The liberalism of flourishing : two versions -- Intellectualist-moralist liberalism of flourishing -- Comprehensive liberalism of flourishing -- The liberalism of flourishing and autonomy liberalism : some comparisons -- Flourishing, art, and the state -- Art and flourishing -- Art and the liberal state -- Liberalism, art, and religion -- Liberalism, religion, nationalism : liberalism in the domains of meaning.

Machine intelligence already helps medical staff with a number of tasks. Ethical decision-making, however, has not been handed over to computers. In this proof-of-concept study, we show how an algorithm based on Beauchamp and Childress’ prima-facie principles could be employed to advise on a range of moral dilemma situations that occur in medical institutions. We explain why we chose fuzzy cognitive maps to set up the advisory system and how we utilized machine learning to train it. We report on the (...) difficult task of operationalizing the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence and patient autonomy, and describe how we selected suitable input parameters that we extracted from a training dataset of clinical cases. The first performance results are promising, but an algorithmic approach to ethics also comes with several weaknesses and limitations. Should one really entrust the sensitive domain of clinical ethics to machine intelligence? (shrink)

__The View from Within_ _examines the character of reason and the ability of an individual to effectively distance himself from the normative framework in which he functions in order to be self-critical and innovative. To accomplish this task, Menachem Fisch and Yitzhak Benbaji critically employ or reject the recent writings of Brandom, Friedman, Frankfurt, Walzer, Davidson, Williams, Habermas, Rorty, and McDowell to offer a fundamental analysis of the character of reason and the problem of relativism. This ambitious book forcefully (...) raises the problem of rational normative change and makes the unique and insightful claim that although we cannot be _convinced _by normative criticism to modify or replace our norms, we can be rationally _motivated_ to do so by the effect of exposure to trusted critics. Its unprecedented analysis, with its solution to the problem of normative self-criticism that has baffled philosophers for the past sixty years, will be welcomed by both students and scholars of philosophy. “__The View from Within_ _is a thorough evaluation of the arguments made by contemporary philosophers about the normative character of reason and the derivative problem of relativism. Fisch and Benbaji have admirably compared and contrasted competing positions, and with a balanced critique, they have made a sustained effort to ‘save’ rationality and provide new guideposts for its philosophical evaluation. A timely and important contribution.” —_Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University_. (shrink)

Assuming some large cardinals, a model of ZFC is obtained in which $\aleph_{\omega+1}$ carries no Aronszajn trees. It is also shown that if $\lambda$ is a singular limit of strongly compact cardinals, then $\lambda^+$ carries no Aronszajn trees.

We prove that the statement "For every pair A, B, stationary subsets of ω 2 , composed of points of cofinality ω, there exists an ordinal α such that both A ∩ α and $B \bigcap \alpha$ are stationary subsets of α" is equiconsistent with the existence of weakly compact cardinal. (This completes results of Baumgartner and Harrington and Shelah.) We also prove, assuming the existence of infinitely many supercompact cardinals, the statement "Every stationary subset of ω ω + 1 (...) has a stationary initial segment.". (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 47 Heft: 1 Seiten: 185-208.

William Whewell was a giant of Victorian intellectual culture. His influence, whether recognized or forgotten, is palpable in areas as diverse as moral philosophy, mineralogy, architecture, the politics of education, physics, engineering, and theology. Recent studies of the place of the sciences in nineteenth-century Britain have repeatedly indicated the significance of Whewell's sweeping and critical proposals for a reformed account of scientific knowledge and moral values. However, until now there has been no detailed study of the context and impact of (...) his project. This collection of essays by recognized authorities in the fields of history, history of science, and philosophy thus represents the first attempt to do justice to a magisterial nineteenth-century intellectual. More generally, it makes an important contribution to our understanding of Victorian intellectual life and its aftermath. (shrink)

