ëðñ ìöéåï 25 ùðåú ôòéìåú ùì îëåï ëäï
îàé 11-13, 2008 - àåðéáøñéèú úì-àáéá

The Cohn Institute at 25 - Celebration Colloquium
May 11-13, 2008 - Tel Aviv University


Speakers

Ariella Azoulay, Program for Culture and Interpretation, Bar Ilan University.
  • M.A., Université Paris XVIII.
  • DEA, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris.
  • Ph.D. Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1996): "On the Possibility of Critical Art in Israel (1970s & 1980s)" (Moshe Zuckermann & Gila Balas, Advisors).
    Selected Publications:
  • The Civil Contract of Photography, Resling, Tel Aviv (2008). (English version in Zone Books - 2008)
  • This Regime, which is not one: Occupation and Democracy between the Sea and the River (1967- ), Resling, Tel Aviv (2008). (With Adi Ophir, In Hebrew)
  • Once Upon A Time: Photography Following Walter Benjamin, Bar Ilan University Press, 2006 (in Hebrew).
  • Death's Showcase: The Power of Image in Contemporary Democracy, MIT Press, 2001.


Raz Chen, Science, Technology & Society at Bar-Ilan University.
  • M.A., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1991): "Theories Of Perspective In Their Historical Context, 1200-1450" (Sabetai Unguru, Advisor).
  • Ph.D., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2001): "Subduing the Hostile Fortress of Doubts - The Renaissance Discourse of Vision and Kepler's New Science" (Rivka Fledhay, Advisor).
    Additional Affiliation: Honorary Associate, the Unit for History and Philosophy of Science, the University of Sydney, Australia
  • "Kepler's New Pictorial Language of Scientific Representation". Renaissance Quarterly (Forthcoming).
  • "The Use and Non-Use of Mathematics: The Archaeology of the Inverse Square Law Part II". (With Ofer Gal) History of Science 44.1 (March 2006):49-68.
  • "Kepler's Somnium". Journal for the History of Ideas (2005).
  • "The Construction of Scientific Observation in Kepler's New Science". The Monist (2001).



Noah Efron , Science, Technology & Society at Bar-Ilan University - Chair.
  • Ph.D., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1997): "R. David Ben Solomon Gans And The Controversy Over Natural Science In Jewish Prague" (Menachem Fisch, Advisor).
    Previous Fellowships:
  • Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton
  • Dibner Institute for History of Science and Technology at MIT
  • Harvard University
  • Greenwall Ruebhausen Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania
    Public Service:
  • Israeli Ministry of Agriculture's committee to evaluate and regulate genetically modified agriculture
  • Participation in Knesset deliberations on human cloning
    Selected Publications:
  • Real Jews Basic Books (2004).
  • Judaism & Science: An Historical Introduction Greenwood Press (2007).
  • Essays on the politics of religion and the politics of science published in The Jerusalem Report, Midstream, Tikkun, Jewish Action, Hadassah Magazine, World Jewish Digest and the Boston Book Review
  • National Jewish Press Association award for best original essay.
    Current Research Project:
  • Playing God: Being Human in the Age of Biotechnology, (supported by a Philadelphia Center for Science and Religion Book Grant) to be published by Harvard University Press.



Miran Epstein, Human Science and Medical Ethics, Barts and The London School of Medicine; Queen Mary, University of London.
  • MD, The Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University (1987): "Quality Control According to Preset Criteria: Blood Transfusion".
  • M.A., Magna cum laude, Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1996): "'No Admittance Except on Business' - Patient’s Autonomy: Freedom in Social Context" (Moshe Zuckermann & Gideon Freudenthal, Advisors).
  • Ph.D., Magna cum laude, Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2004): "The History of Contemporary Biomedical Ethics and the Ideology of the Health Care Market" (Gideon Freudenthal, Advisor).
    Selected Publications:
  • "The Ethics of Poverty and the Poverty of Ethics: The Case of Palestinian Prisoners in Israel Seeking to Sell Their Kidneys in Order to Feed Their Children", J Med Ethics 33 (2007), 473-474.
  • "Legitimizing the shameful: end-of-life ethics and the political economy of death", Bioethics 21 (2007), 23-31.
  • "Trials in the Developing World", The Lancet 369(9576):1859 (2007).
  • "Legal and Institutional Fictions in Medical Ethics: A Common, and Yet Largely Overlooked, Phenomenon", J Med Ethics 33 (6): 362-364 (2007).
  • "The Concept of Brain Death: Let Us Not Ignore the Context of Its Social Reception", J Med Ethics (17 April 2007) eLetter. http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/33/4/197.
  • "Is the NHS Research Ethics Committees System to Be Outsourced to a Low-cost Off-Shore Call Centre?", J Med Ethics 33(1):45-47 (2006) (with Wingate D. L.).
  • "Why Effective Consent Presupposes Autonomous Authorisation: A Counter-orthodox Argument", J Med Ethics 32: 342-345 (2006).


