On November 28-29, 1997, a conference meeting of UAR was held in Kyiv, in which representatives of 13 regional and 2 city centers took part. A report by the President of the Association was discussed and approved by the prof. A. Kolodny There was a fruitful professional work of Ternopil, Poltava, Sevastopol, Lviv, Sumy, Volyn and Odessa centers. At the same time, it is indicated on passivity in the organization of religious studies of Zhytomyr, Chernigov, Chernivtsi, Mykolayiv, (...) and Kharkiv branches and the loss of ties with the Board of the UAR of Transcarpathian, Donetsk and Vinnytsia cells. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pluralism ConferenceJohn HickIn September 2003 a conference was held at Birmingham University, UK, of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs who all hold the "pluralist" view that no one religion is the one and only true or uniquely salvific faith, but that, in the words of the thirteenth-century Sufi thinker Rumi, "The lamps are different but the Light is the same: it comes from beyond." The conveners (...) were Professors Perry Schmidt-Leukel of Glasgow University, Paul Knitter of Xavier University (Cincinnati), Leonard Swidler of Temple University (Philadelphia), and John Hick of Birmingham University. My own account of the purpose of the conference is that we are academics who are committed and practicing believers within but not official representatives of (in rough order of origin) the Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian (both Catholic and Protestant), Muslim, and Sikh faiths.We are acutely aware that throughout history almost all human conflicts have been validated and intensified by a religious sanction. God has been claimed to be on both sides of every war. This has been possible because each of the great world faiths has either assumed or asserted its own unique superiority as the one and only true faith and path to the highest good—in familiar Christian terms, to salvation. These exclusive claims to absolute truth have exacerbated the division of the human community into rival groups, and have repeatedly been invoked in support of oppression, slavery, conquest, and exploitation.The second half of twentieth century saw both a worldwide development of interreligious dialogue, coinciding with considerable east-to-west migration, and also a strong contrary growth of aggressive fundamentalism in powerful elements within each tradition. But dialogue has led to a much greater mutual knowledge and appreciation between the world faiths, so that it is now possible for leaders of the religious institutions to meet in mutual amity and respect. However they still, for the most part, retain as their bottom line a conviction of the unique centrality and priority of their own tradition. Sharing in this way the same fundamental conviction as their militant fundamentalist elements, they lack any principled ground on which to oppose them.We offer for discussion, as the fruit of our deliberations, a step beyond this unstable situation. We note that the world religions share the basic belief in a higher reality, of limitless importance to us, that transcends the material universe and yet can [End Page 253] be encountered through the depth of our own being. They also share the basic belief that this present life is not the entirety of human existence but part of a much larger life. And they share the central values of love, compassion, and justice within the human community here on earth.We note that the deepest thinkers within each tradition express a profound sense of mystery, insisting that the ultimate reality to which their faith is oriented lies in its fullness beyond the range of our comprehension. We humans can describe it, not as it is in itself, but as great revelatory moments have caused it to be variously conceived and experienced within the different ways of being human that are the great cultures of the world. The religions, then, are different and unique totalities, each with its own founding events, paradigmatic figures, sacred writings, remembered history, spiritual practices, intellectual formulations, distinctive ethos, and institutional forms. We believe that they are different responses to the universal presence of the ineffable ultimate reality.Although individual conversions between the faiths have always occurred, in the vast majority of cases religious believers are born into and are formed by a particular tradition. It therefore fits them and they fit it, so that it is for them the right and true religion. We should therefore each normally stay within our inherited tradition, using its spiritual resources to the fullest. We must also, however, recognize that the same principle holds for the hundreds of millions who have been born into and formed by other traditions. We should see those religions as independently authentic and valid, of equal value with our own, welcoming mutual enrichment from one another's traditions and also allowing for the raising of critical questions about... (shrink)

language="EN"> The eighth annual meeting of the ASSC took place between June 25th and 28th in Antwerp, an extremely beautiful Belgian city, a major European port and the home of the Peter Paul Rubens, 'the prince of painters and painter of princes'. The meeting was held in a University building at the edge of the old town. This part of the city is remarkable both for the elegance of its architecture and for its innumerable short, interlocking, streets (...) with oddly indistinguishable names. The demands on spatial memory were high and some delegates may still be hunting for the conference dinner which took place, magnificently but improbably, in a hotel - the Elzenveld - inside a hospital. (shrink)

The first attempt to bring together the historians of science from the Baltic States took place in Riga in 1958. Prof. Pauls Stradiņš initiated and organised a joint meeting for historians of science from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania under the supervision of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. A program for future joint activities was developed, and the tradition of joint conferences—the Baltic Conference on History of Science —in each country followed. In 1991, the Baltic Association of (...) the History and Philosophy of Science, uniting historians and philosophers of science of independent Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, took over organising the BCHS. The article aims to present an overview of the published results of the conference, which is partly based on the annotated bibliography of the conference. The authors analyse the subject, dissemination and tradition of the BCHS, and discuss the role of academic institutions in organising the events. Since the overview was inspired by a decision to gather a complete set of books of conference abstracts, it also resulted in recommendations for conference organisers. Between 1958 and 2019, twenty-nine conferences were organised and 2,880 papers were presented. The next conference will take place in Finland in 2022. The main ideas of the article were presented at the 26th International Congress on History and Philosophy of Science in Prague in 2021. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Annual Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies:Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 29-30 October 2010Sandra Costen KunzThis past fall the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS) presented two sessions at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Atlanta, Georgia. On Friday afternoon, 29 October, an extremely well-attended and in many ways inspiring session titled "The Scholarly Contributions of Rita M. Gross" was presented. The second (...) panel, titled "Can/Should Buddhists and Christians Do Theology/ Buddhology Together?" was presented on Saturday morning, 30 October. It also drew a considerable crowd.Each of the six members of Friday's panel addressed a different aspect of the work of Rita Gross, longtime SBCS leader and now professor emerita of comparative studies in religion, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She is also a senior teacher (lopon) in Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche's U.S. Lotus Garden center. The session was organized and moderated by current SBCS president Miriam M. Levering, professor of religious studies and Asian studies at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and an international advisor at Rissho Ko-Sekei in Tokyo. I will give highlights from the panelists' presentations in the order in which they spoke.Kathleen Erndl, associate professor of religion at Florida State University, focused on Gross's work as teacher and mentor. Although she taught primarily undergraduates, Gross, in her writing, speaking, and generous conversation with rising scholars, not only moved the field toward taking religious practices and women's religious experience more seriously but also had a huge influence on how "women in religion" is taught. Gross was one of the first scholars to use the term "androcentric." Nancy Auer Falk, professor emerita of comparative religion at Western Michigan University, coedited Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives (1981) with Gross. Now in its third edition, this groundbreaking collection of case studies watered the flowering of cross-cultural studies in the lived religion of women. Falk reminded us of Gross's role in the election of the first female member of the AAR's board and the establishment of its working group on women and religion. Judith Simmer-Brown, professor of religious [End Page 221] studies at Naropa University, focused on Gross's work in Tibetan Buddhist studies, especially her pointing out the discrepancy between the prophetic voices about women's roles in early Buddhist texts and Tibetan monasticism's institutionalized androcentrism. Simmer-Brown emphasized the importance of Gross's work in Buddhist theology—for example, her deconstructing "Theravada/Mahayana/Vajrayana put-downs" and "incipient fundamentalisms" in Western Buddhism.The fourth panelist, Paul F. Knitter, professor of theology, world religions, and culture at Union Theological Seminary, described Gross's contributions to Buddhist-Christian dialogue, recounting that they met at the Society's founding conference in 1980. He said, "Rita is the Christian theologians' friendly gadfly, always asking questions that make us very uncomfortable." Particularly provocative has been her insistence that claims on the part of religious communities to religious superiority or exclusive truth are incompatible with support of religious diversity. SBCS vice president Terry Muck, dean of the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary, spoke about Gross's contributions to the society, noting that she has held every office except treasurer. He and Gross coedited Buddhist-Christian Studies from 1995-2005, in part because the society had decided— after founding editor David Chappell retired—that the ideal would be one male and one female editor and one Buddhist and one Christian editor. He usually handled the work with the publisher while she usually worked with article selection along with the reviewers. Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor emerita at the Pacific School of Religion, reviewed Gross's contributions to feminist scholarship. She reminded us that while still a student at the University of Chicago, Gross crafted a fundamental methodology for studying women and religion and insisted that turning a blind eye to 80 percent of the religious practice in various cultures is simply bad empiricism. Gross has consistently pointed out that colonialism is connected with privileging males and texts, Reuther claimed, and that no one studies religion with "objectivity."Gross's response to these presentations focused on... (shrink)

