Qu’est-ce qu’un conflit religieux et comment devrait-on le définir ? En quoi un tel conflit diffère-t-il des autres ? Quelles sont les variables qui le désignent comme « religieux » ? La définition d’un conflit en ces termes importe-t-elle ? Autrement dit, que nous apprend-elle sur sa nature, ses buts, ses règles, ses procédures et ses limites et, en particulier,..

Śiḥot maran ha-Mashgiaḥ Mohari Leṿinshṭain, zatsal -- Ḥidushe torato ʻa. Mas. B.ḳ. ṿe-liḳuṭim -- Leḳeṭ mi-maʼamraṿ mi-moreshet Daṿid Heber ṿe-ʻinyene ha-shaʻah.

Abraham Ibn Ezra’s (ca. 1089-ca. 1161) astrological corpus includes the two versions of Sefer ha-ʿOlam (Book of the World), which represent the first Hebrew theoretical work, unique in medieval Jewish science, to discuss the theories and techniques of historical and meteorological astrology that had accumulated from Antiquity to Ibn Ezra’s time. This article surveys the content of the two versions of Sefer ha-ʿOlam and their most important doctrines as he conceived of them. The relevant material is presented chronologically: (a) the (...) ancient period; (b) the Hellenistic period; (c) Indian and Persian contributions; (d) contributions by astrologers working in the Muslim world; and (e) connections with twelfth-century Latin work on world astrology. In addition, this paper examines the contents of three additional texts by Ibn Ezra, directly concerned with word astrology: (a) the tenth chapter of Reshit Ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom), where Ibn Ezra presents a series of cycles related to world astrology; (b) the astrological section of the exegetical excursus in the long commentary on Exodus 33:21, where Ibn Ezra inserts material on world astrology into his biblical commentary; (c) the introduction to Sefer ha-Moladot (Book of Nativities), where Ibn Ezra juxtaposes world astrology and the doctrine of nativities and presents a series of original ideas about world astrology. (shrink)

Adversaries of Moral Luck (AMLs) are at pains to explain why wrongdoers are liable to bear burdens (punishment, compensation etc.) which are related to the harm they cause, because the consequences of what we do are a matter of luck. One attempt to solve this problem suggests that wrongdoers who cause more harm are liable to bear a greater burden not because they are more blameworthy but rather because they get the short straw in a liability lottery (represented by the (...) apparently indeterminate causal process). In this paper I argue that this attempt fails on several grounds. Apart from the fact that it is hard to see how the implementation of liability lotteries can be motivated and the fact that such scheme presupposes a political order (whereas the notion of liability does not seem to presuppose one), detaching liability from the outcomes of a culpable action undermines whichever justifications there were for imposing liability in the first place. Moreover, relying on the determination of the causal process as a good indication of the wrongdoer’s degree of culpability is mistaken, because the luck brought about through the causal process is not necessarily the only element involved in cases of harmful conduct which lies beyond the wrongdoers’ control. (shrink)

Special relativity is based on the apparent contradiction between two postulates, namely, Galilean vs. c-invariance. We show that anomalies ensue by holding the former postulate alone. In order for Galilean invariance to be consistent, it must hold not only for bodies’ motions, but also for the signals and forces they exchange. If the latter ones do not obey the Galilean version of the Velocities Addition Law, invariance is violated. If, however, they do, causal anomalies, information loss and conservation laws’ violations (...) are bound to occur. These anomalies are largely remedied by introducing waves and fields that disobey Galilean invariance. Therefore, from these inconsistencies within classical mechanics, electromagnetism could be predicted before experiment proved its existence. Special relativity, it might be argued, would then follow naturally, either as a resolution of the resulting conflict or as an extrapolation of the path between the theories. We conclude with a review of earlier attempts to base SR on a single postulate, and point out the originality of the present work. (shrink)