This book, by one of the most prominent interpreters of Leo Strauss's thought, was the first to address the problem that Leo Strauss himself said was the theme of his studies: the theologico-political problem or the confrontation with the theological and the political alternative to philosophy as a way of life. In his theologico-political treatise, which comprises four parts and an appendix, Heinrich Meier clarifies the distinction between political theology and political philosophy and reappraises the unifying center of Strauss's (...) philosophical enterprise. The book is the culmination of Meier's work on the theologico-political problem. It will interest anyone who seeks to understand both the problem caused by revelation for philosophy and the challenge posed by political-religious radicalism. The appendix makes available for the first time two lectures by Strauss that are immediately relevant to the subject of this book and that will open the way for future research and debate on the legacy of Strauss. (shrink)

Toldot ha-meḥaber - Petaḥ davar -- Psikhonoyroʼimunologyah, yaḥase gomlin nefesh guf -- Hakarat ha-ṭov la-tseṿet ha-metapel -- Peʻilut hatsalah ha-ʻalulah le-hasev nezaḳim -- ha-Ḥoleh ha-sofani ha-noṭeh la-mut -- ʻAl saf gesher ha-ḥayim -- Ḳedushat ha-ḥayim -- Ḥoleh dimenṭi, ḥasar deʻah, Altshaimer -- Ḥolim ḳashim ʻim ekhut ḥayim yerudah u-mugbaluyot -- Refuʼat nashim (geniḳologyah), ʻubarim, yiludim ṿi-yeladim -- Bediḳot seḳer -- Amirat emet la-ḥoleh.

For many, the two key thinkers about science in the twentieth century are Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, and one of the key questions in contemplating science is how to make sense of theory change. In Creatively Undecided, philosopher Menachem Fisch defends a new way to make sense of the rationality of scientific revolutions. He argues, loosely following Kuhn, for a strong notion of the framework dependency of all scientific practice, while at the same time he shows how such (...) frameworks can be deemed the possible outcomes of keen rational deliberation along Popperian lines. Fisch's innovation is to call attention to the importance of ambiguity and indecision in scientific change and advancement. Specifically, he backs the problem up, looking not at how we might communicate rationally across an already existing divide but at the rational incentive to create an alternative framework in the first place. Creatively Undecided will be essential reading for philosophers of science, and its vivid case study in Victorian mathematics will draw in historians. (shrink)

We investigated the competition between automatic and controlled processes in a word stem completion task. Prime-display duration and the prime-target interval were manipulated. On each trial a masked prime was displayed briefly, followed either immediately or after a delay by a word stem. The subjects were required to complete each stem with the first word that came to mind, to report any prime they could identify, and not to give as completion any identified prime. By the assumption that automatic processes (...) require less stimulus input and can be completed faster than consciously controlled processes we expected a stronger performance contribution from automatic processes with the shorter prime-display durations and in the immediate stems condition. The results confirmed this expectation. The findings highlight that consciously controlled processes require more time to run their course than unconscious automatic processes. (shrink)

Menachem Lorberbaum; Learning from Mistakes: Resources of Tolerance in the Jewish Tradition, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 29, Issue 2, 30 May 2006.

Our theme is that not every interesting question in set theory is independent of ZFC. We give an example of a first order theory T with countable D(T) which cannot have a universal model at ℵ1 without CH; we prove in ZFC a covering theorem from the hypothesis of the existence of a universal model for some theory; and we prove--again in ZFC--that for a large class of cardinals there is no universal linear order (e.g. in every regular $\aleph_1 < (...) \lambda < 2^{\aleph_0}$). In fact, what we show is that if there is a universal linear order at a regular λ and its existence is not a result of a trivial cardinal arithmetical reason, then λ "resembles" ℵ1--a cardinal for which the consistency of having a universal order is known. As for singular cardinals, we show that for many singular cardinals, if they are not strong limits then they have no universal linear order. As a result of the nonexistence of a universal linear order, we show the nonexistence of universal models for all theories possessing the strict order property (for example, ordered fields and groups, Boolean algebras, p-adic rings and fields, partial orders, models of PA and so on). (shrink)

We show that, assuming the consistency of a supercompact cardinal, the first inaccessible cardinal can satisfy a strong form of a Löwenheim–Skolem–Tarski theorem for the equicardinality logic L, a logic introduced in [5] strictly between first order logic and second order logic. On the other hand we show that in the light of present day inner model technology, nothing short of a supercompact cardinal suffices for this result. In particular, we show that the Löwenheim–Skolem–Tarski theorem for the equicardinality logic at (...) κ implies the Singular Cardinals Hypothesis above κ as well as Projective Determinacy. (shrink)

Discusses the differences between the spies sent by Moses and those sent by Joshua by exploring the spiritual significance of both events and their application today.

heleḳ 1. Be-reshit, Shemot, va-Yikra -- heleḳ 2. ba-Midbar, Devarim.

