This paper studies the role that known bounds on message transmission times in a computer network play on the evolution of the epistemic state over time. A connection to cones of causal influence analogous to, and more general than, light cones is presented. Focusing on lower bounds on message transmission times, an analysis is presented of how knowledge about when others are guaranteed to be ignorant about an event of interest can arise. This has implications in competitive settings, in which (...) knowing about another’s ignorance can provide an advantage. (shrink)

Reasoning About Knowledge is the first book to provide a general discussion of approaches to reasoning about knowledge and its applications to distributed ...

The effect of upper bounds on message delivery times in a computer network upon the dynamics of knowledge gain is investigated. Recent work has identified centipedes and brooms—causal structures that combine message chains with time bound information—as necessary conditions for knowledge gain and common knowledge gain, respectively. This paper shows that, under the full-information protocol, these structures are both necessary and sufficient for such epistemic gain. We then apply this analysis to gain insights into the relation between “everyone knows” and (...) common knowledge. We prove a tight threshold on the depth k, beyond which Ek G (everyone in G knows nested to depth k) collapses into CG (common knowledge), when this knowledge concerns the occurrence of a spontaneous event. The threshold depends on the size of the group G of agents, as well as the time that has elapsed since the event of interest occurred. The existence of such a threshold is not guaranteed for all protocols, which is demonstrated here by presenting a counterexample in which no such threshold exists. (shrink)

A teacher announced to his pupils that on exactly one of the days of the following school week (Monday through Friday) he would give them a test. But it would be a surprise test; on the evening before the test they would not know that the test would take place the next day. One of the brighter students in the class then argued that the teacher could never give them the test. "It can't be Friday," she said, "since in that (...) case we'll expect it on Thurday evening. But then it can't be Thursday, since having already eliminated Friday we'll know Wednesday evening that it has to be Thursday. And by similar reasoning we can also eliminate Wednesday, Tuesday, and Monday. So there can't be a test!" The students were somewhat baffled by the situation. The teacher was well-known to be truthful, so if he said there would be a test, then it was safe to assume that there would be one. On the other hand, he also said that the test would be a surprise. But it seemed that whenever he gave the test, it wouldn't be a surprise. Well, the teacher gave the test on Tuesday, and, sure enough, the students were surprised. (shrink)

I address three key questions in Jewish theology that have come up in readers’ criticism of my book The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture: How should we think about God’s revelation to man if, as I have proposed, the sharp distinction between divine revelation and human reason is alien to the Hebrew Bible and classical rabbinic sources? Is the biblical Law of Moses intended to be a description of natural law, suggesting the path to life and the good for all (...) nations? And what should be the role of the Jewish theologian, given the overwhelming prevalence of Christian conceptions of God and Scripture in contemporary theological discourse. (shrink)

In this book Yoram Lubling and Eric Evans offer a Deweyan reconstruction of our philosophical understanding of well-being. They begin with Dewey's critique of the philosophical fallacy to examine the legitimacy and value of theories of well-being offered by traditional philosophy. However, such theories fail to provide an authentic account of well-being due to a false understanding of "experience" as either epistemic or cognitive. Next, using Dewey's theory of experience, they reconstruct happiness as the target for evaluation of well-being. (...) This leads them to reject the traditional view of a private encapsulated self, and to offer in its place a "transactionally situated self" which is an embodied, enculturated agent. Through their emphasis on the importance of the qualitative aspects of Dewey's understanding of a situation, the "pervasive quality of the situation" emerges as the most plausible criterion for the evaluation of well-being. The authors use Dewey's theories of inquiry, ethics, value and art to establish the naturalistic conditions under which such "pervasive quality" enters into a situation as either settled or unsettled, in other words, as peace in motion. Consequently, a "problematic situation" becomes the primary condition under which all inquiry initiates whether it is in the context of science, ethics, values, art or ordinary living. Lubling and Evans conclude that a Deweyan account of well-being involves "embodied knowing" instead of the traditional view of cognitive knowledge. By using such an account, it is possible to explain the conditions and mechanisms under which well-being contributes to the enlargement and enrichment of individual and collective human experience. (shrink)

This book explores a new pedagogical model called The Third Model, which places the encounter between the child and the curriculum at the center of educational theory and practice. The Third Model is implemented in an alternative classroom called Community of Thinking. Teaching and learning in a Community of Thinking is based on three "stations": the fertile question; research; and concluding performance. The essence of a Community of Thinking is the formation of a group of students and teachers who grapple (...) with a troubling question to which they do not know the answer at the outset - and sometimes even at the end of their investigation. The Community of Thinking framework is supported by a whole school model - the Intel-Lect School. The model, or parts of it, is currently implemented in schools in Israel, England, Australia, and New Zealand. The book suggests a new pedagogical narrative based on alternative "atomic pictures" of learning, teaching, knowledge, mind and the aim of education, and a systematic pedagogical practice based on this narrative.. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 104-105.

Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed is among the most influential texts within Jewish philosophy: a twelfth-century masterwork that seeks to navigate the straits between religion and philosophy. The Guide was written around 1190 in Classical Arabic by Moses ben Maimon, commonly known as Maimonides or as Rambam, a medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. The Guide to the Perplexed, written as a letter from a teacher to (...) his "perplexed" student, is Maimonides' magnum opus. In this new translation by philosopher Lenn E. Goodman and Jewish historian Phillip I. Lieberman, Maimonides' intimate, conversational voice comes through as never before in English. Written in the form of a three-part letter to Maimonides' student, Rabbi Joseph ben Judah of Ceuta, the Guide seeks to resolve the apparent contractions between Aristotelian thought and Rabbinical Jewish theology. Maimonides is all too cognizant of the challenges serious inquirers face at the confluence of the two great streams of thought and learning that Arabic writers labeled 'aql and naql, reason and tradition. The object of the Guide, as Maimonides declares near the start of the work, is to probe the mysteries of physics and metaphysics. But mysteries, for him, are not conundrums to be celebrated for their impenetrability, but problems to be solved. Maimonides' ideas echo throughout the work of philosophers including Aquinas, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Newton, and the Guide continues to inspire vigorous debate among philosophers and theologians today. Goodman and Lieberman's detailed commentary provides historical context and philosophical scaffolding, allowing readers to more fully understand the complexities of the most significant text in medieval Jewish thought. (shrink)

The American Declaration of Independence served as a starting point for the drafting of the Israeli Declaration of Independence of 1948. Most of the original content was lost in the long process of translation and adaptation, but, using David Armitage’s recent terminology, the Israeli text remained as "generically promiscuous" as its predecessor, combining a "manifesto" of justifications for the assumption of sovereignty, a formal proclamation and a proto-Bill of Rights. This Article depicts the work of Mordechai Beham, the Israeli Declaration’s (...) first draftsman, as a remarkable exercise in choosing contemporary, locally-valid "answers" to the fundamental "questions" posed by Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries in 18th century America on human values, national identity, statehood, and God. The analysis is partially based in the current debate on "legal transplantation," arguing that the outstanding success of the Israeli Declaration stems from both the quality of the American original and the massive work of adaptation to Israeli soil. (shrink)

The effort to rid criminal responsibility of factors beyond the agent’s control created an opportunity for a new balance in the law of attempt between aggravated penalties and full exoneration for voluntary renunciation. The present analysis claims that the opportunity has been missed both in Israel and in the United States because of an unwarranted concern for the moral tenor of renunciation. Analysis of the difference between successes and failures in renunciation cases is offered in support of the proposition that (...) the proper balance between ex post and ex ante considerations is only applied where courts empathize with the victims of specific crimes. In other cases, immediate victims are readily used as means to prevent uncertain future crime. The claim is also made that concern with the moral tenor of renunciation creates an anomaly in modern criminal law. While the decision to initiate a crime act is judged on ever narrower pictures of character and motive, the decision to abandon it before actual harm is inflicted increasingly attracts interest in the inner processes behind it. I claim that the anomaly manifests the danger of blurring the line between reality and fantasy when the struggle against luck is not properly checked. (shrink)

Introduction: beyond reason and revelation -- Pt. I. Reading Hebrew scripture -- Ch. 1. The structure of the Hebrew Bible -- Ch. 2. What is the purpose of the Hebrew Bible? -- Ch. 3. How does the Bible make arguments of a general nature? -- The philosophy of Hebrew scripture: five studies -- Ch. 4. The ethics of a shepherd -- Ch. 5. The history of Israel, Genesis-kings: a political philosophy -- Ch. 6. Jeremiah and the problem of knowing -- (...) Ch. 7. Truth and being in Hebrew scripture -- Ch. 8. Jerusalem and carthage -- Pt. III. Conclusion -- Ch. 9. God's speech after reason and revelation -- Appendix: what is "reason"? some preliminary remarks. (shrink)

What is inequality? In the late 1990s there was an explosion of interest in the subject that yielded a substantial body of formal tools and results for income-distribution analysis. Nearly all of this is founded on a small set of core assumptions - such as the Principle of Transfers, scale independence, the population principle∑ - that are used to give meaning to specific concepts of inequality measurement, inequality ranking and, indeed, to inequality itself. But does the standard axiomatic structure coincide (...) with public perceptions of inequality? Or is the economist's concept of inequality a thing apart, perpetuated through serial brainwashing in the way the subject is studied and taught? In this 1999 book, Amiel and Cowell examine the evidence from a large international questionnaire experiment using student respondents. Along with basic 'cake-sharing' issues, related questions involving social-welfare rankings, the relationship between inequality and overall income growth and the meaning of poverty comparisons are considered. (shrink)

... al- Ḥairin being exhausted without having fully supplied the demand, I prepared a second, revised edition of the Translation. ...

Shared decision-making between patients and physicians strives to balance decisional responsibility for clinical decisions. Directed by patients, SDM incorporates patients’ values and prefere...

