In this book, Tal S. Shamir sets out to identify cinema as a novel medium for philosophy and an important way of manifesting and developing philosophical thought. The volume presents a comprehensive analysis of the nature of philosophy's potential-or, more strongly put, its need-to be manifested cinematically. Drawing on the fields of cinema, philosophy, and media studies, Cinematic Philosophy adds film to the traditional list of ways through which philosophy can be created, concentrating on the unique potential of the (...) cinematic medium to effectively put forward and create philosophy. In the process, the book opens up innovative horizons for new types of knowledge and wisdom grounded in contemporary contexts and philosophical thought. Philosophy, best characterized as the love of wisdom, is not dependent on a specific medium nor solely situated within written text or oral lectures. Shamir asserts that philosophy can, should, and must be manifested and identified in a range of different platforms. (shrink)

Offers three Neo-Confucian understandings of broadening the Way as broadening oneself, through an ongoing process of removing self-boundaries.

This article examines some techno-political aspects of the early years of electrification in British-ruled 1920s Palestine. It emphasizes the importance of local technical, topographical and hydrological forms of knowledge for understanding the dynamics of electrification. Situating the analysis in a general colonial context of electrification, the study shows that British colonial rulers lagged behind both German firms and local entrepreneurs in understanding the specific conditions pertaining to electrification in Palestine. Subsequently, the study shows that the British had limited control of (...) the actual electrification process and its declared/professed developmental purposes, thereby complicating assumptions about electrification as a tool of the Empire/tool of empire. Finding some similarities between the cases of electrifying Palestine and India, the article’s findings may shed further light on the importance of micro-politics of knowledge for understanding the trajectory of electrification in the colonies. (shrink)

While globalization is largely theorized in terms of trans-border flows, this article suggests an exploratory sociological framework for analyzing globalization as consisting of systemic processes of closure and containment. The suggested framework points at the emergence of a global mobility regime that actively seeks to contain social movement both within and across borders. The mobility regime is theorized as premised upon a pervasive “paradigm of suspicion” that conflates the perceived threats of crime, immigration, and terrorism, thus constituting a conceptual blueprint (...) for the organization of global risk-management strategies. The article draws on multiple examples, singling out some elementary forms of the mobility regime, emphasizing the sociological affinity between guarded borders on the one hand and gated communities on the other. In particular, the article aims at theorizing the translation of the paradigm of suspicion into actual technologies of social screening designed to police the mobility of those social elements that are deemed to belong to suspect social categories. Specifically, the article points at biosocial profiling as an increasingly dominant technology of intervention. Biosocial profiling, in turn, is theorized in juxtaposition to other modalities of power, namely, legal and disciplinary measures. (shrink)

Recent years have seen abundant literature, in law and the social sciences, addressing the significance of "soft law," "self-regulation," and "private law-making" and analyzing the potential implications of "governance" in general for the trajectory of law. This Article is grounded in and oriented towards this broad theoretical and conceptual terrain by pointing at empirical phenomena that mark a shift towards market-embedded forms of social regulation. I specifically discuss the Equator Principles, a self-regulatory blueprint for overseeing the social and environmental performance (...) of project-finance initiatives. I argue for an understanding of the process in terms of a general moralization of markets, in and of itself a product of neo-liberal conceptions of governance. I posit that one implication of this process is that socially-oriented norm-making and norm-enforcement merge with the instrumental and utilitarian logic of markets. (shrink)

Countries increasingly have been entering bilateral labor agreements as a tool for the regulation and governance of short-term temporary labor migration worldwide. However, these are often confidential legal instruments, and consequently we know relatively little about their actual content and impact, and why countries choose to enter them. This Article complements existing explanations in the literature regarding the reasons why countries enter BLAs and their potential to create and improve migrant workers’ rights. Based on a detailed content analysis of 81 (...) recent BLAs signed largely over the last 20 years, and on a wide literature review and interest analysis, we introduce a “control thesis.” According to the control thesis, the popularity, confidentiality and unenforceability of BLAs can be explained, at least partially, by their ability to promote a key shared interest of sending and receiving countries in controlling and policing the mobility and actions of migrant workers and also, at times, aspects of the illicit migration industry that develops around labor migration. We reach this conclusion, and elaborate on its meaning and the potential it may hold for migrant workers and their advocates, in strategically seeking to use BLAs to improve temporary migrant workers’ rights and protections. (shrink)