Danny Filc, Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University.
  • M.A., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1995): "The Concept Of Hegemony As An Answer To The Problem Of Mediation" (Adi Ophir, Advisor).
  • Ph.D., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2000): "Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in the Israeli Medical System" (Moshe Zuckerman, Advisor).
    Public Involvemet:
  • Physicians for Human Rights (Chairman - since 2000)
  • Adva Center for Information and Social Justice in Israel - Board of Directors
    Selected Publications:
  • Populism and Hegemony in Israel, Resling (2006).
  • The Government of Capital: Israeli Society in the Age of Globalizaiton, Eidtor with Uri Ram (Hebrew) (2004).



Michael N. Fried , Graduate Program for Science and Technology Education, Ben-Gurion University.
  • M.Sc., Applied Mathematics, SUNY at Stony Brook (1984).
  • Ph.D., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2000): "A New Look at the Geometric Character of Hellenistic Mathematics: The Case of Apollonius" (Sabetai Unguru, Advisor).
    Selected Publications:
  • (with Sabetai Unguru) Apollonius of Perga’s Conica: Text, Context, Subtext, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers (2001).
  • Apollonius of Perga’s Conics, Book IV: Translation, Introduction, and Diagrams, Santa Fe, NM, USA: Green Lion Press (2002).
  • (with Sabetai Unguru) "Apollonius, Davidoff, Rorty, and Zeuthen: From A to Z, or, What Else Is There?", Sudhoffs Archiv 91(1),1-19 (2007).
  • "Can Mathematics Education and History of Mathematics Coexist?", Science & Education, 10, pp.391-408 (2001).



Iris Fry, Department of Humanities and Arts, Technion.
  • M.Sc., Biochemistry (magna cum laude), The Hebrew University (1966).
  • M.A., Philosophy (summa cum laude), Haifa University (1986): "The principle of logical purposiveness and its status within the Kantian system" (Dr. Strauss, Advisor).
  • Ph.D. with distinction, Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1992): "L. J. Henderson's theory of the fitness of the environment for life, historical aspects and current parallels" (Yehuda Elkana, Advisor, Robert Merton, co-Advisor until 1991).
    Previous affiliation: The Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University

    Selected Publications:
  • The Origin of Life on Earth: Mystery of Scientific Problem? Broadcast University, The Ministry of Defense Press, 1997 (in Hebrew).
  • The Emergence of Life on Earth: A Historical and Scientific Overview. Rutgers University Press, 2000 (The book was translated into Italian and published by Garzanti, Milan in 2002)
  • "On the biological significance of the properties of matter: L. J. Henderson's theory of the fitness of the environment". J. Hist. Biol. 29 (1996) 155-196.
  • "Is a chaotic nature possible? On the status of the principle of logical finality in Kant's system", in Y. Senderovicz, and E. Friedlander (eds.), The Craft of Judgment, University Publishing Projects, Tel Aviv. 1999 (in Hebrew)
  • "Miller, Stanley Lloyd", in Koertge, Noretta (ed.) New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons: Detroit. 2008. vol. 5: 154-158
  • "Philosophical aspects of the origin-of-life problem", in Connie Bertka (ed.) Exploring the Origin, Extent, and Future of Life: Philosophical, Ethical, and Theological Perspectives, Cambridge University Press (in press).


Ofer Gal , History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney.
  • M.A., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1991): "Tropes And Topics In Scientific Discourse: Galileo's De Motu" (Rivka Fledhay, Advisor).
  • Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh.
    Selected Publications:
  • Meanest Foundations and Nobler Superstructures: Hooke, Newton and the Compounding of the Celestial Motions of the Planets Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2002).
  • "The Use and Non-Use of Mathematics: The Archaeology of the Inverse Square Law Part II". (With R. Chen-Morris) History of Science 44.1 (March 2006):49-68.
  • "Hooke’s Programme: Final Thoughts.” Hunter, Michael and Michael Cooper (eds.) Robert Hooke: Tercentennial Studies . Aldershot: Ashgate (2006): 33-48.
  • "The Invention of Celestial Mechanics". Early Science and Medicine 10.4 (2005): 529-534.