Abraham ibn Ezra's scientific corpus represented an exceptional case: instead of the common Latin model embodied by the scholar coming from the Christian North to the Iberian Peninsula to initiate a translation enterprise, we have in Ibn Ezra the contrary case of an intellectual imbued with the Arabic culture, who abandons al-Andalus, roams around the Christian countries and delivers in his wandering through Italy, France and England, the scientific and cultural cargo that he amassed during his youth in al-Andalus. The (...) main purpose of this article is to provide a picture of Ibn Ezra's scientific corpus as comprehensive and detailed as possible given the present state of research. The paper will fall into two main parts: Ibn Ezra's scientific work will be broken up into three main genres: Mathematics, Astronomy, Scientific Instruments and Tools; The astrological encyclopaedia; Translations from Arabic into Hebrew. In the second part, Ibn Ezra's scientific corpus will be reassembled as a whole in order to provide a global characterization, trying to point out its general organization and shape, and to indicate its main aims and special traits revealing Ibn Ezra personal contribution. (shrink)

Le Tractatus particulares est un ouvrage en quatre parties attribué à Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1089-ca. 1161), qui nous est parvenu en deux traductions latines. Le présent article montre que, malgré les attestations dans les incipits et les explicits des deux traductions latines, le Tractatus particulares ne peut pas être un ouvrage authentique d’Ibn Ezra, ni un recueil d’écrits de sa plume. L’essentiel du Tractatus particulares est constitué de traductions de l’arabe en hébreu, réalisées bien après la mort d’Ibn Ezra (...) et associées à son nom par la suite. L’article entend aussi montrer que la source hébraïque du Tractatus particulares était sans doute conçue comme un ouvrage astrologique complet, une sorte d’encyclopédie astrologique médiévale. (shrink)

Recent years have seen the emergence of online courts and tribunals: digital platforms that enable self-represented litigants to complete electronically the entire court process, from filing through final disposition. This article proposes that the unique nature of online courts as digital interfaces enables them to implement a new strategy—diversity by design—to improve access to justice and procedural justice for a diverse population of SRLs. Reflecting a human-centered legal design approach, and building on research in human-computer interaction and digital choice architecture, (...) this strategy entails embedding diversity accommodating features in the technological design of court platforms. Specifically, building on the empirical relationship between users’ demographic attributes and their digital usability and aesthetics judgments, this article suggests that online courts can dynamically adapt their interfaces according to the attributes of a given user in ways that help diverse SRLs engage with online courts, support their effective participation in proceedings, and improve their procedural experiences. The potential impacts include enhancing SRLs’ confidence and trust in using online courts and ameliorating their ability to process information, deliberate, make informed decisions and communicate them. Finally, the article discusses concerns regarding the desirability and ethicality of dynamically adapting, that is—personalizing, court interfaces. (shrink)

The funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai – the renowned Qing scholar-official, financier, and “father of Chinese industrialism” – meandered through the streets of Shanghai on 18 November 1917. The funeral was a grand event, one that was purportedly documented in film, later to be distributed as the first “news short-film” in China. TheNorth China Heraldreported on the event in some detail, at times in rather florid language, and suggested that “the cortege was splendid and impressive, bringing back the days of (...) the Manchu emperors. The ceremonial costumes, the musical instruments and much more of the accoutrements dated back to the days of the Empire”. And indeed, the procession included a variety of ritual customs and insignia from Qing times: imperial banners, ancestral tablets, Buddhist and Daoist priests, paper artifacts, and much more. Simultaneously, nonetheless, other kinds of participants and objects – new and not of imperial pedigree – were part of and intermixed with the older materials: certificates of rank were carried on cars; boy scouts and college students marched alongside the priests; many of the participants arrived by train ; and as the Shanghai portion of the procession ended, it continued by steamer to Suzhou. The conclusion of theNorth China Heraldaccount, however, seems to have emphasized a dichotomy of old and new rather than a joyful mix of the two:Hundreds of men, dressed in the ancient costume of the old dynasties, bore a strong contrast to the eight behind them, sons of intimate friends of the deceased. They were on horseback and wore high silk hats, frock coats and white breeches tucked in riding boots.Truly the passing of the old and the entering of the new. This view – the old giving way to the new – was not just an off-hand journalistic analysis; it was part of a larger discourse about the nature of modernity, about progress, and about the relationship between East and West. By the early twentieth century, China was often perceived by most Westerners and Chinese alike as traditional, backward, and weak. It was, thus, commonly stated that the old was giving way to the new, should be giving way to the new, or was bound to give way to the new, if China was to survive. This kind of discourse was put forward by both Western and Chinese writers, who embraced this linear, progressive, view of the relationship between the old and the new, well before Sheng's funeral or the Qing's demise. In the aftermath of that demise, the New Culture Movement began to grow and seek solutions for the old-new nation's crisis. The Movement's rhetoric in particular advanced the need for the triumph of the new, and journals, such as New People, New Tide, or New Youth served as media for extending such views. (shrink)