In October 2022, the International Association of Bioethics announced that the 17th World Congress of Bioethics (WCB) 2024 would be held in Doha, Qatar. The International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (FAB) traditionally holds its World Congress jointly with the WCB. As part of the ongoing debate about the ethics of bioethics conferencing, the FAB provided a detailed statement discussing concerns about choosing Qatar as the site for a feminist bioethics conference. In order to explore possible approaches (...) towards the FABs decision, the German Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics and Bioethics working group (FME) dedicated one of its meetings to the topic. In this commentary, we present two aspects that we consider particularly important for this current debate: (1) the participation of LGBTQIA+ people in the conference and (2) the possibility of racist and anti-Muslim bias in the evaluation of Qatar as the site for the WCB 2024. As members of the FME, we aim to contribute to an exchange of various perspectives within the international feminist bioethics community. (shrink)

The concept of “public participation” is currently one of great interest to researchers and policy makers. In response to a perceived need for greater public involvement in decision making and policy formation processes on the part of both policymakers and the general public, a variety of novel mechanisms have been developed, such as the consensus conference and citizens jury, to complement traditional mechanisms, such as the public meeting. However, the relative effectiveness of the various mechanisms is unclear, (...) as efforts at evaluation have been sparse. In this article, the authors describe an evaluation of a two-day “deliberative conference” on the topic of radiation dose assessment. The authors detail the evaluation framework that they adopt and describe the instruments that they have developed to determine the attainment of the evaluationcriteria stipulated in that framework. They then describe the participation exercise that they have evaluated. Finally, they apply the instruments to assess the effectiveness of the exercise, and discuss the results and their implications for the conduct of evaluations and the use of this particular participation mechanism. (shrink)

This monograph consists of five parts: (1) introductory material including a conference overview; (2) papers presented at an international symposium on the topic of ethical issues in disability and rehabilitation as a section of the Annual Conference of the Society for Disability Studies; (3) responses to the symposium, prepared by four of the participants; (4) selected additional papers which offer views from perspectives or cultures not represented at the Denver conference; and (5) an annotated international bibliography. Representatives (...) from 10 countries discussed ethical issues and decision making in disability and rehabilitation. Conference papers include: "Genetic Engineering--The New Eugenics? Evolving Medical Attitudes towards the Quality of Life" (Hugh Gallagher);"Description of the Decision-Making Project" (Daryl Evans); "Treatment and Nontreatment Decisions with Respect to Extremely Premature, Very Low Birthweight Infants (500-750g)" (Ernle Young); "Allocation of Resources and Distributive Justice" (John Mather); "Quality Assurance as an Aid to Ethical Decision Making in Disability Management: Lessons from Recent Ethical Issues Involving Disadvantaged Groups in New Zealand" (Peter Gow); "Disability and Ethical Issues: A Point of View from the Netherlands" (Yolan Koster-Dreese); "Who Shall Live or How Shall They Live? Consumer and Professional Perspectives on Treatment/Non-Treatment Decisions" (Joseph Kaufert and Patricia Kaufert); and "Debates across Social Movements on Reproductive Technologies, Genetic Engineering, and Eugenics" (Theresia Degener). Conference commentaries include: "The Meeting of Disability and Bioethics: A Beginning Rapprochement" (Adrienne Asch); "A Plea for More Dialogue: Commentary on Ethics Conference" (Robert Slater); "Healing Our Wounds" (Martha Lentz Walker); "Theories and Values: Ethics and Contrasting Perspectives on Disability" (Harlan Hahn); and "Current Example of Ethical Dilemma" (Susan Lacetti). Selected additional papers include: "High-tech Medicine Is Basic Care" (Frederick Abrams); "Prevention of Disabilities as a Medical Question" (G. Schioler); "The Ethics of Disability Prevention: A Parent's Point of View" (Mrs. J. Baker); "A Reference Matrix for Issues of Life and Personhood" (Mike Miles); "Nazi Scientists and Ethics of Today" (Isabel Wilkerson); "Ethical and Policy Issues in Rehabilitation Medicine (Hastings Center Report)" (Arthur Caplan et al.); and "Differing Approaches to Prevention of Disability and Treatment of Impaired Infants Creates Controversies Worldwide" (Barbara Duncan). (JDD). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Honoring, Listening, and Fostering Peace through Friendship:SBCS Annual Meeting November 17–18, 2023, San AntonioSandra Costen KunzThe Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies (SBCS) held its annual meeting the weekend before Thanksgiving in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) as one of its "related scholarly organizations." Three important decisions that the board of directors made are:1. the approval of a new publication agreement (...) with the University of Hawai'i Press (UHP) that journal co-editors Thomas Cattoi and Kristin Largen and treasurer John Sheveland spent many hours working out with UHP's staff,2. the creation of a new standing committee: Oral History and Archives. It will record long-time members's memories of their involvement with society and collect photos and documents pertinent to the society's history,3. the decision to hold an online board meeting before AAR's annual meeting to complete as much routine annual business as possible so that our once-a-year, face-to-face time together can be devoted to more in-depth planning and problem-solving and spending more time listening to, and learning from, each other.Three other highlights of this year's meeting were: (i) honoring long-time interreligious peacemaker Thich Nhat Hahn at our Saturday morning session, (ii) listening to Won Buddhists describe their interreligious peacemaking practices at our Saturday afternoon session, and (iii) committing ourselves as a board to be more faithful in following the practices of the founders of the society by setting aside more time to foster interreligious peace not only through careful scholarship but also through caring friendships.In its early decades, the society spent much of its time and income hosting multiday international conferences that provided much more time for developing friendships and learning from each other than our board meetings and paper sessions at AAR have provided. We have sometimes planned field trips to local temples or churches or dinners at restaurants, but these "extra programs" were always an ad hoc add-on. This year, the board committed itself to reviving the friendship-building and learning-from-each-other priorities of our predecessors in the society and to discerning how to embody them in SBCS programming. [End Page 219]Since I see this year's meeting as something of a watershed moment for the society, I've devoted more pages to this annual meeting article than usual to share more fully with our members and other readers of Buddhist-Christian Studies the work that we did and the possibilities that we discussed.friday board of directors meetingPresident's Opening RemarksPresident Mark Unno called the meeting to order with these words: "The main thing I want to say is: 'Thank you to all our board members for an amazing year!'" Noting how many AAR-related societies struggled through the digital transition and then the pandemic, he expressed gratitude that the SBCS sustained robust activity through the heavy lifting by many board members.After welcoming at-large members Gloria Chien from Gonzago University and Trent Pomplum from Notre Dame to their first in-person board meeting, Mark relayed at-large board member Victor Gabriel's regrets for being unable to attend. After each person had updated everyone with whatever seemed most pertinent, we moved to the international advisors's, officers's, and committees's reports.International Advisor ReportsElizabeth Harris from the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies began by announcing that the papers from their 2022 conference, "Euro-Buddhism and the Role of Christianity," will be published in 2024 by EOS Verlag. Our journal coeditor, Thomas Cattoi, contributed. Their next conference, titled "A Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on the Body," will be at St. Otillien Benedictine Abbey in Bavaria on June 27–July 1, 2024. She reminded us that they issue an open call for papers that supplement their invited keynote addresses, in part to help scholars get travel funding. The network's conference in 2026 will be held at the Protestant Academy for Mission Studies (EMW) at the University of Hamburg to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the network's founding there by Rev. Gerhard Köberlin.She noted that, in the UK... (shrink)