1. Moʻadim u-zemane ha-shanah, Elul-Adar -- 2. Moʻadim u-zemane ha-shanah, Nisan-Av.

In the Paths of Our Fathers provides a sampler of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's unique approach to Pirkei Avot. It shows the connections to points of Jewish law and reveals the influence of Jewish mystical teachings in these sayings. The Rebbe's emphasis, as always, is upon how their wisdom can be applied in real life for the sake of personal growth and spiritual understandings.

This book explores the emergence of the fundamental political concepts of medieval Jewish thought, arguing that alongside the well known theocratic elements of the Bible there exists a vital tradition that conceives of politics as a necessary and legitimate domain of worldly activity that preceded religious law in the ordering of society. Since the Enlightenment, the separation of religion and state has been a central theme in Western political history and thought, a separation that upholds the freedom of conscience of (...) the individual. In medieval political thought, however, the doctrine of the separation of religion and state played a much different role. On the one hand, it served to maintain the integrity of religious law versus the monarch, whether canon law, Islamic law, or Jewish law. On the other hand, it upheld the autonomy of the monarch and the autonomy of human political agency against theocratic claims of divine sovereignty and clerical authority. Postulating the realm of secular politics leads the author to construct a theory of the precedence of politics over religious law in the organization of social life. He argues that the attempts of medieval philosophers to understand religion and the polity provide new perspectives on the viability of an accommodation between revelation and legislation, the holy and the profane, the divine and the temporal. The book shows that in spite of the long exile of the Jewish people, there is, unquestionably, a tradition of Jewish political discourse based on the canonical sources of Jewish law. In addition to providing a fresh analysis of Maimonides, it analyzes works of Nahmanides, Solomon ibn Adret, and Nissim Gerondi that are largely unknown to the English-speaking reader. Finally, it suggests that the historical corpus of Jewish political writing remains vital today, with much to contribute to the ongoing debates over church-state relations and theocratic societies. (shrink)

This is a survey paper giving a self-contained account of Shelah's theory of the pcf function pcf={cf:D is an ultrafilter on a}, where a is a set of regular cardinals such that a

Logic and Philosophy of Logic

Logic and Philosophy of Logic, Miscellaneous in Logic and Philosophy of Logic

Model Theory in Logic and Philosophy of Logic

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The paper attempts to elucidate and evaluate William Whewell's notion of a "consilience of inductions." In section I Whewellian consilience is defined and shown to differ considerably from what latter-day writers talk about when they use the term. In section II a primary analysis of consilience is shown to yield two types of consilient processes, one in which one of the lower-level laws undergoes a conceptual change (the case aptly discussed in Butts [1977]), and one in which the explanatory theory (...) undergoes conceptual "stretching." In section III both consilient cases are compared to the non-consilient case in reference to L. J. Cohen's method of relevant variables. In section IV we examine the test procedures of the theory in all three cases, and it is shown that in the event of genuine consilience (consilience of the second type) a theory acquires extraordinarily high support. In the final section something is said of the short-comings of standard Bayesian confirmation theories that are highlighted by Whewellian consilience. (shrink)

