Science and the Kuzari

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Tzvi Langermann
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scientific Opinion

The ArgumentYehuda Halevi's Kuzari was written in response to the challenge posed to Judaism by a highly spiritual, nondenominational philosophy. Science, especially that embodied in the Hellenistic heritage, was a major component of philosophy; thus, if for no other reason than to make Judaism a serious competitor, Halevi had to show that the Jewish tradition as well possessed a body of scientific knowledge. The superiority of the Jewish teachings was demonstrated chiefly by appeal to the criteria of tradition, consensus, and authority, which, in Halevi's judgement, were in practice the criteria most influential in deciding scientific opinion. Despite the rather unique setting for the book, and the wide range of stances Halevi develops, the Kuzari was rather quickly and smoothly absorbed into the mainstream of Jewish religious thought.

Holiness in Jewish Thought

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Jewish History ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ways Of Life

Holiness is a challenge for contemporary Jewish thought. The concept of holiness is crucial to religious discourse in general and to Jewish discourse in particular. “Holiness” seems to express an important feature of religious thought and of religious ways of life. Yet the concept is ill defined. This collection explores what concepts of holiness were operative in different periods of Jewish history and bodies of Jewish literature. It offers preliminary reflections on their theological and philosophical import today. The contributors illumine some of the major episodes concerning holiness in the history of the development of the Jewish tradition. They think about the problems and potential implicit in Judaic concepts of holiness, to make them explicit, and to try to retrieve the concepts for contemporary theological and philosophical reflection. Holiness is elusive but it need not be opaque. This volume makes Jewish concepts of holiness lucid, accessible, and intellectually engaging.

scholarly journals Pluralism Out Of The Sources Of Judaism: Religious Pluralism Without Relativism

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Jospe
Keyword(s):  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Moral Relativism ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Jewish Scholar ◽  
Epistemological Relativism ◽  
Ways Of Life

Jewish theology is compatible with religious pluralism, based on the paradigm of the Jewish obligation to live in accordance with the commandments of the Torah while accepting the legitimacy of other ways of life in accordance with the paradigm of the universal “seven commandments of the children of Noah.” Jospe here answers two challenges to this thesis, one, voiced by Christian theologians, that pluralism equals relativism, and a second, voiced by the Jewish scholar, Menachem Kellner, that there are no sources for pluralism in Jewish tradition and that pluralism itself makes no sense. In presenting his arguments, Jospe invokes a wide range of ancient, medieval and modern thinkers, probing the theological possibilities for pluralism within Jewish tradition and its boundaries with relativism. In doing so, he argues that one should differentiate between moral relativism, a non-negotiable category, and epistemological relativism, where there is room for compromise.

scholarly journals Demonstrating the full-value chain of climate services in Southern Africa: the FOCUS-Africa project

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Boscolo ◽  
Hamid Bastani ◽  
Asmerom Beraki ◽  
Nicolas Fournier ◽  
Raül Marcos-Matamoros ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Security ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
End Users ◽  
Climate Change Scenarios ◽  
Climate Information ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Wide Range