Tal Golan , Department of History, University of California, San Diego.
  • M.A., Cohn Institute
  • Ph.D. University of California at Berkeley (1997).
    Selected Publications:
  • Laws of Man and Laws of Nature: A History of Scientific Expert Testimony, Harvard University Press (2004).
  • Editor: Science, Technology and Israeli Society Special Volume of Israel Studies, Indiana University Press (2004).
  • "Evidence of Things Unseen: The Legal and Medical Receptions of the X-ray in America". Social Studies of Science (2004).



Asaf Goldschmidt, Department of East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University.
  • M.A., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1994): "Medical Traditions in Ancient China - Comparison and Analysis of the Factors that Induced the Development of Medical Theory" (Yehuda Elkana & Yoav Ariel, Advisors).
  • Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania (1999): "The Transformations of Chinese Medicine during the Northern Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1127): The Integration of Three Past Medical Approaches into a Comprehensive Medical System Following a Wave of Epidemics" (Nathan Sivin, Charles Rosenberg, & Robert Hymes, Advisors).
    Previous affiliation: Faribank Post-Doctoral Fellow in Esat Asian Studies, Harvard University

    Selected Publications:
  • The Evolution of Medicine in China: The Song Dynasty, 960-1127 London: RoutledgeCurzon Press, forthcoming in 2008.
  • "Changing Standards: Tracing Changes in Acu-moxa Therapy during the Transition from the Tang to the Song Dynasties". East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 18 (2001): 75-111.
  • "The Song Discontinuity: Rapid Innovation in Northern Song Dynasty Medicine" sian Medicine - Tradition and Modernity , 1.1 (2005): 53-90.
  • "Epidemics and Medicine during the Northern Song dynasty: The Revival of Cold Damage Disorders". T'oung Pao 93.1 (2007): 53-109.
  • "Commercializing Medicine or Benefiting the People - The First Pharmacy in China". Science in Context, forthcoming in 2008.



Orna Harari, Department of Philosophy & Department of Classical Studies, Tel Aviv University.
  • M.A., University of Haifa (1996): "The Ontologiccal Basis of Aristotle's Concept of Possibility" (Menachem Luz, Advisor).
  • Ph.D., The Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2001): "Knowledge and Demonstration: Aristotle's Posterior Analytics" (Sabetai Unguru, Advisor).
    Previous affiliations: Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, MIT (2000-2002)

    Selected Publications:
  • Knowledge and Demonstration: Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, New Synthese Historical Library, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004.
  • "The Concept of Existence and the Role of Constructions in Euclid's Elements", rAchive for History of Exact Sciences 56 (2003), 1-23.
  • "Methexis and Geometrical Reasoning in Proclus Commentary on Euclid's Elements", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 30 (2006), 361-389.
  • "Proclus' Account of Explanatory Demonstrations in Mathematics and its Context", Archiv f?r Geschichte der Philosophie (forthcoming).


Meir Hemmo, Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa.
  • M.A., The Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1991)
  • PhD, Cambridge University, UK (1996)
    Main Field of Research: Philosophy of Physics

    Selected Publications:
  • Conceptual Issues in Quantum Mechanics
  • The Direction of Time



Adam S Hofri, Law School, The Hebrew University.
  • M.A., The Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2004): "The Consensual Philsophy of Adam Smith" (Adi Ophir, Advisor).
  • Ph.D., The University of Oxford (2007): "Family Property in Chancery: a Study of Late 18th Century Judicial Policy" (Joshua Getzler, Advisor).
    Selected Publications:
  • Adam Smith. Philosopher of the Enlightenment, Tel Aviv, Mapa 2005 (in Hebrew).
  • "The Concept of Existence and the Role of Constructions in Euclid's Elements", rAchive for History of Exact Sciences 56 (2003), 1-23.
  • "Law’s Families: Conceptions of the Family in Late 18th Century English Law", in Erinnern und Vergessen / Remembering and Forgetting (Oliver Brupbacher et al (eds), Munich: Meidenbauer Verlag, 2007), 173-195.


