According to structural realism, in mature science there is structural continuity along theoretical change. A major counterexample to this thesis is the transition from the Eightfold Way to the Standard Model in particle physics. Nevertheless, the notion of structure is significantly important in comprehending the theoretical picture of particle physics, where particles change and undergo transmutations, while the only thing which remains unchanged is the basic structure, i.e. the symmetry group which controls the transmutations. This kind of view agrees with (...) the paradigmatic case where the structure is an internal symmetry and the instantiations are the elementary particles. The metaphysical view which reflects this situation is a version of ontic structuralism. (shrink)

This article examines the notion of vulnerable political subjectivity in Judith Butler’s theory of vulnerability. The paper aims to contribute to critical discussions of Butler’s political theory by offering an account of how the ontological, ethical, and political aspects of vulnerability shape political subjectivity in her work. The first part of the paper analyzes the features of vulnerable political subjects. The second part critically assesses to what extent Butler offers an alternative to the association of vulnerability with a damaged capability (...) to act politically. The third part argues that Butler offers only a partial account of vulnerability as a transformative desire, which is crucial to explaining how and under what conditions vulnerability inspires subjects to engage politically with the conditions that shape their precarity or the precarity of others. (shrink)

This paper offers a detailed account of Foucaults ethical and political notion of individuality as presented in his late work, and discusses its relationship to the feminist project of the theory of sexual difference. I argue that Foucaults elaboration of the classical ethos of care for the self opens the way for regarding the I-woman as an ethical, political and aesthetic self-creation. However, it has significant limitations that cannot be ignored. I elaborate on two aspects of Foucaults avoidance of sexual (...) difference as a relevant category for an account of political and ethical individuality, which thus implicitly associates individual agency with men. I argue that Foucault implicitly assumes the existence of an ontological desire to become engaged in political self-creation. However, the ethical position of self-knowledge and desire should be understood as a contingent option that depends on material and historical conditions for its realization. Hence, I argue that a feminist reworking of Foucaults notion of political individuality should add a substantial ethical condition to the imperative of self-knowledge and self-creation – making possible the desiring woman subject. (shrink)

The main message of this volume is that the creative process of discovery is not a purely rational enterprise in the traditional sense which equates rationality with logical reasoning, yet it is a manifestation of a universal phenomenon ...

This paper formulates Luce Irigaray's notion of agency as a political way of life. I argue that agency, within an Irigarayan framework, is both the outcome and the condition of a political life, aimed at creating political transformations. As Irigaray hardly addresses the topic of agency per se, I suggest understanding Irigaray's textual style as implying specific “technologies of self” in the Foucauldian sense, that is, as self-applied social practices that reshape social reality, one's relations to oneself, and enhance one's (...) freedom and pleasures in these relations. This interpretation aims to extract concrete transformative practices, which, by shaping one's sense of self in relation to others, create oneself as a free and active subject. (shrink)

The question of individual agency lies at the heart of any political and social theory aiming to analyse the social conditions that shape reality. Drawing mainly on the works of Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, this book endeavours to provide an account of agency as a mode of life in which social transformation and personal transformation meet and influence one another.<BR> The book describes the shortcomings of associating agency with resisting social norms or institutions, arguing that (...) agency, as a way of life, is a dynamic of self-creation inspired by a horizon of well-being. As part of this new account of agency the book re-evaluates several key concepts, thus far under-theorized in poststructural theory. First, it addresses the question of how we might understand well-being within a post-modern framework. Second, it presents a notion of 'desire to be', designating the motivational force that drives people to act in order to create a different world. And finally, it addresses the question of how a life of transformative political practices might constitute a sense of identity, both individual and collective. (shrink)

