Valley Beit Midrash

A virtual event presentation by Dr. Paul Franks

Please note event times are listed in PST

ABOUT THE EVENT:

What is kavanah — usually translated as “intention” — in the performance of mitzvot?  What, in particular, is kavanah in Jewish prayer?  Often used but rarely explained, the term will be illuminated by means of the speech act theory of the great Oxford philosopher and architect of the Normandy invasion, J. L. Austin (1911-60), articulated most famously in his 1955 William James Lectures at Harvard, later published as How to Do Things with Words.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Paul Franks is the Robert F. and Patricia Ross Weis Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies, and the Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. Educated at Gateshead Yeshiva, Oxford and Harvard, he has taught at Indiana University, Notre Dame, and Toronto, and has been visiting professor at Chicago, Leuven, and Hebrew University.  He works on post-Kantian philosophy, Jewish philosophy and kabbalah.  Among his publications are Franz Rosenzweig: Philosophical and Theological Writings, and All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism.