Adi Ophir: Difference between revisions
Source it - it should be easy to find (I |
changes per ref |
||
| Line 3: | Line 3: | ||
Professor Ophir teaches philosophy at the [[Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas]] at [[Tel Aviv University]]. He is also a fellow at the [[Van Leer Jerusalem Institute]] where he directs an interdisciplinary research project on "Humanitarian Action in Catastrophes: The Shaping of Contemporary Political Imagination and Moral Sensibilities." |
Professor Ophir teaches philosophy at the [[Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas]] at [[Tel Aviv University]]. He is also a fellow at the [[Van Leer Jerusalem Institute]] where he directs an interdisciplinary research project on "Humanitarian Action in Catastrophes: The Shaping of Contemporary Political Imagination and Moral Sensibilities." |
||
Ophir's recent book ''The Order of Evils'' offers a [[ethics|moral theory]] that emphasizes the socially structured [[existential]] and [[political]] nature of evil.<ref name=Ophir>{{cite web|title=The Order of Evils|publisher=[[MIT Press]|accessdate=2007-12-15|url=http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10474}}</ref> He argues that evils, like pain, suffering, loss, and humiliation, are "superfluous evils" that can often be prevented but are not.<ref name=Ophir> |
|||
Ophir's recent book ''The Order of Evils'' is an ambitious attempt to recast [[ethics|moral philosophy]] as a response to concrete evils. Ophir argues that, under certain conditions, evils are systematically produced (rather as goods are systematically produced). Ontologically considered, such evils are simultaneously certain sorts of ''presences'' within the world (sufferings intensified by being either superfluous or inexpressible) and certain sorts of ''disappearances'' within the world (losses or damages intensified by being either superfluous or without possibility of restitution). Ophir's focus on understanding particular evils (rather than some transcendentalized [[Evil]]) keeps his thought determinedly secular. His focus on what he views as two crucial examples of the systematic production of evils - the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] and the Israeli [[military occupation|occupation]] of Palestine - keeps his thought rather sharply politically and existentially engaged. |
|||
Analyzing seminal works by modern and [[postmodern]] philosophers such as [[Rousseau]], [[Kant]], [[Marx]], [[Sartre]], [[Arendt]], [[Foucault]], and [[Derrida]], Ophir submits that to be moral is to care for others, and to be committed to preventing their suffering and distress.<ref name=Ophir/> |
|||
Ophir's focus on understanding particular evils (rather than some transcendentalized [[Evil]]) keeps his thought determinedly secular. While a deeply theoretical work, ''The Order of Evils'' is informed by Ophir's preoccupation with two major events in recent Jewish history: the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] and the Israeli [[military occupation|occupation]] of Palestine.<ref name=Ophir/> He does not compare these two events but instead introduces a typology of disasters that locates them within the wide spectrum of calamities generated by humans to exhibit both the specificities and general patterns that subsequently emerge.<ref name=Ophir/> |
|||
==Works== |
==Works== |
||
Revision as of 12:03, 15 December 2007
Adi Ophir (born 22 September 1951) is an Israeli philosopher.
Professor Ophir teaches philosophy at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. He is also a fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute where he directs an interdisciplinary research project on "Humanitarian Action in Catastrophes: The Shaping of Contemporary Political Imagination and Moral Sensibilities."
Ophir's recent book The Order of Evils offers a moral theory that emphasizes the socially structured existential and political nature of evil.[1] He argues that evils, like pain, suffering, loss, and humiliation, are "superfluous evils" that can often be prevented but are not.<ref name=Ophir>
Analyzing seminal works by modern and postmodern philosophers such as Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Sartre, Arendt, Foucault, and Derrida, Ophir submits that to be moral is to care for others, and to be committed to preventing their suffering and distress.[1]
Ophir's focus on understanding particular evils (rather than some transcendentalized Evil) keeps his thought determinedly secular. While a deeply theoretical work, The Order of Evils is informed by Ophir's preoccupation with two major events in recent Jewish history: the Holocaust and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.[1] He does not compare these two events but instead introduces a typology of disasters that locates them within the wide spectrum of calamities generated by humans to exhibit both the specificities and general patterns that subsequently emerge.[1]
Works
- Plato's Invisible Cities: Discourse and Power in the "Republic" (1990). Routledge. ISBN 0-415-03596-1
- "The Identity of the Victims and the Victims of Identity: A Critique of Zionist Ideology for a Post-Zionist Age." (2000) In Laurence Jay Silberstein (ed.), Mapping Jewish Identities (pp. 174-200). NYU Press. ISBN 0814797695.
- 'Genocide lies behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris'. Counter-Punch, 16 January 2004.
- The Order of Evils: Toward an Ontology of Morals (2005). MIT Press. Translated by Rela Mezali and Havi Carel. ISBN 1-890951-51-X
External links
 | This article about a philosopher is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- ^ a b c d {{cite web|title=The Order of Evils|publisher=[[MIT Press]|accessdate=2007-12-15|url=http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10474}}