The essays in this volume are a contribution to this process of reappraisal, focusing specifically on the phenomena of scepticism and millenarianism, especially ...

In her chapter on Judith Butler’s Parting Ways, Seyla Benhabib revisits not only Levinas’s statements on Israel but also Butler’s response to them. Several of Levinas’s statements on the State of Israel were made either before the state came into existence or just as it was forming. And several of Levinas’s statements about the hostility that Israel faces were made not about the Palestinian but about the threats to Israel from its neighboring Arab states. In this (...) essay, I revisit those statements and Butler’s response, in order to place them in their proper context. My aim is to ask what we can learn by revisiting these comments when placed in their original context as opposed to thinking of them as comments about Israel in its more contemporary struggles. (shrink)

The purpose of this research is to examine how a national minority, in our case Israeli Arabs, perceives its representations in the media during a global pandemic. The importance of this research is in gaining a better understanding of the perceptions of such minorities during global crises so that it can serve as a framework for various similar studies. Israeli Arabs were perceived as those who did not obey the instructions of the Ministry of Health and the government of (...) class='Hi'>Israel during the pandemic. Therefore, this study asks: “How and in what ways do Israeli Arabs perceive their representations in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic?” Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to answer this question. The findings show that the interviewees believe that the media did not represent them properly but in a stereotypical way, and that the government and media should have adjusted health instructions in a way that is compatible with their culture. The research concludes that the media have the responsibility of ensuring an overall representation of minorities that is adequate and positive. (shrink)

Using the social-psychological literature on the antecedents of environmental behaviour and comparative data from Germany, India, Israel and South Korea, we test four value types that correspond with environmental behaviour. Our cross-national context represents varying social, economic, cultural and environmental configurations, giving credence to the effects of values. The authors collected survey data among students on a variety of environmental behaviours and on questions that comprise Schwartz's value scale. The results show similarities between the countries in the effect of (...) biospheric values and differences in the effects of the other values tested. We also find that biospheric value is the most important value type for explaining environmental behaviour, and that biospheric values, universalism and benevolence - three key values that we analyse - have different effects on environmental behaviour, and therefore should be treated separately rather than in a unified self-transcendence value orientation. We finally demonstrate the importance of conformity in the analysis of environmental behaviour. Our conclusions point to the importance of further exploring the mechanism that links values and environmental behaviour while contextualising it in different national and cultural settings. (shrink)

Once shunned, interdisciplinarity has now become fashionable-but badly in need of unpacking. The transfer of ideas from one field to another requires full understanding of the ways in which they are used and understood, where they come from and where they are going. This book calls attention to certain linguistic tools that served scholars in the past and that are still relevant today-if properly employed. It offers a roadmap that inter-relates problems within and between the sciences-human and natural. Throughout, the (...) book interpolates excerpts from scholarly texts that light the road. Spelling out how research may go beyond the mere assembly of facts, it invites the reader to join a sequence of steps that highlights the processes which problem solving entails. Ruth Katz (Ph.D. Columbia University) is one of the founding members of the Department of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Upon receiving the prestigious Israel Prize in 2012, her work was cited for shedding light on such things as the interdisciplinary processes implicated in "the origin of opera, the history of Western notation, the relationship of stylistic change to the history of ideas, music's place in philosophy, and the role of musical aesthetics in cognition." She founded the Excellence Program at the University and co-founded the Laboratory for the study of music. Her most recent book, hailed as "magisterial," is entitled A Language of Its Own: Sense and Meaning in the Making of Western Art Music (University of Chicago Press, 2009). It is an analysis of the decisions that underlay the crafting and understanding of stylistic change. (shrink)

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) was an Israeli philosopher and scientist. For decades, his thinking and persona were the embodiment of a Judaism in Israel. Getting to know him is getting to know a great Israeli thinker and also invites a window into the life of Israel and its problems.

