In this stunning reappraisal of the celebrated case of Daniel Paul Schreber, Lothane takes the reader on a richly documented tour of all the ingredients that made Schreber's illness a unique psychiatric event. Building outward from a close examination of Schreber's troubled relationship to his two psychiatrists, Flechsig and Weber, Lothane elaborates the personal, familial, and cultural contexts of Schreber's illness. Incorporating extensive new archival and bibliographic research, and providing extensive accounts of the personalities and theories of Schreber's two psychiatrists, (...) Paul Flechsig and Guido Weber, Zvi Lothane offers a stunning reappraisal of the Schreber case that overturns virtually all previous opinion. Lothane examines both the man and his milieu in a way that allows the reader fresh access not only to the tragedy of Schreber's illness but also to his heroic, if doomed, attempts to come to terms with his condition through writing. In the process, he persuasively demonstrates that important issues of both psychiatric diagnosis and psychoanalytic interpretation have heretofore been compromised by a failure to pay sufficient attention to Schreber's interpersonal, cultural, and historical contexts. (shrink)

Evolution, mathematics, and the evolution of mathematics -- Mathematics and the Greeks' view of the world -- Mathematics and the view of the world in early modern times -- Mathematics and the modern view of the world -- The mathematics of randomness -- The mathematics of human behavior -- computations and computers -- Is there really no doubt? -- The nature of research in mathematics -- Why is teaching and learning mathematics so hard?

Difficulties understanding speech form one of the most prevalent complaints among older adults. Successful speech perception depends on top-down linguistic and cognitive processes that interact with the bottom-up sensory processing of the incoming acoustic information. The relative roles of these processes in age-related difficulties in speech perception, especially when listening conditions are not ideal, are still unclear. In the current study, we asked whether older adults with a larger working memory capacity process speech more efficiently than peers with lower capacity (...) when speech is presented in noise, with another task performed in tandem. Using the Eye-tracking of Word Identification in Noise Under Memory Increased Load an adapted version of the “visual world” paradigm, 36 older listeners were asked to follow spoken instructions presented in background noise, while retaining digits for later recall under low or high memory load. In critical trials, instructions directed listeners’ gaze to pictures of objects whose names shared onset or offset sounds with the name of a competitor that was displayed on the screen at the same time. We compared listeners with different memory capacities on the time course for spoken word recognition under the two memory loads by testing eye-fixations on a named object, relative to fixations on an object whose name shared phonology with the named object. Results indicated two trends. For older adults with lower working memory capacity, increased memory load did not affect online speech processing, however, it impaired offline word recognition accuracy. The reverse pattern was observed for older adults with higher working memory capacity: increased task difficulty significantly decreases online speech processing efficiency but had no effect on offline word recognition accuracy. Results suggest that in older adults, adaptation to adverse listening conditions is at least partially supported by cognitive reserve. Therefore, additional cognitive capacity may lead to greater resilience of older listeners to adverse listening conditions. The differential effects documented by eye movements and accuracy highlight the importance of using both online and offline measures of speech processing to explore age-related changes in speech perception. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse visited Israel in late December 1971 . Summing up his political conclusions at the end of his visit, he published an article in the English-language Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post under the title “Israel is Strong Enough to Concede.”1 A Hebrew translation of that article appeared concurrently in the Israeli daily Haaretz under the title “My Opinions on the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Israel Must Accept the Existence of a Palestinian State.”2 A few days prior to the publication of his (...) article in the Israeli press, Marcuse met with journalists and other guests…. (shrink)

The creation of a "market for virtue" and social responsibility is dependent on the flow of information from the corporation to the responsible agents. To achieve a free flow of information, excessive, missing and unreliable information must be avoided. More generally, a market for virtue should make it possible to create the appropriate means to signal true commitments and enable informed agents to know how to effectively use their limited resources for deploying market power that rewards and sanctions the corporations (...) that deserve such responses. The underlying assumption of this query is that if corporations in fact compete among themselves in the dimension of social responsibility, then some corporations will identify ways of demonstrating credibility of both efforts and results. The purpose of publishing codes of conduct and annual Corporate Social Responsibility reports would be to improve the level of information that is needed for the market for virtue to function. In order to assess the existence of a competitive market for virtue, the Article analyzes the codes and associated documents of sixteen multinational companies in three industries — textile, petrochemical and automobile. The Article finds some differences between labor and environmental norms, both within each of the sectors, as well as between sectors. However, the major finding casts doubt on the very assumption that labor and environmental norms are shaped by a market for virtue. Contrarily, the Article sheds new light on alternative reasons for developing social norms in corporations and rethinks the purpose of CSR reports. (shrink)