The need for better incorporation of the construct emotional intelligence (EI) into counterproductive work behavior (CWB) research may be achieved via a unified conceptual framework. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to use the Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS) approach, a conceptual framework that unifies motivational process with antecedents and outcomes, to assess differences in EI concerning a variety of constructs: organizational justice, CWB, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and intrinsic motivation. Employing established scales within a framework unifying CWB, (...) intrinsic motivation, EI, organizational justice, and outcome constructs, two EI-based profiles displayed associations with CWB based on responses from 3,293 employees. Both the first core profile, high overall justice and low emotional intelligence, and the second core profile, high emotional intelligence and low work motivation, displayed associations with interpersonal deviance and organizational deviance, as well as emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. The results are discussed with respect to possible underlying theory and an overarching unified motivation framework that incorporates goal choice, intrinsic motivation, antecedents, and outcomes. We also provide directions for future research and implications for managers in the workplace based on heuristic conceptual frameworks that combine multiple motivational perspectives into a unified model. (shrink)

[1] Ṭohorah, yiḥud, hanhagat ha-bayit --.

In this paper, I try to decipher the role of internal symmetries in the ontological maze of particle physics. The relationship between internal symmetries and laws of nature is discussed within the framework of “Platonic realism.” The notion of physical “structure” is introduced as representing a deeper ontological layer behind the observable world. I argue that an internal symmetry is a structure encompassing laws of nature. The application of internal symmetry groups to particle physics came about in two revolutionary steps. (...) The first was the introduction of the internal symmetries of hadrons in the early 1960s. These global and approximate symmetries served as means of bypassing the dynamics. I argue that the realist could interpret these symmetries as ontologically prior to the hadrons. The second step was the gauge revolution in the 1970s, where symmetries became local and exact and were integrated with the dynamics. I argue that the symmetries of the second generation are fundamental in the following two respects: According to the so-called “gauge argument,” gauge symmetry dictates the existence of gauge bosons, which determine the nature of the forces. This view, which has been recently criticized by some philosophers, is widely accepted in particle physics at least as a heuristic principle. In view of grand unified theories, the new symmetries can be interpreted as ontologically prior to baryon matter. (shrink)

Aharon Aviram; The Paradoxes of Education for Democracy, or the Tragic Dilemmas of the Modern Liberal Educator, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, I.

Removing a black hole conic singularity by means of Kruskal representation is equivalent to imposing extensibility on the Kasner–Fronsdal local isometric embedding of the corresponding black hole geometry. Allowing for globally non-trivial embeddings, living in Kaluza–Klein-like M 5 × S 1 (rather than in standard Minkowski M 6 ) and parametrized by some wave number k, extensibility can be achieved for apparently “forbidden” frequencies ω in the range ω 1 (k) ≤ ω ≤ ω 2 (k). As k → 0, (...) ω 1, 2 (0) → ωH (e.g., ωH = 1/4M in the Schwarzschild case) such that the Hawking–Gibbons limit is fully recovered. The various Kruskal sheets are then viewed as slices of the Kaluza–Klein background. Euclidean k discreteness, dictated by imaginary time periodicity, is correlated with flux quantization of the underlying embedding gauge field. (shrink)

We prove that the theory of all sentences in the language of rings which are true in for almost all is decidable. Here is the field of all algebraic numbers; is the ring of all algebraic integers; is the absolute Galois group of ; for each , is the fixed field of σ1,…,σe in ; and the clause ‘almost all’ is used in the sense of the Haar measure of.

Aharon Aviram; The Subjection of Children, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 213–234, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-97.

Halakhah u-musar -- Emunah -- Mitsṿot -- Ḥevrah u-medinah.

