“MASTERY REGAINED”—ISRAELI JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY AND SPACE IN THE ISRAELI NOVEL 1967–1973

This article identifies key characteristics of sovereign Israeli Jewish identity and its relationship with space in Israeli novels and novellas published between 1967 and 1973, in the context of the complicated dialogue between these texts and Israeli public discourse. Interacting with their contemporary public discourse, the canonical novels and novellas of the period—Michael Sheli [My Michael] by Amos Oz (1968), Nemalim [Ants] by Yitzhak Orpaz (1968), and Hapardes [The Orchard] by Benjamin Tammuz (1972), create an Israeli space in which a Jewish sovereign is surrounded and threatened by an Arab enemy, and as a precondition to his survival, must renew his sovereignty and declare a state of emergency to confirm it. As opposed to the besieged space constructed in contemporary discourse and in these canonical novels, David Shahar's novels of the period construct a fluid space in which contrasting identities can shift and replace each other with no existential threat.     

Bain on Neural Networks

In his bookMind and body(1873), Bain set out an account in which he related the processes of associative memory to the distribution of activity in neural groupings—or neural networks as they are now termed. In the course of this account, Bain anticipated certain aspects of connectionist ideas that are normally attributed to 20th-century authors—most notably Hebb (1949). In this paper we reproduce Bain's arguments relating neural activity to the workings of associative memory which include an early version of the principles enshrined in Hebb's neurophysiological postulate. Nonetheless, despite their prescience, these specific contributions to the connectionist case have been almost entirely ignored. Eventually, Bain came to doubt the practicality of his own arguments and, in so doing, he seems to have ensured that his ideas concerning neural groupings exerted little or no influence on the subsequent course of theorizing in this area.     

Aquinas's Opposition to Killing the Innocent and its Distinctiveness within the Christian just War Tradition

This essay argues that Aquinas's position regarding the killing of innocent people differs significantly from other representatives of the Christian just war tradition. While his predecessors, notably Augustine, as well as his successors, from Cajetan and Vitoria onward, affirm the legitimacy of causing the death of innocents in a just war in cases of necessity, Aquinas holds that causing the death of innocents in a foreseeable manner, whether intentionally or indirectly, is never justified. Even an otherwise legitimate act of just war cannot legitimate causing the death of innocent people, as this can never advance the common good. This stance also contrasts sharply with much modern and contemporary double effect theorizing in relation to jus in bello. In this regard, Aquinas's position, shaped decisively by his biblical and theological commitments, may point the way towards an ethical orientation beyond the typical divisions of “pacifism” and “just war.”     

The future of religion: Intersections of Rorty,Vattimo and Zabala

The following work builds and expands on a number of critical themes that were raised and discussed in a colloquy initiated by Santiago Zabala on the topic ‘the future of religion’ (which carries the title of the published version) with the American philosopher Richard Rorty and Italian political activist Gianni Vattimo. But, on top of the essay's principal aim, a re-appropriation of the critical voices of Nietzsche and Heidegger is all the more necessary to begin with: both are known to have pioneered an examination of the progress of humanity following the death of God, an expression that strikes a broader reference to religion. This essay continues from Rorty's assessment of ‘the weakening and/or death of ontology’, in the post-modern age. (Vattimo would translate this Rortyian position into a ‘philosophical slide into sociology’ or the ‘turn to social sciences,’ while Zabala would set out as far as denying the God of monotheism [and its corollary in organised faith and ecclesiastical authority] of its pre-eminent place among the highest ‘goals of knowledge’). But, notwithstanding an otherwise valid criticism of religion in the light of his deconstructive notion of Being, this essay also hopes to spell out, on the contrary even, that Rorty must have missed the point in conflating religion with ontology or, God with Being in view of which his concept of weak ontology that is derived from the death of God (hence the death of ontology) is quickly drawn. Indeed, there is still Being; though it may still resist definition, as Heidegger underscored rather sardonically in the opening pages of his celebrated work Being and Time, it is no longer the other name for God. As this essay also aims to promote, Being is an expression of the private transcendental or rather an exercise in nihilism that is at the core of religion.     

