This volume contains 17 articles on various aspects of Islamic thought in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. The first 9 articles concentrate especially on the Qur’ān and its exegesis, Kalām and Sufism; the second 8 articles deal with Javanese Islam, and with Islam and modernity in Southeast Asia.

The Israeli approach to advertising consists of two complementary sets of norms, legal norms and moral‐ethical norms. Advertising legislation demands honest disclosure. The Israeli legislator refrains from intervening in fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, free trade, occupation, and liberty of contract in advertising. However, there are also few interventions to prevent phenomena that are dangerous or abusive, especially to groups needing protection. The Israeli courts do try to apply moral considerations in cases tried by them, (...) but living up to moral responsibilities is different from complying with legal obligations. Advertisers in Israel have a(i) Treatise(r), consisting of ten ethical guidelines, which neither sums up advertising ethics in its entirety nor is legally binding. Sociological and psychological features of the culture need to be examined in order to spell out what truth and honesty in advertising actually mean in this society, and the manner in which these values are practised. Lacking sanctions in public law against misleading consumers or manipulation based on false facts, consumers must find remedy in civil actions which rely on moral and ethical rules. (shrink)

The Israeli approach to advertising consists of two complementary sets of norms, legal norms and moral‐ethical norms. Advertising legislation demands honest disclosure. The Israeli legislator refrains from intervening in fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, free trade, occupation, and liberty of contract in advertising. However, there are also few interventions to prevent phenomena that are dangerous or abusive, especially to groups needing protection. The Israeli courts do try to apply moral considerations in cases tried by them, (...) but living up to moral responsibilities is different from complying with legal obligations. Advertisers in Israel have a(i) Treatise(r), consisting of ten ethical guidelines, which neither sums up advertising ethics in its entirety nor is legally binding. Sociological and psychological features of the culture need to be examined in order to spell out what truth and honesty in advertising actually mean in this society, and the manner in which these values are practised. Lacking sanctions in public law against misleading consumers or manipulation based on false facts, consumers must find remedy in civil actions which rely on moral and ethical rules. (shrink)

While there is extensive literature on both the expansion of human rights and solidarity movements, and on micro-solidarity and violent actions, here I ask what is the relationship between human rights, micro-solidarity and social action? Based on a case study of structured, face-to-face dialogue group encounters in the Israeli/Palestinian context, I draw on Randall Collins’s interaction ritual chain theory to demonstrate why emotional energy and the ritualization of historical narratives have very limited potential to translate into human rights-based moral (...) actions. Instead, I suggest, these encounters produce micro-solidarity that ascribes additional weight to ethnic categories, serving to polarize and homogenize groups along ethnic lines. (shrink)

Basic human rights are supposed to protect people from abuse and harm. They are the means whereby we protect our humanity. One would expect, therefore, that basic human rights would be valid and sacred in any context, including industrial relations. However, the complexity of the employee–employer relationship obscures this issue, and it is not clear whether such rights can be protected or whether they are valid in the context of industrial relations. Since rights are relational, they are preconditioned on the (...) special nature of the relationship between employee and employer. Hence, the specific meaning that these rights have in industrial relations cannot be grounded in the notion of human rights as such, but rather depends on the special relationships between employers and employees. Though much legislation has been passed to regulate the relationship between employees and employers, the issues surrounding this relationship remain one of the most debated topics in business ethics. Our paper focuses specifically on the right to equal pay and the right to privacy. With respect to the right to property, the paper examines whether there is a conflict between general human rights and the fundamental right of employers to their property. The Israeli legislature has responded to this conflict by enacting ‘protective laws’ that legally outline and mandate certain human rights. Under these laws, employees are prevented and prohibited from waiving the rights granted to them by law, even if employed in private industries. Despite this legislative effort, market forces are at times stronger, and consequently some basic rights are not fully applied or implemented. (shrink)

Basic human rights are supposed to protect people from abuse and harm. They are the means whereby we protect our humanity. One would expect, therefore, that basic human rights would be valid and sacred in any context, including industrial relations. However, the complexity of the employee–employer relationship obscures this issue, and it is not clear whether such rights can be protected or whether they are valid in the context of industrial relations. Since rights are relational, they are preconditioned on the (...) special nature of the relationship between employee and employer. Hence, the specific meaning that these rights have in industrial relations cannot be grounded in the notion of human rights as such, but rather depends on the special relationships between employers and employees. Though much legislation has been passed to regulate the relationship between employees and employers, the issues surrounding this relationship remain one of the most debated topics in business ethics. Our paper focuses specifically on the right to equal pay and the right to privacy. With respect to the right to property, the paper examines whether there is a conflict between general human rights and the fundamental right of employers to their property. The Israeli legislature has responded to this conflict by enacting ‘protective laws’ that legally outline and mandate certain human rights. Under these laws, employees are prevented and prohibited from waiving the rights granted to them by law, even if employed in private industries. Despite this legislative effort, market forces are at times stronger, and consequently some basic rights are not fully applied or implemented. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe ‘City of David’ in Silwan is on the original site of Jerusalem. Located in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, it is both an illegal Israeli settlement in a Palestinian neighbourhood and a popular international tourist destination. This article examines how the site is narrated by tour operators and tourists through fieldwork, interviews and analysis of tourist comments on the TripAdvisor site. It argues that Israeli settlers have successfully harnessed tourist discourse in order to present their vision of (...) a Jewish Jerusalem in which Palestinian existence is ignored or treated as a threat. The site allows tourists to connect to and experience a mythical biblical past, something which answers to tourist desires to have an authentic encounter with the destination culture. In the site’s narratives, the presence of Palestinians in the area is elided over through spatial and linguistic separation and by denying their legitimate presence. This indicates how the congruence between Zionist and tourist discourses discursively legitimises Israeli colonisation of Silwan. (shrink)

Employee mobility is a phenomenon that challenges workplace ethics. This paper argues that despite on‐going attempts by management and consultants to build and install employee loyalty, and despite the complexity of relationships between employees and their organization, employee mobility remains a common phenomenon in today’s market. Courts, at least Israeli courts, perceive the employee–employer relationship as almost purely contractual and thus strive to protect workers first, often ignoring deeper commitments such as loyalty. This results in a certain dissonance in (...) the relationships between employees and employers. (shrink)

Israel has a long history of concern with chemical and biological threats, since several hostile states in the Middle East are likely to possess such weapons. The Twin-Tower terrorist attacks and Anthrax envelope scares of 2001 were a watershed for public perceptions of the threat of unconventional terror in general and of biological terror in particular. New advances in biotechnology will only increase the ability of terrorists to exploit the burgeoning availability of related information to develop ever-more destructive bioweapons. Many (...) areas of modern biological research are unavoidably dual-use by nature. They thus have a great potential for both help and harm; and facilitating the former while preventing the latter remains a serious challenge to researchers and governments alike. This article addresses how Israel might best (1) prevent hostile elements from obtaining, from Israel’s biological research system, materials, information and technologies that might facilitate their carrying out a biological attack, while (2) continuing to promote academic openness, excellence and other hallmarks of that system. This important and sensitive issue was assessed by a special national committee, and their recommendations are presented and discussed. One particularly innovative element is the restructuring and use of Israel’s extensive biosafety system to also address biosecurity goals, with minimal disruption or delay. (shrink)

“One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor”Paul SimonThe words of Paul Simon capture the essence of what the courts are called upon to deal with when adjudicating matters of health. Wealthier and healthier neighbors living in the upstairs apartment are, all things being equal, not overly interested in raising the floor of their apartment in order to create more space for those in the apartment below. The floor is tangible, measurable and movable, and thus a subject where science can contribute (...) much. However, where to locate the floor is a matter of values and thus largely in the realm of politics.Resorting to the courts in matters of public policy can be seen as the residual of the inability of the remaining two branches of government, the legislature and the executive, to succeed in allocating resources and regulating the system. When the combination of science and politics falters, enter the judiciary. (shrink)

