THE UNIVERSALITY OF JEWISH ETHICS: A Rejoinder to Secularist Critics

Jewish ethics like Judaism itself has often been charged with being "particularistic," and in modernity it has been unfavorably compared with the universality of secular ethics. This charge has become acute philosophically when the comparison is made with the ethics of Kant. However, at this level, much of the ethical rejection of Jewish particularism, especially its being beholden to a God who is above the universe to whom this God prescribes moral norms and judges according to them, is also a rejection of Christian (or any other monotheistic) ethics, no matter how otherwise universal. Yet this essay argues that Jewish ethics that prescribes norms for all humans, and that is knowable by all humans, actually constitutes a wider moral universe than does Kantian ethics, because it can include non-rational human objects and even non-human objects altogether. This essay also argues that a totally egalitarian moral universe, encompassing all human relations, becomes an infinite, totalizing universe, which can easily become the ideological justification ( ratio essendi ) of a totalitarian regime.     

A Peaceful Clash: The U.S. And China: Which Model Holds Out Promise For The Future?

This article analyzes some prospects for the economic and political development of the United States and China. The first part of the article is devoted to the consideration of strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. model and of the Chinese one. The second part of the article considers the most probable scenarios of the future struggle for world leadership. The first scenario suggests that China will continue developing at a faster rate in the several coming decades and will be gradually catching up with the United States in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) production. However, after several crises in 2008–2020 the United States will likely regain a number of advantages over China as a result of assimilation of the newest technologies. The second scenario suggests that the United States will come across a whole range of internal social and political problems related to internal political splits. In this case, the United States will have to share its global leadership with China. The article attempts to answer the following questions: What scenario is more probable? Will the old world order change? What are the main conclusions for the European Union and for Russia?     

INTERPRETATION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

We offer a general definition of interpretation based on a naturalized teleology. The definition tests and extends the biosemiotic paradigm by seeking to provide a philosophically robust resource for investigating the possible role of semiosis (processes of representation and interpretation) in biological systems. We show that our definition provides a way of understanding various possible kinds of misinterpretation, illustrate the definition using examples at the cellular and subcellular level, and test the definition by applying it to a potential counterexample. We explain how we propose to use the definition as a way of asking new questions about what distinguishes life from non‐life and of formulating testable hypotheses within the field of origin‐of‐life research. If the definition leads to fruitful new empirical approaches to the scientific problem of the origin of life, it will help to establish biosemiotics as a legitimate philosophical approach in theoretical biology and will thereby support a theological appropriation of the biosemiotic perspective as the basis of a new theology of nature.     

DOES HE PULL IT OFF? A THEISTIC GROUNDING OF NATURAL INHERENT HUMAN RIGHTS?

This paper focuses on two key issues in Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs . It argues that Wolterstorff's theistic grounding of inherent rights is not successful. It also argues that Wolterstorff does not provide adequate criteria for determining what exactly these natural inherent rights are or criteria that can help us to evaluate competing and contradictory claims about these rights. However, most of Wolterstorff's book is not concerned with the theistic grounding of inherent rights. Instead, it is devoted to a detailed and rigorous articulation of the meaning and defense of a theory of justice as consisting of inherent rights and with showing why this theory of justice is superior to the alternative right order theories that Wolterstorff criticizes. The paper concludes that these accomplishments are not diminished even if Wolterstorff has failed to provide us with a satisfactory theistic grounding of his theory.     

HISTORY AND THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Philip Hefner identifies three settings in which to assess the future of science and religion: the academy, the public sphere, and the faith community. This essay argues that the discourse of science and religion could improve its standing within the secular academy in America by shifting the focus from theology to history. In the public sphere, the science‐and‐religion discourse could play an important role of promoting tolerance and respect toward the religious Other. For a given faith community (for example, Judaism) the discourse of science and religion can ensure future intellectual depth by virtue of study and ongoing interpretation. The essay challenges the suggestion to adopt irony as a desirable posture for science‐and‐religion discourse.     

Cities and the real world

It is generally recognized that modern cities pose many problems for their inhabitants and contribute to environmental damage. However, neither planners nor scientists give adequate consideration to cities’ place in the evolutionary process and the planet's ecological system. By recognizing these connections and natural laws, planning would become more realistic, and meaningful progress could be made in solving serious social and environmental problems. Some basic problems influencing urban form are discussed, and a schematic example of how we might approach the planning of urban settlements is presented.     

Speak your mind and I will make it right: the case of “selection task”

ABSTRACT

The “Wason selection task” is still one of the most studied tasks in cognitive psychology. We argue that the low performance originally obtained seems to be caused by how the information of the task is presented. By systematically manipulating the task instructions, making explicit the information that participants are required to infer in accordance with the logical interpretation of the material implication “if, then”, we found an improvement in performance. In Experiment 1, the conditional rule has been formulated within a relevant context and in accordance with the conversational rules of communication, hence transmitting the actual meaning of the material implication. In Experiment 2, a similar improvement has been obtained even without the realistic scenario, only by making explicit the unidirectionality of the material implication. We conclude that task instructions are often formulate neglecting the conversational rules of communication, and this greatly reduces the possibility to succeed in the task.     

JAMES B. ASHBROOK AND HIS HOLISTIC WORLD: TOWARD A “UNIFIED FIELD THEORY” OF MIND,BRAIN, SELF,WORLD, AND GOD

James B. Ashbrook's “new natural theology in an empirical mode” pursued an integrated understanding of the spiritual, psychological, and neurological dimensions of spiritual life. Knowledge of neuroscience and personality theory was central to his quest, and his understandings were necessarily revised and amplified as scientific findings emerged. As a result, Ashbrook's legacy may serve as a case example of how to do religion‐and‐science in a milieu of scientific change. The constant in the quest was Ashbrook's core belief in the basic holism of brain, mind, personality, the nature of reality, and the underlying reality of God.     

SELECTION,INTERPRETATION, AND THE EMERGENCE OF LIVING SYSTEMS

The autocell proposal for the emergence of life and natural selection through the interaction of two reciprocally coupled self‐organizing processes specifically provides a protein‐first model for the origin of life that can be explored by computer simulations and experiment. Beyond the specific proposal it can be considered more generally as a thought experiment in which the principles deduced for the autocell could apply to other possible detailed chemical scenarios of catalytic polymers and protometabolism, including living systems emerging within membranelike barriers. The autocell model allows for the analysis of the emergence of not only agency and purpose but also of interpretation and semiosis as true living systems arise.