Avi Shulman has taught thousands of people how to look at life and see positive ways to make everything better. In this precious collection of his astute observations, he shares a wealth of wisdom in his concise and simple manner that always hits the target and makes the reader ask himself, why didn't I think of that? With lessons on assuming responsibility, setting attainable goals, creating a warm atmosphere at home, and avoiding the feeling of burnout, Vitamins for the (...) Spirit is a joy to read and an incredible investment in your future happiness and success. (shrink)

We characterize pairs of monotone generalized quantifiers Q1 and Q2 over finite domains that give rise to an entailment relation between their two relative scope construals. This relation between quantifiers, which is referred to as scope dominance, is used for identifying entailment relations between the two scopal interpretations of simple sentences of the form NP1–V–NP2. Simple numerical or set-theoretical considerations that follow from our main result are used for characterizing such relations. The variety of examples in which they hold are (...) shown to go far beyond the familiar existential-universal type. (shrink)

_NeuroAnalysis _investigates using the neural network and neural computation models to bridge the divide between psychology, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience when diagnosing mental health disorders and prescribing treatment. Avi Peled builds on Freud's early attempts to explain the neural basis of mental health by introducing neural computation as a bridging science to explain psychiatric disorders. Peled describes the brain as a complex system of interconnected units and goes on to suggest that conscious experience, feelings, and mood are emergent properties arising from (...) these complex organisations. This model describes mental health disorders in terms of perturbation to the optimal brain organisation, and demonstrates how particular disorders can be identified through a specific breakdown pattern of the brain’s organisation. This fresh approach to the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders will interest students, professors, and researchers of psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and their related fields. (shrink)

This article studies the monotonicity behavior of plural determinersthat quantify over collections. Following previous work, we describe thecollective interpretation of determiners such as all, some andmost using generalized quantifiers of a higher type that areobtained systematically by applying a type shifting operator to thestandard meanings of determiners in Generalized Quantifier Theory. Twoprocesses of counting and existential quantification thatappear with plural quantifiers are unified into a single determinerfitting operator, which, unlike previous proposals, both capturesexistential quantification with plural determiners and respects theirmonotonicity (...) properties. However, some previously unnoticed factsindicate that monotonicity of plural determiners is not always preservedwhen they apply to collective predicates. We show that the proposedoperator describes this behavior correctly, and characterize themonotonicity of the collective determiners it derives. It is proved thatdeterminer fitting always preserves monotonicity properties ofdeterminers in their second argument, but monotonicity in the firstargument of a determiner is preserved if and only if it is monotonic inthe same direction in the second argument. We argue that this asymmetryfollows from the conservativity of generalized quantifiers innatural language. (shrink)

This book opens by providing the historical context of Plato’s engagement with education, including an overview of Plato’s life as student and educator. The author organizes his discussion of education in the Platonic Corpus around Plato’s images, both the familiar – the cave, the gadfly, the torpedo fish, and the midwife – and the less familiar – the intellectual aviary, the wax tablet, and the kindled fire. These educational images reveal that, for Plato, philosophizing is inextricably linked to learning; that (...) is, philosophy is fundamentally an educational endeavor. The book concludes by exploring Plato’s legacy in education, discussing the use of the “Socratic method” in schools and the Academy’s foundational place in the history of higher education. The characters in Plato’s dialogues often debate – sometimes with great passion – the purpose of education and the nature of learning. The claims about education in the Platonic corpus are so provocative, nuanced, insightful, and controversial that educational philosophers have reckoned with them for millennia. (shrink)

'A mere metaphor', 'only symbolic', 'just a myth' - these tell tale phrases reveal how figurative language has been cheapened and devalued in our modern and postmodern culture. In God and the Creative Imagination, Paul Avis argues the contrary: we see that actually, metaphor, symbol and myth, are the key to a real knowledge of God and the sacred. Avis examines what he calls an alternative tradition, stemming from the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth and Keats and drawing on the thought (...) of Cleridge and Newman, and experience in both modern philosophy and science. God and the Creative Imagination intriguingly draws on a number of non-theological disciplines, from literature to philosophy of science, to show us that God is appropriately likened to an artist or poet and that the greatest truths are expressed in an imaginative form. Anyone wishing to further their understanding of God, belief and the imagination will find this an inspiring work. (shrink)

Avi Sion's book The Logic of Causation (2010) could not include all relevant tables (which either justified or applied various doctrines in the book), due to their sizes or quantity. These additional tables were made available to interested readers at time of publication in the author's website The Logician. The present 'Annex' collects in one pdf file the numerous original pdf files, to facilitate download. The file is almost 0.5 Gb in size, and contains almost 108,000 pages.