Employee mobility is a phenomenon that challenges workplace ethics. This paper argues that despite on‐going attempts by management and consultants to build and install employee loyalty, and despite the complexity of relationships between employees and their organization, employee mobility remains a common phenomenon in today’s market. Courts, at least Israeli courts, perceive the employee–employer relationship as almost purely contractual and thus strive to protect workers first, often ignoring deeper commitments such as loyalty. This results in a certain dissonance in (...) the relationships between employees and employers. (shrink)

“One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor”Paul SimonThe words of Paul Simon capture the essence of what the courts are called upon to deal with when adjudicating matters of health. Wealthier and healthier neighbors living in the upstairs apartment are, all things being equal, not overly interested in raising the floor of their apartment in order to create more space for those in the apartment below. The floor is tangible, measurable and movable, and thus a subject where science can contribute (...) much. However, where to locate the floor is a matter of values and thus largely in the realm of politics.Resorting to the courts in matters of public policy can be seen as the residual of the inability of the remaining two branches of government, the legislature and the executive, to succeed in allocating resources and regulating the system. When the combination of science and politics falters, enter the judiciary. (shrink)

Why should anyone be a Zionist, a supporter of a Jewish state in the land of Israel? Why should there be a Jewish state in the land of Israel? This book seeks to provide a philosophical answer to these questions. Although a Zionist need not be Jewish, nonetheless this book argues that Zionism is only a coherent political stance when it is intelligently rooted in Judaism, especially in the classical Jewish doctrine of God's election of the people of Israel and (...) the commandment to them to settle the land of Israel. The religious Zionism advocated here is contrasted with secular versions of Zionism that take Zionism to be a replacement of Judaism. It is also contrasted with versions of religious Zionism that ascribe messianic significance to the State of Israel, or which see the main task of religious Zionism to be the establishment of an Israeli theocracy. (shrink)

In this masterful work of historical scholarship, Zeev Sternhell, an internationally renowned Israeli political scientist and historian, presents a controversial new view of the fall of democracy and the rise of radical nationalism in the twentieth century. Sternhell locates their origins in the eighteenth century with the advent of the Anti-Enlightenment, far earlier than most historians. The thinkers belonging to the Anti-Enlightenment represent a perspective that is antirational and that rejects the principles of natural law and the rights of (...) man. Sternhell asserts that the Anti-Enlightenment was a development separate from the Enlightenment and sees the two traditions as evolving parallel to one another over time. He contends that J. G. Herder and Edmund Burke are among the real founders of the Anti-Enlightenment and shows how that school undermined the very foundations of modern liberalism, finally contributing to the development of fascism that culminated in the European catastrophes of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Voter surveillance for digital campaigning is perceived as enacted from above. Political parties are “all-seeing actors” combining access to the Voters’ Registry with digital tools to maximize voter turnout. At the same time, new forms of lateral surveillance emerge as citizens voluntarily participate in the data collection process to help political parties achieve their electoral goals. This article examines the reconfiguration of the concepts of crowdsourcing and political participation through the use of voter-surveillance applications. Theoretically, it explores how crowdsourced voter (...) surveillance (CVS) builds on the emancipatory rhetoric of political participation and crowdsourcing while relying on social, technical, and political surveillance infrastructures. Empirically, it maps the information flows and knowledge hierarchies afforded by Elector, a CVS app used by the Likud party in the Israeli election of March 2020. The findings indicate that contrary to the logic of crowdsourcing as democratizing knowledge and participation, CVS cultivates controlled individuals and normalizes lateral surveillance as a ritualistic and desired form of political participation. The article therefore describes the type of political action that CVS constructs as Little Samaritan Brothers: citizens who collectively resign their rights and the rights of their peers for the party’s success. (shrink)

With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in mind, this Article asks whether there is a human right to return to one’s country, and if so what justifies it. Although such a right is widely recognized in international law, who can claim it and on what basis remains ambiguous; the ambiguity is revealed by asking what “country” means in “return to one’s country.” I argue that to treat the right simply as an adjunct of citizenship is too narrow an approach, even though (...) the right has a role to play in managing inter-state relations. As with other human rights, personal autonomy might be proposed as a justification for the right of return. But although the autonomy interest in developing long-term life-plans may explain the right not to be forcibly displaced from the place where you live, it cannot explain why there is a right to return once displaced, particularly in the case of people who enjoy an adequate set of options elsewhere. Instead we need to invoke the need to belong to a homeland, access to which the right of return protects. The Article explores a homeland’s different dimensions and considers various respects in which the need to belong might be thought too indeterminate to ground a right. Finally it distinguishes and evaluates the return claims of Jews and Palestinians to Israel/ Palestine; only Palestinians whose homeland this remains can claim a human right of return as analyzed and defended here. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPart of a comprehensive study to analyse British broadsheets’ coverage of the First Gaza War, this paper examines the moral arguments presented in editorials. Doing so, it showcases a non-dualist, relational inquiry of the representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of focusing on what is empirically ‘true’, morally ‘right’, and ethnically ‘Israeli/jewish’ or ‘Palestinian/arab’ as extra-discursive categories, it approaches them as discursive constructions and asks what relations, what forms of lives the editorials cultivate in representing them. The analysis (...) demonstrates that whilst newspapers overwhelmingly imagine isolated and ahistorical essences to clash in Palestine-Israel, they do not exclusively do so. Traces of a discourse of relations, where ‘I’ is partly constituted by the ‘Other’ can also be found in the editorials. It is with the vicissitudes of such relational accounts that the article concludes. (shrink)

The seven volumes of Nietzsche translated to Hebrew by Israel Eldad 91910-1996) in the 1960's and 1970's established him as a major Israeli scholar of Nietzsche. Not only was Eldad a brilliant translator, he was also an innovative commentator. His instructive reading of Nietzsche made a decisive contribution to the propogation of Nietzschean discourse in Israel. As one of the leaders of LEHI, the Hebrew underground against the British before the founding of the Sate of Israeli, Eldad was (...) considered a radical intellectual of the Israeli right and had a Messianic vision of the future of Israel. His outlook was influenced deeply by the Nietzschean Lebensphilosophie. In this article I will trace the role of Nietzsche in Eldad's political biography, Messianic philosophy and intellectual enterprise.Die von ihm in den 1960er und 1970er Jahren ins Hebräische übersetzten sieben Bände von Nietzsche haben Israel Eldad zu einem der wichtigsten israelischen Nietzscheforscher gemacht. Nicht nur als brillanter Übersetzer und innovativer Kommentator, sondern auch durch seine erhellende Nietzschelektüre leistete er einen entscheidenden Beitrag zur intensivierung des Nietzschediskurses in Israel. Als einer der führer der LEHI, des hebräischen Untergrundkampfes gegen die Briten vor der Gründung des israelischen Staates, wurde Eldad als ein radikaler Intellektueller der israelischen Rechten angeschen und hatte eine messianische Vision für die Zukunft Israels. Seine Sichtweise wurde von der Lebensphilosophie Nietzsches stark beeinflusst. In diesem Beitrag wird der Rolle Nietzsches in Eldads politischer Biographie, messiansischer Philosophie und intellektuellen Unternchmungen nachgegangen. (shrink)

In this fascinating new collection of essays, contemporary historians examine the ways earlier historians have framed, written, and "made" the Jewish past. Probing the ideology and methodology of their professional predecessors, American and Israeli historians offer new perspectives on some of the central figures of twentieth-century Jewish historiography, including Gershom Scholem, S. D. Goitein, Yitzhak Baer, Elias Bickermann, and Cecil Roth, as well as the Israeli "New Historians." Although the lives and work of these scholars differ in many (...) ways, Jewish historians have recurrently confronted the challenges posed by assimilation, antisemitism, and various forms of nationalism. Through their critical examinations of the construction of the Jewish past, the contributors to this volume develop important insights into current attitudes toward the dominant canons and ideals of historical scholarship and the future of historiography. They shine new light on the formation of a historical worldview and the "making" of history. (shrink)

