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Jacob & Esau Today: The End of a Two Millennia Paradigm?

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Encouraging Openness

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 325))

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Abstract

The paradigm of Jacob & Esau, which portrayed Jewish-Christian relations for two-millennia, has collapsed in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the foundation of the State of Israel. Portrayals of Jacob & Esau have changed radically in both European and Israeli cultures. The two have moved in both parallel and opposite directions. Europeans have embraced the traditional Jewish Jacob and declared him European, indeed a model for European culture. Israeli writers, in contrast, have distanced themselves from the Jewish Jacob, whether rabbinic or Zionist, and converted him into a universal type, a lover and a mourner. Esau has been largely absent in non-Jewish discourse but has enjoyed rehabilitation among both Zionists and post-Zionists, most notably, among the Jewish Settlers. The new Jacob & Esau part with the traditional Jewish and Christian typologies. They mark an unprecedented age in Jewish history, and a new period in Jewish-Christian relations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Jakobsstimme,” in: Sprachgitter (Frankfurt am main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1959), http://www.lyrikline.org/de/gedichte/stimmen-162#.VaEB4Ovt5t4, accessed 24 July 2015: “Die Tränen. Die Tränen im Bruderaug. Eine blieb hängen, wuchs. Wir wohnen darin. Atme, daß sie sich löse.” My thanks to Moshe Lavi of the University of Haifa for introducing me to the poem.

  2. 2.

    Bereshit Rabba: 67:4; Tanḥuma, ed. Buber (Vilnius: Rom, 1913): toledot 24; Zohar: 1: 145a: “Israel has suffered on account of the tears which Esau shed before his father, in his desire to be blessed by him, out of the great regard he had for his father’s words”; 2: 12b: “Those [Esau’s] tears brought Israel down into his exile.”

  3. 3.

    Glory and Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative (Standford CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), p. 20: “Janus-like, [the Aqedah] came to represent both the slaughter of the Holocaust and the national warrior’s death in the oldnew homeland.” In fairness, Feldman does not see the post-1967 “Israeli psycho-political assault on the aqedah” as issuing from victory but as solidifying the Israeli “Isaac syndrome.” Arie Dubnov of the University of Haifa and Shai Ginsburg of Duke University pointed out to me that the transformations of the Aqedah and the Jacob & Esau typologies in Israel dovetailed.

  4. 4.

    Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Yiẓḥak Lamdan , Masadah (Tel Aviv: Hedim, 1927) was crucial in formatting the myth.

  5. 5.

    Lisa Bonnifield, Modern Jewish Art and Zionism, BA Thesis, Duke University, 2008; Dalia Manor, Art in Zion: the Genesis of Modern National Art in Jewish Palestine (London: Routledge, 2005); Gideon Ofrat, One Hundred Years of Art in Israel, trans. by Peretz Kidron (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).

  6. 6.

    Malkah Shaked , I’ll Play You Forever: The Bible in Modern Hebrew Poetry, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aḥaronot, 2005), 1: 120–21, 1:122–23, 1: 125–26, respectively. Interestingly, Gilboa also published, in 1953, “Isaac” (1: 96), which Yael Feldman considers subversive of earlier Zionist portrayals of Isaac as a self-sacrificing military hero: Glory and Agony, pp. 134–36. Mourning over relatives who perished in the Holocaust may have subverted native martyrology of fallen soldiers but preserved life-loving Jacob for the national project.

  7. 7.

    Steinhardt (1887–1968) belonged to the Berlin Secession, then, having immigrated to Palestine in 1933, to the new Beẓalel Group. He became head of the Beẓalel Academy (1954–57). Ziva Amishai-Maisels, “Steinhardt in the Land of Israel,” Jacob and Israel: Homeland and Identity in the Work of Jakob Steinhardt (Hebrew and English), ed. by Gabriel Ma’anit, Ruthi Ofek, and Avraham Hai (Tefen: Open Museum, 1998), pp. 70–126 (Hebrew), 197–230 (English). I learned of Steinhardt’s Jacob & Esau woodcut from Ezra Mendelsohn, Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art (Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2002), p. 215.

  8. 8.

    Neta Stahl, “‘Man’s Red Soup’ – Blood and the Art of Esau in the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg ,” in: Jewish Blood: Reality and Metaphor in History, Religion and Culture, ed. by (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 166–69.

  9. 9.

    Simon Rawidowicz , “Between Jew and Arab,” in: Between Jew and Arab: The Lost Voice of Simon Rawidowicz, ed. by David N. Myers (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2008), pp. 150–51, ProQuest ebrary, accessed 15 July 2015.