Historically, male sexual fitness was framed by a patriarchal politics of life centred on regeneration, population and nation. In the later 20th century, as successful ageing became promoted by the lifestyle practices of an idealized healthy and active senior citizenry, traditional gerontocratic power over the sexual risks of youth gave way to a medical sexology concerned with sexual functionality across the lifecourse; in particular, erectility. Recently, erectile dysfunction has expanded to become a population-wide health problem with increasingly refined diagnoses based (...) on `phases', `early warning signs' and preventative regimes, especially as Viagra has become so widely available. This article explores a new bodily configuration in the making; arising, on the one hand, from the pharmacological and scientific technologization of male sexuality, and, on the other, from a contemporary politics of life that both contests the late-life ageism of the past and fosters a mid-life ageism in the present. (shrink)

For much of its brief history, the field of environmental ethics has been critical of anthropocentrism. I here undertake a pragmatic reconsideration of anthropocentrism. In the first part of this essay, I explain what a pragmatic reconsideration of anthropocentrism means. I differentiate two distinct pragmatic strategies, one substantive and one methodological, and I adopt methodological pragmatism as my guiding principle. In the second part of this essay, I examine a case study of environmental policy—the problem of beach replenishment on Fire (...) Island, New York—as a pragmatic test of anthropocentrism. I conclude that the debate between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism needs to be expressed in non-absolutist terms, i.e., in a language that permits compromise, flexibility, and a pluralism of values. Thechoice between anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism as the basis of both environmental policy and environmental ethics is highly contextual and thus requires a subtle examination of the concrete policy situation. (shrink)

Characterizing different kinds of representation is of fundamental importance to cognitive science, and one traditional way of doing so is in terms of the analog–digital distinction. Indeed the distinction is often appealed to in ways both narrow and broad. In this paper I argue that the analog–digital distinction does not apply to representational schemes but only to representational systems, where a representational system is constituted by a representational scheme and its user, and that whether a representational system is analog or (...) non-analog depends on facts about that user. This aspect of the distinction has gone unnoticed, and I argue that the failure to notice it can be an impediment to scientific progress. (shrink)

This paper deals with the two-envelope paradox. Two main formulations of the paradoxical reasoning are distinguished, which differ according to the partition of possibilities employed. We argue that in the first formulation the conditionals required for the utility assignment are problematic; the error is identified as a fallacy of conditional reasoning. We go on to consider the second formulation, where the epistemic status of certain singular propositions becomes relevant; our diagnosis is that the states considered do not exhaust the possibilities. (...) Thus, on our approach to the paradox, the fallacy, in each formulation, is found in the reasoning underlying the relevant utility matrix; in both cases, the paradoxical argument goes astray before one gets to questions of probability or calculations of expected utility. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article starts from the analysis of the work “La sfida della convivenza”, by Italian philosopher Alberto Pirni, to establish with it a dialogue around the principle of fraternity. In his essay, Pirni offers an essential lexicon to discuss the possibilities of social coexistence between different individuals, groups, communities and cultures in contemporary societies. The first part of the article offers a summary of the ideas of the author, who seeks to deepen the meaning of key concepts for the (...) intercultural debate through a prevalently philosophical lens. In the second part, we establish a dialogue between Pirni's work and the reflections on the principle of fraternity, in its ethical and normative dimensions. The debate is based, above all, on the Italian, French and Brazilian literature about the theme. The central thesis is that the idea of fraternity can serve as guiding principle to the intercultural ethics defended by Pirni, as long as it is stripped of the excluding or reductive logics that still today is attributed to it. In the concluding remarks, we offer a brief reflection on the possibilities of using the idea offraternity as an intercultural ethical principle around which to structure deliberation spaces within multicultural societies. RESUMO Este artigo parte da análise da obra “La sfida della convivenza”, do filósofo italiano Alberto Pirni, para estabelecer com ela um diálogo acerca do princípio da fraternidade. No ensaio em questão, Pirni oferece um léxico essencial para discutir as possibilidades da convivência entre diferentes -indivíduos, grupos, comunidades, culturas - nas sociedades contemporâneas. A primeira parte do artigo oferece um resumo das ideias apresentadas pelo autor, que busca aprofundar o sentido de conceitos-chave para o debate intercultural através de uma lente prevalentemente filosófica. Na segunda parte, estabelece-se um diálogo entre a obra de Pirni e as reflexões acerca do princípio da fraternidade, em suas dimensões éticas e normativas. O debate é feito com base nas literaturas italiana, francesa e brasileira acerca do tema. A tese central é que a ideia de fraternidade possa inserir-se na ética intercultural defendida por Pirni e servir-lhe como princípio-guia, desde que despojada das lógicas excludentes ou redutivas que ainda hoje lhe são atribuídas. A título de conclusão, apresenta-se uma breve reflexão sobre as possibilidades acerca do uso da ideia de fraternidade como um princípio ético intercultural em torno do qual estruturar espaços de deliberação dentro de sociedades multiculturais. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