Gershom Scholem wrote his famous article, “Redemption through sin”, in 1937, and J.L. Talmon gained the inspiration for his first book, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, in the years 1937–1938 at the time when the Moscow trials revealed to the world the bitter reality of what was happening in the Soviet Union. Scholem and Talmon were contemporaries and witnesses of the transformation of communism in the Soviet Union from a vision of egalitarian and universal redemption into a bureaucratic and nationalistic (...) despotism. The major scholar of the history of religious Messianism and the major scholar of the history of secular Messianism both widened the scope of their investigations—the first extending them into the history of Sabbataianism and the second into the French Revolution—and both reached a similar conclusion: both recognized, as Scholem put it, “the profound truth relating to the dialectics of history … of the historical process whereby the fulfilment of one political process leads to the manifestation of its opposite. In the realization of one thing its opposite is revealed”. The two great Israeli historians of ideas plumbed the depths of one of the most fascinating and at the same time tragic manifestations of la condition humaine: the human challenge of bringing the heavenly city down to the vale of tears, and the price that men have to pay for their Messianic passion. (shrink)

We report here on recent developments in Israel on the issue of sex selection for nonmedical reasons by preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Sex selection for medical reasons is generally viewed as uncontroversial and legal in European and American law. Its use for nonmedical reasons is generally illegal in European countries. In the United States, it is not illegal, although in the opinion of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, it is problematic. This position is undergoing reconsideration, albeit (...) in a limited way. (shrink)

What does it feel like to encounter ourselves and one another as implicated subjects, both in our everyday lives and in the context of our work as clinicians, and how does this matter? With contributions from a diverse group of relational psychoanalytic thinkers, this book reads Michael Rothberg's concept of the implicated subject - the notion that we are continuously implicated in injustices even when not perpetrators - as calling us to elaborate what it feels like to inhabit such subjectivities (...) in relation to others both similarly and differently situated. Implication and anti-Black racism are central to many chapters, with attention given to the unique vulnerability of racial minority immigrants, to Native American genocide, and to the implication of ordinary Israelis in the oppression of Palestinians. The book makes the case that the therapist's ongoing openness to learning of our own implication in enactments is central to a Relational sensibility and to a progressive psychoanalysis. As a contribution to the necessary and long-overdue conversation within the psychoanalytic field about racism, social injustice, and ways to move toward a just society, this book will be essential for all relational psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the second intifada in the fall of 2000, Israel has pursued a policy in which alleged Palestinian terrorists have been hunted down and killed by government order. The policy is not one of assassination and is consistent with international law because Israel is engaged in armed conflict with terrorists, those targeted are usually killed by conventional military means, not through deception, and the targets of the attacks are not civilians but combatants or are part of a (...) military chain of command. Targeted killing has also been affirmed by Israel's High Court.Although targeted killing has been pursued by Israel throughout its history, the scale of the present effort and the use of sophisticated military assets such as helicopter gunships and jet fighters set it apart from earlier practices. The effectiveness of the policy is called into doubt because it has not prevented–and may have contributed to–record numbers of Israeli civilians being killed. The policy has also resulted in informers being revealed, intelligence resources diverted, potential negotiating partners eliminated. It has also produced murderous retaliation and international condemnation of Israel. Benefits of the policy include impeding the effectiveness of terrorist operations, keeping terrorists on the run, and deterring some attacks. In addition, it affords the Israeli public a sense of revenge and retribution.Because it targets the actual perpetrators of terrorism, targeted killing provides a proportionate and discriminate response to the threat Israel faces. Improving the policy will require better civilian oversight, greater care to eliminate harm to innocent bystanders, and refraining from killing political leaders. Despite its many shortcomings, Israel is justified in pursuing this policy so long as it faces a terrorist threat that the Palestinian Authority will not or cannot control. (shrink)

So long as the Palestinian Authority is incapable or unwilling to halt terrorist attacks, most interpretations of international law, Israeli law, and just war tradition support Israel’s efforts to stop these murderous attacks before they can be carried out.

