "translation bridge" recording original, Polish and English editions along with translation lag. Multi-pass adversarial verification rejected overstretched hypotheses (such as pairing Neurath's boat against Chesterton's fence) and separated text translation lag (67 years for Neyman 1923 → 1990) from the earlier circulation of the underlying idea.
The project’s core boundary rule separates documented influence (an explicit citation, footnote, preface or letter — such as Timur Kuran’s 1991 citation of Václav Havel’s 1978 essay) from anticipation and parallel discovery. Popular writing lumps all three under “we said it first”. In an evidentiary taxonomy, anticipation receives its own category and an explicit prohibition against implying causal transmission.
A second boundary rule governs regional qualification: intellectual formation decides, not birthplace. Jerzy Neyman studied in Kharkiv and worked in Bydgoszcz, publishing his potential-outcomes notation in Polish in 1923 — a confirmed regional author. Benoît Mandelbrot was born in Warsaw but left as a child — the rule bars claiming him as a Central European lineage for the Lindy effect.
What this engagement does not cover
Four pilot briefings currently hold full post-verification status (po-weryfikacji) after multi-pass primary-source checks. The remaining 196 corpus entries have passed editorial review and automated schema validation, and remain explicitly badged as draft (szkic) in the UI until each lineage claim is signed off individually.