The immune surveillance theory postulates that spontaneous tumors are normally rejected by the immune system and appear only when they override host‐immune recognition and rejection mechanisms. The present mini‐review describes a spontaneous tumor system, the reticulum cell sarcomas (RCS) in SJL/J mice, that is dependent on host tumor‐specific immune lymphocytes for growth. This continuous tumor‐specific response results in tumor progression and death of the host. This tumor system contradicts the basic concept of immune surveillance. We propose as an explanation that (...) some highly antigenic tumors, like the RCS, may have evolved in a non‐autonomous fashion but, nevertheless, have lost regulatory controls of cell proliferation. In the RCS system, the tumor expresses Class II MHC I‐E like specificities that are not expressed on the host cells and which selectively stimulate a subpopulation of I‐E specific T cells, the Vβ17a+ clonotype, leading to their expansion and continuous nurturing of the tumor via secreted lymphokines. This neoantigenic stimulation bypasses the tumor regulatory response that might have resulted if the tumor had not expressed neo‐antigens. Furthermore, passive administration of anti‐clonotypic antibody to tumor‐bearing mice results in tumor regression and long‐term survival through removal of the tumor reactive T cells. Thus, in this tumor system, immunosuppressive treatments are the prescription for tumor rejection. (shrink)

Jerrold Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism.

Katz offers such a grammatical account, in which makes it possible for the first time to explain the illocutionary potential of sentences within grammar.

In _Realistic Rationalism_, Jerrold J. Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. Realism here means that the objects of study in mathematics and other formal sciences are abstract; rationalism means that our knowledge of them is not empirical. Katz uses this position to meet the principal challenges to realism. In exposing the flaws in criticisms of the antirealists, he shows that realists can explain knowledge of abstract objects without supposing we have causal contact with them, (...) that numbers are determinate objects, and that the standard counterexamples to the abstract/concrete distinction have no force. Generalizing the account of knowledge used to meet the challenges to realism, he develops a rationalist and non-naturalist account of philosophical knowledge and argues that it is preferable to contemporary naturalist and empiricist accounts. The book illuminates a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of necessity, the distinction between the formal and natural sciences, empiricist holism, the structure of ontology, and philosophical skepticism. Philosophers will use this fresh treatment of realism and rationalism as a starting point for new directions in their own research. (shrink)

In _Realistic Rationalism_, Jerrold J. Katz develops a new philosophical position integrating realism and rationalism. Realism here means that the objects of study in mathematics and other formal sciences are abstract; rationalism means that our knowledge of them is not empirical. Katz uses this position to meet the principal challenges to realism. In exposing the flaws in criticisms of the antirealists, he shows that realists can explain knowledge of abstract objects without supposing we have causal contact with them, (...) that numbers are determinate objects, and that the standard counterexamples to the abstract/concrete distinction have no force. Generalizing the account of knowledge used to meet the challenges to realism, he develops a rationalist and non-naturalist account of philosophical knowledge and argues that it is preferable to contemporary naturalist and empiricist accounts. The book illuminates a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of necessity, the distinction between the formal and natural sciences, empiricist holism, the structure of ontology, and philosophical skepticism. Philosophers will use this fresh treatment of realism and rationalism as a starting point for new directions in their own research. (shrink)