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)

This article tells the story of an Israeli regulatory program aimed at luring back home Israeli companies listed only on U.S. stock markets, to facilitate dual listing of their stocks on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Beyond documenting a piece of Israeli political economy, this article provides several lessons of general relevance to small or emerging markets as well as to large ones. In this story, the regulator of the small market finds itself a regulatory price-taker. In (...) a mirror image, the U.S. market emerges as a global regulatory price-setter. This regulatory externality, or regulatory arbitrage, is disturbing because the standard with which Israeli regulation had to align is the watered-down version for non-U.S. issuers. Indeed, any effort to require an iota of additional disclosure beyond the American foreign issuer regime has failed due to vehement objections from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and business interest groups. The role of the stock exchange as regulator and the interplay between corporate law and securities regulation are also discussed in this context. This article thus casts some doubt on the desirability of piggybacking on foreign markets. Sometimes, it turns out, piggybacking can be a ride to the bottom. (shrink)

In an anecdote in the Holy Bible, there is a rumor that because the Prophet David wanted to marry a woman named Bathsheba, whom he saw, he commissioned her soldier husband Uriah the Hittite to cause him to die in the most critical places of the army. In Islamic sources, some narrations originating from Isrāʾīliyyāt have been conveyed in many different ways. Likewise, in some Islamic sources, this incident, which is attributed to the Prophet David, was unfortunately also (...) linked to the marriage of the Prophet Muḥammad and Zaynab b. Jaḥsh. In addition, there is a claim that the Prophet Muḥammad sent Zayd b. Ḥāritha, who was Zaynab b. Jaḥsh’s ex-husband, to many wars and eventually caused his death in Muʾta war. First, the so-called incident between Prophet David and Uriah the Hittite will be discussed, and thereafter, Prophet Muḥammad and Zaynab b. Jaḥsh’s marriage will be thoroughly addressed in the study. In addition, it will be revealed that the incident that was attributed to the Prophet David was in no way similar to the incident of assigning Zayd b. Ḥāritha as a commander.Summary: According to a parable in the Bible, Prophet David sees a woman bathing while he was walking around the roof of his palace one night and he is impressed by her. Prophet David sends someone to investigate who this woman is, and as a result of the research, it is revealed that this woman is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of the commanders of Prophet David. Prophet David sends someone to bring this woman and when the woman is brought to him, he commits adultery with her. The woman becomes pregnant after this affair and informs Prophet David about this situation. After receiving this news of pregnancy, Prophet David sends a message to the commander-in-chief, Joab, who is at war with his army, and asks him to send Uriah the Hittite to him. After hosting Uriah the Hittite in the palace for a few days, Prophet David sends him back to the front with a letter to be given to the commander-in-chief, Joab. In this letter, Prophet David asks the commander-in-chief, Joab, to send Uriah the Hittite to the most dangerous place in the war and to ensure that he is killed. Fulfilling the order stated in the letter of Prophet Davud, Joab sends Uriah the Hittite to a region where the war will be the harshest and causes him to be killed there. After the mourning of Bathsheba for her husband ends, Prophet David marries her. According to the Islamic belief, it is not possible for this incident to occur as it was mentioned in the Bible since the prophets were protected by Allah. It is because the parable states Prophet David committed adultery. In the Qur’ān, which is the source where we can get the clearest information about the incident, it is narrated inverses 21-25 of sûra Ṣād. Although there is a partial resemblance between the verses and the Bible, the verses do not mention either the woman or Prophet David’s sending that woman’s husband to the war because he wanted to marry her.In other Islamic sources, some relevant narrations originating