Many Jewish groups of late antiquity assumed that they were obligated to observe the Divine Law. This book attempts to study the various rationales offered by these groups to explain the authority that the Divine Law had over them. Second Temple groups tended to look towards philosophy or metaphysics to justify the Divine Law's authority. The tannaim, though, formulated legal arguments that obligate Israel to observe the Divine Law. While this turn towards legalism is pan-tannaitic, two distinct legal arguments can (...) be identified in tannaitic literature. These specific arguments about the Divine Law's authority, link to a set of issues regarding the tannaim's conception of Divine Law and of Israel's election. (shrink)

The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, sometimes called ‘the Creative Explosion’, is seen as the period when the forefathers of modern forager societies emerged. Similarly to the Industrial and Neolithic Revolutions, it represents a short time span when numerous inventions appeared and cultural changes occurred. The inventions were in the domain of technology, that is, shaping of new stone tool forms, longdistance exchange of raw materials, the use of bone, antler and ivory as well as rare minerals for the production of domestic (...) and ritual objects. Spatial analysis of ‘living floors’ indicates the presence of a kitchen area, sleeping grounds, storage facilities (in certain regions) and a discard zone. We can also detect a certain increase in social hierarchy and the presence of shamans. Body decorations indicate the appearance of personal individuality. Several hypotheses were offered as an explanation for the initiation of all these cultural changes often grouped under the term ‘modern behaviour’. It stands to reason that attributing the new successful technologies observed in the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic to intrinsic social processes and economic innovations by local Middle Palaeolithic populations would need a better archaeological demonstration than that available today. For the time being, the emergence of Modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa, their socio-economic dynamism that caused their expansion through the Nile Valley into the Near East, and their migration along the ‘southern route’ of Asia as far as Australia, is the most plausible scenario though it still leaves much to be desired from future archaeological research. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented at the Colombo Conference on "Building Spirituality and Culture of Peace Beyond Globalization" held on Aug. 13-16, 2003; with reference to Asia and Africa.

A new view of the functional role of the left anterior cortex in language use is proposed. The experimental record indicates that most human linguistic abilities are not localized in this region. In particular, most of syntax (long thought to be there) is not located in Broca's area and its vicinity (operculum, insula, and subjacent white matter). This cerebral region, implicated in Broca's aphasia, does have a role in syntactic processing, but a highly specific one: It is the neural home (...) to receptive mechanisms involved in the computation of the relation between transformationally moved phrasal constituents and their extraction sites (in line with the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis). It is also involved in the construction of higher parts of the syntactic tree in speech production. By contrast, basic combinatorial capacities necessary for language processing – for example, structure-building operations, lexical insertion – are not supported by the neural tissue of this cerebral region, nor is lexical or combinatorial semantics. The dense body of empirical evidence supporting this restrictive view comes mainly from several angles on lesion studies of syntax in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Five empirical arguments are presented: experiments in sentence comprehension, cross-linguistic considerations (where aphasia findings from several language types are pooled and scrutinized comparatively), grammaticality and plausibility judgments, real-time processing of complex sentences, and rehabilitation. Also discussed are recent results from functional neuroimaging and from structured observations on speech production of Broca's aphasics. Syntactic abilities are nonetheless distinct from other cognitive skills and are represented entirely and exclusively in the left cerebral hemisphere. Although more widespread in the left hemisphere than previously thought, they are clearly distinct from other human combinatorial and intellectual abilities. The neurological record (based on functional imaging, split-brain and right-hemisphere-damaged patients, as well as patients suffering from a breakdown of mathematical skills) indicates that language is a distinct, modularly organized neurological entity. Combinatorial aspects of the language faculty reside in the human left cerebral hemisphere, but only the transformational component (or algorithms that implement it in use) is located in and around Broca's area. Key Words: agrammatism; aphasia; Broca's area; cerebral localization; dyscalculia; functional neuroanatomy; grammatical transformation; modularity; neuroimaging; syntax; trace deletion. (shrink)

ʻEdut be-Hosef -- Derekh ʻets ha-ḥayim -- Refuʼat ha-nefesh -- ha-Tapuaḥ.

During the 1992–1993 academic year, Harold Garfinkel offered a graduate seminar on Ethnomethodology in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. One topic that was given extensive coverage in the seminar has not been discussed at much length in Garfinkel’s published works to date: Aron Gurwitsch’s treatment of Gestalt theory, and particularly the themes of “phenomenal field” and “praxeological description”. The edited transcript of Garfinkel’s seminar shows why he recommended that “for the serious initiatives (...) of ethnomethodological investigations […] Gurwitsch is a theorist we can’t do without”. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological “misreading” is not a mistaken reading, but is more a matter of taking Gurwitsch’s phenomenological demonstrations of Gestalt contextures in phenomenal fields and transposing them for making detailed, concrete observations and descriptions of organizationally achieved social phenomena. Where Gurwitsch addresses the organization of perception as an autochthonous achievement, inherent to the stream and field of individual consciousness, Garfinkel extends and elaborates this field into the social world of enacted practices. The April 1993 seminar also is rich with brief asides and digressions in which Garfinkel comments about his use of Alfred Schutz, his attitude toward publishing, his relationship with Erving Goffman, and many other matters. (shrink)