Table of contentsI1 Proceedings of the 4th World Conference on Research IntegrityConcurrent Sessions:1. Countries' systems and policies to foster research integrityCS01.1 Second time around: Implementing and embedding a review of responsible conduct of research policy and practice in an Australian research-intensive universitySusan Patricia O'BrienCS01.2 Measures to promote research integrity in a university: the case of an Asian universityDanny Chan, Frederick Leung2. Examples of research integrity education programmes in different countriesCS02.1 Development of a state-run “cyber education program of research ethics” (...) in KoreaEun Jung Ko, Jin Sun Kwak, TaeHwan Gwon, Ji Min Lee, Min-Ho LeeCS02.3 Responsible conduct of research teachers’ training courses in Germany: keeping on drilling through hard boards for more RCR teachersHelga Nolte, Michael Gommel, Gerlinde Sponholz3. The research environment and policies to encourage research integrityCS03.1 Challenges and best practices in research integrity: bridging the gap between policy and practiceYordanka Krastev, Yamini Sandiran, Julia Connell, Nicky SolomonCS03.2 The Slovenian initiative for better research: from national activities to global reflectionsUrsa Opara Krasovec, Renata SribarCS03.3 Organizational climate assessments to support research integrity: background of the Survey of Organizational Research Climate and the experience with its use at Michigan State UniversityBrian C. Martinson, Carol R. Thrush, C.K. Gunsalus4. Expressions of concern and retractionsCS04.1 Proposed guidelines for retraction notices and their disseminationIvan Oransky, Adam MarcusCS04.2 Watching retractions: analysis of process and practice, with data from the Wiley retraction archivesChris Graf, Verity Warne, Edward Wates, Sue JoshuaCS04.3 An exploratory content analysis of Expressions of ConcernMiguel RoigCS04.4 An ethics researcher in the retraction processMichael Mumford5. Funders' role in fostering research integrityCS05.1 The Fonds de Recherche du Québec’s institutional rules on the responsible conduct of research: introspection in the funding agency activitiesMylène Deschênes, Catherine Olivier, Raphaëlle Dupras-LeducCS05.2 U.S. Public Health Service funds in an international setting: research integrity and complianceZoë Hammatt, Raju Tamot, Robin Parker, Cynthia Ricard, Loc Nguyen-Khoa, Sandra TitusCS05.3 Analyzing decision making of funders of public research as a case of information asymmetryKarsten Klint JensenCS05.4 Research integrity management: Empirical investigation of academia versus industrySimon Godecharle, Ben Nemery, Kris Dierickx5A: Education: For whom, how, and what?CS05A.1 Research integrity or responsible conduct of research? What do we aim for?Mickey Gjerris, Maud Marion Laird Eriksen, Jeppe Berggren HoejCS05A.2 Teaching and learning about RCR at the same time: a report on Epigeum’s RCR poll questions and other assessment activitiesNicholas H. SteneckCS05A.4 Minding the gap in research ethics education: strategies to assess and improve research competencies in community health workers/promoteresCamille Nebeker, Michael Kalichman, Elizabeth Mejia Booen, Blanca Azucena Pacheco, Rebeca Espinosa Giacinto, Sheila Castaneda6. Country examples of research reward systems and integrityCS06.1 Improving systems to promote responsible research in the Chinese Academy of SciencesDing Li, Qiong Chen, Guoli Zhu, Zhonghe SunCS06.4 Exploring the perception of research integrity amongst public health researchers in IndiaParthasarathi Ganguly, Barna Ganguly7. Education and guidance on research integrity: country differencesCS07.1 From integrity to unity: how research integrity guidance differs across universities in Europe.Noémie Aubert Bonn, Kris Dierickx, Simon GodecharleCS07.2 Can education and training develop research integrity? The spirit of the UNESCO 1974 recommendation and its updatingDaniele Bourcier, Jacques Bordé, Michèle LeducCS07.3 The education and implementation mechanisms of research ethics in Taiwan's higher education: an experience in Chinese web-based curriculum development for responsible conduct of researchChien Chou, Sophia Jui-An PanCS07.4 Educating principal investigators in Swiss research institutions: present and future perspectivesLouis Xaver Tiefenauer8. Measuring and rewarding research productivityCS08.1 Altimpact: how research integrity underpins research impactDaniel Barr, Paul TaylorCS08.2 Publication incentives: just reward or misdirection of funds?Lyn Margaret HornCS08.3 Why Socrates never charged a fee: factors contributing to challenges for research integrity and publication ethicsDeborah Poff9. Plagiarism and falsification: Behaviour and detectionCS09.1 Personality traits predict attitude towards plagiarism of self and others in biomedicine: plagiarism, yes we can?Martina Mavrinac, Gordana Brumini, Mladen PetrovečkiCS09.2 Investigating the concept of and attitudes toward plagiarism for science teachers in Brazil: any challenges for research integrity and policy?Christiane Coelho Santos, Sonia VasconcelosCS09.3 What have we learnt?: The CrossCheck Service from CrossRefRachael LammeyCS09.4 High p-values as a sign of data fabrication/falsificationChris Hartgerink, Marcel van Assen, Jelte Wicherts10. Codes for research integrity and collaborationsCS10.1 Research integrity in cross-border cooperation: a Nordic exampleHanne Silje HaugeCS10.3 Research integrity, research misconduct, and the National Science Foundation's requirement for the responsible conduct of researchAaron MankaCS10.4 A code of conduct for international scientific cooperation: human rights and research integrity in scientific collaborations with international academic and industry partnersRaffael Iturrizaga11. Countries' efforts to establish mentoring and networksCS11.1 ENRIO : a network facilitating common approaches on research integrity in EuropeNicole FoegerCS11.2 Helping junior investigators develop in a resource-limited country: a mentoring program in PeruA. Roxana Lescano, Claudio Lanata, Gissella Vasquez, Leguia Mariana, Marita Silva, Mathew Kasper, Claudia Montero, Daniel Bausch, Andres G LescanoCS11.3 Netherlands Research Integrity Network: the first six monthsFenneke Blom, Lex BouterCS11.4 A South African framework for research ethics and integrity for researchers, postgraduate students, research managers and administratorsLaetus OK Lategan12. Training and education in research integrity at an early career stageCS12.1 Research integrity in curricula for medical studentsGustavo Fitas ManaiaCS12.2 Team-based learning for training in the responsible conduct of research supports ethical decision-makingWayne T. McCormack, William L. Allen, Shane Connelly, Joshua Crites, Jeffrey Engler, Victoria Freedman, Cynthia W. Garvan, Paul Haidet, Joel Hockensmith, William McElroy, Erik Sander, Rebecca Volpe, Michael F. VerderameCS12.4 Research integrity and career prospects of junior researchersSnezana Krstic13. Systems and research environments in institutionsCS13.1 Implementing systems in research institutions to improve quality and reduce riskLouise HandyCS13.2 Creating an institutional environment that supports research integrityDebra Schaller-DemersCS13.3 Ethics and Integrity Development Grants: a mechanism to foster cultures of ethics and integrityPaul Taylor, Daniel BarrCS13.4 A culture of integrity at KU LeuvenInge Lerouge, Gerard Cielen, Liliane Schoofs14. Peer review and its role in research integrityCS14.1 Peer review research across disciplines: transdomain action in the European Cooperation in Science and Technology “New Frontiers of Peer Review ”Ana Marusic, Flaminio SquazzoniCS14.2 Using blinding to reduce bias in peer reviewDavid VauxCS14.3 How to intensify the role of reviewers to promote research integrityKhalid Al-Wazzan, Ibrahim AlorainyCS14.4 Credit where credit’s due: professionalizing and rewarding the role of peer reviewerChris Graf, Verity Warne15. Research ethics and oversight for research integrity: Does it work?CS15.1 The psychology of decision-making in research ethics governance structures: a theory of bounded rationalityNolan O'Brien, Suzanne Guerin, Philip DoddCS15.2 Investigator irregularities: iniquity, ignorance or incompetence?Frank Wells, Catherine BlewettCS15.3 Academic plagiarismFredric M. Litto16. Research integrity in EuropeCS16.1 Whose responsibility is it anyway?: A comparative analysis of core concepts and practice at European research-intensive universities to identify and develop good practices in research integrityItziar De Lecuona, Erika Löfstrom, Katrien MaesCS16.2 Research integrity guidance in European research universitiesKris Dierickx, Noémie Bonn, Simon GodecharleCS16.3 Research Integrity: processes and initiatives in Science Europe member organisationsTony Peatfield, Olivier Boehme, Science Europe Working Group on Research IntegrityCS16.4 Promoting research integrity in Italy: the experience of the Research Ethics and Bioethics Advisory Committee of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Cinzia Caporale, Daniele Fanelli17. Training programs for research integrity at different levels of experience and seniorityCS17.1 Meaningful ways to incorporate research integrity and the responsible conduct of research into undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral and faculty training programsJohn Carfora, Eric Strauss, William LynnCS17.2 "Recognize, respond, champion": Developing a one-day interactive workshop to increase confidence in research integrity issuesDieter De Bruyn, Bracke Nele, Katrien De Gelder, Stefanie Van der BurghtCS17.4 “Train the trainer” on cultural challenges imposed by international research integrity conversations: lessons from a projectJosé Roberto Lapa e Silva, Sonia M. R. Vasconcelos18. Research and societal responsibilityCS18.1 Promoting the societal responsibility of research as an integral part of research integrityHelene IngierdCS18.2 Social responsibility as an ethical imperative for scientists: research, education and service to societyMark FrankelCS18.3 The intertwined nature of social responsibility and hope in scienceDaniel Vasgird, Stephanie BirdCS18.4 Common barriers that impede our ability to create a culture of trustworthiness in the research communityMark Yarborough19. Publication ethicsCS19.1 The authors' forum: A proposed tool to improve practices of journal editors and promote a responsible research environmentIbrahim Alorainy, Khalid Al-WazzanCS19.2 Quantifying research integrity and its impact with text analyticsHarold GarnerCS19.3 A closer look at authorship and publication ethics of multi- and interdisciplinary teamsLisa Campo-Engelstein, Zubin Master, Elise Smith, David Resnik, Bryn Williams-JonesCS19.4 Invisibility of duplicate publications in biomedicineMario Malicki, Ana Utrobicic, Ana Marusic20. The causes of bad and wasteful research: What can we do?CS20.1 From countries to individuals: unravelling the causes of bias and misconduct with multilevel meta-meta-analysisDaniele Fanelli, John PA IoannidisCS20.2 Reducing research waste by integrating systems of oversight and regulationGerben ter Riet, Tom Walley, Lex Marius BouterCS20.3 What are the determinants of selective reporting?: The example of palliative care for non-cancer conditionsJenny van der Steen, Lex BouterCS20.4 Perceptions of plagiarism, self-plagiarism and redundancy in research: preliminary results from a national survey of Brazilian PhDsSonia Vasconcelos, Martha Sorenson, Francisco Prosdocimi, Hatisaburo Masuda, Edson Watanabe, José Carlos Pinto, Marisa Palácios, José Lapa e Silva, Jacqueline Leta, Adalberto Vieyra, André Pinto, Mauricio Sant’Ana, Rosemary Shinkai21. Are there country-specific elements of misconduct?CS21.1 The battle with plagiarism in Russian science: latest developmentsBoris YudinCS21.2 Researchers between ethics and misconduct: A French survey on social representations of misconduct and ethical standards within the scientific communityEtienne Vergès, Anne-Sophie Brun-Wauthier, Géraldine VialCS21.3 Experience from different ways of dealing with research misconduct and promoting research integrity in some Nordic countriesTorkild VintherCS21.4 Are there specifics in German research misconduct and the ways to cope with it?Volker Bähr, Charité22. Research integrity teaching programmes and their challengesCS22.1 Faculty mentors and research integrityMichael Kalichman, Dena PlemmonsCS22.2 Training the next generation of scientists to use principles of research quality assurance to improve data integrity and reliabilityRebecca Lynn Davies, Katrina LaubeCS22.3 Fostering research integrity in a culturally-diverse environmentCynthia Scheopner, John GallandCS22.4 Towards a standard retraction formHervé Maisonneuve, Evelyne Decullier23. Commercial research and integrityCS23.1 The will to commercialize: matters of concern in the cultural economy of return-on-investment researchBrian NobleCS23.2 Quality in drug discovery data reporting: a mission impossible?Anja Gilis, David J. Gallacher, Tom Lavrijssen, Malwitz David, Malini Dasgupta, Hans MolsCS23.3 Instituting a research integrity policy in the context of semi-private-sector funding: an example in the field of occupational health and safetyPaul-Emile Boileau24. The interface of publication ethics and institutional policiesCS24.1 The open access ethical paradox in an open government effortTony SavardCS24.2 How journals and institutions can work together to promote responsible conductEric MahCS24.3 Improving cooperation between journals and research institutions in research integrity casesElizabeth Wager, Sabine Kleinert25. Reproducibility of research and retractionsCS25.1 Promoting transparency in publications to reduce irreproducibilityVeronique Kiermer, Andrew Hufton, Melanie ClyneCS25.2 Retraction notices issued for publications by Latin American authors: what lessons can we learn?Sonia Vasconcelos, Renan Moritz Almeida, Aldo Fontes-Pereira, Fernanda Catelani, Karina RochaCS25.3 A preliminary report of the findings from the Reproducibility Project: Cancer biologyElizabeth Iorns, William Gunn26. Research integrity and specific country initiativesCS26.1 Promoting research integrity at CNRS, FranceMichèle Leduc, Lucienne LetellierCS26.2 In pursuit of compliance: is the tail wagging the dog?Cornelia MalherbeCS26.3 Newly established research integrity policies and practices: oversight systems of Japanese research universitiesTakehito Kamata27. Responsible conduct of research and country guidelinesCS27.1 Incentives or guidelines? Promoting responsible research communication through economic incentives or ethical guidelines?Vidar EnebakkCS27.3 Responsible conduct of research: a view from CanadaLynn PenrodCS27.4 The Danish Code of Conduct for Research