in Isrāʾīliyyāt are narrated in many different ways. Our tafsīr scholars did not approve these narrations originating in Isrāʾīliyyāt. Also, they stated that the narrations expressing that Prophet David sent Uriah the Hittite to the war for his killing were not true and that such a situation would not be suitable for a prophet or even for a Muslim.In the same sources, many different possibilities were voiced in order to resolve the situation and this incident, which was attributed to Prophet David, was tried to be placed on a more reasonable ground. As a result of these efforts, the marriage of the Prophet Muḥammad and Zaynab b. Jaḥsh has been linked to this incident in various ways.Although it is not possible to give a certain date of the marriage of Zaynab and Zayd b. Ḥāritha, it is seen that this marriage occurred with the help of the Prophet Muḥammad in the first year of the emigration to Madinah. The marriage of the Prophet Muḥammad’s aunt’s daughter and Zayd, a freed slave, was for eliminating the discrimination between free individuals and slaves that existed in the society.There is not any serious problem about the marriage of Zayd and Zaynab at this point. However, at the point of ending this marriage, there are some narrations in our sources, and these leave the Prophet Muḥammad under suspicion. According to these narrations, the Prophet Muḥammad went to Zayd’s house to meet him and the Prophet Muḥammad called out to Zayd from outside the house. For not keeping the Prophet Muḥammad outside, Zaynab opened the door and invited the Prophet Muḥammad in by stating that Zayd was not at home although the clothes on her were not suitable. As soon as the Prophet Muḥammad saw her, he immediately turned his head and because he liked Zaynab, “I exonerate almighty Allah. I exonerate Allah that has turned the hearts.” he grumbled. After a while, Zayd came home and learned what the Prophet Muḥammad said. He immediately went to the Prophet Muḥammad and said “Messenger of Allah! May my mother and father be sacrificed for you. If you liked Zaynab, let me divorce her for you.” However, the Prophet Muḥammad advised him not to divorce his wife. As far as we can find in our sources, there are two other similar narrations.These narrations contain many problems in terms of both isnād and logical consistency. When we examine at the narrations in terms of isnād, we see that all three narrations are mursal. We can say that this is the first factor that reduces the reliability of narrations. Secondly, all narrations have at least one narrator accused of weakness or even dishonesty. Therefore, it is not appropriate to base a serious claim about the Prophet Muḥammad on such weak narrations. In addition, the rumor that the Prophet Muḥammad liked Zaynab, his aunt’s daughter and a married woman, and wished that she would divorce her husband has no reasonable logic. The fact that the marriage of Zayd and Zaynab ended quickly was mostly caused by Zaynab’s harsh temperament. Moreover, although Zaynab did not want this marriage, she could not oppose the order of the Prophet Muḥammad due to the verse about her. For these reasons, Zaynab could not get along with her husband and she was constantly reflecting her dissatisfaction with this marriage on Zayd. Therefore, Zayd constantly complained about Zaynab, but the Prophet Muḥammad gave Zayd the same advice every time, commanding “Keep your spouse with you, do not leave her!” Although the Prophet Muḥammad constantly banned Zayd, he could not stand Zaynab anymore and divorced her. After he divorced Zaynab, verse 37 of sûra al-Aḥzāb was sent down. Thus, the marriage of the Prophet Muḥammad and Zaynab took place as a result of a divine will.There is also a claim that the Prophet Muḥammad sent Zayd, the ex-husband of Zaynab, to many wars and consequently caused him to be killed in Muʾta war. When we examine the dates of the nine military expeditions, in which the Prophet Muḥammad appointed Zayd as a commander, it is seen that the first expedition was held on 3/624 while the others were held after 6/627. Therefore, at least eight of the nine expeditions in which Zayd served as a commander were taken place after the marriage of the Prophet Muḥammad and Zaynab. Consequently, in the light of this information, it is clear that the fact that Zayd was appointed as a commander is not similar to the situation in narrations about Prophet David. (shrink)

