Teaching the Bible in the schools of the Labor and the Kibbutz Movements, 1921–1953

How the challenge of teaching the Bible was met by educators who were members of the Kibbutz and Labor movements during the years before the establishment of the Israeli State is the subject of the following essay. Years ago, Jacobus Schoneveld, (1976), recently followed by Asher Shkedi (2004) proposed dividing educators of the Labor and Kibbutz movements into three types: those who wished to stress “national reconstruction,” those directed toward teaching a “universal humanism” and those seeking to awaken “moral dialogue” and achieve “personal growth.” In fact, such clear-cut lines of demarcation did not exist. The goals were these, but approaches themselves were always mixed. One distinguishes educational goals better by a more simple division into the questions of what is to be taught (religious versus Secular materials) and through which ancillary disciplines. Doing so has the virtue of highlighting how these educators were animated by their quest after how best to teach Biblical morality with the aim of “shaping” the student or achieving “emulation,” especially by generating a “dialogue” between the pupil and the biblical text, leading to “personal growth.” These emphases tell us much about the pre-State educational mentality and pedagogical ideals.     

What <Emphasis Type="Italic">is</Emphasis> wrong with intelligent design?

While a great deal of abuse has been directed at intelligent design theory (ID), its starting point is a fact about biological organisms that cries out for explanation, namely “specified complexity” (SC). Advocates of ID deploy three kind of argument from specified complexity to the existence of a designer: an eliminative argument, an inductive argument, and an inference to the best explanation. Only the first of these merits the abuse directed at it; the other two arguments are worthy of respect. If they fail, it is only because we have a better explanation of SC, namely Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.     

The Discrimination Argument Revisited

The first explicit argument for the incompatibility of externalism in the philosophy of mind and a priori self-knowledge is Boghossian’s discrimination argument. In this essay, I oppose the third premise of this argument, trying to show by means of a thought experiment that possessing the “twater thought” is not an alternative, a fortiori not a relevant alternative, to having the “water thought.” I then examine a modified version of Boghossian’s argument. The attempt is made to substantiate the claim that the standard incompatibilist support for its second premise is untenable. Furthermore, a third Boghossian-style argument is rejected on the ground that either its second premise cannot be warranted in the way suggested by incompatibilists or its third premise is mistaken because having the “twater thought” instead of the “water thought” is not relevant. Finally, it is argued that the discrimination argument cannot be saved by invoking closure. The upshot of my discussion is that a compatibilist can dismiss Boghossian-style arguments for incompatibilism without having to deal with fundamental issues concerning self-knowledge and the nature of slow switching.     

Rawls and Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients: A Reply to Maio

In his paper, “The Relevance of Rawls’ Principle of Justice for Research on Cognitively Impaired Patients” (Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 23 (2002):45–53), Giovanni Maio has developed athought-provoking argument for the permissibility of non-therapeutic research on cognitively impaired patients. Maio argues that his conclusion follows from the acceptance of John Rawls’s principles of justice, specifically, Rawls’s “liberty principle” Maio has misinterpreted Rawls’s “libertyprinciple” – correctly interpreted it does notsupport non-therapeutic research on cognitivelyimpaired patients. Three other ‘Rawlsian’ arguments are suggested by Maio’s discussion –two “self-respect” arguments and a “presumed consent” argument – but none of them are convincing. However, an alternative argument developed from Rawls’s discussion of “justice in health care” in his most recent book, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, may justify certain kinds of non-therapeutic research on some cognitively impaired patients in special circumstances. We should not expect anything more permissive from a liberal theory of justice. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Paying the cost of skeptical theism

In this paper I show that two arguments for the inconsistency of skeptical theism fail. After setting up the debate in “Introduction” section, I show in “The initial debate” section why Mylan Engel’s argument (Engel 2004) against skeptical theism does not succeed. In “COST” section I strengthen the argument so that it both avoids my reply to Engel and parallels Jon Laraudogoitia’s argument against skeptical theism (Laraudogoitia 2000). In “COST*” section, I provide three replies—one by an evidentialist theist, one by a closure-denying theist, and one by a necessitarian theist, and argue that the necessitarian’s reply successfully rebuts the inconsistency charge. I conclude that skeptical theism which accepts God’s necessary existence is immune to both kinds of arguments for its inconsistency.     

Designing Rites to Re-enchant Secularized Society: New Varieties of Spiritualized Therapy in Contemporary Sweden

Detraditionalization in late modernity in Western society has affected the domains of both traditional religion and clinical psychotherapy. Sweden, which is said to be one of the most secularized societies in the world, instead, has allowed the public domain to be colonized by new, spiritualized practices. Sold as therapy, the services of new spiritual leaders offer anti-stress techniques to prevent burnout, or leaders are trained to develop their leadership in coaching activities. New varieties of spiritualized therapy are rapidly increasing in contemporary Sweden, typical of which is to have added healing rhetoric to their agenda, such as “find your inner self” or “develop your inner potential.” Four common denominators seem to guide these practices: self-appointed leaders, individual-centered rites, realization of one’s Self, and intense emotions. We might also add a fifth aspect: profit. Rites have become a commodity and are sold as liberating practices for burnt-out souls or for people in pursuit of self-realization.     