<p><strong><em>FOCUS-Africa</em></strong> is an EU Horizon 2020 project funded to co-develop tailored climate services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The project, led by the WMO and started in September 2020, gathers 16 partners across Africa and Europe jointly committed to addressing the value of climate services for key economic sectors in Africa: agriculture and food security, water, energy, and infrastructure.</p><p>The project is piloting eight case studies (CSs) in five different countries involving a wide range of end-users. New services derived from seasonal and decadal forecasts are applied for food security and crop production in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania. High-resolution climate projections, as well as historical climate reanalyses, are used to support planning and investment decisions for: a railway infrastructure and a mix of renewable energies in Tanzania, hydropower generation assessment under climate change scenarios in Malawi, and water resources management in Mauritius.</p><p>For all the FOCUS-Africa’s case studies, socio-economic impact assessment of the delivered climate services will be carried out in collaboration with the CS leaders, service providers, and end-users, by providing ex-ante and ex-post evaluations grounded in the Global Indicator Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals. The project will align the capacity development efforts with those promoted by WMO for enhancing the capabilities of the NMHSs to deliver climate services to users and will make sure that the project's innovative processes and tools will be part of the WMO training curricula.</p><p>FOCUS-Africa's expected impacts are:</p><ul><li>Build a strong link between the climate scientific community and stakeholders in the SADC region by leveraging the advanced scientific knowledge and strong networks of the implementing team, and by establishing dedicated channels of communications, so as to target the full value chain of our users, from the start of the project</li> <li>Advance the way in which climate information is developed by characterising end-use requirements through regular engagement</li> <li>Contribute to the advancement of the scientific knowledge in the region and strengthened support for international scientific assessments through publications and reports such as those relevant for the IPCC, through the innovative science developed by FOCUS-Africa</li> <li>Demonstrate the effectiveness of the climate information by strengthening the adaptive capacity of end-users by delivering tailored, actionable, and exploitable climate services and by estimating their socio-economic benefits across the full value chain.</li> <li>Enhance policy-making for climate adaptation in the project and other countries</li> <li>Increase women’s access to climate services</li> </ul>

scholarly journals Pensamiento económico en la t radición judía, con especial referencia a Moisés Ben Maimónides: la perspectiva austriaca

2017 ◽  
pp. 213-255
Author(s):  
Abie Grynspan Gurfinkiel
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Jel Classification ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Austrian School ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Laissez Faire

Despite not having a formal treatise that encompasses economic thought, the Jewish tradition, through its legal and religious texts, tackles a wide range of economic subject matter. As early as Biblical times, Jewish law and Jewish moral doctrine began to govern economic activity and social life in ge-neral. Both of these continued to evolve until the 12th century when Moses ben Maimonides, interpreting and documenting the Jewish oral tradition laws (with Aristotelian influence as well as that of Ibn Bayya, among other philosophers), developed an individualistic, subjectivist, and rationalist moral philosophy ex-ploring topics such as the theory of subjective value, the paradox of value, hu-man action, the limits of reason, social cooperation, and division of labor. This article investigates, from an Austrian School perspective, the economic thought contained in the Jewish tradition and its possible impact on the emer-gence of the capitalist system and modern civilization. Additionally, it explores the influence that the Jewish tradition and Maimonides’ philosophy had on the doctrines of Saint Thomas Aquinas; doctrines which were taken and enriched by the Scholastics of Salamanca and are, according to some thinkers, the foun-dation of the Austrian School of Economics. Keywords: capitalism, scholasticism, Judaism, laissez-faire. JEL Classification: A13, B11, N01, Z12. Resumen: A pesar de no existir un tratado que englobe un pensamiento econó-mico, la tradición judía, a través de textos legales y religiosos, aborda temas económicos de naturaleza muy variada. Desde tiempos bíblicos se fueron for-mando el derecho judío y la doctrina moral judía, que regulaban la actividad económica y la vida social en general. Estos fueron evolucionando, y ya para el siglo XII, Moisés ben Maimónides, interpretando y documentando las leyes orales de la tradición judía, con influencia aristotélica y de Ibn Bayya, entre otros filósofos; había desarrollado una filosofía moral individualista, subjetivis-ta y racionalista; explorando temas como la teoría del valor subjetivo, la para-doja del valor, la acción humana, los límites de la razón, la cooperación social y división del trabajo. En el presente artículo se investiga, desde una perspectiva austriaca, el pensamiento económico que contiene la tradición judía, y su posible impacto en el surgimiento del sistema capitalista y la civilización moderna. Asimismo, se estudia la influencia que tuvo la tradición judía y la filosofía de Maimónides, en las doctrinas de Santo Tomás de Aquino; las cuales, tomadas y enriqueci-das por los escolásticos de Salamanca, son de acuerdo a algunos pensadores, el tronco de la Escuela Austriaca de Economía. Palabras clave: capitalismo, escolástica, judaísmo, laissez-faire. Clasificación JEL: A13, B11, N01, Z12.

