[ḥeleḳ 1]. Al hilkhot meḳaḥ ṭaʻut, onaʼah u-matanah, Ḥ m. 227-249 -- ḥeleḳ 2. ʻAl Hilkhot avedah u-metsiʼah, hefḳer, periḳah u-ṭeʻinah, genevah u-gezelah, Ḥ. m. 259-275, 348-377.

The loss of a loved one can be a devastating blow, its impact unpredictable and often perplexing. In this sensitively written volume, letters to a young man offer solace, strength and rare insight. The correspondence format allow Meir Munk to.

IntroductionThe stressful pre-operative period exerts a profound impact on psychological, physiological and immunological outcomes. Oncological surgeries, in particular, elicit significantly higher stress responses than most other surgeries. Managing these responses through psychological interventions may improve long-term outcomes. The purpose of the current research was to review studies that have explored pre-operative psychological interventions in cancer patients in order to map the types of current interventions and provide an initial assessment of whether these interventions improved psychological, physiological, and/or immunological indices as (...) well as long-term cancer outcomes.MethodsA systematic literature search for studies that included pre-operative psychological interventions in oncology patients was conducted, using the databases PubMed and Web of Science. Inclusion criteria included studies pertaining to oncological surgery in adults, study designs that included a clearly defined pre-operative psychological intervention and control group.ResultsWe found 44 studies, each using one of the following interventions: psychoeducation, cognitive interventions, relaxation techniques, integrated approaches. All the studies reported improved immediate post-operative psychological, physiological, and/or immunological outcomes. Only a few studies addressed long-term cancer outcomes, and only one reported improved survival.ConclusionsResearch on pre-operative interventions with cancer patients is missing systematic methods. Studies provide varying results, which makes it difficult to compare them and reach reliable conclusions. There is considerable heterogeneity in the literature regarding the specific intervention used, the timing of intervention, the characteristics of the patients studied and the outcome measures. In order to improve research in this field, including the measurement of long-term outcomes, we suggest some steps that should be taken in further research. (shrink)

In this article, the authors introduce the concept of a “queer counter-mythology.” They do so by discussing a speculative song they wrote as an enactment of research-creation. Research-creation names an interdisciplinary scholarly praxis where artist-scholars create the artefacts they want to think-with, rather than analysing existing cultural productions. The song discussed in this article, “Cosmic Beavers,” proposes a queer counter-mythology that reimagines the historical, colonial archive by foregrounding the stories of giant, trans-dimensional beavers who shred Lewis and Clark and use (...) them to reinforce their Time-Dam. Drawing on this song, as well as queer theories of time and anti-colonial thinkers, the authors suggest that artistic interventions invoke speculative lures that, while not changing history, can complicate state-sanctioned archives and narratives of the past and future: they frame this intervention as a queer counter-mythology. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the question of the ways in which pleasure, as associated specifically with eating food, can help us understand the philosophical complexities of pleasure and how it can be neither purely physical nor purely intellectual. Philosophers have argued for centuries that intellectual pleasure is superior to physical pleasure, but here we make it clear that they are inextricably linked and interdependent on one another. We appeal to Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, but rely heavily on the ideals (...) of Epicurus for an understanding of the relationship between moderation and pleasure. In the end, we argue for a balanced approach to eating that can serve as a model for both physical, sexual, and intellectual pleasures. (shrink)

A paper was published in 2003 discussing the ethics of nurses participating in executions by inserting the intravenous line for lethal injections and providing care until death. This paper was circulated on an international email list of senior nurses and academics to engender discussion. From that discussion, several people agreed to contribute to a paper expressing their own thoughts and feelings about the ethics of nurses participating in executions in countries where capital punishment is legal. While a range of opinions (...) were presented, these opinions fell into two main themes. The first of these included reflections on the philosophical obligations of nurses as caregivers who support those in times of great need, including condemned prisoners at the end of life. The second theme encompassed the notion that no nurse ever should participate in the active taking of life, in line with the codes of ethics of various nursing organisations. This range of opinions suggests the complexity of this issue and the need for further public discussion. (shrink)

Three plausible views—Presentism, Truthmaking, and Independence—form an inconsistent triad. By Presentism, all being is present being. By Truthmaking, all truth supervenes on, and is explained in terms of, being. By Independence, some past truths do not supervene on, or are not explained in terms of, present being. We survey and assess some responses to this.