Chisholm's Legacy on Intentionality

Abstract: The problem of intentionality, or how mind and language can take things in the world as “intentional objects,” engaged Chisholm throughout his philosophical career. This essay reviews and discusses his seminal contributions on this problem, from his early work in “Sentences about Believing” and Perceiving during the 1950s to his last and most mature account in The First Person, published in 1981 . Chisholm's final view was that de se reference, or a subject's directly taking himself as an intentional object, is fundamental and primitive, and that all other forms of intentional reference, such as de re and de dicto, can be understood on the basis of de se intentionality. The essay ends with a discussion of the worry that this account might lead to what may be called “intentional solipsism,” the proposition that the self is the only genuine object of intentional reference.     

‘Sin is Rightly Called the Punishment of Sin’: Francis Turretin’s Reformed Doctrine of Sin

ABSTRACT

This article contextualizes Francis Turretin’s (1623–87) doctrine of sin, and in particular his understanding of sin as a punishment for sin. Specifically, it elaborates on the theological context into which Turretin speaks. Through analyzing Turretin’s historical situation, it progresses to the content of Turretin’s theology in light of his theological and political opponents. Utilizing Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology (1679–1685), St Augustine’s Contra Julianum, and John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, amongst others, this article evaluates Turretin’s view of the doctrine of sin and its relation to medieval and early-modern European theology. Ultimately, it argues that Turretin’s view of sin as a punishment of sin is born from his understanding of God’s holiness being demonstrated through his ‘vindicatory justice’ and Turretin’s self-understanding as an ‘orthodox’ theologian in the grand tradition of Western theology extending back to the Church Fathers.     

Enfleshing semiotics: The indexical and symbolic sign-functions

This essay engages the work of Robert Yelle in his text Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History. The author examines in particular his theorizing of the indexical sign function and its capacity to ‘enflesh’ the symbol. In the Peircean and Saussurean frames the symbol is an abstraction, a concept, and removed from the experiential. However, with the deployment of the indexical sign, as Yelle argues, the symbol is enfleshed and made experiential. Yelle's development of Peircean semiotics should prove to be very productive in the study of systems of belief and practice.     

A Phenomenological Reflection on Kurosawa's Ikiru in Light of the Early Heidegger's Concept of “Distance”

This article focuses on one of Heidegger's early lecture courses, Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research, in order to explore his early development of fallenness. Within this lecture it is termed ruinance and at the heart of its development is what Heidegger refers to as distance. The first half of this article is dedicated to examining the concept of distance and to following Heidegger's movement of life towards ruinance through his understanding of distance. Heidegger understands distance as the relationship between life and its possibilities and it is the variances within this relationship that cause for a natural movement towards ruinance and also allow for a return from it. The second half of this article is a phenomenological reflection upon Kurosawa's film Ikiru in light of Heidegger's observation of this movement of life. Ikiru provides a concrete example of a life that has fallen completely and unwittingly into ruinance. Heidegger's understanding of distance, especially as being dynamic, is more readily grasped by observing Mr. Watanabe as he becomes aware of his ruinance and struggles to recover from it. Gaining an understanding of distance as described by Heidegger provides a new way of phenomenologically reflecting upon life and expresses the importance of the subject's self-awareness within experience.     

The Sin of Ian McEwan's Fictive Atonement:Reading his Later Novels

Ian McEwan is arguably the best living British novelist. His most successful novel, Atonement , was recently made into an internationally successful film. And indeed, through analysis of his novels, it is clear that Ian McEwan believes literature—precisely as fictive—might very well bear the task of atonement for postmodernity. His novels, though, are patently hopeless, (even as they are truly well-written). Because McEwan doesn't accept or see the causes of sin as such—formally understood as rebellion against the Creator—his diagnostic aesthetic of our postmodern malaise is incomplete and ineffectual. The literary or fictive atonement that he would achieve through his novels does not satisfy. This article aims to lay bare the philosophico-literary characteristics of Ian McEwan's later novels. The ultimate goal of this critical reading, though—tending toward an "evangelical lection"—is to transfigure McEwan's imaginative and creative virtuosity for otherwise disappointed Christian readers, precisely by envisioning his novels in the dark light of their redemptive deficit. Thus, the literary or fictive atonement that Ian McEwan's atheism cannot achieve might be saved apropos the Judeo-Christian revelation of divine atonement.     