scholarly journals From the crisis-generating nature of global development to the transformation of the world financial and economic architecture

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-222
Author(s):  
Fedor A. Smirnov ◽  
Anatoly V. Golovkov
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Global Development ◽  
Parallel Increase ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
Entire World

The modern dynamics of the global processes unfolding in the financial and economic sphere is currently experiencing a wide range of crises of different profiles (which forms the crisis-generating nature of global development), requiring the development of new approaches to overcome them. This determines the relevance of the description of a crisis dynamic, specific examples of its evolution and growth. The purpose of the study is to identify the main contours of the transformation of the world financial and economic architecture (WFEA) in such conditions. For this, the methodology of systems analysis, the dialectical method of scientific knowledge, methods of historical, logical and comparative analysis were used. As a result, it was concluded that the monetary methods used only make it possible to stop the spread of the crisis, but do not remove its root causes, since the crisis dynamics has a steady growing nature, which occurs with a parallel increase in emission volumes. The comparison of two world economic structures of the established imperial and new integral ones is carried out. The issue of the process of gradual renewal of the entire world system, WFEA, its reboot with elements of transformation, but in the general outlines of evolution, is considered. The revolutionary nature of development will be associated only with technological leaps, including due to the manifestation of the sixth wave of technological development, which will also adjust the transformation of the entire WFEA to itself.

Ethical Demands on Creditors in Jewish Tradition

2010 ◽  
pp. 220-238
Author(s):  
Yoel Domb
Keyword(s):  
Legal Culture ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Over Time

This article demonstrates that Judaism has a unique and valuable ethical contribution to the legal culture that developed over time regarding the recovery of loans. Until recently, other traditions considered borrowers slaves at the mercy of their creditors, and, even today, borrowers in many countries can be imprisoned. However, Judaism from its outset fought to protect the personal rights and freedoms of the borrower. This approach reached its apex in the Talmud, where the lender is enjoined not to make contact with the borrower and to avoid even chance meetings with him if it may cause embarrassment. This article discusses ancient legal systems that provide a creditor with a wide range of tools for retrieving loans. Some systems allowed taking the borrower himself as forced collateral against the loan. This article further explains the ethical underpinnings of the Jewish approach to debt and Debt retrieval laws. A discussion on corporate creditor ethics winds up this article.

Religious Thought in Medieval Rus

2019 ◽  
pp. 7-13
Author(s):  
Teresa Obolevitch
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Divine Essence ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Theology And Science ◽  
Russian Religious Thought ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 1 explores the beginning of Russian religious thought in light of the relationship between faith and reason, Christian revelation and ancient philosophy. Two tendencies in Eastern Christian cosmology, reflecting two of the aspects (the transcendent and the immanent ones: the divine essence and the divine energies) of God are analyzed. The first one is typical for, and supposes that there is a clear-cut borderline between, the divine essence and creation and, respectively, between theology and science. Consequently, the task of philosophy is nothing other than to expose the limits of human reasoning and especially scientific knowledge. The second tendency claims that since the divine energies penetrate the empirical realm, therefore, cosmology is considered a part of theology. In Medieval Rus both approaches concerning the possibility of cognition of God through creation and, as one of the consequences, a link between theology and science, were adopted.

Institutional Transformations in the Regime of Knowledge Production: The University as a catalyst for the Science-Based Knowledge Economy

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Dzisah
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Public Versus Private ◽  
The University

AbstractAlthough, the process of the capitalization of academic scientific knowledge is not benign across university campuses, recent acceleration of the process have sparked debates in many circles. This debate mirrors two sets of issues-public versus private interests. While the discourse has shed some light on the socio-economic and political forces at work, it is not devoid of problems. The paper argues that the understanding of the university as a catalyst for the science-based knowledge economy should be built around the framework that the university like industry and government is responding to a wide range of socio-economic and political demands that cannot be delinked from each other. It contends that, in a period of an ever-increasing demand for science and technology, universities' as citadels of knowledge have through the capitalization of academic scientific knowledge become a catalyst for the science-based knowledge economy.

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