Evolutionary psychology is one of many biologically informed approaches to the study of human behavior. Along with cognitive psychologists, evolutionary psychologists propose that much, if not all, of our behavior can be explained by appeal to internal psychological mechanisms. What distinguishes evolutionary psychologists from many cognitive psychologists is the proposal that the relevant internal mechanisms are adaptations—products of natural selection—that helped our ancestors get around the world, survive and reproduce. To understand the central claims of evolutionary psychology we require an understanding of some key concepts in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind. Philosophers are interested in evolutionary psychology for a number of reasons. For philosophers of science —mostly philosophers of biology—evolutionary psychology provides a critical target. There is a broad consensus among philosophers of science that evolutionary psychology is a deeply flawed enterprise. For philosophers of mind and cognitive science evolutionary psychology has been a source of empirical hypotheses about cognitive architecture and specific components of that architecture. Philosophers of mind are also critical of evolutionary psychology but their criticisms are not as all-encompassing as those presented by philosophers of biology. Evolutionary psychology is also invoked by philosophers interested in moral psychology both as a source of empirical hypotheses and as a critical target.

/pdf/stanford-encyclopedia-of-philosophy-1wqoykisq0.pdf

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

For all the attention that the concept of reflective practice has attracted, very little has been said concerning what might incline someone to be open to engage in it. My concern in this essay is ...

Ways of Knowing Passionate Humility and Reflective Practice in Research and Management

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/h702q651m

"A New Shoot From the House of David:" Adolf Jellinek and the Creation of the Modern Rabbinate

This thesis will consider the role and definition of conscience and unconscionability in English equity. Whilst conscience is at the heart of equity, surprisingly little has been written, either academically or juridically, about how equity uses and defines unconscionability. It is this significant gap that the thesis seeks to fill. The thesis will ask and answer three questions. The first is how does equity conceptualise conscience? The thesis will demonstrate that equity adopts an objective conception of conscience, which is a modified version of the scholastic conception of conscience, which was used by the medieval Church. The second question is asking what the role of conscience in equity is. The thesis will demonstrate that the role of conscience is to provide an objective moral baseline by which to judge all parties. Conscience also has an important role to play in expanding, developing and adapting existing equitable principles to new circumstances. The third question is identifying the definition of unconscionability. This is done both by looking at some of the few existing academic writings on conscience as well as case studies on some of the major equitable claims, including breach of fiduciary duties and constructive trusts. The thesis offers a range of unconscionability indicia, which, taken together, outlines the meaning of unconscionability. The aim of the thesis is to provide greater clarity into how equity operates and how it uses its conscience. This will be of use to judges, lawyers, and academics (and indeed law students) and will address the critics of equity who posit that conscience is subjective, vague, and leads to arbitrary and capricious judgments. With this clear definition, it will be demonstrated that equity is not subjective, nor vague, nor arbitrary, but rather provides a clearly identified path to justice.

Conscience and unconscionability in English equity

One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism

While Maimonides reread his sources to reconcile biblical and rabbinic texts with the demands of reason, Hermann Cohen, in his construction of a “religion of reason,” rereads Maimonides’ rereadings of those very same texts Maimonides’ Judaism often bridges the sources toward Cohen’s religion of reason by providing a philological anchor that nudges a term or verse now viewed through a more modern historical and evolutionary lens toward its ultimate reason-infused meaning This paper will explore a hitherto neglected feature of their oeuvres that unites Maimonides and Cohen as much as it distinguishes them: the “Jewishness” shared by both, as evident in the most Jewish of all exercises that suffuses both their works, biblical and midrashic exegesis Their exegetical nets are systematically cast widely throughout the breadth of the Hebrew Bible, but more often than not they offer highly discrepant readings of the same passage or prooftext Cohen’s referencing of many of the same sources appeals to their Maimonidean rationalist refurbishment, but at the same time often places them in combative discourse in order to subvert and reorient Maimonides’ exegesis The notions of divine names, the “image” (tselem) of God, “nearness” to God, and divine “glory” (kavod) are closely examined to demonstrate this intertextual relationship between these two seminal Jewish thinkers While Cohen may be misreading Maimonides’ rereading of scripture, he remains a true hermeneutical disciple in his exegetical restructuring and realignment of scripture Cohen’s programmatic exegetical idealization of Maimonidean prooftexts to reconstruct a new Kantianized God forms a common ground of discourse with Maimonides that traverses seven centuries of a quintessential Jewish enterprise

Exegetical Idealization: Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Maimonides

In his adoption of the Maimonidean guidelines for extreme humility, the king acts as the supreme existential model for imitatio dei. Imperial governance, when filtered through the prism of Maimonidean humility, results in a regime that most closely resembles a divine one. Using those who occupy the very bottom of the social and political hierarchy (slaves and orphans) as models, the king projects his own sense of “lowliness” to the people. The king thereby promotes their sense of autonomy, and inhibits any anthropocentrism that would be fostered if he were to be viewed as an autocrat. His administration of the royal office is limited by the ethical and philosophical dictates of humility, thereby offering a window into the distinction between its common (anivut) and extreme (shefal ruah) manifestations. Maimonides does in fact define the parameters of this extraordinary humility, but he chooses to do so within the context of a distinct and concrete personality—that of the king.

MAIMONIDES ON KINGSHIP The Ethics of Imperial Humility

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in The Guide of the Perplexed

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment

A common rabbinic strategy when dealing with the problem of biblical heroes, whose conduct neither shares the same ethical values nor the normative command structure of the mitzvot that is the bread and butter of rabbinic concern, is to recast them in rabbinic mold. What has often been overlooked in classical rabbinic literature is the conscious use of irony and satire that can transform an apparent approbation into its opposite. Paradigmatic of this literary strategy is the case of aggadot regarding David. This article focuses on such passages in the Bavli normally understood as laudatory of the biblical King David yet, on closer reading, one can detect either an inner incongruity or a deliberate allusion to scandalous aspects of David's career in the biblical account. That allusion signals the reader to a covert ironic subversion of the aggada's patent meaning. Rabbinizing David in the texts examined, rather than rehabilitating David by rescuing him from his biblical persona and, in the process, effacing the biblical text, actually drives the attuned reader back into that text to judge David's character by the rigorous standards of rabbinic morality. Rabbinic irony establishes a bridge between the prospective reader and the Bavlian authorship that would seductively lure that reader into its God-suffused universe preserving an esoteric legacy of rabbinic reflections on David.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/PFT.2007.27.3.323

James A. Diamond

Papers

Exegetical Idealization: Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Maimonides

MAIMONIDES ON KINGSHIP The Ethics of Imperial Humility

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in The Guide of the Perplexed

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment

King David of the Sages: Rabbinic Rehabilitation or Ironic Parody?