Cohn Institute

The talk traces the emergence of a new mathematical object – a certain ‘duality transform’ – in the social-mathematical space. The object's “biography” is based on an ethnographic observation of the research conducted by two leading mathematicians at Tel-Aviv University. Through this presentation, I argue for the feasibility and necessity of such “laboratory studies” of mathematical knowledge.
The account makes use of two conceptual frameworks: Rheinberger's 'Experimental System' and Latour's 'Network'. Following Rheinberger, the talk traces the construction of the new mathematical object in a system in which it functions as an ‘epistemic thing’. Latour's framework allows explaining the object's coming into being as a process of becoming an ‘immutable mobile’, through its ‘translation’ to various forms, and through the association of various actants to the emerging web of translations.
The research shows that the process of production of the new mathematical object is neither ‘purely’ mathematical, nor ‘purely’ social. It is a combination of factors, that are not easily classified to this category or the other, factors that together shaped the new transform: The social ties of the mathematicians facilitated certain mathematical ties rather than others; The disciplinary-institutional structure inside which the object evolved directed its character in a certain way; Surprising behavior of formulae and mathematical examples made the human actants act differently than they had originally intended. Moreover, as part of the process, not only the mathematical structure has changed, but also the human actants and the relations between them. In place of the traditional classification into social elements and natural elements, a story is suggested, which follows the study-objects wherever they go, disregarding categorical-boundaries.

Babbage wrote two relatively detailed, yet significantly incongruous, autobiographical accounts of his pre-Cambridge and Cambridge days. He published one in 1864 and in it advertised the existence of the other, which he carefully retained in manuscript form. The aim of this paper is to chart in some detail for the first time the discrepancies between the two accounts, to compare and assess their relative credibility, and to explain their Author’s possible reasons for knowingly fabricating the less credible of the two.

This article suggests a Davidsonian argument for a unique and overlooked metanormative package:l the Davidsonian theory of meaning, we argue, strongly suggests that, although normative discourse is fully factual (i.e., normative claims are truth-apt) in one important sense of the term "realism," normative realism is false and the position we dub "Irrealism" is true. "Realism" is the view that a t least one of two conflicting conceptions of the good life is false. "Irrealism" (not to be identified with a denial of realism) is the claim that, if they are internally coherent, conflicting normative outlooks both are true. We shall deduce Irrealism from an attractive version of the Davidsonian theory of meaning.

menachem fisch from the more subtle idea of one book holding the key to the other. 4 For the early reformers the two books metaphor was rendered a powerful and suggestive analogy between the way the two texts were conceived. As Kenneth Howell nicely puts it, Harrison reversed the common view that the new sciences provoked new interpretations of the Bible, maintaining that sixteenth-century people "found themselves forced to jettison traditional conceptions of the world" when they "began to read the Bible in a different way." 5 Reading Scripture became the model, rather than the key, for studying nature, bestowing upon science much of the new urgency, enthusiasm, and promise it was enjoying. This explains the impact of the Reformation on the rise of natural science. But Harrison's most novel and important claim is that the early reformers' attitude to the Bible not only motivated the early modern turn toward nature, but inspired an importantly new conception of nature. By insisting that the Bible's message resided in the plain, literal meaning of the text, the reformers were forced to empty the biblical text of all manner of symbolical, metaphorical and allegorical meaning. And by analogy, so was nature. By virtue of its new understanding of two books metaphor, argues Harrison, Protestantism was responsible for rendering nature, for the first time, purely factual.

Science studies the world, but does not include itself in it. The task of systematically studying science falls to the humanities. The problem is that philosophers who take recent developments in philosophy seriously are forced to deny any credence to the self-image of science as a steadily progressive, self-critical enterprise, while philosophers who take what scientists do and feel more seriously, are forced to ignore some of the most profound latter-day findings of philosophy. What makes this issue highly relevant in the present context, is that at its heart it is a dispute about language.This paper explores the possibility not of adjudicating this dispute, but of somehow bridging it. What it asks and proposes to answer positively is whether it is possible to remain committed to both horns of the dilemma: to salvage a philosophically viable account of science as a self-critical enterprise, without having to breach the latter-day philosophical framework that would seem to deem this impossible.

The gravest challenge to orthodox Judaism is not that of coexisting peacefully with communities whose forms of life it considers religiously objectionable but that of taking responsibility for the management of such peaceful coexistence. Government is required not merely to turn a blind eye to the conduct of such communities but to take active responsibility for their security, well-being and capacity to flourish according to their custom and conviction. This sort of active enabling is forbidden by Jewish Law as it now stands. Is the Jewish legal tradition capable in principle of grounding a genuinely liberal yet non-relativistic pluralism? This paper explores a way of answering this crucial question in the affirmative.

The paper argues that identifying rational action with action undertaken for a reason yields Popper's well-known identification of rationality with criticism. However, it is also shown, pace Popper, to yield a strong form of normative framework dependency of the kind critical rationalists notoriously reject. But deeming rationality to be framework dependent, it argues further, raises the particularly exasperating problem of the very possibility of rational framework replacement. If the normative framework to which one is committed is presupposed in critical reasoning, how can one ever have normative reason to replace it? The first part of the paper briefly discusses the problem and some of the attempts to solve it, while arguing for an alternative approach. The second part, explores some of the consequences of adopting such an approach first for the historiography of scientific framework transitions, and finally for the theology of inter and intra-religious dialogue, with special reference to what might be termed the confrontational theology of the rabbinic literature of late antiquity.

Moshe Halbertal's close reading of Mishna and Tosefta Eduyot reveals a fundamental disagreement between the two texts as to the aim and the function of canonizing disputes. According to the Mishna, rejected minority opinions are canonically preserved for the benefit of future, inappropriately qualified courts who may see fit to revive them. According to the Tosefta's very different view, rejected opinion is recorded to ensure that it is remembered as such and never revived. According to the Mishna, it is the minority voices themselves that the canon seeks to preserve for future reference; according to the Tosefta, it is an unambiguous record of their rejection. The Mishna, as Halbertal puts it, thus envisages itself as "a flexible code which preserves minority opinion for a future recall against its own ruling". The Tosefta, by contrast, sees it as "a closed code which preserves the minority opinion in order to freeze the rejection forever." 1

0. Rational Rabbis aspires to make two main points, one philosophical and contemporary, the other interpretative and historical. The book's philosophical undertaking, presented in Part I, is to develop a central insight of Karl Popper's into a more fuller theory of rational endeavor. The book's interpretative and main undertaking, presented in Part II, is to argue (a) that the talmudic literature bears clear witness to a tannaitic view of humanly possible intellectual achievement intriguingly akin to the theory of rationality proposed in Part I, and (b) that despite appearances to the contrary, it is a voice centrally responsible for the Bavli's halakhic discourse and project. The TR session at AAR 2002 focused on this second last claim by means of a close reading of the 'meitivi' sugya presented in Bavli, Berakhot 19b-20a. A detailed reading of the sugya can now be accessed at …. What follows briefly summarizes that reading and outlines its broader philosophical and hermeneutical settings.