This chapter examines current views concerning the alleged editing of the rabbinic texts of late antiquity. It highlights the author's 1986 article concerning the editing of rabbinic texts and discusses the possibilities of manuscript variations and variant readings of certain texts in different manuscripts. It suggests that there is no evidence of any significant recensional variation in any of the classic works of midrash, neither those included in the corpus of midrash halakhah nor those included in the corpus of midrash (...) aggadah. (shrink)

The New Rhetoric is founded on the idea that since “argumentation aims at securing the adherence of those to whom it is addressed, it is, in its entirety, relative to the audience to be influenced,” says Chaïm Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, and they rely, in particular, for their theory of argumentation on the twin concepts of universal and particular audiences: while every argument is directed to a specific individual or group, the orator decides what information and what approaches will achieve (...) the greatest adherence according to an ideal audience. This ideal, Perelman explains, can be embodied, for example, "in God, in all reasonable and competent men, in the man deliberating or in an elite.” Like particular audiences, then, the universal audience is never fixed or absolute but depends on the orator, the content and goals of the argument, and the particular audience to whom the argument is addressed. These considerations determine what information constitutes "facts" and "reasonableness" and thus help to determine the universal audience that, in turn, shapes the orator's approach. /// The adherence of an audience is also determined by the orator's use of values, a further key concept of the New Rhetoric. Perelman's treatment of value and his view of epideictic rhetoric sets his approach apart from that of the ancients and of Aristotle in particular. Aristotle's division of rhetoric into three genres–forensic, deliberative, and epideictic–is largely motivated by the judgments required for each: forensic or legal arguments require verdicts on past action, deliberative or political rhetoric seeks judgment on future action, and epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric concerns values associated with praise or blame and seeks no specific decisions. For Aristotle, the epideictic genre was of limited importance in the civic realm since it did not concern facts or policies. Perelman, in contrast, believes not only that epideictic rhetoric warrants more attention, but that the values normally limited to that genre are in fact central to all argumentation. "Epideictic oratory," Perelman argues, "has significant and important argumentation for strengthening the disposition toward action by increasing adherence to the values it lauds.” These values are central to the persuasiveness of arguments in all rhetorical genres since the orator always attempts to "establish a sense of communion centered around particular values recognized by the audience.”. (shrink)

Substantial research demonstrates that ethical leaders improve a broad range of outcomes for their employees, but considerably less attention has been devoted to the performance and success of the leaders themselves. The present study explores the extent to which being ethical relates to leaders’ performance and promotability. We address this question by examining ethical leadership from the two ethical perspectives most common in Western traditions—i.e., the “right” and the “good”—and whether one might be more closely associated than the other with (...) performance and promotability evaluations. Results from 117 employee-supervisor-manager triads show that supervisors with a deontological outlook are more likely to be seen as ethical leaders and that utilitarian leaders are more likely to earn higher performance evaluations. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on ethical leadership. (shrink)

This book discusses the justifications and limits of cultural nationalism from a liberal perspective. Chaim Gans presents a normative typology of nationalist ideologies, distinguishing between cultural liberal nationalism and statist liberal nationalism. Statist nationalisms argue that states have an interest in the cultural homogeneity of their citizenries. Cultural nationalisms argue that people have interests in adhering to their cultures and in sustaining these cultures for generations. Gans argues that freedom- and identity-based justifications for cultural nationalism common in literature can (...) only support the adherence thesis, while the historical thesis could only be justified by the interest people have in the long-term endurance of their personal and group endeavors. The Limits of Nationalism examines demands often made in the name of cultural nationalism, such as claims for national self-determination, historical rights claims to territories and demands entailed by cultural particularism as opposed to cultural cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

This book comprises a series of studies devoted to an analytic examination of reasoning in the field of conduct. The first is analysis of the idea of justice undertaken in a spirit of positivism; the series continues in a different vein necessitated by compelling obligation the author found himself under to work out a logic of value judgments. This logic is in fact the Rhetoric and Topics of antiquity: the author's "Traité de l' Argumentation gave this new life, and the (...) present work demonstrates its philosophical importance. (shrink)