Muḥammad Amīn b. Mīrzā Muḥammad Zamān Bukhārī, Muḥīṭ al-Tavārīkh. Edited by Mehrdad Fallahzadeh and Forogh Hashabeiky. Studies in Persian Cultural History, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. ix + 112 + 388. $216, €167.

ArgumentIn recent decades a large body of scholarship on the first half of twentieth-century China has successfully shown the ways in which history and historiography had been constructed at the time, as well as the links between history, national identity, education, and politics that was forged during this period. In this paper, I examine Qing intellectual history, in particular that of the mid or “High Qing.” I discuss the development of the historiography of this field in the early twentieth century (...) by drawing on the larger developments in historiography; by demonstrating how these developments had shaped Qing intellectual history for later times; by focusing on the historical actors’ sense of the importance of “science,” being “scientific,” and “modernization”; and, by unraveling the intimate connections to older historiographical narratives going back all the way to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (shrink)

This paper gives a retrospective of the events in the Balkans in the last 20 years. Hence, it indicates the problems, the progress and the challenges in terms of respecting and promoting diversity. The Western Balkans has always been a very interesting region with many challenges during different historical periods. If we take into consideration all the differences and diversities in this region, then this shouldn’t strike us as surprising. During history the Balkan region has always been a crossroads of (...) many events, conflicts, changes and destructive occurrences. In order to understand the connection between ethnic and the religious diversity, as well as the future of the Western Balkan countries in terms of Euro-Atlantic integration, we need to provide some information about the political, economic and social changes in these countries during the past, especially in the last two decades. To get a better understanding of all the processes and events we need to take a look at the 90s of the last century. This period was one of the most important turning points in international relations. By the end of the Cold War there were two blocks within the societies – The Western and the Eastern, and an agreement for the Balkans to be a balance between these two blocks. This fact was important for the promotion of the concept of the nation-state, which refers generally to both of the blocks. However, changes such as the dissolution and breakdown of the USSR and Yugoslavia, as well as the official Eastern bloc fiasco, brought an increase in the individual identity of the citizens living in these countries. This was the beginning of a new era to be characterized by conflicts, wars, refugees, humanitarian crises, a large number of casualties and injured people, because of the idea that the emerging countries, especially from the Balkan region, should be nation-state countries, i.e. composed of a nation thereby ignoring the ethnic and religious differences or the unrecognized diversity of the citizens of different ethnic groups living in these countries. The establishment of the Euro-Atlantic integration concept as a key national and state priority of almost every country in this region led to the understanding of differences as an asset, and not as an obstacle for the faster integration to the EU and NATO. This fact undoubtedly contributed to the establishment of the criteria for membership, and in particular to the promotion of the rights and freedoms of minorities as most important for the integration process. (shrink)

This paper connects the debate regarding perceptual representation of high-level properties and the debate regarding non-conceptual perceptual representation. I present and defend a distinction between representationally-complex properties and properties that are simpler to represent and offer ways of assessing whether a property is representationally complex. I address conditions under which such a property might be non-conceptually represented and conclude that most representationally-complex properties are simply too complex to be non-conceptually represented. Thus, most mental states that represent representationally-complex properties must be (...) conceptual. This conclusion is relevant for a variety of philosophical theories (perception, ethics, emotions, pain) and is especially dramatic with respect to accounts according to which a mental state can non-conceptually represent such properties. As a test case for applying my argument I consider a group of such accounts: non-conceptual perceptual views of emotions, which my argument entails are false. I end by considering the implications my argument has for different theories. -/- . (shrink)

