Scholar

Liah Greenfeld

Liah Greenfeld is an Israeli-American Russian-Jewish interdisciplinary scholar engaged in the scientific explanation of human social reality on various levels,… more

H-index: 21

Political science 53%

Sociology 18%

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by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation, Class 5

Conclusion Let’s sum up.

Reposts 0 Aug 3

by Liah Greenfeld

The Mind and Artificial Intelligence

Can the former be continued in the latter? Some ten years ago, I was asked by the organizers of a symposium for the Association of Computing Machines to participate in discussing the question: ”Will computers outcompete us all?” With my then graduate student, Mark Simes, who attempted to blaze the trail to human neuroscience and in the process taught me a lot about it, as the co-author, I wrote …

Reposts 0 Jul 31

by Liah Greenfeld

The State of the Social Sciences (4)

Online Lecture Online Lecture

Reposts 0 Jul 24

by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation, Class 4, Part 2

Civilization Until very-very recently, there was no satisfactory, i.e., logical and meaningful, concept of “civilization.” Comparative studies in the social sciences, being based on a very vague notion of socio-cultural process, idea of civilization in them, though occasionally to a great fanfare (Huntington, 1996), has not been of any conceptual help; the term was …

Reposts 0 Jul 22

by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation for Class 4, Part 1

Nesting Dolls, Institutions, Nations, Civilizations Class 4 is dedicated to the cultural process on the collective level.

Reposts 0 Jul 20

by Liah Greenfeld

The State of the Social Sciences (3)

Online Lecture Online Lecture

Reposts 0 Jul 17

by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation for Class 3

The Mind, Part 2 From the nature of symbols and symbolic processes one can also formulate hypotheses regarding the inner structure or anatomy of the mind, which can then be methodically tested against empirical evidence—historical, psychological, psychiatric, and even neuroscientific. The variability of human social orders, which is a function of the fact that human way…

Reposts 0 Jul 15

by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation for Class 3

The Mind, Part 1 The focus of the 3rd class is the mind.

Reposts 0 Jul 13

by Liah Greenfeld

The State of the Social Sciences (2)

Online Lecture Thanks for reading Unguarded Thoughts! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Reposts 0 Jul 11

by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation 2

What is Humanity, Part 2 Now that we know that there are no sciences focused on humanity, no science, that is, to which we can turn to improve our knowledge and advance our understanding of human affairs of whatever kind, we should turn away from the so-called “social science” disciplines. They only use the name of science, only

Reposts 0 Jul 8

by Liah Greenfeld

Lecture Preparation

What is Humanity? Part 1 The question for the upcoming class is: what is humanity? We all believe we all know what it is, don’t we? After all, there is hardly a subject more important for us, a question on the answer of which more other subjects depend – political, social, economic subjects, answers to questions such as: what are human economic needs and desires, what political…

Reposts 0 Jul 6

by Liah Greenfeld

The State of The Social Sciences (1)

Online Lecture Online Lecture

Reposts 0 Jul 2

by Liah Greenfeld

A Cause for Celebration

Love Your Neighbor Canada has a cause for celebration, we hear. Perhaps, not all of Canada, but the city of Toronto, or, even more precisely, the University of Toronto. Its Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy recently recruited full five (5!) senior social scientists from, on the average, top US schools (three from the very top – Yale, and two from not quite t…

Reposts 0 Jul 1

by Liah Greenfeld

Clash of Civilizations? Cultures? Nations?

How do we decide without defining terms and why does this matter? There is a lot of talk about the clash of civilizations again, this time because of the Israel-Iran war with the US participation. The civilizations clashing, presumably, are Judeo-Christianity, on the one hand, Islam on the other, as the word “civilizations” are used, as in the good old days of Huntington, as synonym of “religions.”

Reposts 0 Jun 28

by Liah Greenfeld

Great Britain, India, and Israel

Books to be written: Suggestion #1 There are so many books which ask to be written. Books that raise and, perhaps, may answer fascinating questions. If I were still young, I would plan to write them. But, not being young, I hope that somebody else will.

Reposts 0 Jun 25

by Liah Greenfeld

Announcement

Lecture series Understanding the State of Social Sciences: A Five Week Online Course Series by Prof Liah Greenfeld*

Reposts 0 Jun 21

by Liah Greenfeld

The Old Story of David and Goliath

Jews vs their Giant Enemies The news of the day again, as so very often, involves as the central actor that tiny 0.2% of the world population – the Jews. More precisely, it involves half of this population, the Jews living in Israel. The tiny Jewish state, Israel, is the central actor, again, in the unfolding drama concerning the security of the entire world: Israel’s direct confr…

Reposts 0 Jun 14

by Liah Greenfeld

Brief History 1

The “Imperial” British What happened to the Empire on which the sun never set? It is no more. Lots of people still remember it. Many believe it still operates today, attributing to it causal role in today’s events. Things surely still happen because it is believed to have existed.

Reposts 0 Jun 8

by Liah Greenfeld

Abusing “Fascism”

What exactly don’t we like about it? A very good former student asked me a couple of days ago: “What is fascism? … I hear the term … frequently today but don't believe it is used correctly; it's become more of an insult than a real analysis of current political landscapes. Why?”

Reposts 0 Jun 5

by Liah Greenfeld

New Knowledge About Nationalism

For the Second Edition As was mentioned in a previous post, in the world in which nationalism was created and which it created in turn, the events of the decade that elapsed between the first edition of the Advanced Introduction to Nationalism and now, when I was requested to prepare the second edition, unfolded within the framework established by the emergence of nationalism…

Reposts 0 May 25

by Liah Greenfeld

More on Nationalism

Connections You Wouldn’t Suspect Let’s continue the previous post on what was proven about nationalism by 2015 but has not entered the public consciousness today, a decade later, judging by the common talk – or discourse, as this is referred to in certain circles – on the subject in the academia and the media.

Reposts 0 May 22

by Liah Greenfeld

Nationalism and Democracy

What was known for a fact about the subject by 2015 It is a huge disappointment to me that the little objective, reliable, logical and empirical, knowledge about humanity which we possess is still so little known. Because there is still no science of humanity and, instead, what without any justification stands for it is the form of shameless activism which calls itself – again without any justification –…

Reposts 0 May 20

by Liah Greenfeld

Second Edition

When is it Required? In 2016, I published a short book, Advanced Introduction to Nationalism. In it I attempted to briefly touch upon everything that was known about this supremely important phenomenon by the time of its publication. This included nationalism’s nature and history; its political and economic implications; its influence on social relations, ways of thinking, …

Reposts 0 May 18

by Liah Greenfeld

On the Nature of Love

Understanding Intermarriage I have a very interesting intercultural, interethnic family. Let me introduce them to you, starting smack in the middle, with my four cousins – sisters – on my mother’s side. Two of them live now in Israel, one of the middle twins and the youngest one, and two others, the other middle twin and the oldest, live in Tbilisi, Georgia, where they were born. …

Reposts 0 May 15

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