This book is an attempt to read the totality of Camus s oeuvre as a voyage, in which Camus approaches the fundamental questions of human existence: What is the meaning of life? Can ultimate values be grounded without metaphysical presuppositions? Can the pain of the other penetrate the thick shield of human narcissism and self-interest? Solipsism and solidarity are among the destinations Camus reaches in the course of this journey. This book is a new reading of one of the towering (...) humanists of the twentieth century, and sheds new light on his spiritual world.". (shrink)

In the accepted view, the basic disposition of believers is one of absolute obedience, humility, and lack of critique, doubt, or, indeed, defiance of God. Only through such a disposition do believers convey their absolute faith and establish the appropriate hierarchy between God and humans. This article challenges this view and argues that, in mainstream rabbinic tradition, the believer is not required to renounce his or her moral autonomy and certainly not his or her understanding of God and the world. (...) Indeed, faith rests on such understanding; moreover, human autonomy is the mechanism through which humans convey God’s goodness and perfection. Their questions and criticism are part of a persistent effort to close the evident gap between their assumptions about God’s goodness and the flawed imperfect reality. The analysis focuses on rabbinic tradition but its implications go beyond it, presenting a model of a life of faith that compels subjects, as believers, to preserve their constitutive foundations as rational autonomous creatures. (shrink)

Theoretical gaps of the cognitive science. First of all the gap-thesis is based on a criticism 1. of the computer-orientated cognitive science (it confuses information with the information carrier), 2. of connectivism (its linguistic borrowing from the neurobiology is not appropriate), 3. of Varelas production model (the elimination of the function of representation results in the loss of the cognitive ability). From the context of meaning and time, then the author sketches a cognitive theoretical approach, in which thinking as a (...) (symbolic and/or subsymbolic) representation of meaning is introduced, which develops in a three-digit relation between world, language and substrate on the basis of isomorphy of time. (shrink)

COVID-19 created a global crisis of unprecedented comprehensiveness affecting personal and professional lives of individuals worldwide. The pandemic and various governmental guidelines associated with it had numerous consequences for the workplace and the marketplace. In light of the global nature and multiplicity of the consequences of the pandemic, this study examines the impact of individual characteristics of respondents from three countries from various areas of the world: China, Israel, and the USA toward COVID-19 related business ethics decisions in three different (...) spheres: human resources, marketing, and social responsibility. Data from 374 respondents in these three countries indicated that moral disengagement was negatively related to all of the ethical decisions presented, with national pride moderating the above. Possible implications of these findings and future research directions are presented. (shrink)

Meditations. A meditation is a voluntary exercise intended to increase awareness, sustained over some time. The main purpose of the present Meditations is to inspire and assist readers to practice meditation of some sort, and in particular ‘sitting meditation’. This includes practices such as: observing the mechanisms of one’s thinking, stopping unnecessary thought, forgetting things about one’s self and one’s life that are irrelevant to the current effort of meditation, dealing with distractions, becoming aware of one’s breath, being here and (...) now. After such practice for some time, one gets to realize the value of meditation, and one’s commitment to it grows. The need for behavioral improvement becomes more and more obvious, and one finds it easy and natural to put more discipline into one’s life. Various recommendations are given in this regard. Prior to such practical guidance, so as to prepare the reader for it, the book reviews the theoretical teachings relating to meditation in the main traditions of mankind. The ultimate goals of meditation, the various methods or techniques used to achieve them, the experiential results of meditation, and the interpretations given to them, are topics treated here. (shrink)

Longtermists have argued that humanity should significantly increase its efforts to prevent catastrophes like nuclear wars, pandemics, and AI disasters. But one prominent longtermist argument overshoots this conclusion: the argument also implies that humanity should reduce the risk of existential catastrophe even at extreme cost to the present generation. This overshoot means that democratic governments cannot use the longtermist argument to guide their catastrophe policy. In this paper, we show that the case for preventing catastrophe does not depend on longtermism. (...) Standard cost-benefit analysis implies that governments should spend much more on reducing catastrophic risk. We argue that a government catastrophe policy guided by cost-benefit analysis should be the goal of longtermists in the political sphere. This policy would be democratically acceptable, and it would reduce existential risk by almost as much as a strong longtermist policy. (shrink)