This essay focuses on proportionality stricto sensu as a consequential test of balancing. The basic balancing rule establishes a general criterion for deciding between the marginal benefit to the public good and the marginal limit to human rights. Based on the Israeli constitutional jurisprudence, this essay supports the adoption of a principled balancing approach that translates the basic balancing rule into a series of principled balancing tests, taking into account the importance of the rights and the type of restriction. This (...) approach provides better guidance to the balancer , restricts wide discretion in balancing, and makes the act of balancing more transparent, more structured, and more foreseeable. The advantages of proportionality stricto sensu with its three levels of abstraction are several. It stresses the need to always look for a justification of a limit on human rights; it structures the mind of the balancer; it is transparent; it creates a proper dialog between the political brunches and the judiciary, and it adds to the objectivity of judicial discretion. Proportionality stricto sensu however has it critics: some claim that it attempts to balance incommensurable items; others that balancing is irrational. The answer to the critics is that it is a common base for comparison, namely the social marginal importance and that the balancing rules—basic, principled, concrete—supply a rational basis for balancing. A democracy must entrust the judiciary—the unelected independent judiciary—to be the final decision-maker—subject to constitutional amendments—about proper ends that cannot be achieved because they are not proportionality stricto sensu. (shrink)

Aharon Aviram; The Justification of Compulsory Education: the still neglected moral duty, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, P.

Ḥelek 2. Toroto shel Rabenu bi-lesh. ha-ḳ. ... maʼamarim shonim be-Idish ... sheʼelot u-teshuvot ba-ʻavodat ha-Sh. yit ... shivḥo shel tsadiḳ.

We explore how the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 created pressure for firms to take more visible and costly corrective action following the announcement of an earnings restatement. Building on theory about focusing events, the institutional effects of legislative change, and the agenda-setting role of the media, we propose that Sarbanes–Oxley created reactive normative pressure on firms that announce earnings restatements, increasing the likelihood of CEO replacement in their aftermath. We theorize that Sarbanes–Oxley changed the meaning—and therefore the impact—of media coverage (...) of earnings restatements. Our findings show that firm behavior after Sarbanes–Oxley did change in ways that are consistent with the intent of the legislation: to increase executives’ accountability for the reliability of their firms’ financial statements. Moreover, we show this change is a result both of the direct effect of the legislation on increasing CEO accountability as well as through intensifying the effect of the media spotlight on misconduct. (shrink)

Aharon Appelfeld, one of the most important Israeli writers, reflects on the multiform nature of evil that those who experienced the Holocaust, as he did, had to face, and he discusses how this experience can be communicated, even in its sensuality, only through literature. Literature – differently form philosophy, historiography, and all other disciplines – “has the capacity to lead the atrocious experience back into the circle of life, to move it from the category of history to the category (...) of art, because only art has the power to get the suffering out of the abyss”. (shrink)

Aharon Appelfeld, one of the most important Israeli writers, reflects on the multiform nature of evil that those who experienced the Holocaust, as he did, had to face, and he discusses how this experience can be communicated, even in its sensuality, only through literature. Literature – differently form philosophy, historiography, and all other disciplines – “has the capacity to lead the atrocious experience back into the circle of life, to move it from the category of history to the category (...) of art, because only art has the power to get the suffering out of the abyss”. (shrink)

The paper investigates the implications of a nonaprioristic philosophy of science. It starts by developing a scheme of justification which draws its norms from the prevailing paradigm of rationality, which need not be universal or external. If the requirement for normativity is then abandoned we do not end up with a descriptive philosophy of science. The alternative to a prescriptive philosophy of science is a theoretical explanation of scientific decisions and acts. Explanation, rather than mere description, replaces justification; and the (...) paradigm of rationality becomes a scientific paradigm. The implications of these results for the discovery-justification distinction are investigated. An explanatory philosophy of science deals with the generation, as well as with the selection of scientific conjectures: both contexts have an epistemic dimension. * This paper was written under the auspices of the Wolfson Chair Extrordinary of Theoretical Physics, Tel Aviv University. (shrink)

ḥeleḳ 1. Osher ṿe-śimḥah -- ḥeleḳ 2. Emunah u-viṭaḥon -- ḥeleḳ 3. Ṿa-ani tefilati -- ḥeleḳ 4. Shuvah Yiśraʼel -- ḥeleḳ 5. Ṿe-ahavta le-reʻakha -- ḥeleḳ 6. Kibud horim -- ḥeleḳ 7. Kibud ḥakhamim -- ḥeleḳ 8. Ṭov u-meṭiv --.