  10. 10.

    Dan Diner , “Vom Stau zur Zeit: Neutralisierung und Latenz zwischen Nachkrieg und Achtundsechzig,” in: Latenz: Blinde Passagiere in den Geisteswissenschaften, ed. by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and Florian Klinger (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), pp. 165–172.

  11. 11.

    G. R. Brinke, Abraham: der Freund Gottes (Bern: Ährenlese-Verlag, 1957); idem., Der Erzvater Jabob: Ein Lebensbild in Skizzen (Bern: Ährenlese-Verlag, 1959).

  12. 12.

    Matthias Morgenstern, “Vom ‘Götzenzerstörer’ zum Protagonisten des Dialogs – Der Erzvater Abraham in 1800 Jahren jüdischer Tradition,” in: Interreligiöser Dialog: Chancen abrahamischer Initiativen, ed. by Reinhard Möller and Hanns Christoph Goßmann (Berlin : Lit, 2006), pp. 101–126. Yaakov Ariel of UNC, Chappel Hill points out that Abraham did not become a central figure until the Christian-Muslim Dialogue took off at the turn of the twenty-first century, by which time the Christian-Jewish dialogue had already become secondary.

  13. 13.

    “Jacob and Esau,” Divre Hashqafa, trans. (from the Yiddish) by Moshe Crone (Jerusalem: Zionist World Association, 1992), p. 27.

  14. 14.

    Igrot Moshe (Benei Beraq: Moshe Feinstein , 1985): Ḥoshen u-Mishpat: 2:77 (p. 319).

  15. 15.

    Kol Dodi on the Torah (Brooklyn, NY: Masorah Publications, 1992), pp. 55–56.

  16. 16.

    Michal Shaul, Beauty for Ashes: Holocaust Memory and the Rehabilitation of Ashkenazi Haredi Society in Israel, 1945–1961 (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Vamhem; Yad Izhak ben-Zvi, 2014), pp. 307–316. Levin was a harbinger more than a trend setter: Until the 1990s, the Ultra-Orthodox leadership downplayed Holocaust commemoration, fearing it may hinder the reconstruction of Jewish life. See: Dan Michman, “The Impact of the Holocaust on Religious Jewry,” Major Changes within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996), pp. 659–707. Ultra-Orthodoxy’s revival has since given rise to bountiful literature.

  17. 17.

    Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism, trans. by Michael Swirsky and Jonathan Chipman (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996); Barbara Krawcowicz , Covenantal Theodicy Among Haredi and Modern Jewish Thinkers During and After the Holocaust, Ph.D Dissertation, University of Indiana, Bloomington, 2013. My thanks to Krawcowicz and to Moshe Hellinger of Bar-Ilan University (email to author, 29 May 2014) for their help.

  18. 18.

    Neḥama Leibowitz , Studies in the Book of Genesis in the Context of Ancient and Modern Jewish Bible Commentary, trans. And adapted from the Hebrew by Aryeh Newman (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1972), commentary on Va-yishlach.

  19. 19.

    The December 1957 exchange of letters between the two was published in Aviad Hacohen, “Does Esau hate Jacob” (Hebrew), Meimad (1998): 16–19.

  20. 20.

    Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Kol Dodi Dofek: Listen, My Beloved Knocks (1956), trans. by David Z. Gordon (New York: Ktav, 2006). For additional examples, see: Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), esp. pp. 144–46.

  21. 21.

    Haaretz (7 November 2014).

  22. 22.

    Haaretz (9 February 2015). He was responding to questions of Haaretz browsers.

  23. 23.

    Malachi Hacohen, “‘The Strange Fact That the State of Israel Exists’: The Cold War Liberals Between Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism,” Jewish Social Studies 15:2 (2009): 37–81.

  24. 24.

    An observation all the more remarkable for Steiner’s US upbringing and affirmation of the Jewish Diaspora. “A Kind of Survivor,” in his (1984) George Steiner: A Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 225, 224.

  25. 25.

    Voices of Jacob, Hands of Esau: Jews in American Life and Thought (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1984).

  26. 26.

    Eitan Bar-Yosef, “The Nostalgic Return to Mandatory Palestine in Israeli Culture,” paper at the NC Jewish Studies Seminar, 29 March 2015.

  27. 27.

    In the Shadow of Good People: Short Stories (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Bialik institute).

  28. 28.

