Joseph Agassi

Background

Joseph Agassi was born on May 7, 1927, in Jerusalem, Yerushalayim, Israel.

Education

Joseph Agassi studied at Tachkemuni School. He was a yeshiva student and studied at Mercaz HaRav.

Joseph Agassi graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1952 where he got his Master of Science and the University of London in 1956 where he got his Doctor of Philosophy.

Career

Agassi taught at the University of Hong Kong, the University of Illinois, Boston University, and York University in Canada. He had dual appointments in the last positions with Tel Aviv University.

Works

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• book

  • Science and Culture

    (This work addresses scientism and relativism, two false p...)

    2003
  • Philosophy from a Skeptical Perspective

    (This book advocates the skeptical position and discusses ...)

    2008
  • Paranoia: A Study in Diagnosis

    (There is a curious parallel between the philosophy of sci...)

    1975
  • Science and Its History: A Reassessment of the Historiography of Science

    (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science B...)

    2008
  • Science and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Science

    (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science B...)

    1981

  • Letters to My Sister

    (Book in Hebrew)

    1977
  • Towards historiography of science 1963
  • The Continuing Revolution: A History of Physics from the Greeks to Einstein 1968
  • Faraday as a natural philosopher 1971
  • Science in Flux 1975
  • Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology 1977
  • Psychiatry as Medicine: Contemporary Psychotherapies 1983
  • Technology: Philosophical and Social Aspects 1985
  • The Gentle Art of Philosophical Polemics: Selected Reviews and Comments 1988
  • Diagnosis: Philosophical and Medical Perspectives 1990
  • The Siblinghood of Humanity: Introduction to Philosophy 1990
  • Radiation Theory and the Quantum Revolution 1993
  • A Philosopher S Apprentice: In Karl Popper S Workshop. 1993
  • Liberal Nationalism For Israel: Towards An Israeli National Identity 1984

Politics

Joseph Agassi has written widely on global politics and on the methodology to implement global politics. His methodology is consistently procedural, without having requests for systematic procedures. His demands from those that design global politics are minimalist: small methodological changes may lead to large scale achievements.

Joseph Agassi also proposes to bring global problems to public agendas for discussions in different forums, in particular in workshops where discussions are held with an agreed-upon agenda: the agenda says Agassi should be discussed and set by the participants prior to the discussion.

Views

Joseph Agassi suggests that all schools of thought have thus far neglected the one major practical problem of ethics. For example, he observes that the German nation lost its moral brakes as soon as its Nazi rulers showed their hand.

Joseph Agassi has expressed criticism against the settler movement and has advocated for Israel to "separate" from the worldwide Jewish community.

Quotations: The flimsy excuse – the notion that Israel belongs to the Jewish people and not to the Israeli nation – is the very threat to its independence. It is therefore imperative that Israel should recognize its nation as separate and different from the Jewish people.

Connections

Joseph Agassi was married to Judith Buber Agassi - Martin Buber's granddaughter - from 1949 until her death in 2018. Together they had two children, Aaron, and Tirzah, who died of cancer in March 2008.

Spouse:

Judith Buber Agassi

Daughter:

Tirzah Agassi

Son:

Aaron Agassi

colleague:

Karl Popper

Joseph Agassi studied under Karl Popper. Being an advocate of Popper's philosophy with variations, Agassi ignores many of the problems that concern some philosophers of science, chiefly that of theory choice. The problems of the philosophy of technology engage him, including the problem of choosing scientific theories and ideas worthy of application and implementation. the name of Agassi's daughter - Tirzah - was often used by Popper in his dictum "Write it for Tirzah!" to explain his view that everyone has the duty to write in a clearly and easily understandable language.