Agassi was born and grew up ultra-Orthodox and left the religion in adolescence. Considered the senior philosopher in Israel and was a student of Karl Popper. He asked to change the nationality on the identity card from Jewish to Israeli and was refused
The Israeli philosopher Professor Yosef Agassi passed away close to his 95th birthday.
Agassi studied at the "Hader", and later at the "Tahkamoni" school, at the Merkaz Rabbi yeshiva and at the Aloma Rabbinical Seminary. In adolescence he left religion. He served in the paratroopers and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he completed a master's degree in physics. In the 50s Agassi studied for a doctorate at the London School of Economics under the guidance of the philosopher Karl Popper. Since then he has researched and worked at the Hebrew University.
In 2008 Agassi and his wife joined a group of Israeli citizens who filed a petition with the court demanding to change the nationality entry on the identity card from "Jewish" to "Israeli". The District Court in Jerusalem rejected the petition, claiming that the issue "is not a matter of jurisdiction". The appeal before the Supreme Court was also rejected.
His wife Judith Buber Agassi, who died in 2018, was the granddaughter of Martin Buber.
Nir Lahav eulogizes Prof. Agassi:
Now I heard about the death of the philosopher Yosef Agassi. He wrote one of the books that influenced me deeply and directed my life. The name of the book does not sound like such a special book, an introduction to modern philosophy of the Broadcasting University Press, and yet, when I read the book many years ago, the book made a revolution in my mind. Following the book, I discovered the close connection between science and society and the social responsibility imposed on scientists. Until then it was clear to me that reality surpasses all imagination and therefore I want to become a physicist in order to reveal the secrets of reality. In addition, it was also clear to me that I like to teach and show others how amazing our reality is. This means that until then I saw a scientist as someone whose job it is to investigate and educate about the importance of science. Agassi's book shows that there is a much stronger connection than I thought between science and society.
Science did not develop in a vacuum and it was not always acceptable to explore reality freely and without social restrictions. It seems that every time the human race remembers the tremendous power it has within it amazing things happen. This happened, for example, in ancient Greece, happened again in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and even in the 60s of the 20th century. Thanks to the Renaissance, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, we live today in a free and (relatively) open world where everything is allowed to be explored. In the book Agassi shows that the role of the scientist is the role of the revolutionary rebel. The one that marches us forward in understanding reality while breaking what we thought before. It's not just that one of the most important values in science is the value of doubt. The book taught me that at the base of science are important values such as the value of truth, the imposition of doubt, and the freedom to explore and want to know. It is no coincidence that these are also the values at the base of the entire modern culture.
The modern values are the result of a thought, social and scientific revolution
Agassi shows how all the modern values we grew up with are the result of a thought, social and scientific revolution. The book showed me that scientists should not stay in the ivory tower. They should take responsibility for the advancement of society, understand the connections between science and society and philosophy and try to influence and promote the culture around them.
I just published a series of articles under the title A Brief History of the West - The Values of the Modern World (see link to the two parts at the bottom of this article), about these connections and the values of the West and the modern era. On the relationship between the scientific revolution, the Renaissance, democracy and liberalism and progress. And how because there is not enough education for the values that have arisen, a situation has arisen in which most scientists are not even aware of the strong connection that exists between them and society. And not only scientists, in general, most of us simply do not know the value depth of the modern era. In such a situation, it is clear why the Western world is in a deep crisis and how the illusory situation was created in which populists can so easily distort the facts in order to carry out a governmental coup that will weaken democracy and harm the rights of all of us. The post is actually based on Yosef Agassi's book and now at a terrible time, it turns out that he has passed away.
rip. At least his ideas will stay with us.
post Scriptum.
I had the privilege of meeting him several times and even hosting him at a Tikkun Shavuot event marked by secular spirituality that I produced in 2013 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
6 תגובות
The era of the collapse of conceptions has arrived
From the collapse of Netanyahu's security concept
To the collapse of Newton's scientific conception
When the guns roar the muses are silent.
This article is intended for discussion starting at 6 o'clock after the war.
The idea of gravity was given to the world by Newton 330 years ago.
Newton believed that there was a mysterious and wonderful force emanating from the depths of the earth, and that its whole function was to knock down objects that fell from our hands. Such a mysterious power brings the reader to the world of fairy tales, and the imagination gives this power the image of a friendly, invisible demon.
Newton gave this demon the soothing name "gravitational force".
Amazingly, Newton swept away many believers in the idea of gravity, and so began a strange scientific investigation of physical reality, with the physics of demons and spirits.
Why did Newton invent the delusional idea of gravity.