    Rabi Binyamin , From Zborov to Kineret (Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv: Devir). Almost two third of the book are devoted to the Galician shtetl Zborov. The early chapters, published already in 1940–42, evoked enthusiastic response among the Hebrew writers’ community (pp. 7–10).

  29. 29.

    Haim Beer , Feathers (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2004).

  30. 30.

    Becker had no memory of the Holocaust years. His father had survived Auschwitz and claimed him after the War, apparently in Sachsenhausen. “Wenn ich auf meine bisheriges zurückblicke, dann muß ich leider sagen”: Jurek Becker 1937–1997: Dokumente zum Leben und Werk ausdem Jurek-Becker-Archiv, ed. by Karin Kiwus (Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 2002), pp. 10–23; Sander Gilman, Jurek Becker: A Life in Five Worlds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 17–21, and ns. 30–31, p. 235.

  31. 31.

    Sander Gilman, Jurek Becker, pp. 60–67.

  32. 32.

    Jurek Becker, Jakob der Lügner (Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1970); idem., Jacob the Liar, trans. by Leila Vennewitz (New York: Arcade Pub., 1996).

  33. 33.

    DEFA Studio für Spielfilme, Gruppe Johannisthal und Fernsehen der DDR; eine Gemeinschaftsproduktion in Zusammenarbeit mit Filmové studio Barrandov; Buch, Jurek Becker; Produktionsleitung, Herbert Ehler; Regie, Frank Beyer, Jakob der Lügner, Video-DVD (Northampton, MA: Icestorm International, 1999).

  34. 34.

    Shai Ginsburg objects: Earlier Polish and Czech Holocaust films, distributed internationally, had already done so. He is right, but they did not have the same impact.

  35. 35.

    Kees de Kort, Bibelbilderbuch (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1984); Peter Fiedler, Das Judentum im katholischen Religionsunterricht (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1980); Ruth Kastning-Olmesdahl, Die Juden und der Tod Jesu: Antijüdische Motive in den evangelischen Religionsbüchern für die Grundschule (Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981); Menschen suchen – Zugänge finden: Auf dem Weg zum einem Religionpädagogik verantworteten Umgang mit dem Bibel. Festschrift für Christine Reents, ed. by Desmond Bel, Heike Lipski-Melchior, Johannes von Lüpke and Birgit Ventur (Wuppertal: Foedus, 1999); Lernen auf Zukunft hin: Einsichten des christlich-jüdischen Gesprächs – 25 Jahre Studium in Israel, ed. by Katja Kriener and Bernd Schröder (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2004).

  36. 36.

    Tel-Aviv: Massada, 1971.

  37. 37.

    Hilda Nissimi points out that similar universalization of biblical topoi has become typical of Israeli culture. Jacob is but one obvious exemplar.

  38. 38.

    Malkah Shaked , I’ll Play You Forever: The Bible in Modern Hebrew Poetry (Hebrew), 2 vols, (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aḥaronot, 2005), 1: 123–24, respectively.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 1: 128.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 1: 127.

  41. 41.

    Ibid., 1: 126, 1: 134–36, respectively.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 1: 124–25: 1: 130–31, respectively.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 1:133.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., 1: 127–28, 1: 133–34, 1: 131–32, respectively. Both Avraham Hus, “Penuel,” 1: 132–33, where Jacob struggles with his own anxieties, and Meron Isaacson’s “Jacob’s Destiny” (1989), 1: 129, in which national and personal fears of war and death converge, are more traditional, but the trend of denationalization is evident.

  45. 45.

    Hebrew. Tel Aviv: Am Oved.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., pp. 179–180.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., p. 1: 137.

  48. 48.

    Ibid., p. 1: 138.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., pp. 1: 138–39.

  50. 50.

    Tanḥuma (ed. Buber), ki-teẓe 4; Naḥmanides on Genesis 35:8.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 1: 137 (Kafri) , 1: 140 (Oppenheimer) , 1: 419 (Senir) .

  52. 52.

    Tel-Aviv: Am Oved. Trans. by Barbara Harshav (New York: Harper Collins Pubs., 1994).

  53. 53.

    Ibid., p. 311.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., p. 106.

  55. 55.

    Yosef Oren, The Writing as a Political Announcement (Hebrew) (Rishon Le-Ẓion: Yaḥad, 1992), pp. 57–82.

  56. 56.

    Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).

  57. 57.

    “Be Thyself” (16 November 2013), Covenant and Conversation.

  58. 58.