Nurit Kirsh, Science, Technology & Society at Bar-Ilan University.
  • M.Sc., Microbiology, Bar-Ilan University (1992): "Quantitative Research on the MSP Male Protein of Fish" (Rami Avtalion, Advisor).
  • Ph.D. Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2004): "Research and Teaching of Genetics at the Hebrew University (1935-1961)" (Eva Jablonka & Anita Schapira, Advisors).
    Selected Publications:
  • "Population Genetics in Israel in the 1950s: The Unconscious Internalization of Ideology", Isis 94 (2003), 631-655.
  • "Geneticist Elisabeth Goldschmidt: A Twofold Pioneering Story", Israel Studies 9 (2004), 71-105.
  • "Bracha Ramot", "Naomi Feinbrun-Dothan", "Clara Heyn", "Yehudit Birk", "Bat-Sheva Bonne-Tamir", in Jewish Women - A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Jerusalem: Shalvi (2008)



Yitzhak Melamed, Department of Philosophy, The University of Chicago.
  • M.A., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University, Summa cum laude (1996): "The Liar Paradox, Sentence Construction, and the atemporality of Logic".
  • Ph.D. Yale University (2005): "The Metaphysics of Substance and the Metaphysics of Thought in Spinoza" (Michael Della Rocca, Advisor).
    Previous affiliations: Yale University, New York University

    Selected Publications:
  • Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise: A Critical Guide, Yitzhak Melamed and Michael Rosenthal (eds.), Cambridge University Press (In preparation).
  • "Salomon Maimon and the Rise of Spinozism in German Idealism", Journal of the History of Philosophy 42 (2004) 67-96.
  • "Inherence and the Immanent Cause in Spinoza", The Leibniz Review16 (2006) 43-52.



Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Program for Interdisciplinary Studies (Chair) and Department of Jewish History, Ben Gurion University.
  • Ph.D., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1997): "The Representations of the "Middle Ages" in the National Jewish Historiography" (Amos Funkenstein, Advisor).
    Selected Publications:
  • The Censor, the Editor, and the Text. The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century University of Pennsilvanya press (2007) - Shazar Prize 2006.
  • Exil et souverainete' : conscience et inconscient du sionisme (traduit de l'he'breu par Catherine Neuve-Eglise), Paris, la Fabrique (2007).
    Current Research Project: The conncetion between orientalism and secularism in the creation of the modern Jewish discourse.




Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Talmud, Hebrew Culture, Tel Aviv University.
  • Ph.D., Summa Cum Laude, Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2004): "The Suspected Adulteress (Sotah) in Tannaitic Literature: Textual and Theoretical Perspectives" (Adi Ophir & Moshe Halbertal, Advisors).
    Previous affiliation: Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley (2002-03); Rabbinic School, University of Judaism, Los Angeles (2003-04).

    Selected Publications:
  • A ritual that never happened: Sanctuary, Midrash and Gender in the Suspected Adulteress (Sotah)Tractate Magnes Press (in Print, in Hebrew).
  • "Bilhah the Temptress: the Testament of Reuben and the 'Birth of Sexuality'", Jewish Quarterly Review 96 (2006), 65-94.
  • "Measure for Measure as a Hermeneutic Tool in Early Rabbinic Literature", Journal of Jewish Studies 57 (2006), pp. 269-286.



Hanan Yoran, Department of History, Ben Gurion University.
  • Ph.D., Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (1999): "Erasmus and More betwen the Republic of Letters and the Political World" (Rivka Feldhay, Advisor).
    Previous affiliation: Visiting Scholar, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies

    Selected Publications:
  • "Florentine Civic Humanism and the Emergence of Modern Ideology". History and Theory 46 (2007): 326-344.
  • "More's Utopia and Erasmus's No Place". English Literary Renaissance 35 (2005): 3-30.
  • "The Humanist Critique of Metaphysics and the Foundation of the Political Order". Utopian Studies 13 (2002): 1-19.
  • "Thomas More's Richard III: Probing the Limits of Humanism". Renaissance Studies 15 (2001): 514-37.





Funkenstein Prize Recipient


Roy Wagner
  • Ph.D., Mathematics (with distinction) Tel Aviv University (1997): "Infinite dimensional asymptotic structure of Banach spaces" (Vitali Milman, Advisor).
  • Ph.D. Cohn Institute, Tel Aviv University (2008): "Post-structural readings of logico-mathematical texts" (Adi Ophir & Anat Biletzki, Advisors).
    Previous Affiliations:
    Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Boston University (Fall 2007-08). Post-doctoral Fellowship; Maths dept., Cambridge University, Post-doctoral fellowship in functional analysis.

    Public Involvement:
    Board member of worker rights NGO "Kav La'Oved" (2002-present)

    Selected Publications:
  • "Finite high-order games and an inductive approach towards Gowers's dichotomy", Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 111 (2001), 39-60.
  • "Mathematical marriages: intercourse between mathematics and semiotic choice", Social Studies of Science (forthcoming).