Integrity: a national initiative to promote research integrity in DenmarkThomas Nørgaard, Charlotte Elverdam28. Behaviour, trust and honestyCS28.1 The reasons behind non-ethical behaviour in academiaYves FassinCS28.2 The psychological profile of the dishonest scholarCynthia FekkenCS28.3 Considering the implications of Dan Ariely’s keynote speech at the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity in MontréalJamal Adam, Melissa S. AndersonCS28.4 Two large surveys on psychologists’ views on peer review and replicationJelte WichertsBrett Buttliere29. Reporting and publication bias and how to overcome itCS29.1 Data sharing: Experience at two open-access general medical journalsTrish GrovesCS29.2 Overcoming publication bias and selective reporting: completing the published recordDaniel ShanahanCS29.3 The EQUATOR Network: promoting responsible reporting of health research studiesIveta Simera, Shona Kirtley, Eleana Villanueva, Caroline Struthers, Angela MacCarthy, Douglas Altman30. The research environment and its implications for integrityCS30.1 Ranking of scientists: the Russian experienceElena GrebenshchikovaCS30.4 From cradle to grave: research integrity, research misconduct and cultural shiftsBronwyn Greene, Ted RohrPARTNER SYMPOSIAPartner Symposium AOrganized by EQUATOR Network, Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health ResearchP1 Can we trust the medical research literature?: Poor reporting and its consequencesIveta SimeraP2 What can BioMed Central do to improve published research?Daniel Shanahan, Stephanie HarrimanP3 What can a "traditional" journal do to improve published research?Trish GrovesP4 Promoting good reporting practice for reliable and usable research papers: EQUATOR Network, reporting guidelines and other initiativesCaroline StruthersPartner Symposium COrganized by ENRIO, the European Network of Research Integrity OfficersP5 Transparency and independence in research integrity investigations in EuropeKrista Varantola, Helga Nolte, Ursa Opara, Torkild Vinther, Elizabeth Wager, Thomas NørgaardPartner Symposium DOrganized by IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersRe-educating our author community: IEEE's approach to bibliometric manipulation, plagiarism, and other inappropriate practicesP6 Dealing with plagiarism in the connected world: An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers perspectiveJon RokneP7 Should evaluation of raises, promotion, and research proposals be tied to bibliometric indictors? What the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is doing to answer this questionGianluca SettiP8 Recommended practices to ensure conference content qualityGordon MacPhersonPartner Symposium EOrganized by the Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the Conduct of Science of ICSU, the International Council for ScienceResearch assessment and quality in science: perspectives from international science and policy organisationsP9 Challenges for science and the problems of assessing researchEllen HazelkornP10 Research assessment and science policy developmentCarthage SmithP11 Research integrity in South Africa: the value of procedures and processes to global positioningRobert H. McLaughlinP12 Rewards, careers and integrity: perspectives of young scientists from around the worldTatiana Duque MartinsPartner Symposium FOrganized by the Online Resource Center for Ethics Education in Engineering and Science / Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society of the National Academy of EngineeringP13 Research misconduct: conceptions and policy solutionsTetsuya Tanimoto, Nicholas Steneck, Daniele Fanelli, Ragnvald Kalleberg, Tajammul HusseinPartner Symposium HOrganized by ORI, the Office of Research Integrity; Universitas 21; and the Asia Pacific Research Integrity NetworkP14 International integrity networks: working together to ensure research integrityPing Sun, Ovid Tzeng, Krista Varantola, Susan ZimmermanPartner Symposium IOrganized by COPE, the Committee on Publication EthicsPublication without borders: Ethical challenges in a globalized worldP15 Authorship: credit and responsibility, including issues in large and interdisciplinary studiesRosemary ShinkaiPartner Symposium JOrganized by CITI, the Cooperative Institutional Training InitiativeExperiences on research integrity educational programs in Colombia, Costa Rica and PeruP16 Experiences in PeruRoxana LescanoP17 Experiences in Costa RicaElizabeth HeitmanP18 Experiences in ColumbiaMaria Andrea Rocio del Pilar Contreras NietoPoster Session B: Education, training, promotion and policyPT.01 The missing role of journal editors in promoting responsible researchIbrahim Alorainy, Khalid Al-WazzanPT.02 Honorary authorship in Taiwan: why and who should be in charge?Chien Chou, Sophia Jui-An PanPT.03 Authorship and citation manipulation in academic researchEric Fong, Al WilhitePT.04 Open peer review of research submission at medical journals: experience at BMJ Open and The BMJTrish GrovesPT.05 Exercising authorship: claiming rewards, practicing integrityDésirée Motta-RothPT.07 Medical scientists' views on publication culture: a focus group studyJoeri Tijdink, Yvo SmuldersPoster Session B: Education, training, promotion and policyPT.09 Ethical challenges in post-graduate supervisionLaetus OK LateganPT.10 The effects of viable ethics instruction on international studentsMichael Mumford, Logan Steele, Logan Watts, James Johnson, Shane Connelly, Lee WilliamsPT.11 Does language reflect the quality of research?Gerben ter Riet, Sufia Amini, Lotty Hooft, Halil KilicogluPT.12 Integrity complaints as a strategic tool in policy decision conflictsJanneke van Seters, Herman Eijsackers, Fons Voragen, Akke van der Zijpp and Frans BromPoster Session C: Ethics and integrity intersectionsPT.14 Regulations of informed consent: university-supported research processes and pitfalls in implementationBadaruddin Abbasi, Naif Nasser AlmasoudPT.15 A review of equipoise as a requirement in clinical trialsAdri LabuschagnePT.16 The Research Ethics Library: online resource for research ethics educationJohanne Severinsen, Espen EnghPT.17 Research integrity: the view from King Abdulaziz City for Science and TechnologyDaham Ismail AlaniPT. 18 Meeting global challenges in high-impact publications and research integrity: the case of the Malaysian Palm Oil BoardHJ. Kamaruzaman JusoffPT.19 University faculty perceptions of research practices and misconductAnita Gordon, Helen C. HartonPoster Session D: International perspectivesPT.21 The Commission for Scientific Integrity as a response to research fraudDieter De Bruyn, Stefanie Van der BurghtPT. 22 Are notions of the responsible conduct of research associated with compliance with requirements for research on humans in different disciplinary traditions in Brazil?Karina de Albuquerque Rocha, Sonia Maria Ramos de VasconcelosPT.23 Creating an environment that promotes research integrity: an institutional model of Malawi Liverpool Welcome TrustLimbanazo MatandikaPT.24 How do science policies in Brazil influence user-engaged ecological research?Aline Carolina de Oliveira Machado Prata, Mark William NeffPoster Session E: Perspectives on misconductPT.26 What “causes” scientific misconduct?: Testing major hypotheses by comparing corrected and retracted papersDaniele Fanelli, Rodrigo Costas, Vincent LarivièrePT.27 Perception of academic plagiarism among dentistry studentsDouglas Leonardo Gomes Filho, Diego Oliveira GuedesPT. 28 a few bad apples?: Prevalence, patterns and attitudes towards scientific misconduct among doctoral students at a German university hospitalVolker Bähr, Niklas Keller, Markus Feufel, Nikolas OffenhauserPT. 29 Analysis of retraction notices published by BioMed CentralMaria K. Kowalczuk, Elizabeth C. MoylanPT.31 "He did it" doesn't work: data security, incidents and partnersKatie SpeanburgPoster Session F: Views from the disciplinesPT.32 Robust procedures: a key to generating quality results in drug discoveryMalini Dasgupta, Mariusz Lubomirski, Tom Lavrijssen, David Malwitz, David Gallacher, Anja GillisPT.33 Health promotion: criteria for the design and the integrity of a research projectMaria Betânia de Freitas Marques, Laressa Lima Amâncio, Raphaela Dias Fernandes, Oliveira Patrocínio, and Cláudia Maria Correia Borges RechPT.34 Integrity of academic work from the perspective of students graduating in pharmacy: a brief research studyMaria Betânia de Freitas Marques, Cláudia Maria Correia Borges Rech, Adriana Nascimento SousaPT.35 Research integrity promotion in the Epidemiology and Health Services, the journal of the Brazilian Unified Health SystemLeila Posenato GarciaPT.36 When are clinical trials registered? An analysis of prospective versus retrospective registration of clinical trials published in the BioMed Central series, UKStephanie Harriman, Jigisha PatelPT.37 Maximizing welfare while promoting innovation in drug developmentFarida LadaOther posters that will be displayed but not presented orally:PT.38 Geoethics and the debate on research integrity in geosciencesGiuseppe Di Capua, Silvia PeppoloniPT.39 Introducing the Professionalism and Integrity in Research Program James M. DuBois, John Chibnall, Jillon Van der WallPT.40 Validation of the professional decision-making in research measureJames M. DuBois, John Chibnall, Jillon Van der Wall, Raymond TaitPT.41 General guidelines for research ethicsJacob HolenPT. 42 A national forum for research ethicsAdele Flakke Johannessen, Torunn EllefsenPT.43 Evaluation of integrity in coursework: an approach from the perspective of the higher education professorClaudia Rech, Adriana Sousa, Maria Betânia de Freitas MarquesPT.44 Principles of geoethics and research integrity applied to the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and Water Column Observatory, a large-scale European environmental research infrastructureSilvia Peppoloni, Giuseppe Di Capua, Laura BeranzoliF1 Focus track on improving research systems: the role of fundersPaulo S.L. Beirão, Susan ZimmermanF2 Focus track on improving research systems: the role of countriesSabine Kleinert, Ana MarusicF3 Focus track on improving research systems: the role of institutionsMelissa S. Anderson, Lex Bouter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter:Twenty Years of DialogueRita M. GrossIn a world riddled by conflict, religions must take a large part of the responsibility for initiating and perpetuating these conflicts, which often include disagreements about whose political system is favored by the deity or to whom the deity gave land. The slogan "No peace on earth until there is peace among religions" is more than true.No wonder some (...) religious leaders consider interreligious understanding and dialogue to be urgent. Debate and proselytization cannot be the major modes of interreligious interaction when so much is at stake. Rather, conversations that actually promote mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance are mandatory in a religiously plural world. Such dialogue and interchange has taken many forms over the years: large conferences, meetings of world-renowned religious leaders, study groups in the basements and classrooms of religious institutions, university classes, friends meeting over coffee for discussion, scholarly presentations, and deliberately organized dialogues between representatives of various religious.For twenty years, the International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter was one such dialogue, and this dialogue was unique in many ways. The group of people in dialogue was very small, always about thirty members evenly divided between Buddhists and Christians, and it was always a highly select group whose members were invited to join after deliberations among the group's leadership. Very few such groups have had the good fortune to meet regularly over so many years. This combination of a small, highly qualified group of dialoguers and the ability to meet often and regularly fostered a uniquely in-depth conversation characterized by candor and trust.Over the years, the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies has recorded many of the deliberations of the International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter, known informally as the Cobb-Abe group. In this issue, we publish comments from the final meetings of that group, the final installment of an ongoing record kept by this [End Page 3] journal. (There are rumors that the group might eventually be reconstituted, but, for now, an era in Buddhist-Christian dialogue has ended.)As can be ascertained from its informal name, this group owes much to the leadership and initiative of John Cobb and Masao Abe. These two friends, both concerned about what Buddhism and Christianity might learn from each other, wanted to establish an ongoing meeting of a small group of Buddhist and Christian thinkers who could come together with an agenda of only honest interchange. Members of each "team" needed to be firmly committed to their own tradition and expertly knowledgeable about it, but knowledge of the other tradition was not required in any way—only willingness to be in open conversation without agenda. Members of the group did not do cross-tradition representation; scholars of Buddhism who found their spiritual home in Christianity were not members of the group, and vice versa. For the most part, members of the group were "scholar-practitioners"; over the long term, those who were religious leaders without academic training did not find the group meaningful or become core members of the group.The agenda of open listening and honest interchange was not simply an academic exercise. John Cobb and Masao Abe both hoped that in-depth, ongoing interchange, without pressure to agree or disagree in obvious ways, to find points of similarity and difference, would lead to significant mutual influence between the two traditions. Both claimed that the goal of dialogue could not be to convince others to change their point of view, but to modify one's own outlook based on learning from one's dialogue partner, a process John Cobb called "mutual transformation through dialogue."1 Based on the conviction that one's own religious tradition might not possess all the truth and wisdom in the world and could actually be improved by listening and dialogue, this claim that the purpose of interreligious interchange is mainly listening, understanding, and possible (mutual) self-transformation, runs counter to many peoples' assumptions about the purposes of conversations with people of other faiths. On the other hand, a rush to change was not encouraged either. The recommended method did not involve deliberate syncretism but an organic process of deep... (shrink)