    “This Is Ours”, in: A Letter in the Scroll: Understanding Our Jewish Identity and Exploring the Legacy of the World’s Oldest Religion (New York: Free Press, 2000), pp. 204–215; quotation is on p. 207.

  59. 59.

    The traditional Jewish reading of Esau’s blessings (Genesis 27:39) is identical with the King James version “thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above” and not the modern standard version “your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness away from the dew of heaven above.” Sacks needs to override Malachi 1:2 “but Esau I hated” and interprets “hated” as “less loved,” as in Genesis 29:31: “God saw that Leah was hated.” ודו״ק

  60. 60.

    “Chosenness and its Discontents” (10 November 2007), http://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5768-toldot-chosenness-and-its-discontents/, accessed 16 July 2015.

  61. 61.

    loc. cit.

  62. 62.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bguqj7VaZxk, accessed 13 August 2015.

  63. 63.

    Hitvaadoyut (1985–6), 2nd ed. (Brooklyn, NY: Vaad Hanochos, 1990): 3: 62–65.

  64. 64.

    I heard such homilies delivered in Durham NC in 2002–03, using Rashi on Genesis 14:13 and Genesis Rabah 53:10; Deuteronomy Rabah 1:25.

  65. 65.

    Liqute Amarim: Tanya (New York: Qehot Publication Society, 1956), pp. 13b–14a.

  66. 66.

    Liqute Siḥot (collected conversations; Yiddish), 39 vols. (Brooklyn, NY: Qehot, 2001), 20: 108–115.

  67. 67.

    “Israel vs. Edom – Seventh Round” (Hebrew), Haaretz (4 December 2009), http://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/1.1293204, accessed 2 August 2013.

  68. 68.

    “New Covenant” (Hebrew), trans. by Limor Riskin, Maqor Rishon (26 June 2015), http://musaf-shabbat.com/2015/06/26/ברית-חדשה-יצחק-דב-קורן/, accessed 14 August 2015. The article responded to the arson attack on the ancient Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish in Capernaum. For this, and many references to contemporary Israeli discourse on Jacob & Esau, I am indebted to my colleague and friend, Hilda Nissimi, Chair of the General History Department at Bar-Ilan University.

  69. 69.

    Christianity in the Eyes of Judaism: Past, Present and Future (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: AJC, 2013).

  70. 70.

    I have experienced it personally in both the U.S. and Israel.

  71. 71.

    “A Blessing Emerges From Pain: Between Jacob & Esau,” http://www.kipa.co.il/jew/pash/42/46979.html, accessed 20 July 2015.

  72. 72.

    “Contradictions in a Single Womb,” Maqor Rishon, 44 (27 November 2009); idem, “How was the Torah written?” Lecture in Herzog College (published 7 October 2009), http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3786363,00.html, 39:42–53:32, accessed 3 January 2010 and 23 July 2015.

  73. 73.

    Genesis 10:8–10 speaks of Nimrod, the King of Shinar, as “mighty on earth” and “a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Midrash, Targum and medieval commentators cast Nimrod as Abraham’s persecutor (Bereshit Rabba 38:13, 42:4), a rebel against God (Bereshit Rabba 23:7, 37:2–3; Pseudo-Jonathan on 10:8), and an empire builder (Naḥmanides on 10:9 and Radaq on 10:8). They coupled the two hunters, Nimrod and Esau, whether typologically as tricksters (Bereshit Rabba 37:2), or as competitors over Esau’s garments: Bereshit Rabba 63:13 has Nimrod coveting Esau’s garments; Pirqe de-Rabi Eliezer 24 has Esau kill Nimrod and take over his garments. Yiẓḥak (Max) Danziger’s sculpture Nimrod (1939) became the embodiment of the Canaanite vision of a revival of a secular Semitic culture throughout the Middle East. My thanks to Ari Dubnov , Shai Ginsburg and Hilda Nissimi for drawing my attention to Bin Nun and Medan’s unlikely predecessors.

  74. 74.

    “Esau’s Hands – Jacob’s Voice” (Hebrew), Shenaton Amit (1998): 13–20, repr. in: Pirqe Avot (Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2003).

  75. 75.