‘Rabbi’ is the title of Jewish scholars and teachers. Yet, in the sixteenth century, the word was sometimes employed in Christian discourse, when Christian scholars referred to their Christian peers as rabbis. How could non-Jews be called rabbis? This article explores the meaning of the term ‘rabbi’ in sixteenth-century intra-Christian polemics and discourse. It shows how the image of the ‘rabbi’, a figure of (negative) intellectual authority, penetrated the speech of Christian intellectuals and polemicists. It suggests that this ‘rabbinic’ figure (...) was not necessarily Jewish. Although ‘rabbi’ is a Jewish term – the incarnation of Jewish intellectual life – the term also denotes Jesus as well as his opponents, the Pharisees. Thus, polemical ‘rabbinising’ of Christian scholars potentially involved very different images of scholarly authority. (shrink)

One of the major problems in the implementation of the precautionary principle in environmental cases is the estimation of the weight of evidence. In this paper we propose a formal method that determines the weight of evidence based on the specific parameters of a given case. The proposed method is based on an artificial intelligence approach called fuzzy logic, which is commonly used as an interface between logic and human perception, and often applied to computer-based complex decision making. We use (...) one fuzzy expert system that provides a quantification of the estimated environmental damage, and a second fuzzy expert system that computes the weight of evidence in a given case. The proposed expert system can be easily defined and adjusted by regulators and environmental science and policy experts. (shrink)

This Article examines what form the public/private distinction takes in contemporary legal consciousness. It proposes that while the public/ private distinction is still an important component of contemporary legal consciousness, the content of each sphere, their stability as distinct spheres, and their interaction with each other have significantly changed. This transformation occurred primarily due to the rise of the regulatory state and the increased visibility of the interconnectedness of the spheres due to public ordering of private activity in an age (...) of widespread privatization. The current state of the distinction challenges courts, when these are asked by petitioners to define the proper scope of the spheres and decide on their boundaries. The Article critically examines the Israeli High Court of Justice decision in a prison privatization case, as a case that reflects the mismatch between the traditional understanding of the public/private distinction and a much messier reality in which the private and public spheres keep changing, and intermingling in new ways. (shrink)

To Broaden the Way suggests that the texts of both the Jewish and Confucian tradition talk in riddles of a special kind: riddles which are introduced-and answered-by religious forms of life. Using a "dialogue of riddles," Galia Patt-Shamir presents a comparative perspective of Confucianism and Judaism regarding the relatedness between contradictory expressions in texts and living conflicts.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 269-283 [Access article in PDF] To Live a Riddle:The Case of the Binding of Isaac Galia Patt-Shamir MOST OF US BELIEVE we know what a riddle is. Usually it is an obscurity, or a set of obscurities, for which—we assume—an answer can be given, even if one is not yet known. Most of us, moreover, believe we know what a solution to a (...) riddle is; in most cases it is a well-defined explanation of the obscurities inherent in the riddle. But what if these obscurities cannot be defined well inherently? In this case, it may be called "a living riddle." Most of us probably have never given a thought to what a living riddle is, and to what would amount to a response. In this article, I attempt to understand the biblical story of the binding of Isaac (the Akedah), as a riddle of a special type, a riddle whose "solution" is one's life.An underlying assumption here is that obscurities and paradoxical expressions in religious texts reflect real conflicts in life. No one can completely understand a foreign form of life; and moreover, in each form of life the most crucial ideas are couched only in subtle cues. The idea of a living riddle opens a channel between texts and practice; an ability to see the riddle expresses understanding for the form of life it represents.The article opens with a philosophical exposition, followed by a literary illustration regarding the role of riddle in a religious context. In the second part, we offer a methodology, mainly as an implication of the later Wittgenstein's texts; in this part, we will focus on the senses of life as a riddle. The third part focuses on life as the response to the riddle. By applying this method to the biblical story of the Akedah, we will refer to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. In the fourth part, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein are interwoven to highlight the absurd. [End Page 269] This article ends with a counter-example to the futile attempt to reason with the Akedah, as presented in Kafka's short story "Abraham." I Let us start in reading two passages from Wittgenstein's Culture and Value. Christianity is not a doctrine, not, I mean, a theory about... but a description of something that actually takes place in human life. (p. 28) But in that case why is the scripture so unclear? If we want to warn someone of a terrible danger, do we go about it by telling him a riddle whose solution will be the warning? But who is to say that the scripture is really unclear? Isn't it possible that it was essential in this case to 'tell a riddle'? (p. 31) 1Wittgenstein stresses that first and foremost, the particular case of Christianity refers to a system of practices. In his words Christianity is not a theory about something; it is human life itself. Religious belief can, and has to be, expressed in riddles: telling a riddle is essential for understanding. According to the present view, a riddle is a question in which the answer is inherent. The riddle itself is a hint toward its solution. If, by analogy, a careful detective discovers a clue and shows that it is inherent in the puzzle, we get closer to unraveling the whole.Religion is presented as a riddle of a special kind. Its "solution" is not found in theoretical terms; rather, it is a commitment; "a living riddle." When one takes up this riddle as one's life, one commits every move in life as an expression of the riddle. Even without living it, an ability to see the riddle and its response is an ability for "seeing every problem from a religious point of view," despite seeing oneself as "not a religious person" (as Wittgenstein testifies of himself). 2 The ability to see that it is a living riddle, allows an "outsider" to recognize a certain point about the believer's life not... (shrink)