This paper deals with decision makers who choose among information systems. It shows that the properties of Schur convexity and of quasi-convexity are equivalent, even when general preferences are considered. Since Schur convexity is closely related to having a willingness to accept information and since quasi-convexity is closely related to having a preference for early resolution of the uncertainty about which information system prevails, then it follows that the equivalence implies that decision makers prefer more information to less if, and (...) only if, they prefer early resolution of uncertainty to later resolution. (shrink)

All families are political, each in its own way. Nevertheless, the diversity of family politics has not negated, by and large, patriarchal influence on the Political Family. This Article introduces the Political Family as a key concept in a scholarly and activist movement in family law studies which I identify as Critical Family Law. In Part I a reminder is offered that “alternative families” have existed since the dawn of history. However, I argue that despite constant changes in the configuration (...) of the family, for the most part all family forms have adhered to patriarchy. Part II offers a brief overview of some of the central themes in contemporary critical study of family law. I show how dichotomies such as private/public and intervention/autonomy have lain at the basis of the definition of the family since antiquity, constantly shifting the very meaning of the family across time, cultures and legal traditions, but rarely challenging its patriarchal ideology. Such challenges necessitate a critical look at the language of rights and obligations within the family, in acknowledgment that this very discourse is already saturated with ideology and biased preconceptions. Under the umbrella of “Critical Family Law,” I explore the potential for promoting such a shift, discussing articles in this issue. In memory of Paula Ettelbrick, 1955-2011. (shrink)

The following describes the concept of apoliticism, distinguishing it from indifference, which is also considered a negative attitude toward politics. Whereas apoliticism is the rejection of the official political institutions, possibly with the plan of an alternative system, the indifferent rejects politics altogether and is politically disinterested. If reflective negativism rejects politics as mechanism, the indifferent rejects it as a pursuit. I also distinguish between the extra-political, as the condition of being outside of any environment in which free deliberation and (...) public engagement is possible, and the supra-political condition, as blurring the line between public political activities and rites prescribed by the state on the one hand and the private sphere of the individual on the other hand. If different, both are forms of political poverty. These concepts may serve as means for a more nuanced understanding of the structure of apolitical attitudes. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs Hegel’s account of shame as a fundamental affect. Qua spiritual, the human individual strives for self-determination; hence she is ashamed of the fact that, q...

We argue that a conflict between two conceptions of “quantity of matter” employed in a corollary to proposition 6 of Book III of the Principia illustrates a deeper conflict between Newton’s view of the nature of extended bodies and the concept of mass appropriate for the theoretical framework of the Principia. We trace Newton’s failure to recognize the conflict to the fact that he allowed for the justification of natural philosophical claims by two types of a posteriori, empiricist methodologies. Newton's (...) thoughts on these methodologies demonstrate that his natural philosophy continued to develop after the publication of the first edition of Principia and that De Grav should be understood as an early, and not necessarily representative, text. (shrink)

I embark on the writing of this short note not as an expert in ethics or a seasoned war analyst but rather as an involved observer nudged into the spotlight by a colleague’s overestimation of my insight into the Israel–Hamas conflict. I approach this task with scepticism yet hoping to morph it into a form of therapy. My own therapy, a means to break the shackles of silence that have gripped not only myself but, I suspect, many others in Israel.

En el presente estudio analizaremos la expresión del conflicto en el lenguaje, donde la lucha palabra-letra impregna la teoría agónica del lenguaje y marca la trascendencia sobre la relación historia-intrahistoria. Asimismo, presentaremos la dimensión creadora del lenguaje, relevante desde el Unamuno contemplativo, y el papel desempeñado por el diálo go a la hora de expresar los dos poíos del conflicto, agónico y contem plativo.

Newton’s Regulae philosophandi—the rules for reasoning in natural philosophy—are maxims of causal reasoning and induction. This essay reviews their significance for Newton’s method of inquiry, as well as their application to particular propositions within the Principia. Two main claims emerge. First, the rules are not only interrelated, they defend various facets of the same core idea: that nature is simple and orderly by divine decree, and that, consequently, human beings can be justified in inferring universal causes from limited phenomena, if (...) only fallibly. Second, the rules make substantive ontological assumptions on which Newton’s argument in the Principia relies. (shrink)

An important aspect of the debate between the A-theory and the B-theory of time relates to the supposed implications of each for some of the most basic human attitudes and stances. The asymmetry in our attitudes towards past and future events in our life (pleasant and unpleasant), and towards the temporal limits of our existence, that is, toward birth and death, is supposedly considered differently by the two theories. I argue that our attitudes are neither justified nor discredited by anything (...) which is in debate between the A-Theory and the B-theory, and therefore that neither theory of time is supported by the asymmetry in our attitudes. (shrink)