    Yaacov Medan , “Esau’ Merit,” Daf Qesher 522 (December 2006), http://www.etzion.org.il/he/פרשת-תולדות-זכותו-של-עשו, accessed 16 July 2015. As this article is sent to print, Ari Geiger of Bar-Ilan University has drawn my attention to Medan’s latest pronouncement: “Isaac & Rebecca, Jacob & Esau”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhemCzKWP_4&feature=em-uploademail, accessed 16 October 2016. Medan strives to reconcile rabbinic Esau with his own: He now faults Esau for having left the Land and for marrying Canaanite women. His identity is once again ambiguous: Medan identifies him with both the Settlers’ unruly Hilltop Youth and the non-Jews serving in the IDF. Harnessing his military virtues, exemplified by Judah and King David, is essential to Jewish power, as Jacob’s pacifism will not sustain an Israel extending to the Euphrates and overruling Abraham’s multiple descendants. Innovative and dangerous.

  76. 76.

    “Esau as Brother, Esau as Goy” (Hebrew) 2006, http://www.etzion.org.il/he/פרשת-וישלח-עשו-כאח-עשו-כגוי, accessed 22 July 2015.

  77. 77.

    The Koren Mesorat Harav Kinot (Hebrew & English) (Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, 2011), p. 51. The Qina’s first stanza, “Remember, God, what has happened to us” is based on Eikha 5:1.

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Correspondence to Malachi H. Hacohen .

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Dedication

Joseph Agassi Hacohen, M.H. Agassi, J. came into my life in my thirties, as I was completing my book on Karl Popper. I had known of him before: When conducting research on Popper in my graduate student days in the 1980s, his name was one of the first to come up. My first recollection of him is, however, even earlier, as a boy: About 1970, he appeared on Israeli TV, in a panel debating Animal Farm. He confronted longtime Zionist Soviet sympathizer, Yaakov Riftin Riftin, Y. , and I liked immediately his mischievous style. Popper, Israel and political theory have since become the staple of our ongoing conversations. I am a generation younger than Joseph, but we share biographical affinities: a traditional Jewish upbringing, followed by a Popperian rebellion, and wide-ranging academic interests that defy disciplinary boundaries. Joseph is one of the very few to whom I can send anything I write, and be assured of a discerning reading and critical exchange. I call Joseph ha-Rav Yosef, a pun on the late Israeli Sephardic Chief Rabbi who represented everything Joseph rejects, but also a recognition of Joseph’s authority, and a reminder that our putatively academic dialogue has always been Talmudic in character.

Together, Joseph & I have led an ongoing struggle over the meaning of Jewishness in contemporary life. Some differences, I think, have also emerged. Popper has become Joseph’s lifelong point-of-reference. In his Autobiography, A Philosopher’s Apprentice, Joseph provided an unmatched psychological portrait of Popper and a testimony to his formative influence on his philosophy. For me, Popper has been only a midway station: He is still someone I occasionally think with, but his philosophy is no longer foremost on my mind. Likewise, while Joseph & I both go back to Jewish history in order to contemplate the future, Joseph’s abiding concerns remain the prospects of liberal nationalism and Israel, whereas I endeavor to think beyond them – when Israel ceases. Would Joseph consider this a failure of nerve on my part, or a callous disregard for what is at stake for Jews in the present? I hope not.

In celebration of Joseph’s 90th birthday, I offer an essay on “Jacob & Esau Today.” The essay is the concluding chapter to my forthcoming Jacob & Esau: Nation and Empire in Jewish European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). The rival biblical twins, Jacob & Esau, represent the rabbinic idiom for Jewish-Christian relations as it has emerged from rabbinic interpretations to the biblical story of Genesis. Jacob has been recognized by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the Ancestor of the Jewish people. Through a remarkable chain of events, which the book tells, Esau, whom Genesis designates the Ancestor of Edom, became first Roman and then Christian, and the rabbis directed biblical prophecies on Edom against the Roman Empire and Christianity. The biblical story became a topos for Roman-Jewish and Christian-Jewish relations. Jacob & Esau provided the paradigm of Jews’ relationship to non-Jews: “All that happened to our ancestor Jacob with Esau his brother,” opined the medieval Spanish Jewish biblical commentator, NaḥmanidesNaḥmanides (1194–1270), “will always happen to us with Esau’s descendants.” This paradigm has collapsed in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the State of Israel. The essay is a roundabout explanation to Joseph of why I felt compelled to move as I have on contemporary Judaism and Israel. It is also a tribute, paid with affection and admiration, to the impact Joseph has had on my intellectual universe. !יישר כוח הרב. עד מאה ועשרים

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Hacohen, M.H. (2017). Jacob & Esau Today: The End of a Two Millennia Paradigm?. In: Bar-Am, N., Gattei, S. (eds) Encouraging Openness. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 325. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57669-5_14

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