In this essay I will argue for the existence of a Bolshevik Center, which coordinated the activities of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Social Democratic Party. This Bolshevik Center was dissolved in an intra-Bolshevik factional dispute on the eve of Lenin''s writing hisMaterialism and Empirio-Criticism. The source of the conflict in the Bolshevik Center related to disagreements over Lenin''s tactics following the 1905 revolution. The leader of the anti-Lenin opposition was Bogdanov. But the struggle over tactics could not be contained (...) in the political sphere; it spilled over to the philosophical. Lenin''sMaterialism and Empirio-Criticism was written as a refutation of Bogdanov''s philosophical thought in an attempt to drive him out of the Party. This essay will trace the events which led to the dissolution of the Bolshevik Center.In order to be able to follow the tactical debates a definition of terms to be used throughout this paper would be helpful. In terms of the strategic problems facing the Bolsheviks, as well as members of the Russian Social-Democratic Party (RSDP), in their attitude to theDuma, the word Boycott will refer to those who argued that the Bolsheviks should not participate in theDuma in any capacity. TheBoycottists maintained that the Bolsheviks should not even participate in the elections to theDuma. The wordUltimatism refers to those among the Bolsheviks who wished to participate in the ThirdDuma, but who favored the total obedience of the Russian Social-Democrats who might be elected to theDuma to the Central Committee of the Party.Ultimatism refers to the control and hegemony of the Central Committee over any social-democratic delegates who might win elections to the Third Duma.Otzovism means removing. TheOtzovists were those among the Bolsheviks, who advocated the removal of any social-democratic delegate in the ThirdDuma who disobeyed the directives of the Party Central Committee. Ultimatism andOtzovism concerned questions of Party authority. The Otzovist recommended the expulsion of any delegate in the Duma who abrogated the authority of the Party organs.Boycottism did not deal with questions of Party authority as such, but rather was fundamentally a tactical question: participation or non-participation in theDuma, e.g. parliamentarism vs revolution. (shrink)

Developmentally, adolescence sits in transition between childhood and adulthood. Involving adolescents in their medical decision-making prompts important and complex ethical questions. Originating in the UK, the concept of Gillick competence is a dominant framework for navigating adolescent medical decision-making from legal, ethical and clinical perspectives and is commonly treated as comprehensive. In this paper, we argue that its utility is far more limited, and hence over-reliance on Gillick risks undermining rather than promoting ethically appropriate adolescent involvement. We demonstrate that Gillick (...) only provides guidance in the limited range of cases where legal decisional authority needs to be clarified. The range of cases where use of Gillick actually promotes adolescent involvement is narrower still, because several features must be present for Gillick to be enacted. Each of these features can, and do, act as barriers to adolescent involvement. Within these limited situations, we argue that Gillick is not specific or strong enough and is reliant on ethically contestable principles. Moreover, in most situations in adolescent healthcare, Gillick is silent on the ethical questions around involving adolescents. This is because it focuses on decisional authority—having the final say in decision-making—which is one small subset of the many ways adolescents could be involved in decision-making. The implication of our analysis is that use of Gillick competence tends to limit or undermine adolescent involvement opportunities. We propose that those working with adolescents should be judicious in seeking Gillick’s guidance, instead drawing on and developing alternative frameworks that provide a comprehensive model for adolescent involvement. (shrink)

The movement known as Deutsche Physik (German physics) evolved hand in hand with National Socialism. It represented a marginal but vocal group of German scientists and science scholars who profiled themselves as defenders of “Aryan” science and called for the elimination of the “Jewish spirit” that they saw as epitomized by Albert Einstein’s relativity theory and as dominating the natural sciences, even in Nazi Germany. This infamous movement is most associated with the Nobel laureate physicists Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark, (...) who founded it and gave it its initial political impetus during the early years of the Third Reich. However, in its main and final phase, between 1937 and 1943, the movement was no longer led by Lenard and Stark but by the philosopher of science Hugo Dingler (1881–1954) and his Munich-based circle. Tracing the development of his career until 1937, this article examines how Dingler came to play this role both despite and because of the significant differences between his and the better known Lenard-Stark strand of Deutsche Physik. Special attention is paid to Dingler’s subversive use of theoretical principles—particularly his framing of his work as a radical search for certainty—to advance the movement’s antiscientific agenda. (shrink)