Popper’S Evolutionary Epistemology Revamped

In a paper entitled “Revolution in Permanence”, published in the collection “Karl Popper: Philosophy and Problems”, John Worrall (1995) severely criticised several aspects of Karl Popper’s work before commenting that “I have no doubt that, given suffi-cient motivation, a case could be constructed on the basis of such remarks that Popper had a more sophisticated version of theory production......” (p. 102). Part of Worrall’s criticism is directed at a “strawpopper”: in his “Darwinian Model” emphasising the similarities and differences between genetic mutation, variation in animal behaviour and the gestation of scientific theories, Popper (1975, 1981, 1994) never stated that tentative scientific conjec-tures “while more or less random, are not completely blind.” He was referring to variation in animal species behaviour, and about tentative scientific conjectures he said nothing, although common sense would indicate that presumably he regarded them as being less blind and less random. In Popper (1977, 1983), giving a summary of his “Darwinian Model”, he repaired this omission about tentative scientific conjectures by inserting the sentence “On a level of World 3 theory formation they are of the character of planned gropings into the unknown.” Recent developments in the field of genetics (see for example Raff (1996), Lewis (1999), Korn (2002)) indicate that Popper’s intuitions were along the modern lines while Worrall’s intuitions are old fashioned. Therefore Popper’s “Darwinian Model” remains both viable and fruitful.     

The Pantheon of National Hero Prototypes in Educational Texts Understanding Curriculum as a Narrative of National Heroism

This essay explores the relationship between Israeli public and educational discourse and, in particular, how, by implementing various pedagogical strategies aimed at inculcating a typology of national heriosm during the state's first three decades, the state sponsored curriculum “translated” ideological discourse into educational text, integrating the state's ideological value-system into a series of educational messages. The mapping of heroic prototypes in the national curriculum was conducted along the classic time-axis of Jewish history. The earliest prototype was the ancient Hebrew hero of the Bible and the most recent the “soldier as redeemer” of the Six Day War. At the same time, specific values constantly shifted to reflect changing perceptions and definitions of the heroic, including, eventually, the heroism of the Holocaust “survivor.” What remained invariable was the symbolic importance Israeli children living in a society accustomed to wars and continuously threatened violence were taught to attach to the ideal of the national hero and heroism itself. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Ethical alterity and asymmetrical reciprocity: A Levinasian reading of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Works of Love</Emphasis>

Following and extending the recent tradition of Kierkegaard–Levinas comparativists, this essay offers a Levinasian commentary on salient aspects of Kierkegaard’s ethico-religious deliberations in Works of Love, a text that we are unsure whether or not Levinas actually read. Against some post/modern interpreters, I argue that one should adopt both a Jewish and a Christian perspective (rather than an oversimplified either/or point of view) in exploring the sometimes “seamless passages” between Kierkegaard and Levinas’s thought. The first argument of this essay is that interhuman ethical relationships, as seen by Kierkegaard and Levinas, are premised upon an original asymmetry or inequality. Ethical alterity requires more on the part of the responsible I for the destitute Other. However, this original ethical alterity is not at all the last word in loving and healthy human relationships. In the second section of this study, a dual asymmetry on the part of each participating human yields an “asymmetrical reciprocity,” or in Kierkegaard’s words, “infinity on both sides.” While they are of no concern␣to me, your ethical duties to me are revealed to you upon our face-to-face encounter. Here I offer a Kierkegaardian–Levinasian response to Hegel’s and Buber’s thoughts that humans essentially desire recognition, mutuality, and reciprocity from one another in intersubjective relationships. Hegel and Buber are more or less correct, but when seen from a Kierkegaardian and Levinasian perspective, we are offered resources for understanding more precisely how and why their accounts are accurate. Hegel and Buber offer us the second phase of the argument, whereas Kierkegaard and Levinas show us the first and primary phase of interhuman relationships – the revealed and infinite ethical responsibility to the Other person.     