La interpretación jurídica consiste en descubrir la solución en los supuestos dados con arreglo al derecho vigente. La interpretación es siempre necesaria porque no existen casos claros y a quien incumbe la tarea de decidir la interpretación del derecho es a los jueces y funcionarios, al resolver los casos que se presentan a su consideración. Una característica destacable de la interpretación judicial es la búsqueda de una solución basada en la equidad. Otra de las tareas de la interpretación es la (...) solución de conflictos y, en este sentido, el recurso a los principios y a la lógica de lo razonable suministra la solución aceptable. Esta dialéctica entre el legislativo, los jueces, la doctrina y la opinión pública constituyen la vida del derecho, conciliando de este modo la estabilidad y el cambio. (shrink)

Positivism and, especially, Max Weber's vision of the modern disen chantment of the world are incoherent because they separate human culture from the environment in which human agents pursue their life- projects. The same problem is manifested, more blatantly, in current social studies of science, which take the project of disenchantment further by disenchanting science itself. A different image of science is traced to classical empiricism, whose paradigm of learning is belief and, more specifically, the practical nature of the believer's (...) experience of the environment of his or her actions. The believer's ecological imagery of the world, as it was elaborated by classical empiricism, provides the means to transcend the disenchanted image of the world and its prob lems. (shrink)

Selecting the sex of a fetus has been a desire of parents in many different cultures. Modern Muslim religious scholars have identified advantages and disadvantages of this practice, permitting it in certain cases while forbidding it in others. In general, they do not appear to desire that selection of sex become a common practice, yet they are willing to allow it for personal reasons. This case-by-case approach exemplifies a key aspect of Muslim ethical discourse. After an overview of justifications for (...) fetal sex selection in different cultures, I turn to a discussion of authoritative Islamic sources. I then analyze the reasoning of several modern authorities who deal with the issue. In the absence of a clear religious text on the subject, scholars seem inclined to legitimize sex selection, and in so doing they appear strongly influenced by social attitudes. (shrink)

The legitimacy of the Zionist project--establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine--has been questioned since its inception. In recent years, the voices challenging the legitimacy of the State of Israel have become even louder. Chaim Gans examines these doubts and presents an in-depth, evenhanded philosophical analysis of the justice of Zionism.