The debate that raged in the interwar period between the Austrian economists and socialist economists was, narrowly conceived, a debate in positive economics. What was being discussed was certainly not the morality of capitalism or of socialism. Nor, strictly speaking, was the debate even about society's economic well-being under socialism; it concerned the ability of central planners to make decisions that take appropriate account of relevant resource scarcities, in the light of consumer preference rankings. To be sure, the extraordinary interest (...) which surrounded the debate and the passions that lurked barely below its surface testified to the powerful implications of the debate for crucial issues in welfare economics. The Austrians were not merely exploring the economies of socialism; they were in effect demonstrating that, as an economic system attempting to serve the needs of its citizens, socialism must inevitably fail. But, even if the debate is interpreted in its broadest terms, as a debate in welfare economics, it represented a sharp break widi traditional polemics relating to the socialism-capitalism issue. Traditionally the arguments for or against capitalism had, until 1920, been deeply involved in ediical questions. Mises's 1920 challenge to socialism, in contrast, was explicit in making no attempt to address any claims concerning the alleged moral superiority of socialism. He simply argued that, as an economic system, socialism was inherendy incapable of fulfilling the objectives of its proponents; central planners are unable to plan centrally. (shrink)

In light of the sharp linguistic turn philosophy has taken in this century, this collection provides a much-needed and long-overdue reference for philosophical discussion. The first collection of its kind, it explores questions of the nature and existence of linguistic objects--including sentences and meanings--and considers the concept of truth in linguistics. The status of linguistics and the nature of language now take a central place in discussions of the nature of philosophy; the essays in this volume both inform these discussions (...) and lay the groundwork for further examination. (shrink)

Israel Scheffler is the pre-eminent philosopher of education in the English-speaking world today. This volume collects seventeen original, invited papers on Scheffler's philosophy of education by scholars from around the world. The papers address the wide range of topics that Scheffler's work in philosophy of education has addressed, including the aims of education, cognition and emotion, teaching, the language of education, science education, moral education, religious education, and human potential. Each paper is followed by a response from Scheffler himself. (...) The collection is essential reading for anyone concerned with contemporary scholarship in philosophy of education, or with the place of this singularly important author in it. (shrink)

A Conversation with Claire Katz about her book, Levinas and the Crisis of Humanism.

Our understanding of the nature and processing of figurative language is central to several important issues in cognitive science, including the relationship of language and thought, how we process language, and how we comprehend abstract meaning. Over the past fifteen years, traditional approaches to these issues have been challenged by experimental psychologists, linguists, and other cognitive scientists interested in the structures of the mind and the processes that operate on them. In Figurative Language and Thought, internationally recognized experts in the (...) field of figurative language, Albert Katz, Mark Turner, Raymond W. Gibbs Jr., and Cristina Cacciari, provide a coherent and focused debate on the subject. The book's authors discuss a variety of fundamental questions, including: What can figures of speech tell us about the structure of the conceptual system? If and how should we distinguish the literal from the nonliteral in our theories of language and thought? Are we primarily figurative thinkers and consequently figurative language users or the other way around? Why do we prefer to speak metaphorically in everyday conversation, when literal options may be available for use? Is metaphor the only vehicle through which we can understand abstract concepts? What role do cultural and social factors play in our comprehension of figurative language? These and related questions are raised and argued in an integrative look at the role of nonliteral language in cognition. This volume, a part of Counterpoints series, will be thought-provoking reading for a wide range of cognitive psychologists, linguists, and philosophers. (shrink)

This discussion focuses on two important trends in American childbirth that have emerged in the past 30 years, the demand for a perfect baby and the desire for a perfect birth. These two trends are particularly important in the subgroup of middle-class women who have decided on delayed childbearing. Tremendous technological innovations, such as ultra-sound, prenatal genetic analysis, and fetal monitoring, have promoted the perception that physicians can control the prenatal environment and predict the pregnancy outcome. This expectation may lead (...) to bitterness and anger in the event of an adverse pregnancy outcome. In contrast, women and their families have also come to desire more control over the birth experience. If the parents’ birth plan is not achieved and their expectations not fulfilled, many parents feel they have not performed well. When the physician acts as a guide in the birth process, parents and physicians together may transcend the conflict to achieve a more satisfactory birth experience. (shrink)