This article examines the role culture plays in contract law. It demonstrates that even in contract law, the branch of law most committed to the ideal of individual autonomy, law’s reliance on culture makes compulsion by the law an unavoidable outcome. The concept of culture is applied to contract law in two principal ways. First, it attempts to explain the rise of objectivism in late nineteenth-century contract law as a manifestation of some central experiences prevalent in modern culture. Second, it (...) analyzes the role played by culture within the context of some of the central doctrines of contract law, namely, the doctrines on the formation and interpretation of contracts. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, liberal thinkers have invested a great deal of effort in adapting liberal political theory to the multicultural condition. The central question that has occupied these thinkers is how a liberal state ought to treat cultural practices of non-liberal groups living within it. One major group of thinkers insists that it is incumbent on the liberal state to make sure that autonomy, together with some other central liberal values, are made part of the lives of all (...) the citizens living in the state. Another major group holds that it is the function of the liberal state to serve as framework for the peaceful co-existence of people who have diverse conceptions of the good life. These thinkers therefore call for "restraint" on the part of the state in its relations with non-liberal groups. This Article wishes to go beyond these two approaches. It is motivated by the conviction that the only standards that a liberal state can invoke in its relations with non-liberal groups are universal standards, i.e., standards that can be viewed, to the utmost extent possible, as transcending any particular culture, and that can be applied not only to non-liberal cultures, but to the culture of the mainstream liberal society itself. The Article puts forth a series of considerations that must be taken into account when intervention on the part of a liberal state in cultural practices of non-liberal groups is considered. It also sets forth two proposals as to the standards that need to guide the liberal state in cases in which it considers intervention in cultural practices of groups living in it: the doctrine of human rights and the concept of humanness. (shrink)

A situation in which luck determines what happens in our lives is composed of two elements: the existence of a multiplicity of possible outcomes, and lack of control over the situation, namely that we have no way, or at least no meaningful way, to affect the outcome. Adjudication is a luck situation: law is indeterminate and in a decent society litigants are not supposed to have control over their judges. Can we minimize luck in adjudication? The primary way to do (...) this is to make every decision given in the system resemble as much as possible the decision that would have been reached by the majority of the judges active in the system had they all been given the opportunity to decide the case at hand as a group. Put differently, luck in judicial decisions can be lessened by increasing the number of judges in panels. Even though in a decent society the option of controlling the conduct of judges is out of the question, several means do exist for litigants to employ some control over the identity of the persons who are to resolve their disputes. (shrink)

Journal Name: The Law & Ethics of Human Rights Issue: Ahead of print.

In recent years there have been numerous warnings in the press and in the social networks that Israel is about to convert its liberal democracy into a fascist regime. This Article argues that the occupation of the West Bank stands at the root of the most important processes that have been taking place in Israel in the past five decades. One of those processes is the erosion of Israel’s liberalism. I claim that the prolongation of the occupation is the central, (...) lasting threat to Israel’s liberalism. In essence, the occupation breeds denunciations of and protests against the government and the Israel Defense Forces, and these, in turn, bring about measures on the part of the government and right-wing civil society organizations that undermine or threaten Israel’s liberalism. In addition, the full-scale wars between Israel and Gaza, and the continuation of violence between the parties in the periods between the wars, undermine or threaten Israel’s liberalism. (shrink)

Kojman, M. and S. Shelah, The universality spectrum of stable unsuperstable theories, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 58 57–72. It is shown that if T is stable unsuperstable, and 1 [brvbar]T[brvbar], T stable and κ<κ then there is a universal tree of height κ + 1 in cardinality λ.