The paper develops a conception of marital love as a complex recognitive relation, which I articulate by juxtaposing it against other recognitive relations that figure in Hegel's theory of modern civil society (i.e., respect and esteem). Drawing on Hegel's early writings, I argue that, if love is to provide its unique sort of recognition, it must obtain between “living beings who are equal in power”—a peculiar form of equality that I name (drawing on Stanley Cavell's work) “dynamic equality.” I conclude (...) that it is by Hegel's own lights that we should reject his notorious conception of the sexual difference. However, I also offer reasons why, from Hegel's early 19th century perspective, he could consider the following two conditions as compatible: (1) equality within marriage and (2) sexual hierarchy outside marriage, namely, in civil society. (shrink)

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)

In the Ethics,1 Spinoza presents a rigorous naturalistic view of man and nature. Man is a part of nature, a subject of the same domain—not a domain separate from it, nor a domain within that of nature. Man cannot act against nature or in an unnatural way; in comparison with any other part or creature of nature, man is not special, more important or qualitatively different. All general laws of nature apply equally to animals, inanimate objects, humans, God, the mind, (...) and the affects. Nature can be explicated based on necessary causes, and there are no extra-natural factors that affect it or anything in it: no supernatural power or metaphysical principles create or regulate it, and no separate methods of explanation .. (shrink)

This is the first volume of original commissioned papers on the subject of Newton and empiricism. The chapters, contributed by a leading team of both established and younger international scholars, explore the nature and extent of Newton's relationship to a variety of empiricisms and empiricists.

Newton began his Principia with three Axiomata sive Leges Motus. We offer an interpretation of Newton’s dual label and investigate two tensions inherent in his account of laws. The first arises from the juxtaposition of Newton’s confidence in the certainty of his laws and his commitment to their variability and contingency. The second arises because Newton ascribes fundamental status both to the laws and to the bodies and forces they govern. We argue the first is resolvable, but the second is (...) not. However, the second tension shows that Newton conceives laws as formal causes of bodies and forces. This neo-Aristotelian conception goes missing in Kantian accounts of laws, as well as accounts that stress laws’ grounding in powers and capacities. (shrink)

The introduction considers the state of scholarship on empiricism as a philosophical and historical category, particularly as it pertains to experimental philosophy. It concludes that empiricism properly understood is a rich category encompassing epistemic, semantic, methodological, experimental, and moral elements. Its richness makes it a suitable lens through which to account for actual historical complexity. The introduction relates the category to the work of Sir Isaac Newton, who influenced all of empiricism’s elements.

In this paper I defend the rejection of fatalism about the past by showing that there are possible circumstances in which it would be rational to attempt to bring about by our decisions and actions a necessary and sufficient condition, other things being equal, for something which we see as favorable to have occurred in the past. The examples I put forward are analogous to our attempts to bring about the occurrence of future events, and demonstrate the symmetry between the (...) past and the future in this respect. (shrink)

I argue that Isaac Newton's De Gravitatione should not be considered an authoritative expression of his thought about the metaphysics of space and its relation to physical inquiry. I establish the following narrative: In De Gravitatione (circa 1668–84), Newton claimed he had direct experimental evidence for the work's central thesis: that space had "its own manner of existing" as an affection or emanative effect. In the 1710s, however, through the prodding of Roger Cotes and G. W. Leibniz, he came to (...) see that this evidence relied on assumptions that his own Principia rendered unjustifiable. Consequently, he (i) revised the conclusions he explicitly drew from the experimental evidence, (ii) rejected the idea that his spatial metaphysics was grounded in experimental evidence, and (iii) reassessed the epistemic status of key concepts in his metaphysics and natural philosophy. The narrative I explore shows not only that De Gravitatione did not constitute the metaphysical backdrop of the Principia as Newton ultimately understood it, but that it was the Principia itself that ultimately lead to the demise of key elements of De Gravitatione. I explore the implications of this narrative for Andrew Janiak's and Howards Stein's interpretations of Newton's metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper studies the role that known bounds on message transmission times in a computer network play on the evolution of the epistemic state over time. A connection to cones of causal influence analogous to, and more general than, light cones is presented. Focusing on lower bounds on message transmission times, an analysis is presented of how knowledge about when others are guaranteed to be ignorant about an event of interest can arise. This has implications in competitive settings, in which (...) knowing about another’s ignorance can provide an advantage. (shrink)