We develop an evidence-based theoretical account of how widely shared cultural beliefs about gender, race, and class intersect in interpersonal and other social relational contexts in the United States to create characteristic cultural “binds” and freedoms for actors in those contexts. We treat gender, race, and class as systems of inequality that are culturally constructed as distinct but implicitly overlap through their defining beliefs, which reflect the perspectives of dominant groups in society. We cite evidence for the contextually contingent interactional (...) “binds” and freedoms this creates for people such as Asian men, Black women, and poor whites who are not prototypical of images embedded in cultural gender, race, and class beliefs. All forms of unprototypicality create “binds,” but freedoms result from being unprototypical of disadvantaging rather than advantaging statuses. (shrink)

Central to Buber's philosophy of I-Thou is his understanding of the related notions of dialogue and revelation and his espousal of a non-propositional account of revelation framed in the language and structure of personal dialogical encounter. The consequent re-interpretation of revelation in this form has been widely influential in contemporary theological circles, especially among those theologians and philosophers of religion broadly known as existentialists. However, the wide dissemination and influence of this position does not guarantee its validity. This paper will (...) try to show that the dialogical account of revelation, at least in the form given it by Buber, is logically and philosophically deficient, being based on a set of misleading analogies between inter-human and Divine-human relations. (shrink)

Ethics and mysticism, we are regularly instructed, are if not antithetical, then certainly, at the very least, unrelated. This common wisdom is predicated on a specific understanding of morality and a flawed, though widespread, conception of mysticism and mystical traditions. It is yet another distorted and distorting manifestation of the still more universal misapprehension that mystics are essentially arch-individualists, ‘Lone Rangers’ of the spirit, whose sole intention is to escape the religious environments that spawned them in order to find personal (...) liberation or salvation. Accordingly, mystics are portrayed as rebels and heretics, antinomians and spiritual revolutionaries, if not also underminers of existing social and religious structures. But this characterization, despite its popularity, needs revision. In this essay it is not possible to argue all the detailed reasons why this construal is simply incorrect, but, as a shorthand summary of a much larger, more complex interpretative reconstruction, I would call attention to the fact that mystics share not only the metaphysical problematic, the metaphysical diagnosis of existence, as this is conceptualized within their particular traditions, but also view its overcoming or deconstruction in ways consistent with the teachings of their ‘faith’mmunities. They are, that is to say, fully situated in the ontological, theological, and social contexts of their traditions. Essentially, they share the Weltanschauung of their inherited circumstance and seek to realize, experience, the ‘solutions’ proposed by their tradition. (shrink)

Having considered the role of ethics in Indian mystical teachings in a previous, related, essay I would like to consider the same question in its western religious contexts in the present paper, beginning with the Christian mystical tradition. As is the case with Asian traditions charges of moral unconcern are widely directed at Christian mystics, but they are false. Christian mystics are not indifferent to morality nor do they disconnect morality from an intrinsic relationship to their mystical quest. Augustine would (...) already teach that the story of Leah and Rachel was an instructive allegory in which the active life represented by Leah was intrinsic to the contemplative life represented by Rachel while Gregory the Great would unambiguously assert: ‘We ascend to the heights of contemplation by the steps of the active life’, defining the active life as: ‘to dispense to all what they need and to provide those entrusted to us with the means of subsistence’. These representative early samples of the salience of ethical behaviour to the life of contemplation could be multiplied at great length, and almost without exception in the teaching of the major Christian mystics. This historical exegetical exercise, however, is in the present circumstances, both out of place and I hope unnecessary. Instead, the more general, more enigmatic, more repercussive, issues raised by the place and significance of morality within the Christian mystical tradition need attending to. (shrink)