This review-essay looks at a recent trilogy of works on Israeli history, the political history of the relationship between the United States and Israel, and the effect of the Israel lobby on the relationship between the two states. While the books attempt to construct a narrative that essentially blame the lobby for close to one hundred years of American malfeasance in the Middle East, they falter due to their idealism, their weak grasp of regional political economy and American capital (...) accumulation, and their conspiracism. Instead, this review proposes a reinterpretation of regional political economy, materially grounding the lobby and the Special Relationship while situating the two within the patterns of accumulation pushed by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler’s ‘weapondollar-petrodollar coalition’, the main determinant of American foreign policy in the Middle East. (shrink)

In this book, which thoroughly revises and greatly expands his classic work Sameness and Substance, David Wiggins retrieves and refurbishes in the light of twentieth-century logic and logical theory certain conceptions of identity, of substance and of persistence through change that philosophy inherits from its past. In this new version, he vindicates the absoluteness, necessity, determinateness and all or nothing character of identity against rival conceptions. He defends a form of essentialism that he calls individuative essentialism, and then a (...) form of realism that he calls conceptualist realism. In a final chapter he advocates a human being-based conception of the identity and individuation of persons, arguing that any satisfactory account of personal memory must make reference to the life of the rememberer himself. This important book will appeal to a wide range of readers in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Lipsey and Lancaster's "general theory of second best" is widely thought to have significant implications for applied theorizing about the institutions and policies that most effectively implement abstract normative principles. It is also widely thought to have little significance for theorizing about which abstract normative principles we ought to implement. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, I show how the second-best theorem can be extended to myriad domains beyond applied normative theorizing, and in particular to more abstract theorizing about the normative (...) principles we should aim to implement. I start by separating the mathematical model used to prove the second-best theorem from its familiar economic interpretation. I then develop an alternative normative-theoretic interpretation of the model, which yields a novel second best theorem for idealistic normative theory. My method for developing this interpretation provides a template for developing additional interpretations that can extend the reach of the second-best theorem beyond normative theoretical domains. I also show how, within any domain, the implications of the second-best theorem are more specific than is typically thought. I conclude with some brief remarks on the value of mathematical models for conceptual exploration. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out both (...) necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

Recent accounts of the role of diagrams in mathematical reasoning take a Platonic line, according to which the proof depends on the similarity between the perceived shape of the diagram and the shape of the abstract object. This approach is unable to explain proofs which share the same diagram in spite of drawing conclusions about different figures. Saccheri’s use of the bi-rectangular isosceles quadrilateral in Euclides Vindicatus provides three such proofs. By forsaking abstract objects it is possible to give a (...) natural explanation of Saccheri’s proofs as well as standard geometric proofs and even number-theoretic proofs. (shrink)

Interpretation -- Introduction -- Interpreting Plato -- The political culture of Plato's early dialogues -- Dialogue -- Character and history -- The mouthpiece principle -- Forms of evidence -- Desire -- Socrates and eros -- The subjectivist conception of desire -- Instrumental and terminal desire -- Rational and irrational desires -- Desire in the critique of Akrasia -- Interpreting Lysis -- The deficiency conception of desire -- Inauthentic friendship -- Platonic desire -- Antiphilosophical desires -- Knowledge -- Excellence as wisdom (...) -- The epistemic unity of excellence -- Dunamis and technê -- Goodness and form -- The epistemological priority of definitional knowledge -- Ordinary ethical knowledge -- Method -- The Socratic fallacy -- Socrates' pursuit of definitions -- Hupothesis -- Two postulates -- The geometrical illustration -- Geometrical analysis -- The method of reasoning from a postulate -- Elenchus and hupothesis -- Knowledge and aitia -- F-conditions -- Cognitive security -- Aporia -- Forms of aporia -- Dramatic aporia -- The example of Charmides -- Charmides as autobiography -- The politics of Sôphrosunê -- Critias' Philotimia -- Self-knowledge and the knowledge of knowledge -- Knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of the good -- Philosophy and the polis. (shrink)

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

Why study notations, diagrams, or more broadly the variety of nonverbal “representations” or “signs” that are used in mathematical practice? This chapter maps out recent work on the topic by distinguishing three main philosophical motivations for doing so. First, some work (like that on diagrammatic reasoning) studies signs to recover norms of informal or historical mathematical practices that would get lost if the particular signs that these practices rely on were translated away; work in this vein has the potential to (...) broaden our view of the specific normativity of mathematics beyond logical proof. Second, some work focuses on signs to highlight the open-ended and “nonrigorous” aspects of mathematical practice, and the role of these aspects in the historical development of mathematics. The third motivation is based on the following observation: the reason differences in signs matter in mathematics is that humans are finite agents, with cognitive and computational limitations. Accordingly, studying signs can be a way to study how human computational constraints shape the mathematics that we do, and to tackle the topic of mathematical understanding. (shrink)

_ Convention_ was immediately recognized as a major contribution to the subject and its significance has remained undiminished since its first publication in 1969. Lewis analyzes social conventions as regularities in the resolution of recurring coordination problems-situations characterized by interdependent decision processes in which common interests are at stake. Conventions are contrasted with other kinds of regularity, and conventions governing systems of communication are given special attention.