How and why did we become who we are? In "What Makes Us Human?" some of theorld's most brilliant thinkers offer their answers to this perennial puzzle,ncluding Susan Blackmore, Robin Dunbar, Susan Greenfield, Richard Harries,enan Malik, Richard Wrangham, Ian Tattersall, and Lewis Wolpert. Together,hey draw on a broad spectrum of disciplines, from anthropology, biochemistry,edicine, and neuroscience, to philosophy, psychology, and religion, to askhat makes us distinctively human. Is it our cognitive abilities, or our usef tools, our story-telling, our beliefs, our (...) curiosity, our ability to cook,r our culture? Are we half-ape or half-angel? "What Makes Us Human?"xplains how and why our ancestors adapted to their surroundings to produceuch clever, talented, and unlikely progeny. It is for all to enjoy. (shrink)

The Purūravac-cakkiravartti-katai, “The Story of Emperor Purūravas,” is a pre-modern Tamil folk telling of the ancient Urvaśī-Purūravas legend. The classical narrative of King Purūravas of the Lunar Dynasty tells about his love affair with the celestial nymph Urvaśī, their tragic separation, and final reunion. The PCK follows the classical narrative closely, but interposes a long account of other exploits of Purūravas, which do not appear in any of the Sanskrit tellings of the story. In this supplement, which I call “The (...) Tamil Life of Purūravas,” Purūravas faces a tragic chain of unavoidable events, but eventually restores his former status through meditation and devotion. A comparative examination of the two parts of the text, that is, the classical narrative and the Tamil Life, shows that the latter generates an inverted mirror image of the fundamental notions implied in the classical narrative. The outcome of this structure is a shift in the ideological tendencies of the narrative toward a local ethos and popular religious notions. The PCK is thus shown to be a field of cultural negotiations, in which opposing ideologies contend for superiority, and its structure can be regarded as a transformative mechanism applied by local and popular cultural forms to enable appropriation of classical narrative traditions. (shrink)

The notion of bilattice was introduced by Ginsberg, and further examined by Fitting, as a general framework for many applications. In the present paper we develop proof systems, which correspond to bilattices in an essential way. For this goal we introduce the notion of logical bilattices. We also show how they can be used for efficient inferences from possibly inconsistent data. For this we incorporate certain ideas of Kifer and Lozinskii, which happen to suit well the context of our work. (...) The outcome are paraconsistent logics with a lot of desirable properties.1. (shrink)

Maximality is a desirable property of paraconsistent logics, motivated by the aspiration to tolerate inconsistencies, but at the same time retain from classical logic as much as possible. In this paper we introduce the strongest possible notion of maximal paraconsistency, and investigate it in the context of logics that are based on deterministic or non-deterministic three-valued matrices. We show that all reasonable paraconsistent logics based on three-valued deterministic matrices are maximal in our strong sense. This applies to practically all three-valued (...) paraconsistent logics that have been considered in the literature, including a large family of logics which were developed by da Costa's school. Then we show that in contrast, paraconsistent logics based on three-valued properly nondeterministic matrices are not maximal, except for a few special cases (which are fully characterized). However, these non-deterministic matrices are useful for representing in a clear and concise way the vast variety of the (deterministic) three-valued maximally paraconsistent matrices. The corresponding weaker notion of maximality, called premaximal paraconsistency, captures the "core" of maximal paraconsistency of all possible paraconsistent determinizations of a non-deterministic matrix, thus representing what is really essential for their maximal paraconsistency. (shrink)

This book tries to answer two key questions. The first is why certain periods are more prone to war than others. The other is why certain wars that involve polar powers end with their territorial expansion whereas other wars end in their contraction or maintaining their territorial status. In conclusion, it is asked whether the polarity of the system affects these two outcomes, and if so, how.

Paradefinite logics are logics that can be used for handling contradictory or partial information. As such, paradefinite logics should be both paraconsistent and paracomplete. In this paper we consider the simplest semantic framework for introducing paradefinite logics. It consists of the four-valued matrices that expand the minimal matrix which is characteristic for first degree entailments: Dunn–Belnap matrix. We survey and study the expressive power and proof theory of the most important logics that can be developed in this framework.