This book examines the central questions concerning the duty to obey the law: the meaning of this duty; whether and where it should be acknowledged; and whether and when it should be disregarded. Many contemporary philosophers deny the very existence of this duty, but take a cautious stance toward political disobedience. This 'toothless anarchism', Professor Gans argues, should be discarded in favour of a converse position confirming the existence of a duty to obey the law which can be outweighed by (...) values and principles of political morality. Informed by the Israeli experience of political disobedience motivated by radically differing moral outlooks, the author sets out the principles which should guide our attitude to law and political authority even amidst clashing ideologies and irreconcilable moralities. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of law, philosophy and politics, and anyone concerned with the individual's responsibilties toward his or her political community. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 36.3 (2003) 189-206 [Access article in PDF] First Philosophies and Regressive Philosophy Chaïm Perelman "As a crystal reconstitutes itself from one of its particles, all philosophy creates itself from the idea of an open dialectic, and carries, in itself, the same dialectical character." —Ferdinand Gonseth A number of metaphysicians, including Bergson and Heidegger, consider metaphysics the only knowledge of consequence and use the word to refer (...) to their own philosophies. But a large number of eminent metaphysicians, among them Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte and Hegel had only disdain for metaphysics and used the word to discredit the philosophy of their adversaries. D'Alembert (602-604) once noted that those referred to as metaphysicians had little regard for one another. "I have no doubt," he added, "that this title will soon be an insult to our great minds, just as the name sophist which, although it meant wise, was debased in Greece by those who bore it and rejected by the true philosophers."The preceding remarks should, I think, convince the few who would still doubt it that declaring oneself an adversary of metaphysics does not mean that one does not do metaphysics. On the contrary, the very fact of opposing a certain conception of metaphysics presupposes that one advocates another conception of metaphysics; this needs to be made explicit, if it is only implicit. In a very interesting study, Mr. Everett W. Hall has recently analyzed the metaphysical assumptions of four types of positivism (Mach, Comte, Watson, Carnap). Even without this analysis the conclusion is predictable; he who is opposed to a certain manner of treating a problem remains himself within the same problematic. Indeed, such oppositions produce a continuous expansion and dialogue about the meaning of the word "metaphysics." This happens not through an automatic and necessary dialectic, but through the dialectic directed by the philosopher's concerns.The first metaphysicians set forth a particular philosophy of being [être]; those opposed advocated a different philosophy of being. By expanding its meaning, Aristotle gave metaphysics its first dialectical movement and identified it as the study of being as being and ontology. Kantian criticism treats dogmatic metaphysics with disdain, and shows that all theories [End Page 189] of being must be preceded by a theory of knowledge: the first principles of philosophy would be those of epistemology and not those of ontology. Since Kant, and for more than a century, metaphysical debates would be about the primacy of ontology or epistemology, and the opposition to their variants, realism and idealism. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, the debate broadened. Under the influence of pragmatism, the philosophy of values, and Bergsonism, a strong current of philosophical thinking developed, which integrated the theory of knowledge into a general theory of action. It proclaimed the primacy of a philosophy of action, philosophy of life, and philosophy of values. It is within a metaphysics broadened by these various developments that different conceptions of metaphysics will struggle to establish the primacy of their principles. But, despite their differences, all of these metaphysics can be considered first philosophies.Aristotle wrote a treatise on first philosophy, the first to be called metaphysics. First philosophies refer to any metaphysics that purports to determine first principles such as the fundamentals of being (ontology), of knowledge (epistemology), or of action (axiology). First philosophies position first principles as absolute and that they underlie all philosophical questions. The word "first" informs the argumentation used to establish the primacy of first philosophies. A principle is first when it comes before all others in a temporal, logical, epistemological or ontological order; the insistence on this point serves to emphasize its primacy or axiologic pre-eminence. That which is first or basic, that which precedes or presupposes all the rest, is also first in order of importance.As systematic metaphysics, first philosophies establish an interdependence among ontology, epistemology, and axiology. The course taken by first philosophies is determined by a starting point constituted by a necessary reality, a self-evident concept, or an absolute value before which one can... (shrink)

In the past generation, restitution law has emerged as a global phenomenon. From its Oxbridge home, restitution migrated to the rest of the Commonwealth, and ongoing Europeanization projects have brought the common law of restitution into contact with the Romanist concept of unjust enrichment, further internationalizing this movement. In contrast, in the United States, scholarly interest in restitution, in terms of books, articles, treatises, symposia and courses on restitution, is meager. Similarly, while restitution, equity and tracing cases receive considerable treatment (...) at the highest levels of the English judiciary, US courts seem uninterested in these issues, rarely producing the theory-laden opinions that have become quite common in the House of Lords. The situation is particularly curious because restitution is generally thought to be the invention of late nineteenth-century American scholars. This article explains this divergence. I argue that the Commonwealth restitution discourse is largely a product of pre- or anti-realist legal thought which generates scepticism within the American academic-legal establishment. The article identifies the two dominant camps in American private law thought—left-leaning redistributionalists and the centre-right legal economists—and shows that neither has any use for the Commonwealth's discourse. I conclude by analysing the emerging drafts of the Restatement of Restitution and forecast the future of American restitution law. (shrink)

Titel oversat: Islamisk, medicinsk etik i det tyvende århundrede.

