HALAKHA ADAPTS TO MODERN TECHNOLOGY IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

This article will attempt to shed some light on the phenomenon of the adoption of modern technologies by Orthodox Jews. It examines the debate over the halakhic status of electricity in the early twentieth century, concentrating on two rabbis of that period, Yehuda Yudel Rosenberg (1859–1935) of Montreal, and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (1910–1995) of Jerusalem, who wrote notable works on the subject. The works discussed are Rabbi Rosenberg’s Me’or hahashmal (1924) and Rabbi Auerbach’s Me’orei esh (1935). These works are examined in the context of the development of halakha and its application to new technologies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and also in light of the halakhic strategies of both rabbis. Finally, unpublished letters of Rabbi Auerbach to Rabbi Rosenberg are examined that allow us some insight into the inception of Rabbi Auerbach’s work.     

THE EMOTIONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

In this paper I argue that Kierkegaard's theory of change is motivated by a robust notion of contingency. His view of contingency is sharply juxtaposed with a strong notion of absolute necessity. I show that how he understands these notions explains certain ambiguous claims he makes about causation. I attempt to provide a coherent interpretation of his view of causality that is consistent with both human choice and the causal sequence of change. I end by suggesting a compatibilist interpretation of Kierkegaard's philosophy.     

GOLEMS IN THE BIOTECH CENTURY

The legend of the golem, the creation of life through mystical and magical means, is the most famous postbiblical Jewish legend. After noting recent references to the golem legend in fiction, film, art, and scientific literature, I outline three stages of the development of the legend, including its relationship to the story of Frankenstein. I apply teachings about the golem in classical Jewish religious literature to implications of the legend for ethical issues relating to bioengineering, reproductive biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, artificial life, and corporate ethics. The golem legend emerges as a source of prudent guidance through the minefield of ethical and spiritual problems emerging from current and expected developments in biotechnology.     

閃光頻率辨認中的时間知觉問題

一、問題 这項研究是从“閃光信号的頻率选择实驗研究”总課題派生出来的一个問題。在进行上述研究,尤其是有关“閃光頻率辨认和等辨量表”的实驗时,許多被試口头报告曾使用数数法,帮助自己辨认閃光的頻率。經与实驗結果对照,发現在閃光頻率低于30—40周/分时,用数数法确实有效,頻率較高(例如100周/分以上)时,則漸难使用数数法了,其轉折点似在50周/分左右。由于閃光頻率与閃光每周的时距有一定的关系,閃光頻率的辨认,归根結底,主要是以时間知觉为基础的。     

“PROPAGANDISTS FOR THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES”: THE OVERLOOKED PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION AND SSRC IN THE MID‐TWENTIETH CENTURY

The Carnegie Corporation's role as a patron of the behavioral sciences has been overlooked; its support for the behavioral sciences not only began earlier than the Ford Foundation's but was also at least equally important to their success. I show how the close postwar collaboration between the Carnegie Corporation and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to promote the behavioral sciences emerged after a strugglebetween Carnegie and the Rockefeller Foundation over the direction and leadership of the SSRC. I then focus on three postwar projects Carnegie helped conceive and fund that were publicized as the work of the SSRC: Chase's The Proper Study of Mankind (1948), Stouffer et al.'s The American Soldier ( 1949, 1950 ), and the Michigan's Survey Research Center 1952 election study. In each of these projects, Carnegie deliberately muted its own role and promoted the remade SSRC as a major advocate for the behavioral sciences.     

THE TIME-ORDER ERROR IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF A SUBJECTIVE TIME SCALE

(1) A method to obtain a scale of subjective time unbiased by the time-order error is suggested. (2) The method gives as by-product some preliminary results on the memory process which gives rise to the time-order error. (3) The method is applied in an experimental study. Two methods, the adjustment method and the reproduction method were used to construct a subjective time scale within the range 1–7 seconds. The former method gave an almost linear R-S curve while the latter resulted in a positively accelerated curve. (4) The time-order error seems to be a very rapid process. The memory curve reaches very near its asymptotic value within a few tenths of a second.     

THE RECEPTION OF DIONYSIUS IN TWENTIETH‐CENTURY EASTERN ORTHODOXY

This essay surveys diverse interpretations of the CD by twentieth‐century Eastern Orthodox theologians. This essay argues that the evaluation of Dionysius' contribution crucially depends upon the master narrative within which the CD is considered. For example, for Vladimir Lossky, Dionysius' apophaticism was the “dogmatic ground” of Byzantine mystical theology, whereas according to John Meyendorff, Dionysius' theology was in need of a “Christological corrective” later provided in the theologies of Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas. The points of contact and contrast between Dionysian mystical theology and Russian sophiology are also discussed. Finally, this essay argues that modern Orthodox readings of the CD are characterized by a profound irony: while they are in various degrees indebted to the Western intellectual tradition (as, for example, Christos Yannaras is to Heidegger), Orthodox theologians often use Dionysius to forge an anti‐Western Orthodox theological identity.     

THE NATURALIZATION OF SCRIPTURAL REASON IN SEVENTEENTH‐CENTURY EPISTEMOLOGY

Several scholars have claimed that the decline of revealed or Scriptural mysteries in the early Enlightenment was a consequence of the trajectories of Reformed theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Reformed theology's fideistic stance, it is claimed, undermined earlier frameworks for relating reason to revealed mysteries; consequently, rationalism emerged as an alternative to such fideism in figures like the Cambridge Platonists. This article argues that Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century were not fideists but re‐affirmed Medieval claims about the eschatological concord of reason and revealed mysteries. Furthermore, the article suggests that early Enlightenment attitudes to religious mysteries owe more to innovations in Socinianism and Cambridge Platonism than to mainstream Reformed theology.     

THE INTERTWINED ROLES OF GENES AND CULTURE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION

This essay critiques dual-inheritance theory as presented in Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd's book Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution (2005). The theory states that culture became prominent in human evolution because it allowed relatively rapid adaptation to changing environments by means of imitation. Imitating the behavior of other members of one's community produces adaptive behaviors more readily than either genetic evolution or individual learning. Imitation follows a number of patterns: imitating high-status individuals, imitating the most common forms of behavior, imitating behaviors perceived to be the most effective solutions to various problems relevant to survival. This process combined with occasional innovations in behavior lead to a process of cultural evolution involving populations of cultural variants. Different local human populations were associated with different local populations of cultural variants, and both the human and the cultural populations evolved over time. Human evolution cannot be understood without taking into account these parallel processes of genetic and cultural evolution. Not by Genes Alone traces the implication of dual-inheritance theory for understanding human evolution and refers to various bodies of evidence relevant to the theory.