Discussions Quinton’s Neglected Argument for Scientific Realism

Summary  This paper discusses an argument for scientific realism put forward by Anthony Quinton in The Nature of Things. The argument – here called the controlled continuity argument – seems to have received no attention in the literature, apparently because it may easily be mistaken for a better-known argument, Grover Maxwell’s “argument from the continuum”. It is argued here that, in point of fact, the two are quite distinct and that Quinton’s argument has several advantages over Maxwell’s. The controlled continuity argument is also compared to Ian Hacking’s “argument from coincidence”. It is pointed out that both arguments are to a large extent independent from considerations about high-level scientific theories, and that both are abductive arguments at the core. But these similarities do not dilute an important difference related to the fact that Quinton’s argument cleverly seeks to anchor belief in unobservable entities in realism about ordinary objects, which is a position shared by most contemporary scientific anti-realists.     

The Anomalous Foundations of Dream Telling: Objective Solipsism and the Problem of Meaning

Little sociological attention is directed to dreams and dreaming, and none at all is directed to how people tell one another about dreams. Ordinary settings in which dreams are told mimic the conditions of “breaching” experiments and should produce anomie, but dream telling proceeds without trouble. Foundational orientations of ordinary dream talk assimilate into professional dream studies, where dream narratives are “data” and the analysis of narratives is “dream analysis.” That such practices proceed without trouble poses some interesting problems for sociology in terms of how anyone experiences “constraint” in the telling and hearing of dreams.     

Goodman’s “New Riddle”

First, a brief historical trace of the developments in confirmation theory leading up to Goodman’s infamous “grue” paradox is presented. Then, Goodman’s argument is analyzed from both Hempelian and Bayesian perspectives. A guiding analogy is drawn between certain arguments against classical deductive logic, and Goodman’s “grue” argument against classical inductive logic. The upshot of this analogy is that the “New Riddle” is not as vexing as many commentators have claimed (especially, from a Bayesian inductive-logical point of view). Specifically, the analogy reveals an intimate connection between Goodman’s problem, and the “problem of old evidence”. Several other novel aspects of Goodman’s argument are also discussed (mainly, from a Bayesian perspective).     

The Events of 1648–1649: Contemporary Reports and the Problem of Verification

Writing the history of the events of 1648–1649 has been especially difficult. The chronicle sources used by modern historians to unravel the course of the war, irrespective of whether the author was a Jew, a Pole, or a Ukranian, privilege argument over accuracy. Their priority is to justify national ideologies, and they are replete with motifs, topoi, and symbols that do not easily strip away. One motif is that of the “wars of mercenaries,” in which elements typical of professional soldiery appear to cut across religious or even national lines. Two additional topoi, “the purification of the land” and the “syndrome of the overturned world,” repeat constantly, both describing what must be either done or reversed to achieve national deliverance. To take the chronicles at face value is to risk simply reproducing the topoi, if not the myths, of the chronicles themselves. Yet the chronicles do convey the framework of ideas within which authors desired their accounts to be read: a framework that is perennially a cosmic one of purification and total renewal. By the same token, it is from this point, and this point only, that an actual reconstruction of events may begin. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Pragmatic encroachment,stakes, and religious knowledge

It is commonly held that epistemic standards for S’s knowledge that p are affected by practical considerations, such as what is at stake in decisions that are guided by that p. I defend a particular view as to why this is, that is referred to as “pragmatic encroachment.” I then discuss a “new argument against miracles” that uses stakes considerations in order to explore the conditions under which stakes affect the level of epistemic support that is required for knowledge. Finally, I generalize my results to include other religiously significant propositions such as “God exists” and “God does not exist.”     

Confronting Chaos: Migration Law Responds to Images of Disorder

This paper argues that in liberal nations migration law orders chaotic images and is an important site for the construction of national identities. Empirical illustrations are drawn primarily from Australia, but the thesis is applicable to all immigrant nations and also provides insights for the “Old World”. The argument proceeds by first examining the role of migration laws in liberal democratic societies. Building on this framework, it then looks at how Australian migration law responds to images of disorder outside the nation. Finally, it considers how migration law addresses disorder within the nation by reflecting a coherent picture of Australian national identity. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The debate on the yan-yi relation in Chinese philosophy: Reconstruction and comments

The debate on the yan-yi relation was carried out by Chinese philosophers collectively, and the principles and methods in the debate still belong to a living tradition of Chinese philosophy. From Yijing (Book of Changes), Lunyu (Analects), Laozi and Zhuangzi to Wang Bi, “yi” which cannot be expressed fully by yan (language), is not only “idea” or “meaning” in the human mind, but is also some kind of ontological existence, which is beyond yan and emblematic symbols, and unspeakable. Thus, the debate on the yan-yi relation refers firstly to metaphysics, secondly to moral philosophy, and then to epistemology and philosophy of language. Guided by this view, this paper recalls the source of the debate on the yan-yi relation to Yijing and Lunyu, distinguishes four meanings of “yi” in Chinese philosophy, and reconstructs three arguments. These arguments are the “yan cannot express yi fully” argument, “forget yan once you get yi” argument, and “yan can express yi fully” argument. Finally, this paper exposes and comments on those principles, methods and the general tendency shown in the debate from the following five aspects: starting point, value-preference, methodology, texts (papers and books), and influences. __________ Translated from Jianghai Xuekan 江海学刊 (Jianghai Academic Studies), 2005 (3)     