What is the role of language in human cognition? Could we attain self-consciousness and construct our civilisation without language? Such were the questions at the basis of eighteenth-century debates on the joint evolution of language, mind, and culture. Language and Enlightenment highlights the importance of language in the social theory, epistemology, and aesthetics of the Enlightenment. While focusing on the Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great, Avi Lifschitz situates the Berlin debates within a larger temporal and geographical framework. He argues (...) that awareness of the historicity and linguistic rootedness of all forms of life was a mainstream Enlightenment notion rather than a feature of the so-called 'Counter-Enlightenment'. -/- Enlightenment authors of different persuasions investigated whether speechless human beings could have developed their language and society on their own. Such inquiries usually pondered the difficult shift from natural signs like cries and gestures to the artificial, articulate words of human language. This transition from nature to artifice was mirrored in other domains of inquiry, such as the origins of social relations, inequality, the arts and the sciences. By examining a wide variety of authors - Leibniz, Wolff, Condillac, Rousseau, Michaelis, and Herder, among others - Language and Enlightenment emphasises the open and malleable character of the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. The language debates demonstrate that German theories of culture and language were not merely a rejection of French ideas. New notions of the genius of language and its role in cognition were constructed through a complex interaction with cross-European currents, especially via the prize contests at the Berlin Academy. (shrink)

Background Coping with end-of-life issues is a major challenge for governments and health systems. Despite progress in legislation, many barriers exist to its full implementation. This study is aimed at identifying these end-of-life barriers in relation to Israel. Methods Qualitative in-depth interviews using professionals and decision makers in the health-care and related systems were carried out, along with two focus groups based on brainstorming techniques consisting of nurses and social workers. Data was managed and analyzed using Naralyzer software. Results Qualitative (...) analysis showed identification of six primary barriers: 1) law, procedures, and forms; 2) clinical aspects; 3) human aspects; 4) knowledge and skills of medical teams; 5) communication; and 6) resource allocation. These were further divided into 44 sub area barriers. Conclusions This study highlights the role of the family doctor in end-of-life by training physicians in decision-making workshops and increasing their knowledge in the field of palliative medicine. Effectively channeling resources, knowledge, and support for medical teams, by accounting for the structure and response of the units for home treatment will improve patient’s access to information on and support for end-of-life laws, as well as reduce legislative barriers in other countries that face the same issues. (shrink)

The ideas of a “Buddha” or of his “enlightenment” suggest a certain unity and coherence. In accord with the positivist and metaphysical realist attitudes of our times, many assume that a Buddha is defined by his awakening, which is conceived of as a definitive, clear-cut event with specific characteristics. Enlightenment is a “thing,” a recognizable state of mind or change of consciousness, or perhaps a similar kind of process, which may be beyond the grasp of words, but is nevertheless confidently (...) identifiable and ascertainable. Although this state of mind is generally portrayed as a negation—non-duality, non-attachment, the uprooting of ignorance, the realization of... (shrink)

A cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy, the doctrine of the four noble truths maintains that life is replete with suffering, desire is the cause of suffering, nirvana is the end of suffering, and the way to nirvana is the eightfold noble path. Although the attribution of this seminal doctrine to the historical Buddha is ubiquitous, Rethinking the Buddha demonstrates through a careful examination of early Buddhist texts that he did not envision them in this way. Shulman traces the development of (...) what we now call the four noble truths, which in fact originated as observations to be cultivated during deep meditation. The early texts reveal that other central Buddhist doctrines, such as dependent-origination and selflessness, similarly derived from meditative observations. This book challenges the conventional view that the Buddha's teachings represent universal themes of human existence, allowing for a fresh, compelling explanation of the Buddhist theory of liberation. (shrink)

Many hold that ordinary race-thinking in the USA is committed to the 'one-drop rule', that race is ordinarily represented in terms of essences, and that race is ordinarily represented as a biological (phenotype- and/or ancestry-based, non-social) kind. This study investigated the extent to which ordinary race-thinking subscribes to these commitments. It also investigated the relationship between different conceptions of race and racial attitudes. Participants included 449 USA adults who completed an Internet survey. Unlike previous research, conceptions of race were assessed (...) using concrete vignettes. Results indicate widespread rejection of the one-drop rule, as well as the use of a complex combination of ancestral, phenotypic, and social (and, therefore, non-essentialist) criteria for racial classification. No relationship was found between racial attitudes and essentialism, the one-drop rule, or social race-thinking; however, ancestry-based and phenotype-based classification criteria were associated with racial attitudes. These results suggest a complicated relationship between conceptions of race and racial attitudes. (shrink)