The present article focuses on Zhang Zai’s 張載 attitude toward death and its moral significance. It launches with the unusual link between the opening statement of the Western Inscription 西銘 regarding heaven and earth as parents and the conclusion that serving one’s cosmic parents during life, one is peaceful in death. Through the analogy of human relations with heaven and earth as filial piety (xiao 孝), Zhang Zai sets a framework for an understanding that being filial through life eliminates the (...) fear of death. The article shows that filial piety as a root for morality enables a “sense of immortality,” which is in fact a sense of morality. This moral immortality is elucidated through Zhang Zai’s discussion on vital power (qi 氣) as that which life is made of, which persists through ongoing transformation and enables a moral continuum. This continuum is manifested through filial piety, which transcends the limits between life and death, and thus makes physical death pointless as morality endures. (shrink)

This article suggests that reading Zhou Dunyi’s 周敦頤 Explanation to the Diagram of Supreme Polarity synchronously instead of diachronically yields a new understanding on the relatedness between infinitude and finitude, or on the One and many. Zhou’s attitude is introduced as a living riddle, in which “Non-Polar and Supreme Polarity” is understood as a new conceptual construct, and one which is issued as a call for action at the end of the text: it is a call to investigate the beginnings (...) and endings of one’s life. In this way, the text demonstrates how a person embodies the cosmological as riddle. The article follows both the diagram and text. It first refers to the riddle, then moves on to its embodiment in the ongoing processes of living as yin-yang 陰陽, the five phases, qian 乾 and kun 坤, and the myriad things, including human beings. According to the approach presented here, it is the sage who is the human embodiment of “Non-Polar and Supreme Polarity.”. (shrink)

This article suggests how Mengzian ideas of the way [dao], rightness [yi] and rites [li], as related to the presupposition that human nature is moral, respond to rigid notions of “truth” and “law,” which tolerate a banalization of evil. It further suggests that the Mengzian attitude is both rooted in human empathy and draws clear limits to it. This is demonstrated by responding to arguments raised by the protagonist Max Aue in Jonathan Little’s book The Kindly Ones.

This dissertation presents a new viewpoint regarding the problem of understanding the nature of religious belief, based on examining apparent contradictions in Confucian religious texts and their implications on the life of the believer. The approach is demonstrated primarily by focusing on a pioneering Neo-Confucian text from the 11th century AD, the Tongshu by Zhou Dunyi. The approach is also used in new readings of a few classical Confucian and Neo-Confucian texts. It is suggested that the main concepts appear in (...) the texts as paradoxical since they belong to a form of life that demands daily confrontations of the practitioner with practical dilemmas. It is essential for the religious form of life that only through living by it, one can see that the text is not simply contradictory; rather, it talks in riddles of a special kind: riddles which are introduced--and answered--by the religious form of life. ;In order to show the significance of the paradoxical language of Tongshu, the thesis is developed in two directions: historical-religious and philosophical-methodological. The first chapter presents a new translation of the text and its commentary. The second chapter suggests an understanding of major ideas in the text, that is of propriety, sincerity, and sagehood, by means of reference to other works of the era. The third chapter presents the method and terminology used in the thesis which are based on later Wittgenstein's ideas on understanding, particularly regarding understanding religious belief and practice. The fourth chapter concludes the thesis by presenting a new understanding of the above ideas as riddles that are responded to in practice. ;The contributions of the proposed dissertation are three-fold: First, from the Confucian perspective, the dissertation contains a new translation of the Tongshu, and a first translation of its commentary, as well as a new method to deal with texts. From the philosophical perspective, the thesis offers an application of later Wittgenstein to a field not commonly discussed in this context. From the perspective of the study of religion, it may serve as both a method and an implication of the question "what is religion about?". (shrink)