Newton did not know that objects that were handed out of our hands fall by themselves, and thus they fulfill a wonderful physical law of nature, which is the law of conservation of energy. This law of conservation was accepted in science only 170 years ago, and Newton obviously did not know about its existence.
And since Newton did not know that objects fall by themselves, and did not know about the existence of the law of conservation of energy, he invented the idea of gravity. This crazy idea lasted 160 years in all official physics curricula, creating a scientific quagmire
Thick and cloudy, which prevented any possibility of getting to know the true structure of the universe.
Newton's murky scientific quagmire was canceled out by physical reality that revealed to the world the existence of a miraculous quantitative law, which is the conservation of energy.
How the law of conservation of energy, eliminates the concept of gravity.
To lift a large stone off the ground to a height of 1 meter, you have to exert yourself and get tired, and this amount of fatigue represents an amount of energy.
If we release this stone from a height of 1 meter, it will fall down by itself with increasing speed, and its impact will hit the ground. Show exactly the same amount of energy that was needed to lift the stone to a height of 1 meter.
Physical reality is miraculous and works by itself, and it is she who taught scientists about the existence of an important physical law of nature - the law of conservation of energy.
There are many types of energy, and they can replace each other, according to the law of conservation of quantity. Physical reality works by itself, according to miraculous laws inherent in it, and curious researchers of physical reality began to discover these laws.
The law of conservation of energy that was discovered 170 years ago completely cancels out Newton's physics that requires gravity - and it proves that objects that are separated from our hands - fall by themselves, and there is no mysterious demon in physical reality that knocks them down..
And what turns out? For 170 years, Newton's physics has been taught in universities, and not a single teacher stood up and shouted "there is no gravity, and Newton's physics is incorrect"
It should be emphasized that Newton did not know that his physics was incorrect, but already 170 years ago, the physics teachers knew about the existence of the law of conservation of energy which eliminates the idea of gravity, but they were afraid of the believers in the idea of gravity, and did not tell this to their students.
These 170 miserable years of fear produced terrible errors in the concept of matter and the structure of the universe, and the concepts of dark particle matter and dark energy testify to this.
Now the era of the collapse of concepts has arrived, and it is time to move to a different physics, based on miraculous laws inherent in physical reality. This is the real physics, and it appears in a revolutionary book - which bears the name - "Esbar's magical journey on the wings of natural knowledge"
This book conflicts with all the physical teachings developed in the last 150 years, and it presents to the world a new physics, and also a new geometry of circles.
In the new physics, matter is continuous and has no gravity, and the stars of the universe move in spiral orbits in space filled with passive time.
Passive time is a new type of time that exists right in physical reality, when the time we all know exists only in the human mind, and it disappears the moment you think about it.
Therefore the proper name for it is active time.
A. Asbar
I just learned about his death. One of the most important people who grew up here. All that remains is to read his writings and listen to his lectures (and his participation in the various panels) on YouTube.
Now he discovers hell. And that there is a soul and life after death. And that he cannot correct the nonsense he did and spoke. S.R.I.
One and only and without harming anyone who is educated and wise.. after he is gone you can close the bookcase.
I will not expand here so as not to burden the reader with more information, but I will not avoid the title either.
At the core of my words is the "anxious person" whose edges Adler has already touched. A predicament that pushes him into the arms of "no existence" as God. To create a virtual superpower to present solutions. This is how man created the variety of gods and from their creation he went on to enslave them.
Even though science, which daily finds thousands of answers to the existence of the universe, is unable to deal with that anxiety of existence and conveniently and easily gives it up in exchange for dictated answers from the religion that dominates about 6 out of the eight billion people who inhabit 20 percent of the earth.
"When you reach the truth, you must start looking for it again because it is no longer there" said Freud and his deep justification did not extend because as Dr. Freud, one of my lecturers in psychology, said, "most of humanity is degenerate" that is; Lag behind in her emotional aspect ability and approach to her. It is easier for a person to kill another person than to dismantle the emotional components of love, hate, and even the essence of existence. The essence of physical existence as eating, defecating, having sex is like an achievement in the palm of one's hand and therefore does not require excessive effort from him and thus is more comfortable for a person and thus gives up most of his feelings which are the product of his physical development and produces emotional development as a side effect. The synapses in his mind are not limited and create their own reality in boundless independence. Independence that on the one hand develops science and advances man, but on the other hand creates chaos in him that he is almost unable to deal with and this is what religion takes advantage of and translates into mental oppression and as a result economic oppression.
This is how we have virtual religious states in the form of Christianity, Islam and Judaism that take advantage of the "anxiety effect" for the welfare of their economic elites and reduce the "emotional person" more and more. Since she has no desire for "working tools" to correct the individual's life, she resorts to suppressing it.
One of his generation
Dear men.