This interdisciplinary study brings together research on audiences’ participation in the media, and an up-close exploration of communicative entitlement of and for such participation. Viewing visitor books as situated, public media, the study asks two related questions: how museums and institutions that employ this medium frame participation of ‘ordinary’ people in the public sphere, and how, in return, visitors variously articulate their participation. The article first examines the context in which visitor books mediate participation, and how museums frame them so (...) as to invite ‘authentic’ expressions by ‘ordinary’ visitors. The analysis depicts a taxonomy of participation, evincing five types of entitlements found in visitor book texts. These entitlements shed light on how participation in the public sphere is both understood and pursued. The article responds to calls for empirically rich studies on mediation practices and processes. It adds to the literature on communicative entitlements by examining an under-researched hitherto public medium and by illuminating a shift from talk-in-interaction to the context of text-in-interaction. (shrink)

Can states' immigration policies favor groups with whom they are culturally and historically tied? I shall answer this question here positively, but in a qualified manner. My arguments in support of this answer will be of distributive justice, presupposing a globalist rather than a localist approach to justice. They will be based on a version of liberal nationalism according to which individuals can have fundamental interests in their national culture, interests which are rooted in freedom, identity, and especially in ensuring (...) the meaningfulness of their endeavor. The prevalent means for protecting these interests is the right to national self-determination. Many believe that this right should be conceived of as a right to a state. I shall show that this conception of self-determination implies purely nationalist immigration policies. I shall present reasons for rejecting such policies, reasons which together with other reasons form a strong case against the statist interpretation of the right to self-determination. They form a strong case in favor of understanding self-determination as a bundle of privileges to which nations are entitled within the states dominating their homelands. Some of these privileges have to do with immigration policies. I shall argue for three principles which should regulate these immigration privileges and discuss the relation between them and Israel's Law of Return. (shrink)

While the study of Newton's religious views has been continuously expanding, it has not been brought to bear directly on Newton's career as an ‘experimental philosopher’. Historical perspectives on his optical experiments in particular affirm the historiographic separation between the religious and scientific aspects of his work. In this paper I examine the practical implication of Newton's theology of dominion on his early experiments on light and colours. While his predecessors had made experiments to collect evidence, I show that Newton (...) conceived experimental research as a discipline of the practical understanding of the structure of light and the origins of colours. His conception of experimental reasoning followed his practical reflections on human beings as agents who belonged to God's dominion and who were created to serve its divine ends. These reflections suggested, more specifically, that the aim of natural philosophy was the discovery of divine rules that instrumentally constrained and facilitated human conduct in general, and perceptual judgement in particular. I show, moreover, that Newton's endeavour to subordinate experiment to divine worship had been foreshadowed by Boyle's writing on the theory and practice of the experimental philosophy. (shrink)

The paper presents a simple game-theoretic model in which players decide on search procedures for a prize located in one of a set of labeled boxes. The prize is awarded to the player who finds it first. A player can decide on the number of (costly) search units he employs and on the order in which he conducts the search. It is shown that in equilibrium, the players employ an equal number of search units and conduct a completely random search. (...) The paper demonstrates that the search procedure is intrinsically inefficient. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: D83. (shrink)

fasc. 1. L'antiquité et le moyen-âge. fasc. 2. De Hobbes à nos jours.

The article examines how practices of inscription and structures of addressivity at a symbolic site provide implicit indexical means for establishing subjectivities and agencies. By examining a visitor book located in a national commemoration site in Jerusalem, Israel, the article first argues that inscribing practices themselves can function as implicit indexical mechanisms. In ritualized environments, inscribing assumes the function of a non-referential indexical because discourse is materially engraved unto a surround. These environments are also characterized by prescribed addressivity structures. The (...) article goes on to discern between a number of addressivity structures, evinced in visitors' aesthetisized entries. These structures serve as contextualizing cues and evince the ways visitors establish subjectivities and participation in national commemoration. Addressivity structures are shown to construct different types of social actors, and the spaces and temporalities within which they operate. Building on previous research on performance, the article shows how addressivity and inscription together supply the prerequisites for situated performances of identities and selves on inscribed and symbolic stages. (shrink)

Bakhtin famously argued that language-as-used is essentially dialogic. One pragmatic implication concerns how dialogicity is established in various contexts. In political discourse, polemic polyphony emerges from the juxtaposition of adversarial voices of political actors: a dialogue in which different voices index different ideological orientations. Polyphonic ensembles establish discoursal scenes and make them recognizable, enabling distinctions such as those between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and between heroes and villains. Overall, they assist speakers in the semiotic mediation of political relations.