Adam and Eve have the same record yet receive different punishments. Adam receives the punishment that they both deserve, whereas Eve receives a more lenient punishment. In this article, we explore whether a deserved-but-unequal punishment, such as what Adam receives, can be just. We do this by explicating the conceptions of retributive justice that underlie both sides of the debate. We argue that inequality in punishment is disturbing mainly because of the disrespect it often expresses towards the offender receiving the (...) harsher treatment, and also because it casts doubt on whether Adam got what he deserved. We suggest that when no disrespect is involved and when it is clear that the criminal got what he deserved, inequality is not worrisome. (shrink)

This paper questions the fairness of our current tort-law regime and the philosophical underpinnings advanced in its defense, a theory known as corrective justice. Fairness requires that the moral equality and responsibility of persons be respected in social interactions and institutions. The concept of luck has been used by many egalitarians as a way of giving content to fairness by differentiating between those benefits and burdens that result from informed choice and those that result from fate or fortune. We argue (...) that the theory of corrective justice, along with its institutional embodiment of tort law, is at odds with an egalitarian commitment to fairness because it allows luck an unjustifiable role in determining dissimilar liability for similar wrongs and dissimilar compensation for similar losses to bodily integrity. Many egalitarian political theorists have also recognized, if not defended, the notion of distinct forms of justice, namely corrective, retributive, and distributive. Although theorists of these different forms of justice have been concerned with negating unfair luck inside the operations of each form of justice, there has been little attention to the way in which luck operates to sort cases into each form of justice. We claim that there is a significant way in which luck operates to subject different people to principles of corrective, retributive, and distributive justicewhich flies in the face of the egalitarian value of fairness. After surveying the arguments put forward by theorists defending a categorical distinction between corrective justice and retributive and distributive principles, we argue that although analytical distinctions can be made between different forms of justice (although, we also suggest that the distinctions are not as sharp as some commentators suggest), there is no good reason to defend an acoustic separation between these forms of justice when doing so creates unfair outcomes. (shrink)

The class of stable posets is defined and investigated. We give a forcing construction of a universe of set theory which satisfies a weak form of Martin's Axiom and $2^{\aleph_0} > \aleph_1$ and yet some propositions which follow from CH hold in this universe.

"מבע אנתרופולוגי אל העולם החרדי בישראל, אל האתרים שבהם חרדים מטפלים בחרדים הסובלים מהפרעות נפשיות". -- מפרסום ההוצאה.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability in Western society, and often results in functional and neuropsychological abnormalities. Memory impairment is one of the most significant cognitive implications after TBI. In the current study we investigated procedural memory acquisition by observational training in TBI patients. It was previously found that while practicing a new motor skill, patients engage in all three phases of skill learning–fast acquisition, between-session consolidation, and long-term retention, though their pattern of learning (...) is atypical compared to healthy participants. A different set of studies showed that training by observing a motor task, generally prompted effective acquisition and consolidation of procedural knowledge in healthy participants. The aim of our study was to (i) evaluate the potential benefit of action observation in TBI patients. (ii) Examine the possibility of general improvement in performance between the first (24 h post-training) and second (2 weeks post-training) stage of the study. (iii) Investigate the link between patients’ ability to benefit from observational learning (viaperformance gains–speed and accuracy) and common measures of injury (such as severity of injury, functional and cognitive measures).Materials and methodsPatients hospitalized after moderate to severe TBI, were trained by observation for the finger opposition sequence (FOS) motor task. They were then tested for the observation-trained sequence (A) and a similar control sequence (B), at two different time-points (24 h post-training and 2 weeks later).Results revealed(i) a significant difference in performance between the trained (A) and untrained (B) sequences, in favor of the trained sequence. (ii) An increase in performance for both sequences A and B toward the second (retention) session. (iii) The advantage for sequence A was stable and preserved also in the second session. (iv) Participants with lower moderate Functional Independence Measure (FIM) scores gained more from observational-procedural learning, compared with patients with higher functional abilities.ConclusionOverall, these findings support the notion that TBI patients may achieve procedural memory consolidation and retention through observational learning. Moreover, different functional traits may predict the outcomes of observational training in different patients. These findings may have significant practical implications in the future, regarding skill acquisition methods in TBI patients. (shrink)