Sometimes, the availability of more evidence for a conclusion provides a reason to believe in its falsity. This counter-intuitive phenomenon is related to the idea of higher-order evidence, which has attracted broad interest in recent epistemological literature. Occasionally, providing more evidence for something weakens the case in its favor, by casting doubt on the probative value of other evidence of the same sort or on the fact-finder’s cognitive performance. We analyze this phenomenon, discuss its rationality, and outline possible application to (...) evidence law and to the law in general. It is suggested, inter alia, that such higher-order evidence may explain how judicial experience-based expertise in fact-finding is possible despite the absence of a feedback mechanism; and that fact-finders’ self-doubt regarding their own competence in making ‘beyond-reasonable doubt’ judgments might be reasonable and should not be ignored. (shrink)

We introduce a general approach for representing and reasoning with argumentation-based systems. In our framework arguments are represented by Gentzen-style sequents, attacks between arguments are represented by sequent elimination rules, and deductions are made according to Dung-style skeptical or credulous semantics. This framework accommodates different languages and logics in which arguments may be represented, allows for a flexible and simple way of expressing and identifying arguments, supports a variety of attack relations, and is faithful to standard methods of drawing conclusions (...) by argumentation frameworks. Altogether, we show that argumentation theory may benefit from incorporating proof theoretical techniques and that different non-classical formalisms may be used for backing up intended argumentation semantics. (shrink)

Resisting Contextual Information: You Can't Put a Salient Meaning Down Two experiments support the graded salience hypothesis, which assumes that early processing involves distinct mechanisms-linguistic and contextual-that do not interact but run parallel. While contextual processes make up an integrative, top-down mechanism that benefits from linguistic and extra-linguistic information, the linguistic mechanism is modular. Using Vu et al.'s materials, Experiment 1 shows that the sentential position of a target word is crucial for the operation of the global, predictive mechanism, whose (...) effects, accumulated in prior discourse, mask lexical effects in final, but not in initial position. Experiment 2 shows that even in a sentential position that favors contextual effects, lexical access is not affected: Salient meanings are activated upon encounter of the lexical stimulus, regardless of contextual information to the contrary. Taken together, these findings argue against direct access models, which suggest that context can selectively activate the appropriate meaning, regardless of salience. (shrink)

This paper examines how Japanese leading politicians cope with the communication problems posed during televised political interviews. Based on data gathered during the year 2012 equivocation, thereby to also assess the significance of these talk shows in the broader context of political communication in Japan.

The neurocentric worldview that identifies the essence of the human being with the material brain has become a central paradigm in current academic discourse. Israeli researchers also seek to understand educational principles and processes via neuroscientific models. On this background, the article uncovers the central role that visual brain images play in the learning-disabilities field in Israel. It examines the place brain images have in the professional imagination of didactic-diagnosticians as well as their influence on the diagnosticians' clinical attitudes. It (...) relies on two theoretical fields: sociology and anthropology of the body and sociology of neuromedical knowledge. The research consists of three methodologies: ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews, and rhetorical analysis of visual and verbal texts. It uncovers the various rhetorical and ideological functions of brain images in the field. It also charts the repertoire of rhetorical devices which are utilized to strengthen the neuroreducionist messages contained in the images. (shrink)

Reasoning with the maximally consistent subsets of the premises is a well-known approach for handling contradictory information. In this paper we consider several variations of this kind of reasoning, for each one we introduce two complementary computational methods that are based on logical argumentation theory. The difference between the two approaches is in their ways of making consequences: one approach is of a declarative nature and is related to Dung-style semantics for abstract argumentation, while the other approach has a more (...) proof-theoretical flavor, extending Gentzen-style sequent calculi. The outcome of this work is a new perspective on reasoning with MCS, which shows a strong link between the latter and argumentation systems, and which can be generalized to some related formalisms. As a by-product of this we obtain soundness and completeness results for the dynamic proof systems with respect to several of Dung’s semantics. In a broader context, we believe that this work helps to better understand and evaluate the role of logic-based instantiations of argumentation frameworks. (shrink)

"International and domestic laws commonly hold states responsible for their wrongdoings. States pay compensation for their unjust wars, and reparations for their historical wrongdoings. Some argue that states should incur punitive damages for their international crimes. But there is a troubling aspect to these practices: States are corporate agents, comprised of flesh and blood citizens. When the state uses the public purse to finance its corporate liabilities, the burden falls on these citizens, even if they protested against the state's policies, (...) did not know about them, or entirely lacked channels of political influence. How can this "distributive effect" of state-level responsibly be justified? The book develops an answer to this question, which revolves around citizens' participation in their state. It argues that citizenship can be a type of massive collective action, where citizens willingly orient themselves around the authority of their state, and where state policies are the product of this collective action. While most ordinary citizens are not to blame for their participation in their state, they nevertheless ought to accept a share of the remedial obligations that flow from their state's wrongful policies. However, the distributive effect cannot be justified in all states. Specifically, in non-democratic states most citizens are not participating in their state in the full sense, and should not pay for their state's wrongdoings. This finding calls then for a revision of the way we hold states responsible in both the domestic and international levels"--. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a proof theoretical investigation of logical argumentation, where arguments are represented by sequents, conflicts between arguments are represented by sequent elimination rules, and deductions are made by dynamic proof systems extending standard sequent calculi. The idea is to imitate argumentative movements in which certain claims are introduced or withdrawn in the presence of counter-claims. This is done by a dynamic evaluation of sequences of sequents, in which the latter are considered ‘derived’ or ‘not derived’ according (...) to the content of the sequence. We show that decisive conclusions of such a process correspond to well-accepted consequences of the underlying argumentation framework. The outcome is therefore a general and modular proof-theoretical approach for paraconsistent and non-monotonic reasoning with argumentation systems. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Naharaim Jahrgang: 10 Heft: 2 Seiten: 195-213.