One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than joyless and painful. To a significant extent, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with this mantra. In a theme of Emile that is often neglected in the educational literature, however, Rousseau stated that “to suffer is the first thing [Emile] ought to learn and the thing he will most need to know.” Through a discussion of Rousseau's argument for the importance of an education (...) in suffering, Avi Mintz contends that the reception of Rousseau by progressives suggests a detrimental misstep in the history of educational thought, a misstep that we should recognize and correct today. We ought to revive the progressive tradition of distinguishing the valuable educational pains from the harmful ones, even if we disagree with the particular types of pain that Rousseau identified as educationally valuable. (shrink)

Plato’s Apology of Socrates contains a spirited account of Socrates’ relationship with the city of Athens and its citizens. As Socrates stands on trial for corrupting the youth, surprisingly, he does not defend the substance and the methods of his teaching. Instead, he simply denies that he is a teacher. Many scholars have contended that, in having Socrates deny he is a teacher, Plato is primarily interested in distinguishing him from the sophists. In this article, I argue that, given the (...) historic educational transformation in Socrates’ and Plato’s lifetimes, Socrates’ denial is far more complex and far reaching than the Socrates-versus-the-sophists distinction indicates. Socrates suggests that Athenians have failed to recognize that there were various types among the new educators of fifth century Athens: orators, sophists, natural philosophers and, perhaps, a philosopher like Socrates. Further, the traditional education, which the Athenians believed was threatened by the new educators, was itself fractured. Ultimately, rather than offering a straightforward distinction between philosophizing and teaching, Socrates and the sophists, Plato treats the question of teaching aporectically in Apology; that is, after pointing to various alternatives for understanding the nature of teaching, Plato concludes the work without offering a clear resolution to that question. (shrink)

In order to make Mukund Lath’s thoughts on music and identity accessible to a broader audience, and to call attention to links between Hindustānī musical theory and classical Indian philosophical notions, Lath’s paper “Identity Through Necessary Change: Thinking About ‘Rāga-Bhāva,’ Concepts and Characters” is being republished here with an introduction by David Shulman and explanatory notes. Mukund Lath argues that identity is usually understood as something that remains the same despite change. His endeavor is to explore an alternative to (...) this convention. The case study for Lath’s philosophical exploration is rāga music, i.e. Hindustānī classical music. He argues that the identity of the rāga is maintained not despite change, but owing to the necessary change in every execution of “the same” rāga. But how are we to even start thinking about a notion of identity that embraces rather than rejects change, a notion of identity that is based on and is rooted in change, not in stability or perpetuity? Lath explores this alternative and its consequences for the notion of identity at large. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIs lying in a different language easier or more difficult? The Emotional Distance and the Cognitive Load hypothesis give competing answers. Suchotzki and Gamer measured the time native German speakers needed to initiate honest and deceptive answers to German and English questions. Lie-truth differences in RTs were much smaller for the foreign compared to the native language. In our preregistered replication study in native Dutch speakers, we found that lie-truth differences in RTs were moderately smaller when participants were tested in (...) English than when tested in Dutch. These findings indicate that people struggle with quickly retrieving the truth in another language, and that foreign language use may diminish lie-truth differences. (shrink)

For over fifty years, scholars have argued that a therapeutic ethos has begun to change how people think about themselves and others. There is also a growing concern that the therapeutic ethos has influenced educational theory and practice, perhaps to their detriment. This review article discusses three books, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education (by Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes), Aristotle, Emotions, and Education (by Kristján Kristjánsson), and The Therapy of Education (by Paul Smeyers, Richard Smith and Paul Standish), that (...) point to the problematic assumptions and outcomes of therapeutic educational practices. The authors of the three books, however, disagree about whether a focus on emotions or therapy in education is necessarily an unwelcome intrusion into education. (shrink)

This article offers a critical discourse analysis of the Israeli television series In Treatment. The series unfolds the therapy sessions of a 40-year-old single female attorney with her therapist. The main objective of the study was to identify the scripted tactics or narrative strategies that establish and maintain singlehood. The findings indicate that the therapeutic discourse plays a central role in the construction and interpretation of single women’s subjectivities, prompting a narrative that encourages the ‘discarding’ of singlehood as well as (...) therapeutic work slanted towards a more familial and maternally oriented subjectivity. This narrative unfolds through two dominant scripted tactics: the symbolic annihilation of singlehood and the construction of feminine identity hierarchies. Moreover, it is also prompted by the discursive alliance between the therapeutic discourse and the postfeminist discourse. Consequently, long-term singlehood is portrayed as an unnatural and pathological life script characterized by its lack and deficiency. Furthermore, as opposed to childless singlehood, single motherhood by choice emerges as a preferred and desirable life option. The category of single motherhood is endowed with new forms of legitimacy, reinforcing new-old patriarchal and postfeminist conceptions of women’s reproductive potential and what is considered to be women’s primary life purpose. (shrink)