Avi Lifschitz's Books

Language and Enlightenment

The Berlin Debates of the Eighteenth Century

By: Avi Lifschitz

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Language and Enlightenment

The Berlin Debates of the Eighteenth Century

By: Avi Lifschitz

What is the role of language in human cognition? Could we attain self-consciousness and construct our civilization 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.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

256

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191086584

ISBN 13

9780191086588

The Open Canon

On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse

By: Avi Sagi

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

The Open Canon

On the Meaning of Halakhic Discourse

By: Avi Sagi

In this groundbreaking study Avi Sagi outlines a broad spectrum of answers to important questions presented in Jewish literature, covering theological issues bearing on the meaning of the Torah and of revelation, as well as hermeneutical questions regarding understanding of the halakhic text. This is the first volume to attempt to provide a comprehensive map of the available views and theories concerning the theological, hermeneutical, and ontological meaning of dispute as a constitutive element of Halakhah. It offers an attentive reading of the texts and strives to present, clearly and exhaustively, the conscious account of Jewish tradition in general and of halakhic tradition in particular concerning the meaning of halakhic discourse.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

241

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

144110268X

ISBN 13

9781441102683

Religion and Morality

By: Daniel Statman,Avi Sagi

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Religion and Morality

By: Daniel Statman,Avi Sagi

Religion and Morality seeks to answer two fundamental questions regarding the relation between religion and morality. The first is the puzzle posed by Socrates, the so-called 'Euthyphro dilemma', which asks: is morality valuable by virtue of its intrinsic importance and worth, or is morality valuable because, and only because, God approves it and commands us to follow its dictates? The second question is raised by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling. He asks: Is a conflict between religion and morality possible? Does God ever demand that we neglect our moral commitments? The discussion on these questions is divided into three parts. In the first two parts, we discuss the idea that morality depends on religion. The authors distinguish two types of dependence: strong dependence, according to which the very existence, or validity, of moral obligations depends on God's command, and weak dependence, according to which though morality itself is independent of God, God (or belief in God) is necessary to enable human beings to know their moral duties and to carry them out. The authors reject the strong dependence thesis, as well as most versions of the weak dependence. The third part of the book discusses different versions of the view that religion might conflict with morality. The authors reject this view, and show that very few religious thinkers would follow it all the way through to its ultimate consequences. The book has implications for the philosophy of religion, in its emphasis on the centrality of the moral element in religion, and for moral philosophy, in its highlighting, among other things, of the nature of moral judgments.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

199

Publisher

BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

9004463860

ISBN 13

9789004463868

Book's by Avi Lifschitz

Language and Enlightenment

Language and Enlightenment

The Open Canon

The Open Canon

Religion and Morality

Religion and Morality

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email