According to Foucault, the human body is the targeted object of modern power systems. In his genealogical studies, Foucault describes the manner in which these power systems leave an imprint on the body and utilize knowledge of the body as an indirect means of exercising subtle forms of control. In recent years, several researchers have claimed that the status of the body, subsumed as it is by modern power networks, has become a means for conducting a unique political critique in (...) which the human being is viewed as an agent of oppression and freedom. This article takes a fresh look at Foucault’s notions of life and death that underpin the critical understanding the body–power relationship. While this approach recognizes the completeness of subjective structuring processes, it also enables the formulation of new insights regarding the status of the modern individual as the subject of separate and independent modes of speech and action. (shrink)

Liberal democracy suffers from an internal contradiction stemming from its ideological roots and rending it from within. On the one hand its goal is to generate a system of laws and rules that maximize individual rights and liberties; on the other hand, some of its fundamental assumptions pertaining to the Subject restrict the political and social agent's existential experience to a limited threshold of speech and action. The central assumption of this article is that the main meeting point of the (...) critics of modernity, Apel and Habermas primarily, and the post-structuralists, Foucault and Deleuze, in regard to the Subject, rehabilitates liberal discourse and creates an opening for a political theory that maximizes the freedom of the individual as a structured, anti-essentialist Subject. I will show that the expansion of the concept of the self in the two streams sheds new light on the concepts of political control and liberty, and in this way extends the normative discussion of all aspects of the political agent's status in a modern democracy. (shrink)

Some believe that the mere beneficiaries of wrongdoing of others ought to disgorge their tainted benefits. Others deny that claim. Both sides of this debate concentrate on unavoidable beneficiaries of the wrongdoing of others, who are presumed themselves to be innocent by virtue of the fact they have neither contributed to the wrong nor could they have avoided receiving the benefit. But as we show, this presumption is mistaken for unavoidable beneficiaries who intend in certain ways to benefit from wrongdoing, (...) and who have therefore done something wrong in forming and acting on such an intention. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 46, Issue 4, Page 384-418, Fall 2018.

Seventeenth-century optics naturalizes the eye while estranging the mind from objects. A mere screen, on which rests a blurry array of light stains, the eye no longer furnishes the observer with genuine re-presentations of visible objects. The intellect is thus compelled to decipher flat images of no inherent epistemic value, accidental effects of a purely causal process, as vague, reversed reflections of wholly independent objects. Reflecting on and trespassing the boundaries between natural and artificial, orderly and disorderly, this optical paradox (...) is a Baroque phenomenon; and it is the origin of Descartes’ celebrated doubt---whether we know anything at all. (shrink)

This is an examination of Ronald Dworkin's claim that the true theory of legal practice is the theory that puts legal practice in its ‘best light’. By ‘best light’ Dworkin means a measure of desirability or goodness: the true theory of legal practice, says Dworkin, portrays the practice at its most desirable. Now why would that be the case? What's between the desirability of a theory and its truth? The article examines the reasons leading Dworkin to this strange claim. It (...) then argues that the claim is ultimately unsustainable, but also that it contains much insight about legal practice: the true theory of legal practice need not put the practice at its most desirable, but there is much between maximizing desirability and the practice's standards. Dworkin's is another important effort to explain the normative aspect of legal validity—in a way that transcends both the crudeness of natural law, and legal positivism's attempt to wash its hands of this crucial aspect of law. (shrink)

This new book argues that at the core of legal philosophy’s principal debates there is essentially one issue judicial impartiality. Keeping this issue to the forefront,Raban’s approach sheds much light on many difficult and seemingly perplexing jurisprudential debates. Modern Legal Theory and Judicial Impartiality.

