This book provides a standard reference of the major medieval Jewish philosophers, as well as an eminently readable narrative of the course of medieval Jewish ...

Eliezer Eilburg: The Ten Questions and Memoir of a Renaissance Jew makes available for the first time a bilingual edition of two key works by the Jewish rationalist skeptic, kabbalist, and memoirist, Eliezer Eilburg.

ABSTRACT We consider evolution of knowledge bases caused by a sequence of basic steps of acquisition of a new information, either consistent or inconsistent with the original system. To make this process comply with the Principe of Minimal Change, a special evidence metric is introduced for measuring distance between states of knowledge. Then a novel semantics of knowledge bases is developed suggested by the heuristics of weighted maximally consistent subsets. The latter is efficiently applied to the processes of consistent and (...) inconsistent acquisition of knowledge, belief revision and contraction. (shrink)

Editor's introduction by Leonard Levin -- A personal viewpoint: autobiographical essay -- My way in the research and teaching of Jewish thought -- Judaism and the lonely Jew -- Faith: its trusting and testing - the question of God's righteousness -- History in the postmodern age -- The idolatrous values and rituals of the global village.

Introduction -- The mischievous neuron -- The shadow of determinism -- The essential freedom -- A tempest in the brain -- Neurological disturbance -- The seat of the will -- The somatic-marker hypothesis -- The readiness potential -- The grand illusion -- Neuronal destiny -- The revolution of the brain -- Seeds of corruption -- Morality's end -- The depths of consciousness -- A challenge for experience -- The boundlessness of reason -- Rise of the moral agent -- The palace (...) of the mind. (shrink)

Do science and technology create value for society and the economy, and how might one go about measuring it? How do we evaluate its benefits? Can we even be certain that there are benefits? Geisler argues that there are benefits, and that they outweigh in value the negative impacts that inevitably accompany them. His revolutionary new book goes on to show that they can also be measured and evaluated, and in one volume all of the existing knowledge on how to (...) do it is complied--then Geisler's own methods are offered. The result is a compelling argument that the value of science and technology in our lives has indeed been positive, and that the economic well-being of all individuals, organizations, and nations rests upon them. Geisler starts off by describing his conceptual framework for the evaluation of science and technology and the impact and benefits that proceed from them. He discusses the nature of evaluation in general terms, and then in the specific context of science, technology, and innovation together. He reviews the state of our present knowledge and assesses the nature of value creation itself. Throughout, Geisler remains fixed on his driving thesis: Although there are certainly some negative impacts from science and technology, on the whole the results of its outputs are positive. He shows how they have contributed to a range of activities and institutions, particularly to the improvement of health and human welfare worldwide. Finally, after discussing the theories of evaluation, he gets down to the practice, providing readers with a way to assess science and technological innovations for themselves. (shrink)

This work copiles key metrics to measure and evalute the impact of science and technology on academia, industry and government. it covers such topics as ...

A comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the major thinkers and movements in modern Jewish thought, in the context of general philosophy and Jewish social-political historical developments. Volume 1 (of 5) covers the period from Spinoza through the Enlightenment.

This is a large, complex story in which the author describes the contributions of Mendelssohn, Wessely, Krochmal, Zunz, the mainstream Zionist thinkers ...

In a class of quantum gravity approaches it is indicated that our observable world emerges out of a fundamental structure that appears highly resistant to any clear spatial or temporal interpretation. In this work we are examining an analogue quantum system that appears to simulate such an unintuitive structure: the emergence of the so called topological phase of matter depicted by the Chern–Simons gauge theory. By investigating the proposed analogy from the lens of category theory, we offer a clear interpretation (...) of the way in which space and time act at the fundamental level. (shrink)

Hebrew University Professor Emeritus and Israel Prize recipient Eliezer Schweid (1929-2022) is the greatest historian of Jewish thought of our era. In Siddur Hatefillah he probes the Jewish prayer book as a reflection of Judaism's unity of Judaism and continuity as a unique spiritual entity; and as the most popular, most uttered, and internalized text of the Jewish people. Schweid explores texts which process religious philosophical teaching into the language of prayer, and/or express philosophical ideas in prayer's special language (...) - which the worshipper reflects upon in order to direct prayer, and through which flows hoped-for feedback. With the addition of historical, philological, and literary contexts, the study provides the reader with first-time access to the comprehensive meaning of Jewish prayer- filling a vacuum in both the experience and scholarship of Jewish worship. (shrink)

The exchange between Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig on the status of halakha is a well known, but also frustrating fixture in scholarship. For rather than responding to Rosenzweig’s critique, Buber seems to retreat in silence, claiming to be “unable to speak” about his position on Jewish Law. Scholars have generally tried to explain Buber’s failure to respond on philosophical and biographical grounds. What I propose, by contrast, is to revisit the question of Buber’s silence and secrecy from a hermeneutical (...) standpoint, arguing that Buber engaged in a deliberate strategy of concealment that constituted its own form of response. The hermeneutics of silence discloses a call for religious renewal that follows a state of Dialogvergessenheit, but which cannot be made audible. Neither dialogue nor its remembrance can be commanded. While Buber struggles with his Nichtredenkönnen, he also stands in a tradition of secretive hermeneutics – the Jewish hermeneutics of sod. (shrink)

1: The End of History 2: The Beyondness of the Singularity 2.1: The Definition of Smartness 2.2: Perceptual Transcends 2.3: Great Big Numbers 2.4: Smarter Than We Are 3: Sooner Than You Think 4: Uploading 5: The Interim Meaning of Life 6: Getting to the Singularity.

In the scientist's lair -- The mysterious power -- The ghost in the machine -- The mechanics of mind -- Consciousness emerges -- How to build a mind -- Turing's test of consciousness -- Supremacy of the machines -- The Chinese room -- Demons in the brain -- Describing the indescribable -- March of the zombies -- The denial of consciousness -- The limits of computation -- A new generation.

Investigates the brain's hidden logic behind seemingly irrational behaviors to explain how conscious and unconscious systems interact in order to create experiences and preserve the sense of self. --Publisher's description.

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 31 - 59 Eschatological expectations and messianic hopes aroused by the expulsion of Jews from Spain climaxed in the seventeenth century with the appearance of Sabbatai Tzevi. In 1666, Sultan Mehmed IV, eager to halt the uproar without creating a martyr, offered Tzevi a choice between conversion to Islam and death. Tzevi chose life. Although many Jews were devastated by his apostasy, a nucleus of Sabbatai’s most ardent followers preferred to interpret it as (...) the ultimate _tiqqun_. This article presents one of the most intriguing Sabbatian literary accounts of their Messiah’s apostasy, the internal Sabbatian version of the _romansa_ “Tarquin and Lucretia.”. (shrink)