French theorists have recently proposed a theory which describes all literature in terms of the probable, the vraisemblable.6 This poetics of the probable commences with a purely relativistic claim. What is probable not only changes in accordance with the audience’s concept of reality but also changes in accordance with the needs of the story and with the narrative possibilities open to various genres. It includes all of the norms and models making a given text understandable to the reader, however outlandish (...) and eccentric it may be. Various levels of the vraisemblable are distinguished from each other, and the vraisemblable based upon models of the world or the world view prevalent in a given culture is scrupulously separated from types of the vraisemblable that are based upon literary, generic models. However, as Tzvetan Todorov gladly admits, “the two notions tend to melt into each other.”7 He and other theorists see the literary genre itself as one of the models “probabilizing” a given text, at times in direct contradiction with “natural” models of the world. Still others see the world, or the prevalent world view, as the universal text which probabilizes other texts.[…]Rather than how this new concept of the vraisemblable, of probability, fares in relation to farce in films, theater, and literature, I prefer to ask how farce fares in relation to it. I think that it doesn’t do well. Farce shows that it is a mistake to unify the possibilities for understanding a text and the possibilities for understanding its fictional world within a single integrated concept. It is a further mistake to term such a concept “probability.” When dealing with the fantastic or the marvelous, for instance, probabilizing the text and probabilizing the work’s fictional world may legitimately be unified under a single principle or concept. If we agree to change or suspend a fundamental belief about the world, we will be able to perceive as logical and probable not only the texts but also the fictional worlds of such works. Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” excellently fits works that are written in these genres. Such works require that we temporarily forget a certain general belief about the world. After we’ve agreed, as a result of this suspension, to include certain elements in the world , we may then rebuild the fictional world while using the rest of our beliefs along with this new assumption. Farce’s incredibility creates a different situation. Before we have even begun to recover from an attack upon one probability principle, another is undermined. In farce the rules of probability are not neutralized in one specific realm of reality; their inversion operates constantly on all of reality’s realms. The image of a seemingly real world, reminding us of our own world and of our own set of probabilities, is all we need to be constantly astonished by farce’s persistently novel deviations from predictable probability. Here, in direct opposition to the marvelous, the new deviations must keep on coming from unexpected directions, because farce won’t allow its incredibilities to consolidate and become new rules of probability. The fictional world of overt farce lacks a specific factor, the one that would have probabilized all of the other factors of this world. Such an Archimedean center might seem to be located in the genre’s definition—this genre, however, does not probabilize the incredible. Farce’s definition does not make farce’s world more intelligible in any sense of that word. At the very most, farce allows us to forgo such intelligibility without transgressing the established boundaries of art.6. For an excellent presentation of their views, see Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics, and the Study of Literature , pp. 131-60.7. Tzvetan Todorov, The Poetics of Prose, trans. Richard Howard , p. 83. See also his introduction to Communications 11 : 2. (shrink)

We can hardly know for certain how strongly a scholarly discipline like history is able to affect politics and society, popular views and morals. Whatever its impact, it's influence also varies from epoch to epoch. During a few decades of the nineteenth century, historians were overwhelmed by so many questions and by such high expectations that there existed a large public space for them that they merely had to occupy. At other times, they have had to conquer this space first (...) if they wanted to gain continued attention.To be sure, a differentiation has to be introduced: any society has particular interests, e.g., in parts of its more recent past or in events that society sees as having something like a “mythical quality” about then, events that represent a major divide, that are deeply imprinted on that society's memory, that have attained a special role through tradition. There is, of course, always a space commanding wider public attention for these aspects. However, they are no more than small specks on the large canvas of history. (shrink)

A vast and interesting family of natural semantics for belief revision is defined. Suppose one is given a distance d between any two models. One may then define the revision of a theory K by a formula α as the theory defined by the set of all those models of α that are closest, by d, to the set of models of K. This family is characterized by a set of rationality postulates that extends the AGM postulates. The new postulates (...) describe properties of iterated revisions. (shrink)

A study of the making of George Peacock's highly influential, yet disturbingly split, 1830 account of algebra as an entanglement of two separate undertakings: arithmetical and symbolical or formal.

Ronald Giere and others aspire to 'naturalize science' by examining scientific activity as they would any other natural phenomenon — scientifically. Giere aims to fashion a theory of science that is naturalistic, realistic, and evolutionary, and to thus carve for himself a niche between foundationalist philosophies of science (positing abstract criteria of rationality) on the one hand, and relativist sociologies of science on the other. Giere's approach is appealing because it allows that science is a human endeavor pursued by humans (...) using human cognitive skills. The cognitive skills most salient to science, in Giere's view, are the ability to represent the world more or less accurately, and the ability to choose more or less accurately between available theories. These skills, Giere believes, have been endowed by evolution. We believe that Giere's account is inadequate because it gives short shrift to rationality. Giere places too much emphasis on natural modeling skills and on natural heuristics for judging the relative merits of these models, and too little emphasis on the systematic attempts to reflect on, find fault with, and modify, models that characterize so much of scientific activity. This aspect of science and other human endeavor — the creative, contemplative, reflective, in short the rational aspect of representation — is all but lacking in Giere's study. Thus, Giere's account of science, like other naturalist accounts, excludes precisely that which is most important, and which most needs to be explained, about science. (shrink)