Truth-Sensitivity and Folk Epistemology

Several studies have found a robust effect of truth on epistemic evaluation of belief, decision, action and assertion. Thus, truth has a significant effect on normative participant evaluations. Some theorists take this truth effect to motivate factive epistemic norms of belief, action, assertion etc. In contrast, I argue that the truth effect is best understood as an epistemic instance of the familiar and ubiquitous phenomenon of outcome bias. I support this diagnosis from three interrelating perspectives: (1) by epistemological theorizing, (2) by considerations from cognitive psychology and (3) by methodological reflections on the relationship between folk epistemology and epistemological theorizing.     

Memories,or attempts to dream undreamt traumas? Souvenirs dormants (Sleeping memories) by Patrick Modiano,under the gaze of Thomas Ogden

Abstract

In “Sleeping memories”(2017), French writer Patrick Modiano confronts the past and his memories in a different way compared with his previous novels, as he keeps trying to revisit and reprocess them. In this book he adds a new method, the dreaming revision of memories, especially traumatic ones, turning to the work of Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys, “Les rêves et les moyens de les diriger: Observations pratiques.” I would suggest that in this way he dreams undreamt traumas, thereby transforming them. In doing so, Modiano meets Thomas Ogden’s art of psychoanalysis.     

The controversy around the concept of archetypes

The paper reviews the course of the controversy surrounding Jung's theory of archetypes beginning in the mid 1990s and continuing to the present. Much of this controversy was concerned with the debate between the essentialism of the evolutionary position of Anthony Stevens as found in his 1983 book Archetypes: A Natural History of the Self, and the emergence model of the archetypes proposed in various publications by Hogenson, Knox and Merchant, among others. The paper then moves on to a consideration of more recent developments in theory, particularly as derived from an examination of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who introduces Bergson's somnambulistic unconscious into the discussion of Jung's theories. It is suggested that this largely unexamined influence on Jung may provide answers to some of the unanswered questions surrounding his theorizing. The paper concludes by suggesting that the notion of the somnambulistic unconscious may resemble Atmanspacher's argument for a dual‐aspect monism interpretation of Jung.     

Learning in Community for STEM Undergraduates: Connecting a Learning Sciences and a Learning Humanities Approach in Higher Education

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that social and interpersonal factors, more than academic preparation, affect decisions by under-represented students to stay in or to leave STEM fields. Yet, much of the theorizing about STEM learning in higher education begins with conceptual and epistemological dimensions. We make the case for a new theoretical framework, a learning humanities, that begins with relationships. From this relational starting point, we locate STEM knowers as actors in relationships who become answerable for their STEM knowledge and take wise actions from this place. We then use this framework to analyze learning for STEM undergraduates involved in the STUDIO: Build Our World program, an afterschool mentoring program for low-income, immigrant, and refugee youth of color. Drawing on narrative and ethnographic analyses of data from 12 focal mentors, we found that mentors developed 3 focal practices identified by Edwards, relational expertise, common knowledge, and relational agency through their efforts to create the best possible program for youth. This built mentors’ sense of answerability and a capacity for wise action within and outside of STUDIO. We argue that this theoretical stance provides new ways to conceptualize the nature, purpose, and outcomes of STEM learning for historically non-dominant STEM undergraduates’ learning.     

Warrant without truth?

This paper advances the debate over the question whether false beliefs may nevertheless have warrant, the property that yields knowledge when conjoined with true belief. The paper’s first main part—which spans Sections 2–4—assesses the best argument for Warrant Infallibilism, the view that only true beliefs can have warrant. I show that this argument’s key premise conflicts with an extremely plausible claim about warrant. Sections 5–6 constitute the paper’s second main part. Section 5 presents an overlooked puzzle about warrant, and uses that puzzle to generate a new argument for Warrant Fallibilism, the view that false beliefs can have warrant. Section 6 evaluates this pro-Fallibilism argument, finding ultimately that it defeats itself in a surprising way. I conclude that neither Infallibilism nor Fallibilism should now constrain theorizing about warrant.     

Harry stack sullivan: Opening the door for a transpersonal vision?

Abstract

As an apparently typical neo‐Freudian theorist, Harry Stack Sullivan may appear to have had little to offer to the development of transpersonal thought. Yet a closer examination of his work reveals several elements in his theorizing that (1) are surprising, given his intellectual heritage, and (2) allow for the extension of his theorizing in the direction of a transpersonal perspective. Sullivan's views on the nature and origin of anxiety, the inescapability of anxiety, empathy, and the need for sleep are examined with an eye toward parallels between his views and a transpersonal perspective. It is suggested that these elements of Sullivan's work provide a type of bridge between conventional and transpersonal perspectives on self and personality development.     