Over the past decade, US patients and clinicians have endured medication shortages of nearly every class, including many lifesaving medications. These shortages have persisted despite determined efforts by federal, academic, and professional organizations. Medication shortages have resulted in lost lives, medication errors, and substantial financial cost. Economic drivers are the primary cause for drug shortages, exacerbated by manufacturing and quality problems, and unreliable and uncertain sources for many raw materials required to synthesize these drugs. Drug shortages force clinicians to make (...) untenable choices and decide which of their patients should receive a lifesaving scarce medication. The COVID-19 pandemic has stressed many hospitals’ ability to provide basic care and aggravated existing drug shortages. The influx of patients suffering from COVID-19 has exposed flaws in the fractured manner in which essential medications reach patients. The unique nature of COVID-19, often requiring prompt and decisive clinical decision-making, challenges the accepted approach for ethical analysis adopted by clinical ethicists. The author, a clinician and bioethicist, notes the ethical challenges he and other frontline providers have faced in deciding which patients are “more deserving” of a scarce medication. (shrink)

This superb abridgement and annotated translation of Maimonides' monumental work includes discussions of divine language, the scope and limits of human knowledge, cosmological doctrines concerning the creation or eternity of the world, prophecy and providence, the nature and purpose of divine law, and moral and political philosophy.

Section 170 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code is known as the “charitable contribution deduction.” This Article explores the section’s rationale as well as its effect on income/wealth distribution. It reaches the conclusion that the deduction can be justified on efficiency and democracy grounds, but is not “charitable,” as its distributive effects are neutral or even regressive.

In a previous article I argued that tipping facilitates tax evasion, hurts employees’ financial security in the long run, and is a form of negative externality imposed by wealthy people on the rest of society. In this Article I try to understand the reasons for the greater popularity of the norm in the U.S. compared to other countries, suggesting it may be related to the U.S. cultural preference for linking redistribution with work requirements, relatively high income inequality and consumerism. To (...) that end, I further develop the negative externality argument suggested in the previous article by looking at trends in income inequality in the U.S. and by interpreting the global distribution of the norm through the prism of my inequality/negative externality argument. I then look at the tax treatment of tips in various countries in search of a pattern that supports the differences in social norms. (shrink)

Le présent ouvrage réunit les conférences que Stéphane Mosès a prononcées en janvier 2006, en tant que titulaire de la chaire de méta-physique Étienne-Gilson, à l'Institut catholique de Paris. Connu dès 1982, après la publication de son magistral ouvrage Système et révélation chez Franz Rosenzweig, préfacé par Emmanuel Levinas, son nom sera définitivement associé à l'auteur de L'Étoile de la Rédemption. Aussi bien fut-il un commentateur assidu des grands moments de la pensée juive moderne et contemporaine ou de la philosophie (...) allemande, y associant une incessante méditation de la Bible et du Talmud. C'est en examinant les différents types de relations aux textes pratiquées par les divers penseurs juifs, qu'il théorise progressivement une distinction, centralement exploitée ici, qui concerne la longue trajectoire de la pensée juive moderne depuis Moses Mendelssohn, entre " modernité normative " et " modernité critique ". (shrink)

We consider Effort Games, a game-theoretic model of cooperation in open environments, which is a variant of the principal-agent problem from economic theory. In our multiagent domain, a common project depends on various tasks; carrying out certain subsets of the tasks completes the project successfully, while carrying out other subsets does not. The probability of carrying out a task is higher when the agent in charge of it exerts effort, at a certain cost for that agent. A central authority, called (...) the principal, attempts to incentivize agents to exert effort, but can only reward agents based on the success of the entire project.We model this domain as a normal form game, where the payoffs for each strategy profile are defined based on the different probabilities of carrying out each task and on the boolean function that defines which task subsets complete the project, and which do not. We view this boolean function as a simple coalitional game, and call this game the underlying coalitional game. We suggest the Price of Myopia as a measure of the influence the model of rationality has on the minimal payments the principal has to make in order to motivate the agents in such a domain to exert effort.We consider the computational complexity of testing whether exerting effort is a dominant strategy for an agent, and of finding a reward strategy for this domain, using either a dominant strategy equilibrium or using iterated elimination of dominated strategies. We show these problems are generally #P-hard, and that they are at least as computationally hard as calculating the Banzhaf power index in the underlying coalitional game. We also show that in a certain restricted domain, where the underlying coalitional game is a weighted voting game with certain properties, it is possible to solve all of the above problems in polynomial time. We give bounds on PoM in weighted voting effort games, and provide simulation results regarding PoM in another restricted class of effort games, namely effort games played over Series-Parallel Graphs. (shrink)

The ArgumentOne disconcerting aspect of the role of culture in shaping human suffering is the gap between the explanatory models of therapists and patients in multicultural settings. This gap is particularly noted in working with Jewish ultra–Orthodox psychiatric patients whose idioms of distress are often derived from a sacred reality not easily reconcilable with psychomedical reality. To meet the challenge to therapeutic efficacy that this incompatibility may pose, we propose a culturally sensitive therapy based on strategic principles that focus on (...) the patient's mythic world and religious idioms of distress as the kernel of therapeutic interventions. Using one case of post–traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as illustration, we seek to show how the religious symbols through which the patient's distress was articulated may be manipulated to effect cure. The case highlights the narrative quality of both illness construction and self–reconstruction. (shrink)