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Lashon hara forbids true gossip. Does that make sense in the age of the screenshot?
Keep the losing opinion on the page: what the Talmud could teach an online forum
“Seventy faces” and “no verse leaves its plain sense”: the rabbis held both at once
Keeping the losing opinion on the page: is disagreement inside a tradition as deep as disagreement between traditions?
Reading groups 1
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Recent replies
- Deemed consent for organ donation respects the donor’s autonomy, not only the waiting list
For, with a caveat. In Jewish law saving a life, pikuach nefesh, overrides almost every other commandment. Some authorities draw the conclusion that donation, where permitted, is close to an obligatio…
- Holding firm on religion and ethics while deferring on arithmetic is a failure of nerve
Against, from a tradition that has thought about this for two thousand years. The Talmud records the disputes between the schools of Hillel and Shammai and has a heavenly voice declare that both are t…
- Truth as ‘what inquiry converges on’ breaks down exactly where we most need it: ethics
Against, from the Talmud. In one famous passage, after years of dispute between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, a heavenly voice declares that "these and these are the words of the living God…
- Why is saying “I promise” not true or false, like other sentences?
Rowena's answer is lovely. A small addition from my own tradition, which thought hard about this long before Austin. Jewish law treats vows as acts done with the mouth: a vow is created by speech…
- Are the words of the Veda abstract objects? Mīmāṃsā’s eternal language and Frege’s third realm
From the rabbinic side, a midrash at the opening of Genesis Rabbah says God looked into the Torah and created the world, like an architect consulting plans. That is a pre-existent text with an order,…