Brown

In Remarks on Colour Wittgenstein discusses a number of puzzling propositions about brown, e.g. that it cannot be pure and that there cannot be a brown light. He does not actually answer the questions he asks, and the status of his projected ‘logic of colour concepts’ remains unclear. I offer a real definition of brown from which the puzzle propositions follow logically. It is based on two experiments from Helmholtz. Brown is shown to be logically complex in the sense that the concept of brown can be ‘unpacked’ or resolved into simpler concepts. If my solutions to Wittgenstein's puzzles are the right ones, then science does bear upon the ‘logic of colour concepts’, and the contrast between logic and science which Wittgenstein sets up is a false one. At best it will appear as the contrast between the demands of logic and the demands of a particular kind of scientific theory and a particular mode of scientific theorizing. The solutions to the puzzles about brown are distinguished from psychological explanations, and the paper ends by suggesting what it was in his own doctrine that prevented Wittgenstein from answering the questions he had set himself.     

What is The Red Book for analytical psychology?

Abstract: The Red Book enters the field of analytical psychology belatedly, yet presents itself as a foundational text. In this paper, I try to estimate how it will affect the field and to reflect on how it can be used by contemporary readers and clinicians. Jung's own works remain the baseline for theorizing and teaching the fundamental perspectives of analytical psychology, and yet the field has grown far beyond his own contributions. Is this late inheritance of central value or only of peripheral interest for the field? It can be used in various ways and certainly shows many interesting features that link it to Jung's later works, but does it detract or does it add? And if it adds, what does it add? In The Red Book, Jung is speaking to us from the grave. What is he saying? In this paper, I explore how it can be used as an inspirational text for keeping alive the spirit of the ancestors in the field and for linking the present to the deep past.     

The Moses

In this essay, the author engages the Moses, a sculpture by Michelangelo, as a transformational object. He does so in light of psychoanalytic interpretations of the statue, including Sigmund Freud’s (who referred to his essay on the Moses as “a joke”), as well as three psychoanalytic interpretations after Freud. While drawing on and combining features of all of these psychoanalytic interpretations, the author makes particular use of Moshe Halevi Spero’s interpretation to affirm a reading of the Moses as representing a paternal figure who not only gives up his anger (and power to castrate) but also actively nourishes his children like a nursing mother. The author also understands Freud’s essay on the Moses to be a form of teasing, which, in part, is why it has been a transformational object for him.

     

Aristotle on Philosophia

Aristotle uses philosophia (and philosophos, philosophein, philosophôs, sumphilosophein, philosophêteon) in at least ten senses across his oeuvre, as this first study of every instance in his writings reveals. Irrespective of the specific approaches of its practitioners, philosophia may be, for example, an exercise of cleverness; or leisurely study; or the desire to know; or the pursuit of fundamental explanation; or a historically extended discipline. This variety allows us to go some way in reconstructing the complex attitude Aristotle had toward a culturally specific practice in which he located himself and soon helped develop into a specialized discipline. Another benefit is that it allows us to clarify the argumentative method in his Protrepticus, which depends on several senses of philosophia. It also puts up obstacles to determining whether, for example, Aristotle believes philosophia is an epistêmê.     

In the Name of Psychoanalysis: Persistent Controversies and Evolution in Psychoanalysis: A Review of Impossible Training: A Relational View of Psychoanalytic Education by Emanuel Berman

In his book Impossible Training, Emanuel Berman stresses the historical roots of current standards of psychoanalytic training and demonstrates the persistence of controversies that have been present in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic training from their inception. This perspective, of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic education as evolving, encourages candidates and practitioners to be participants and creative voices in an evolving field rather than rote followers learning a trade. The author proposes ways that the transference of educators to the younger generation of psychoanalysts can facilitate or interfere with the training of candidates. Berman is applauded for shedding light on current controversies in psychoanalytic education by showing their roots in historical controversies. However, the author points out Berman's tendency to overvalue his side of the controversy rather than embrace controversy itself as in the best interest of the evolution and development of the field.