To what extent do we know our own minds when making decisions? Variants of this question have preoccupied researchers in a wide range of domains, from mainstream experimental psychology to cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. A pervasive view places a heavy explanatory burden on an intelligent cognitive unconscious, with many theories assigning causally effective roles to unconscious influences. This article presents a novel framework for evaluating these claims and reviews evidence from three major bodies of research in which unconscious factors (...) have been studied: multiple-cue judgment, deliberation without attention, and decisions under uncertainty. Studies of priming and the role of awareness in movement and perception are also given brief consideration. The review highlights that inadequate procedures for assessing awareness, failures to consider artifactual explanations of “landmark” results, and a tendency to uncritically accept conclusions that fit with our intuitions have all contributed to unconscious influences being ascribed inflated and erroneous explanatory power in theories of decision making. The review concludes by recommending that future research should focus on tasks in which participants' attention is diverted away from the experimenter's hypothesis, rather than the highly reflective tasks that are currently often employed. (shrink)

1. Pereḳ Yetsiʼot ha-Shabat u-fereḳ Kirah.

The paper is dealing with the foundation of the Division for German Literature and Language at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from the point of view of its first head, Prof. Stéphane Mosès.

Name der Zeitschrift: Naharaim Jahrgang: 11 Heft: 1-2 Seiten: 5-11.

"Here, for the first time, we have the work of a key pioneer presented in all its depth and range. The pragmatic and prophetic voice of Joseph Ben-David speaks with a power and a clarity that will win the attention of a new generation of scholars."--Arnold Thackray, University of Pennsylvania "A superb collection of brilliant papers by a pioneering mind of international fame, who did much to shape the sociology of science. In organizing this major work, its knowing editor, Gad (...) Freudenthal, has identified a remarkable sociological edifice that exhibits the theoretical coherence of Joseph Ben-David's many-sided and evolving contributions to the field."--Robert K. Merton, Columbia University. (shrink)

Joseph Ben-David (1920-1986) fut un des sociologues des sciences les plus innovateurs et les plus en vue des années soixante et soixante-dix. Travaillant dans le cadre des théories sociologiques de Max Weber, Talcott Parsons et Robert Kmerton, il élabora dans ses ouvrages et nombreux articles une théorie sociologique originale du développement scientifique. Par sa démarche diachronique, il se démarque des sociologues des sciences de l'école fonctionnaliste ; par sa perspective sociologique, il définit des nouvelles problématiques qui viennent s'ajouter à celles (...) des historiens des sciences travaillant dans une optique " internaliste ". Dans le présent ouvrage ont été réunis et traduits les articles les plus importants de Ben-David, qui, ensemble, dessinent les contours d'une sociologie historique des sciences. Par son pouvoir explicatif, cette théorie est à même d'enrichir la pratique de l'historien des sciences, tandis que, par sa réaffirmation des vertus éthiques des rôles sociaux du savant et de l'Université, elle est d'une grande actualité pour les débats sur l'enseignement supérieur en France. (shrink)

Recent discourses about the legitimacy of homeopathy have focused on its scientific plausibility, mechanism of action, and evidence base. These, frequently, conclude not only that homeopathy is scientifically baseless, but that it is “unethical.” They have also diminished patients’ perspectives, values, and preferences. We contend that these critics confuse epistemic questions with questions of ethics, misconstrue the moral status of homeopaths, and have an impoverished idea of ethics—one that fails to account either for the moral worth of care and of (...) relationships or for the perspectives, values, and preferences of patients. Utilitarian critics, in particular, endeavour to present an objective evaluation—a type of moral calculus—quantifying the utilities and disutilities of homeopathy as a justification for the exclusion of homeopathy from research and health care. But these critiques are built upon a narrow formulation of evidence and care and a diminished episteme that excludes the values and preferences of researchers, homeopaths, and patients engaged in the practice of homeopathy. We suggest that homeopathy is ethical as it fulfils the needs and expectations of many patients; may be practiced safely and prudentially; values care and the virtues of the therapeutic relationship; and provides important benefits for patients. (shrink)

Prediction-based decisions, which are often made by utilizing the tools of machine learning, influence nearly all facets of modern life. Ethical concerns about this widespread practice have given rise to the field of fair machine learning and a number of fairness measures, mathematically precise definitions of fairness that purport to determine whether a given prediction-based decision system is fair. Following Reuben Binns (2017), we take ‘fairness’ in this context to be a placeholder for a variety of normative egalitarian considerations. We (...) explore a few fairness measures to suss out their egalitarian roots and evaluate them, both as formalizations of egalitarian ideas and as assertions of what fairness demands of predictive systems. We pay special attention to a recent and popular fairness measure, counterfactual fairness, which holds that a prediction about an individual is fair if it is the same in the actual world and any counterfactual world where the individual belongs to a different demographic group (cf. Kusner et al. (2018)). (shrink)