Methodological and empirical issues when dissociating cue-related from task-related processes in the explicit task-cuing procedure

In the explicit cuing version of the task-switching paradigm, each individual task is indicated by a unique task cue. Consequently, a task switch is accompanied by a cue switch. Recently, it has been proposed that priming of cue encoding contributes to the empirically observed switch costs. This proposal was experimentally supported by using a 2:1 mapping of cues to tasks, so that a cue switch does not necessarily imply a task switch. The results indeed suggested a substantial contribution of “cue-switch costs” to task-switch costs. Here we argue that the 2:1 mapping potentially leads to an underestimation of “pure” task-switch costs. To support this argument, we report the results of a new study in which we used “transition cues” that indicate the identity of the current task based on the identity of the preceding task. This new type of cue allows a full factorial manipulation of cue switches and task switches because it includes the condition in which a cue repetition can also indicate a task switch (i.e., when the “switch” cue is repeated). We discuss the methodological implications and argue that the present approach has merits relative to the previously used 2:1 mapping of cues to tasks.     

Individualism, Externalism and Idiolectical Meaning

Semantic externalism in contemporary philosophy of language typically – and often tacitly – combines two supervenience claims about idiolectical meaning (i.e., meaning in the language system of an individual speaker). The first claim is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her intrinsic, physical properties. The second is that the meaning of a word in a speaker’s idiolect may vary without any variation in her understanding of it. I here show that a conception of idiolectical meaning is possible that accepts the “anti-internalism” of the first claim while rejecting (what I shall refer to as) the “anti-individualism” of the second. According to this conception, externally constituted idiolectical meaning supervenes on idiolectical understanding. I begin by trying to show that it is possible to disentangle anti-internalist and anti-individualist strands of argument in Hilary Putnam’s well-known and widely influential “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’.” Having once argued that the latter strand of argument is not cogent, I then try to show that individualism (in the sense above) can be reconciled with perhaps the most plausible reconstruction of Putnam’s well-known and widely accepted “indexical” theory of natural kind terms. Integral to my defense of the possibility of an individualist externalism about idiolectical meaning are my efforts to demonstrate that, pace Putnam, there is no “division of linguistic labor” when it comes to the fixing the meanings of such terms in a speaker’s idiolect. The fact that average speakers sometimes need defer to experts shows that not reference, but only reliable recognition of what belongs in the extension of a natural kind term is a “social phenomenon.”

Wittgenstein (1958, 14).

     

What is a Sophistical Refutation?

From Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations the following classifications are put forward and defended through extensive excerpts from the text. (AR-PFC) All sophistical refutations are exclusively either ‘apparent refutations’ or ‘proofs of false conclusions’. (AR-F) ‘Apparent refutations’ and ‘fallacies’ name the same thing. (ID-ED) All fallacies are exclusively either fallacies in dictione or fallacies extra dictionem. (ID-nAMB) Not all fallacies in dictione are due to ambiguity. (AMB-nID) Not all fallacies due to ambiguity are fallacies in dictione. (AMB&ID-ME) The set of fallacies due to ambiguity and fallacies in dictione together comprise the set of arguments said to be “dependent on mere expression”. Being “dependent on mere expression” and “dependent on language” are not the same (instances of the latter form a proper subset of instances of the former). (nME-FACT) All arguments that are not against the expression are “against the fact.” (FACT-ED) All fallacious arguments against the fact are fallacies extra dictionem (it is unclear whether the converse is true). (MAN-ARG) The solutions of fallacious arguments are exclusively either “against the man” or “against the argument.” (10) (F-ARG) Each (type of) fallacy has a unique solution (namely, the opposite of whatever causes the fallacy), but each fallacious argument does not. However, each fallacious argument does have a unique solution against the argument, called the ‘true solution’ (in other words, what fallacy a fallacious argument commits is determined by how it is solved. However, if the solution is ‘against the man’ then this is not, properly speaking, the fallacy committed in the argument. It is only the ‘true solution’—the solution against the argument, of which there is always only one—that determines the fallacy actually committed).     

Philosophie und Geometrie. Zur jüngeren Protophysik-Kritik

The critique of my protophysical approaches to operational foundation of geometry by Lucas Amiras (Journal for General Philosophy of Science Vol. 34 (2003)) concerns my first publication from 1976 but not the further 30 years of work. It does not offer any argument leading from the (erroneous) judgement “lacking success” to the conclusion “impossible”. And it is, in general, based on a philosophical defect: it ignores the principle of methodical order as leading for constructivist protophysics.