Plato's confrontation with Dionysius I, the so-called “tyrant of Sicily,” became famous as a cautionary tale of the perils of offering unwelcome advice to a powerful prince. Within early modern England, this tale took on added currency in the context of humanists' ambitions to serve as counselors in the court of Henry VIII. The humanist scholar Thomas Elyot (1490–1546), who briefly and unsuccessfully served at Henry's court, re-created Plato's exchange with Dionysius I in his dramatic dialogue The Knowledge Whiche Maketh (...) a Wise Man (1533). In his dialogue, Elyot imagines Plato returning to Athens after his brief period of enslavement, where he meets the philosopher/rhetorician Aristippus. Aristippus challenges Plato by positing that Plato's dangerous words to Dionysius violated rhetorical tenets of propriety and timing. In the course of their extended exchange, two different versions of the rhetoric of counsel surface—one based on principles of philosophy and one based on strategic rhetoric. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Jonathan K. CraneLouis E. NewmanThe Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality EDITED BY ELLIOT N. DORFF AND JONATHAN K. CRANE New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 499 pp. $150The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality addresses what has long been a major lacuna in the field of Jewish studies. No one who (...) studies the history of Judaism would deny that ethics has always occupied a central place in Jewish thought and practice. Yet the scope and range of Jewish ethical reflection, the variety of ethical theories that have animated this tradition, and the diversity of ethical viewpoints represented by major thinkers across the centuries remain far less widely understood than they should be. With the publication of this outstanding and highly readable collection of essays, however, Elliot Dorff and Jonathan Crane have given us the most definitive and encyclopedic presentation of Jewish ethics ever assembled.This latest addition to the Oxford Handbook series encompasses twenty-nine essays that span the history of Jewish ethics from biblical times to the present, but that also introduce readers to its applied and theoretical dimensions as well as the practitioners and scholars who collectively define the field of Jewish ethics. Part 1, “Jewish Ethical Theories,” which is more accurately a comprehensive history of Jewish ethics, includes insightful pieces on biblical, rabbinic, and medieval ethics, but also pieces on key figures in the modern period from Baruch Spinoza to Martin Buber, Abraham Isaac Kook, and Joseph B. Soloveitchik, among others. This section also includes important explications of the ethics of the various modern movements of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist) as well as essays on specific events and theoretical perspectives that have shaped Jewish ethical discourse in the postwar period—the Holocaust, feminism, and postmodernism. What emerges from these short but remarkably focused and accessible essays is a rich tapestry in which the wide array of genres and methods that characterize the ethics of Judaism are on full display.The second half of the volume is devoted to applied ethics, and here again the diversity of Jewish ethics is showcased. The topics covered include bioethics, the ethics of speech, sexuality, business, the treatment of animals and the environment, politics (both in America and in Israel), criminal justice, and war. The topic of bioethics is wisely subdivided so that we find separate treatments of beginning and end of life, of access to health care, and of genetic technologies. [End Page 219] While some of these essays rehearse positions that will be familiar to those within the tradition, each is an original contribution designed to present the spectrum of positions on that issue that have been articulated by contemporary Jewish ethicists. Accordingly, this volume will now become the first place to look for broad, representative presentations on the most commonly discussed ethical issues of our time.The value of the whole collection is further enhanced by the editors’ introductions, which place the individual essays in context and explain their editorial decisions in selecting and arranging the contributions as they have. Each essay is accompanied by a substantial list of suggestions for further reading that will be valuable to readers in their own right. The entire volume is rounded out with a subject index and a list of references to classical Jewish literature. One could simply not ask for a more carefully constructed or broadly useful handbook on this subject.In any edited collection of this nature, the quality of the individual contributions will vary to some extent. In this instance, the overall quality is extremely high, which is a tribute both to the individual contributors and to the editorial guidance provided by Dorff and Crane. Still, one cannot help but notice that some essays in the second section of the book are more descriptive (e.g., Daniel Sinclair’s essay on end-of-life issues) while others are more ideologically driven (e.g., Arthur Waskow’s essay on environmental ethics). Similarly, while the essays average approximately fifteen to twenty pages each, a few are shorter and more cursory (e.g., Aaron Mackler’s essay on... (shrink)

BackgroundThe outbreak of COVID-19 has been a major interrupting event, challenging how societies and individuals deal with risk. An essential determinant of the virus’ spread is a series of individual decisions, such as wearing face masks in public space. Those decisions depend on trade-offs between costs and risks, and beliefs are key to explain these.MethodsWe elicit beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic during lockdown in France by means of surveys asking French citizens about their belief of the infection fatality ratio for (...) COVID-19, own risk to catch the disease, risk as perceived by others, and expected prevalence rate. Those self-assessments were measured twice during lockdown: about 2 weeks after lockdown started and about 2 weeks before lockdown ended. We also measured the quality of these beliefs with respect to available evidence at the time of the surveys, allowing us to assess the calibration of beliefs based on risk-related socio-demographics. Finally, comparing own risk to expected prevalence rates in the two successive surveys provides a dynamic view of comparative optimism with respect to the disease.ResultsThe risk perceptions are rather high in absolute terms and they increased between the two surveys. We found no evidence for an impact of personal experience with COVID-19 on beliefs and lower risk perceptions of the IFR when someone in the respondent’s family has been diagnosed with a disease. Answers to survey 1 confirmed this pattern with a clear indication that respondents were optimistic about their chances to catch COVID-19. However, in survey 2, respondents revealed comparative pessimism.ConclusionThe results show that respondents overestimated the probabilities to catch or die from COVID-19, which is not unusual and does not necessarily reflect a strong deviation from rational behavior. While a rational model explains why the own risk to catch COVID-19 rose between the two surveys, it does not explain why the subjective assessment of the IFR remained stable. The comparative pessimism in survey 2 was likely due to a concomitant increase in the respondents’ perceived chances to catch the disease and a decreased expected prevalence rate. (shrink)

Arthur E. Lean’s irreverent and con­troversial essays represent the distillation of many ideas about education—ideas developed during most of a lifetime spent in and about schools. In the second edition of this popular work, to which he has added eight new essays, he presents his latest observations on current ele­ments and programs in education—such as the grading system, academic rank, the teaching process, assessment of edu­cational progress—concluding that many of them are not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the (...) very process which they are supposed to serve. Covering a broad spectrum of current issues in its criticism of American edu­cation at all levels, _And Merely Teach _is a book to be read by veteran educator, beginning teacher, and lay citizen alike. Though critical of the teaching profes­sion, Arthur Lean also offers constructive suggestions in the form of practical solu­tions that are urgently needed to save our ailing educational system. (shrink)

This work examines the nature of what philosophers call de re mental attitudes, paying close attention to the controversies over the nature of these and allied...

The author argues for a purely naturalistic underpinning of the linguistic practice of reporting one's introspections. In doing so he avoids any commitments about the ontological status of entities referred to in introspective reports. He also presents evidence of the inadequacy of peripheralistic behaviorism as a naturalistic underpinning of introspective reports. The paper includes (a) a definition of 'introspection' and criticism of alternative definitions, (b) a classification scheme that sorts introspections into six different types, and (c) a presentation of evidence (...) that the reporting of certain of these is based on such fundamental psychological phenomena as stimulus generalization, and possibly also conditioning to covert mediating responses. (shrink)

This essay develops a theory of natural signs in order to show how evolutionary theory breathes new life into teleology. An argument to the contrary presented by Richard Taylor is refuted. The essay defends the view that the concept of negative feedback explicates purposiveness and that symbiotic evolution explains the occurrence of naturally adapted feedback systems. But evolution itself is not a teleological process, nor is it a negative feedback system. There is an exploration of the nature of the dissatisfaction (...) we feel with an evolutionary account of purposiveness from which the fortuitous cannot be eliminated. (shrink)

Le positivisme, de Comte à Carnap, a marqué une étape dans le développement d’une science spéciale en dehors des sujets traités jusque là par la philosophie. Cette communication montre que la « syntaxe logique » de Carnap comme la « synthèse subjective » de Comte est un hybride, — une tranche de la philosophie en train de devenir science, et essayant, à l’étape intermédiaire de son processus, d’être à la fois science et philosophie.