Editors’ AbstractDuring the 1992–1993 academic year, Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011) offered a graduate seminar on Ethnomethodology in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. One topic that was given extensive coverage in the seminar has not been discussed at much length in Garfinkel’s published works to date: Aron Gurwitsch’s treatment of Gestalt theory, and particularly the themes of “phenomenal field” and “praxeological description”. The edited transcript of Garfinkel’s seminar shows why he recommended that “for the (...) serious initiatives of ethnomethodological investigations […] Gurwitsch is a theorist we can’t do without”. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological “misreading” is not a mistaken reading, but is more a matter of taking Gurwitsch’s phenomenological demonstrations of Gestalt contextures in phenomenal fields and transposing them for making detailed, concrete observations and descriptions of organizationally achieved social phenomena. Where Gurwitsch addresses the organization of perception as an autochthonous achievement, inherent to the stream and field of individual consciousness, Garfinkel extends and elaborates this field into the social world of enacted practices. The April 1993 seminar also is rich with brief asides and digressions in which Garfinkel comments about his use of Alfred Schutz, his attitude toward publishing, his relationship with Erving Goffman, and many other matters. (shrink)

Determining Risk Factors and Demographic Patterns of Suicide in Tehran Suicide refers to the death of a person that is primarily achieved by self-harm. Today, it is considered one of the major public health issues. One of the important risk factors associated with attempted suicide is social relations. This study is a descriptive and analytical study that aims to identify the suicide rate, the risk factors in suicide, and the methods of suicide. The findings show that there is a significant (...) relationship between suicide and demographic variables that include age, sex, educational level, adherence to religion, and occupation. This research also shows the psychological factors that lead to suicide include depression, addiction, lack of social activities, and mental disorders caused by chronic disease. (shrink)

Abstrak: Etika keduniawian Hannah Arendt muncul dari cara khasnya memikirkan dunia dan tindakan-tindakan manusia di dalamnya. Bagi Arendt, lewat berpikir, manusia mengungkapkan opini dan perhatiannya pada dunianya, apa yang terjadi di dunia. Lewat berpikir, manusia menunjukkan sebentuk tanggung jawabnya terhadap dunia dimana ia terlempar. Dengan menilai sebuah tindakan politik, manusia disetir oleh nilai-nilai moral yang berasal dari dunia itu sendiri. Penilaian yang ia berikan, pada gilirannya ada di bawah putusan orang-orang lain yang mengkonfrontasinya. Artinya, saat kita berpikir dan menilai, kita (...) mesti sadar akan makna tindakan politis bagi dunia pada umumnya, dan kita juga mesti menyadari apa yang akan dikatakan orang lain tentangnya. Kata-kata Kunci: Etika, keduniawian, berpikir, menilai, tanggungjawab. Abstract: This paper aims at reconstructing Arendt’s ethics of worldliness from her specific way of thinking about the world and how to judge an action takes place in it. For Arendt, in thinking, we express our concern and opinion about the world and what is going on in it. It is one way of showing our responsibility for the world into which we are thrown. In judging a political action we are directed by ethical constraints to come from the world itself and the verdict of spectators. That means, when we judge we should be aware of the things that an action could bring to the public realm and what others might say about it. Keywords: Ethics, worldliness, thinking, judging, responsibility. (shrink)

One of three distinct approaches to his famous ‘Trust’ argument, this paper written by Garfinkel in 1960, and never before published, proposed a rethinking of rules, games and linguistic classifications in interactional terms consistent with Wittgenstein’s language games. Garfinkel had been working in collaboration with Parsons since 1958 to craft an approach to culture that would replace conceptual classification with the constitutive expectancies of interaction and systems of interaction. The argument challenged the work of cultural anthropologists influenced by (...) zoology and biology, who called themselves ‘ethnoscientists’ and studied culture in terms of linguistic classification systems. Garfinkel had proposed an alternative sociological ‘ethnoscience’ of culture and language that would focus on how culture was made, on how linguistic events are achieved, and on the rules of their making. This ‘Language Games’ approach followed Wittgenstein in seeking what Garfinkel called a literal description of cultural/linguistic events: meaning by ‘literal’, a step-by-step account of the constitutive and preferred rules participants use to create a recognizable event-in-a-language. Made famous three years later in version associated with Schutz, Garfinkel’s Trust argument also appears in a 1962 text (Parsons’ Primer, published in 2019) in a version built on Parsons. (shrink)

Beyond Scandal will give you the resources to talk to your kinds about: Sex, Gossip, Lying, Politics, Scandal, Friendship, Values, Leadership, Dirty Jokes.

In this paper I shall offer new definitions for what seem to be the most dominant terms in Epicurus’ theory of pleasures - “kinetic” and “katastematic”. While most of the scholarly literature treats these terms as entirely concerned with states of motion and states of stability, I shall argue that the distinction concerns whether pain is or is not removed by this or that pleasure. As the removal of pain is a necessary condition for the Epicurean goal of ataraxia and (...) aponia, “katastematic” pleasure, having to do with the removal of pain, is the necessary pleasure pertaining both to the process of removing pain and to its result, namely the absence of pain, while “kinetic” pleasure is an unnecessary pleasure having nothing to do with the removal of pain, e.g. it starts after pain has been removed. If my analysis and interpretation prove correct, the two conventional classifications - “kinetic-katastematic” and “necessary-unnecessary” - turn out to be referring to the same phenomenon and are aspects of one classification. Moreover, this new interpretation resolves some of the main problems arising from our testimonia concerning “kinetic” and “katastematic” pleasures. (shrink)

kerekh 1. Ba-halakhah uve-agadah -- kerekh 2. [without special title].

1. Śiḥot, ʻetsot, sipurim, ṿe-hadrakhot maʻaśiyot li-veniyat ha-ḳesher ben bene ha-zug ... -- 2. Be-parashat ha-shavuʻa.

The conclusion that language is not really innate or modular is based on several fallacies. I show that the target article confuses communicative skills with linguistic abilities, and that its discussion of brain/language relations is replete with factual errors. I also criticize its attempt to contrast biological and linguistic principles. Finally, I argue that no case is made for the “alternative” approach proposed here.