In the texts that presented the theoretical assumptions of the Parc de La Villette, Bernard Tschumi used a large number of terms that contradicted not only the traditional principles of composing architecture, but also negated the rules of social order and the foundations of Western metaphysics. Tschumi’s statements, which are a continuation of his leftist political fascinations from the May 1968 revolution, as well as his interest in the philosophy of French poststructuralism and his collaboration with Jacques Derrida, prove that (...) terms such as disruption, dissociation, disfunction, disjunctions and dispersion not only referred to architectural problems but also applied to political criticism and the deepest foundations of thinking itself. His collaboration with Derrida manifested itself primarily in the publication La Case Vide: La Villette, 1985, in which the architect’s design drawings and texts explaining his concepts related to the Park de La Villette were accompanied by an extensive essay by Derrida, which included theoretical problems taken up by Tschumi in a philosophical context. Architectural and philosophical issues were also combined during seven discussion meetings organised by Peter Eisenman, invited by Tschumi to collaborate on the design of the Parc de La Villette. Eisenman, who, like Tschumi, invited Derrida to participate in the design of the park and also led to the publication of Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, in which his ideas were confronted with Derrida’s philosophical text. In this case, Derrida’s essay was not a direct commentary on the architect’s concepts, but rather a reflection on the question of the chôra presented by Plato in Timaeus. During the discussion and in his essay, Derrida pointed out that the chôra is a component of the created world, yet it does not belong to it, but precedes it. The originality of the chôra is so radical that she also precedes all the factors of creating the world, including ideas and the Demiurge. Thus a thesis appeared in the metaphysics of the West that the chôra is a form of active abyss, in relation to which all beings are secondary, both those perfect (as ideas or God) and those created, such as the world, things, people or language. This leads to the conclusion that the chôra does not exist, because all existence is a derivative of the chôra. Nor could the chôra be described, since it is a form of developing a space that is preceded by a lack of space characteristic of the chôra. Derrida intended the chôra to be an instance with an exceptional degree of transcendentalism, an anti-metaphysical instance, but also an a-theological one. However, this attempt failed, both in the field of secular philosophy and in the field of theology. Derrida’s characteristics of the chôra to strengthen its transcendentalism and negation of metaphysics had to be expressed in a language that immediately produces new concepts and a new metaphysics that reproduces the categories of the beginning, the origin or the foundation known from earlier philosophical traditions. All forms of criticism of metaphysics are also inspired by negative, apophatic and mystical theology. The undermining of many concepts of permanent meaning and the introduction of new concepts of unstable meaning, characteristic of the philosophy of deconstruction, had many features of originality, but it was directed towards problems whose solutions repeat, with the use of new vocabulary, the findings known in culture since Democritus. Thus, if apophatic philosophy can be regarded as deconstruction avant la lettre, then deconstruction itself in its late versions began to take on the features of a new religion. The exchange of inspiration between theology and deconstruction was manifested in a series of scientific conferences and publications in which Derrida’s philosophical concepts were interpreted within the scope of religious thought. Theological threads began to be found in such concepts of deconstruction as différance or the chôra, while at the same time Derrida himself undertook in his philosophy to study problems such as the Other (L’Autre) or Impossible (Impossible), which belonged to newer theological traditions. As a consequence of the new problems, the deconstruction became closer to the features of a new religion. Philosophy, at least from Kant’s time, has tried to create a system that would take over from religion the tasks of setting moral and political goals. Similarly, Derrida has directed his interest towards the problems of democracy and ethics, which would enable their renewal. Attempts to create a new religion (cleared of old metaphors), a new community or a new democracy bring problems and threats which may be no less troublesome than the previous systems. All promises of freedom carry with them threats, the greater the more they strive for perfection. The renewal of existential orders, sometimes carried out by means of violent changes, is a certain repetitive feature of human cultures. Deep changes, however, do not protect against the return of both old gods and old demons. Tschumi and Derrida were shaped in their youth by the atmosphere of leftist rebellion against the moral and political limitations of ossified communities and the imperfections of democracy. The ethical theme distinguishes many of their works, including the Parc de La Villette. The opposition to the metaphysical traditions of philosophy and architecture contained in this park was prompted by specific political situations and resulted from bringing political issues to the level of philosophical considerations. Achievements made at the level of pure concepts were then subject to elevation, to a kind of sacralization, which made them religious concepts. The deconstruction reached for the stratus of the new religion especially when it found its followers and began to generate moral obligations. In the new situation, terms such as the chôra, l’autre or the Impossible were absolutized and in relation to them a cult and attitude of adoration emerged. The Parc de La Villtette then gained new post-secular meanings, which allow it to be assigned the function of a Temple of Otherness (L’Autre) and Impossible. (shrink)