This essay retells the stories of four exemplary women from Confucianism and Judaism, hoping that the tension these stories exhibit can teach us something about women’s lives within the boundaries of tradition, then and now. It refers to two ideal “family caretakers”: M eng Mu 孟母, who devoted her life to her son’s learning, and Rachel, who devoted her life to her husband, the famous Rabbi Akiva. Then it tells the stories of two almost completely opposing exemplary figures: The sages (...) B an Zhao 班昭 and Bruriah, who dedicated their lives to learning and self-cultivation. It stresses that there is more than one dichotomized resolution to inner conflicts within the traditional framework in both Confucianism and Judaism, and, moreover, the plurality of resolutions is inherent in the traditions. Through reading a story and appreciating the complexities in others’ lives, while reflecting on our own, we can attain a level of abstraction that enables better sensitivity and more responsibility for the life we live. (shrink)

Whose Tradition? Which Dao? Confucius and Wittgenstein on Moral Learning and Reflection by James F. Peterman addresses the valuable position that Confucius’ dao can and has to be understood within the useful framework of Wittgensteinian forms of life, their concrete language games, and the mastery of techniques and rule- following, and that Wittgenstein’s forms of life embody critical therapeutic interventions that can be better understood through Confucian ideas of moral practice and reflection, most significantly as the practice of ritual. Placing (...) Confucianism in a global philosophical context is necessary, since the self-sufficiency of Confucianism demands that it should be possible to... (shrink)

The objective in this article is to apply a Daoist model of an ethic derived from the Laozi on writings of the Huang Lao tradition to offer a unique Daoist cosmically derived ethic in its own terms. Having our point of departure in the Laozi we refer to its paradoxical language as a living riddle that is inherent to the tradition, and as such it suggests a “model of modeling.” We find this model in Laozi 25, according to which self-so (...) (ziran自然) serves as foundation for an ethic that is neither dichotomizing nor rests on human moral conventions, rather as a guiding philosophy of living. On this basis we explore the question of an ethic in the Huang Lao tradition. (shrink)

One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras Shamra, Syria, during the early 1930s. Written in Ugaritic script and spread over three worn and broken tablets, this text has been thoroughly studied for the past eighty years. More than a few studies have dealt with the following questions: Is the end of the known text in the third tablet really the end of the story? Or is there perhaps a (...) missing tablet, or tablets, that continue the plot from the third tablet? These questions have been answered on the basis of storyline and plot, and many believe that there must have been more contents that complete this story and that it cannot end where the text ends. In this paper we have tried to answer this question based on epigraphic evidence found in the third tablet of the Aqht legend. After carefully examining four unique features of this tablet, we conclude that KTU 1.19 is, in fact, the last one of this specific sequence. We support this evidence by an analysis of the contents, showing that there is indeed enough text to suggest a proper closure for this legend. (shrink)

This article examines some techno-political aspects of the early years of electrification in British-ruled 1920s Palestine. It emphasizes the importance of local technical, topographical and hydrological forms of knowledge for understanding the dynamics of electrification. Situating the analysis in a general colonial context of electrification, the study shows that British colonial rulers lagged behind both German firms and local entrepreneurs in understanding the specific conditions pertaining to electrification in Palestine. Subsequently, the study shows that the British had limited control of (...) the actual electrification process and its declared/professed developmental purposes, thereby complicating assumptions about electrification as a tool of the Empire/tool of empire. Finding some similarities between the cases of electrifying Palestine and India, the article’s findings may shed further light on the importance of micro-politics of knowledge for understanding the trajectory of electrification in the colonies. (shrink)

Depression experienced by older adults is proving an increasing global health burden, with rates generally 7% and as high as 27% in the USA. This is likely to significantly increase in coming years as the number and proportion of older adults in the population rises all around the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the effectiveness of approaches to the prevention and treatment of depression are understood. Creative arts interventions, including art, dance movement, drama and music modalities, are utilised internationally (...) to target depression and depressive symptoms in older adults. This includes interventions led by trained arts therapists as well as other health and arts professionals. However, to date there has not been a systematic review that reports effects and examines the processes (why) and mechanisms (how) of creative arts interventions are used to address depression in this older age group. This systematic review of studies on creative arts interventions for older adults experiencing depression examined: outcomes of four creative arts modalities (art, dance movement, drama, and music); with particular attention paid to processes documented as contributing to change in each modality; and mechanisms considered to result from these processes. Our analysis of 75 articles (17 art, 13 dance, 4 drama and 41 music) indicates mostly significant quantitative or positive qualitative findings, particularly for interventions led by creative arts therapists. Mechanisms of change gleaned from the studies that were common across modalities include physical (e.g. increased muscle strength; neurochemical effects, such as endorphin release), intra-personal (e.g. enhanced self-concept, strengthened agency and mastery; processing and communication of emotions), cultural (e.g. creative expression, aesthetic pleasure), cognitive (e.g. stimulation of memory) and social (e.g. increased social skills and connection), that were all considered to contribute to reduced depression and symptoms. Recommendations for future research include a stronger focus on testing of processes and mechanisms. (shrink)

Segmentation of post-operative glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is essential for the planning of Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) treatment and other clinical applications. Recent methods developed for pre-operative GBM segmentation perform poorly on post-operative GBM MRI scans. In this paper we present a method for the segmentation of GBM in post-operative patients. Our method incorporates an ensemble of segmentation networks and the Kullback–Leibler divergence agreement score in the objective function to estimate the prediction label uncertainty and cope with noisy labels and inter-observer (...) variability. Moreover, our method integrates the surgery type and computes non-tumorous tissue delineation to automatically segment the tumor. We trained and validated our method on a dataset of 340 enhanced T1 MRI scans of patients that were treated with TTFields (270 scans for train and 70 scans for test). For validation, we developed a tool that uses the uncertainty map along with the segmentation result. Our tool allows visualization and fast editing of the tissues to improve the results dependent on user preference. Three physicians reviewed and graded our segmentation and editing tool on 12 different MRI scans. The validation set average (SD) Dice scores were 0.81 (0.11), 0.71 (0.24), 0.64 (0.25), and 0.68 (0.19) for whole-tumor, resection, necrotic-core, and enhancing-tissue, respectively. The physicians rated 72% of the segmented GBMs acceptable for treatment planning or better. Another 22% can be edited manually in a reasonable time to achieve a clinically acceptable result. According to these results, the proposed method for GBM segmentation can be integrated into TTFields treatment planning software in order to shorten the planning process. To conclude, we have extended a state-of-the-art pre-operative GBM segmentation method with surgery-type, anatomical information, and uncertainty visualization to facilitate a clinically viable segmentation of post-operative GBM for TTFields treatment planning. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper, two arguments, one by Chomsky, and one by Bar-Hillel and Shamir, are examined in detail and rejected. Both arguments purport to show that the structure of English precludes its having a finite state grammar which correctly enumerates just the well formed sentences of English. In the latter part of the paper I consider the problem of supporting claims about the structure and properties of a natural language when no grammar for the language (...) has yet been accepted. (shrink)

In [2], Bar-Hillel, Gaifman, and Shamir prove that the simple phrase structure grammars (SPGs) defined by Chomsky are equivalent in a certain sense to Bar-Hillel's bidirectional categorial grammars (BCGs). On the other hand, Cohen [3] proves the equivalence of the latter ones to what the calls free categorial grammars (FCGs). They are closely related to Lambek's syntactic calculus which, in turn, is based on the idea due to Ajdukiewicz [1]. For the reasons which will be discussed in the last (...) section, Cohen's proof seems to be at least incomplete. This paper yields a direct proof of the equivalence ofFCGs andSPGs. (shrink)

Joel M. Cohen , pp. 475- 484) claims that Lambek’s categorial grammars are equivalent in a certain natural sense to those of Bar-Hillel, Gaifman, and Shamir. Unfortunately, it turns out that Cohen’s proof is based on a false lemma. Thus the equivalence of both kinds of grammars is still an open problem although there is much evidence in its favor. This paper yields a counterexample to Cohen’s lemma.

In [2], Bar-Hillel, Gaifman, and Shamir prove that the simple phrase structure grammars dened by Chomsky are equivalent in a cer- tain sense to Bar-Hillel's bidirectional categorial grammars . On the other hand, Cohen [3] proves the equivalence of the latter ones to what he calls free categorial grammars . They are closely related to Lambek's syntactic calculus which is, in turn, based on the idea due to Ajdukiewicz [1]. For some reasons, Cohen's proof seems to be at least (...) in- complete. Here, I give a short outline of the direct proof of the equivalence between SF G's and F CG's. (shrink)