A contribution to the sixth installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” this article reflects on the challenges that understanding the Holocaust posed for Jews in Palestine and has posed for them in Israel. Ofer concentrates on the images of victims, fighters, and survivors as they were formulated during the last years of World War II and after the establishment of the State of Israel. Behind these images stood historical, concrete human beings who were classified according to (...) concepts supplied by Zionist and historical Jewish culture, in which activism vs. quietism had long presented major issues for debate. A narrative and typology developed of fighting heroes, victims, and survivors; Ofer questions how different these categories were from each other. In pursuit of an answer, she examines institutions in Israel for commemoration and remembrance, especially Yad Vashem, a state-established institution centering on its often-reconfigured and redesigned historical museums. Finally, this article explores the impact of immigrations and wars on the approach of Israelis to activism and quietism, with special reference to attitudes toward the Holocaust. (shrink)

Gersonides' Afterlife is the first full-scale treatment of the reception of one of the greatest scientific minds of medieval Judaism: Gersonides (1288-1344). An outstanding representative of the Hebrew Jewish culture that then flourished in southern France, Gersonides wrote on mathematics, logic, astronomy, astrology, physical science, metaphysics and theology, and commented on almost the entire bible. His strong-minded attempt to integrate these different areas of study into a unitary system of thought was deeply rooted in the Aristotelian tradition and yet innovative (...) in many respects, and thus elicited diverse and often impassionate reactions. For the first time, the twenty-one papers collected here describe Gersonides' impact in all fields of his activity and the reactions from his contemporaries up to present-day religious Zionism. (shrink)

I would first like to extend gratitude to Jinyu Sun, who has put together this symposium, and to all the contributors for their penetrating critiques. In my short response I cannot do justice to al...

The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, sometimes called ‘the Creative Explosion’, is seen as the period when the forefathers of modern forager societies emerged. Similarly to the Industrial and Neolithic Revolutions, it represents a short time span when numerous inventions appeared and cultural changes occurred. The inventions were in the domain of technology, that is, shaping of new stone tool forms, longdistance exchange of raw materials, the use of bone, antler and ivory as well as rare minerals for the production of domestic (...) and ritual objects. Spatial analysis of ‘living floors’ indicates the presence of a kitchen area, sleeping grounds, storage facilities (in certain regions) and a discard zone. We can also detect a certain increase in social hierarchy and the presence of shamans. Body decorations indicate the appearance of personal individuality. Several hypotheses were offered as an explanation for the initiation of all these cultural changes often grouped under the term ‘modern behaviour’. It stands to reason that attributing the new successful technologies observed in the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic to intrinsic social processes and economic innovations by local Middle Palaeolithic populations would need a better archaeological demonstration than that available today. For the time being, the emergence of Modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa, their socio-economic dynamism that caused their expansion through the Nile Valley into the Near East, and their migration along the ‘southern route’ of Asia as far as Australia, is the most plausible scenario though it still leaves much to be desired from future archaeological research. (shrink)

The principle of wrongful benefits prescribes that beneficiaries from wrongdoing incur duties towards the victims of the wrongdoing. The principle focuses on involuntary beneficiaries, demanding that they disgorge their tainted benefit. However, it overlooks the duties of beneficiaries who are not straightforwardly involuntary. The article addresses this gap in the literature. It explores the duties of ‘voluntary beneficiaries’, who could avoid receiving the tainted benefit; and the duties of ‘welcoming beneficiaries’, who cannot avoid receiving the tainted benefit but welcome it. (...) The article demonstrates that in both cases, the duties of the beneficiary towards the victim of the original wrongdoing are not limited to the disgorgement of the benefit. Rather, voluntary and welcoming beneficiaries are themselves involved in the commission of wrongdoing against the victim of the original wrongdoing, and hence may owe the victim compensation that exceeds the level of their own benefit. This argument has various practical implications, e.g. in specifying the duties of companies who benefit from human rights violations down their supply chain. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that when democratic states act wrongly, they should bear the costs of the harm they cause. However, since states are collective agents, their financial burdens pass on to their individual citizens. This fact raises important questions about the proper distribution of the state’s collective responsibility for its unjust policies. This article identifies two opposing models for sharing this collective responsibility in democracies: first, in proportion to citizens’ personal association with the unjust policy; second, by giving each (...) citizen an equal share of the costs. Proportional distribution is compatible with the principle of fairness. And yet, both in the literature and in political praxis we find many supporters for the equal sharing of the costs of unjust policies in democracies. How can equal distribution be defended on normative grounds? This article develops a defense that is grounded in citizens’ associative obligations. I argue that, at least in some democracies, one of the intrinsic values of the civic bond revolves around the joint formation and execution of worthy political goals. This social good generates the political associative obligation to accept an equal distribution of the costs of unjust policies. (shrink)

Does morality have a procedure? Unlike law, morality is arguably neither posited nor institutional. Thus, while morality undeniably prescribes various procedures, that morality itself has a procedure is less obvious. Indeed, the coexistence of procedural moral norms alongside substantive moral norms might seem paradoxical, given that they often yield contradictory prescriptions. After all, one may wonder, is morality not substantive all the way down? Nevertheless, the paper argues that morality has a “procedural branch” containing numerous norms that are themselves procedural. (...) These norms comprise what we hold are the three hallmarks of a procedural norm: second-orderness, providing reasons on how to engage with other norms, and outcome-neutrality. In this respect, morality is more like law than what one might have expected. (shrink)