This two-part article is a sequel to a two-part paper published in Logos in 2008–2009. It provides a round-up of the current situation of the book industry in Africa today, together with a brief review of the activities of the various organizations that have supported African publishing over the years. Part 1 examines the persistent failure of African governments to support their book industries and public libraries in a tangible and positive fashion. It reviews the current status (...) of book development councils in Africa, the unsatisfactory progress in establishing national book policies, the challenges of generating book industry data, and the opportunities presented to African publishers by the new digital environment. An Appendix provides a list of conferences, meetings, and seminars on publishing and book development held in Africa between 1968 and 2019. Part 2 of this article will appear in Logos, 30. (shrink)

Chris Ealham's book reveals a fascinating dialogue between a prominent individual figure (José Peirats, 1908–1989) and the anonymous masses in the history of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, and vice versa. Peirats would hardly be known without Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, while Spanish anarcho-syndicalism would have been less relevant if José Peirats had not been included in its ranks. -/- What is remarkable is that, despite Ealham's honest confession of his sympathy for some of the working-class movements in general and for anarcho-syndicalism in particular (3), (...) his research is highly critical of both anarcho-syndicalism and Peirats's numerous personal and ideological errors and contradictions. We need not go far to find examples: in his book, Ealham makes no effort to conceal that Peirats can be described at times using adjectives such as homophobic, sexist (or rather, antifeminist), anti-intellectual, antinationalist, and anticommunist (226). Nevertheless, his negative elements paled in comparison with his achievements. -/- Peirats was born in La Vall d'Uixó (Castellón); he was a brick-maker, anarchist militant, and later a noted writer and historian. The moral influence [End Page 188] coming from his mother and maternal uncles was decisive in the young Peirats's character and training. His informal education, together with his move to Barcelona, awakened his early militancy. In spite of having to work very hard from a young age, he was lucky enough to be educated later at the Ateneo Obrero Racionalista in Sants (a neighborhood in the southern part of Barcelona). There, he started having contact with the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), joining the union when he was just fourteen years old. During Primo de Rivera's dictatorship (1927–1930) Peirats was devoted to avoiding—sometimes fighting back against—State repression of syndicalists. He also continued doing manual work while cultivating his intellectual training and techniques as a working-class writer. -/- With the coming of the Second Republic (1931), the general attitude within the CNT was that nothing revolutionary would be achieved by collaborating with professional or parliamentary politics: "radicals like Peirats gave no quarter to the new regime. After the enforced interregnum of the dictatorship, they were primed and ready for direct action" (47). Nonetheless, the CNT was not united on this issue and the disputes over ideological tactics came swiftly. At this point, Ealham pinpoints a three-fold division within the CNT: one revolutionary, one syndicalist, and another anarcho-syndicalist (55–56). The divisions and differences would become even more marked when the CNT took part in the Frente Popular with four anarchist ministers (Federica Montseny, Joan Peiró, Juan García Oliver, and Juan López Sánchez): "the anarchist leaders opted simply to ignore what remained of the old state and accept a policy of 'democratic collaboration' with the other anti-fascist forces on behalf of unity in the fight against authoritarianism" (90). Peirats vehemently opposed this strategy that placed the CNT inside a republican state, and from this time on, including during the Spanish Civil War "conferences, meetings, and plenums were organized like witch-hunts" (104). -/- After Franco's triumph, Peirats did not follow in Montseny's or Germinal Esgleas's footsteps—that is, he opted against a diplomatic passport or any special safe conduct, but joined the multitudes of Republican soldiers and civilians who escaped in their retirada (retreat) towards France (119). In fact, after going through a French internment camp, he asked himself whether the best option was to return to Franco's Spain or try his luck abroad. Without any hint of cowardice, he knew that in Spain he could only expect his death... (shrink)

If the important role of written translation in the construction and contestation of knowledge and narratives remains largely under-explored, then the part played by interpreting and interpreters is even less examined in knowledge construction and story-telling. At a time when Beijing increasingly seeks to bolster its discursive power and have the Chinese story properly told, the interpreter-mediated and televised Premier-Meets-the-Press conferences constitute a typical discursive event andregime of truthin articulating China’s officially sanctioned “voice.” Discursive in nature, the institutionalised event (...) permits Beijing to construct a desired version of truth, fact and narrative in front of the more vociferous and dominant West. As an attempt to employ digital humanities (DH) methods to real-world language use, this corpus-based CDA study explores the press conference interpreters’ agency and mediation in rendering key concepts and discourses (e.g., ECONOMY and REFORM) constitutive of the broader Reform and Opening-up meta-narrative, which legitimises China’s political and economic systems, developments, policies and positions in the post-1978 era. The interpreters are found to maintain and often further reinforce Beijing’s discourse in English at various levels. Apart from indicating issues of institutional alignment, this study points to interpreters’ agency in communicating beyond national borders, (re)constructing political and institutional knowledge, counterbalancing the naturalised and taken-for-granted Western narratives, and contributing to the shifting East-West power differentials discursively. This study highlights the significance of interpreters as indispensable (re)tellers of the Chinese story in an increasingly mediat(is)ed world, where the interpreted discourse is routinely quotedverbatimon various platforms and taken for granted as the correct version of Beijing’s official “voice.”. (shrink)

In recent years, applied ethics has taken on board the various dimensions of public reason that can no longer be reduced to the political construction of a common will. While the question of a just society has traditionally been found in the political dimension, the state and its institutions, current globalization has broken this state monopoly over what is public, opening the way for other institutional actors with the same or greater power to intervene in the public space, actors that (...) have little or nothing to do with representation, majority rule, etc. As the current financial downturn clearly demonstrates, states are pandering to the markets, striving to ‘get their houses in order’ to meet the demands imposed by the global financial magnates. It seems, at least to most citizens, that public politics, like the state’s capacity to deal with social and economic rights, no longer depends on either governments or their ability to govern. So should they be left out of a public reason that is capable of explaining whether they are just or otherwise? The ethical perspective –known to be a critical perspective– cannot remain silent about this new scenario. The present proposal attempts to combine applied ethics, which takes in the logic of social practices, with new contributions from institutional design theories that set out to analyse the power and responsibility of these institutions from ‘inside’, as institutional actors. In this short paper my analysis focuses on the ethical dimension of institutional design, specifically in a proposal for an institutional ethics that is a fundamental part of any applied ethics. The paper aims to explain in what way we can speak of an institutional morality to demonstrate that these civil society institutional actors hold some of the responsibility for facing the problems of defining and managing what is public. (shrink)

With the rapid development of modern technology, people has stepped into an risky era. Ethical stipulation is the important means to reduce the risks. But in reality, ethical stipulation of technology always face some kind of dilemma which mainly come from two aspects: one is that when we try to regulate the subject oftechnology, we find that it always difficult to distinguish the responsibilities. The other aspect is that when we try to limit the result of technology, we often have (...) to give up because of lacking feasibility, which means we sink into the famous “Collingridge dilemma”. Are we able to get out of the dilemma? What should we doif we want to got out of it? First, in the modern technological system, individual’s action is taken over by group’s action according to the technological criterion. Any part of the modern technology need multiple subjects finish his job during the course. Therefore a new form of responsibility named group responsibility has been formed. Like Johnas said, in this ethics, ‘I’ will be replaced by ‘we’ and decision will be the business of a group. So it is difficult for us to find out that “I” from “us” once the technological risks happened. We lost the object of ethical stipulation as the result of no convinced standard and principals of prescribing the group responsibility. Second, when we try to stimulate some certain results of technology, we find we lack not only the wisdom of precisely judging or assessingtechnology itself, but also the ability of correcting the bad results if it has. Here again do we fall into the dilemma. This make it difficult for us to stipulate technology with ethic. From above discussion we can see, the stipulation, no matter from the aspect of technological responsibility or from aspect of the application of technology, has been sure to meet the dilemma. If the conflicts between a hypothesis and experiment cannot be eliminated, we have to rethink the theoryand come back again to technology itself and pursue the essence of technology again. Technology is a process from inventing, designing to forming material technological products; is a process from invisible technology to visible technology; is a process potential technology to real-life technology or intellective technology to reallife technology. Technology exists in process. The essential and innate characteristic is it’s process and dynamics. The transition oftechnological form involves many factors of economic, social, historical, constitutional and cultural. Technological creation of intellectual form is the duty of inventor or technologist. And it is entrepreneur’s job to use the technology or invention, and make them in large quantity, apply them in reality or get economic or other profit. Although there need be interaction, understanding, cooperation, support, coordination among scientist, technologist and enterpriser, they have different responsibility and delimitation. Technology exists in process, no doubt, so does modern technology. This decides that the ethical stipulation of modern technology should be a process stipulation. The essence of modern technological is not only the limitation of subject of technology either not only controlthe object of technology. It is the ethical stipulation in the unity of subject and object of technological dynamic process. This is basic point of understanding ethical stipulation of modern technology. Responsibility ethics consider that the group responsibility as the premise of technological stipulation.It noticed the static structure of modern technological system, but neglect the dynamic linkage between factors. And it only analysed the special construction, neglected the evolution of system of technological responsibility and the inter relationship between space dimension and time dimension. If we unfold the group responsibility along with the process of technology, we will see the different responsibility belong to different subject in different stage of the process. We can also see that different actors obey different norm or criteria according to their task. In this case, we can distinct the distribution of the group responsibility. Collingridge fixed the effective control on the two points of “before ”and ”after” the process of the technological action, namely, the stipulation for the staring point and stipulation of terminal point. But the whole process was neglected. According to the point of view of process stipulation.it is not the sudden occurrence for technology from “nothing ”to “having”. There are time and space during the process. From middle experiment to industrial experiment, the most characters of the result of technology will havebeen shown gradually, so will the social results. So we can give the small quantity an ethical evaluation and ethical choice which is possible and feasible. Over all, if we confirm the ethical stipulation of modern technology is a process regulation, we can delimitate the responsibility of the subjects of technology and also settle the prestipulation of the application of technology. At the end, we can eliminate the dilemma of ethical regulation of modern technology. (shrink)

In order to meet the demand from ego, “I” move.”I” need the freedom to move, the purpose of my move is for my (ego) demand to support my living. And, only “I” know my this living demand, others, who are not in my body, so they do not know. So, in order to make “I” live, “I” must have the right and freedom to move/act/work. Without that right and freedom, “I” can not move, then, can not meet the demand from (...) my “ego”, namely, can not live. So, after “I” was born, thefreedom and right for my living should be there with “me” by way of nature. Human rights just means that basic freedom and right for living gifted by nature when a people was born. Although, of course, very probably somebody seems has no freedom and right for himself, however, he does has his freedom and right which was gifted by the nature, even though his freedom and right was limited by others. If the human right is not gifted by nature, but given by somebody else, then, there will produce two question, one is from where, these “somebody else” who ever “gave” the right and freedom to other people, get their human right? another is, “I” was born by way of nature, if at same time, “I” has not human right, that means I was not able to move to meet my demand from my body, in this way, “I” will die, even though “I” still live, but my demand in my body was sometime or partly satisfied by somebody else, this means, “I” am not independent! But, after born, “I” am independent, an independent being in the world. How to demonstrate that “I” am independent by nature? This is a question. Only this question be resolved, then, human right get root logical basis. The way to confirm if a being independent or not, is to see if this being has a uniform contrast body inside this being. auniform contrast body could produce power itself, with this power, an independent being could exist by itself. To realize the uniform contrast body inside a being, we must find out the root uniform contrast body in the nature, namely, THE ONTO. After we find out the Onto, then, we know any uniform contrast body inside a being, is only a kind of specific uniform contrast body. For example, people, human being, inside a people, what is the uniform contrast body? Following is theanswer: MY New ontology: The Onto is the uniform contradiction being. The essence of people: The uniform contrast body within people’s body, is “ego and nonego. “New Cognition: Cognition course moves by the force from the contrast between the Ego and None go within an exist being live body. Following is the Cognition move course way: “EGO”+“Nonego”→→Force to move(N times)→→Feeling(N times)→→Idea(N numbers) + thinking(N times)→→Knowledge (N numbers) ≈ Object →→ ＝Object WITH ABOVE DEMONSTRATE WAY, we could be clear a human being, “I” was an independent being in the nature. So,human being must has the freedom and right for to be there as a living being. (shrink)

The Commens Papers (http://www.commens.org/papers) publishes preprints, reports, and communications that deal with the philosophy, scientific contributions, and life of C. S. Peirce. The Commens Papers are primarily meant for scholarly products that lack other means of publication, but which the author wishes to bring to the attention of the research community. The papers must meet editorial approval, but they are not fully peer reviewed. -/- The Commens Papers accepts a broad variety of intellectual products in various formats, including: Conference (...) papers, Manuscripts made available for comments and criticism before submission for peer review, Reports of original research, such as archival research, Catalogues or other systematic summaries of (parts of) Peirce’s writings, Reports from scientific meetings Lectures, as text, video, or audio, Posters presented at academic conferences . (shrink)

Science is a historically evolved and developed system, which does not include every construction. If a new construction is to become part of scientific knowledge, it must fit into a certain paradigm or meet the conformity princilple and comply with certain general "rules of the game". These two aspects constitute the systemic principle, which thus works as a sort of a metaregulative.

This book addresses several dimensions of the transformation of English Nonconformity over the course of an important century in its history. It begins with the question of education for ministry, considering the activities undertaken by four major evangelical traditions to establish theological colleges for this purpose, and then takes up the complex three-way relationship of ministry/churches/colleges that evolved from these activities. As author Dale Johnson illustrates, this evolution came to have significant implications for the Nonconformist engagement with its message and (...) with the culture at large. These implications are investigated in chapters on the changing perception or understanding of ministry itself, religious authority, theological questions, and religious identity.In Johnson's exploration of these issues, conversations about these topics are located primarily in addresses at denominational meetings, conferences that took up specific questions, and representative religious and theological publications of the day that participated in key debates or advocated contentious positions. While attending to some important denominational differences, The Changing Shape of English Nonconformity, 1825-1925 focuses on the representative discussion of these topics across the whole spectrum of evangelical Nonconformity rather than on specific denominational traditions.Johnson maintains that too many interpretations of nineteenth-century Nonconformity, especially those that deal with aspects of the theological discussion within these traditions, have tended to depict such developments as occasions of decline from earlier phases of evangelical vitality and appeal. This book instead argues that it is more appropriate to assess these Nonconformist developments as a collective, necessary, and deeply serious effort to come to terms with modernity and, further, to retain a responsible understanding of what it meant to be evangelical. It also shows these developments to be part of a larger schema through which Nonconformity assumed a more prominent place in the English culture of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (shrink)

Although exceptionally successful in the laboratory, the standard version of quantum theory is marred as a realist-objectivist proposition because of its internal conceptual difficulties and its tension with important parts of physics—most conspicuously, relativity theory. So, to meet these challenges, in recent years at least three distinct major objectivist programs have been advanced to further quantum theory into a proper general account of material systems. Unfortunately, the resulting proposals turn out to be, for all practical purposes, empirically equivalent both among (...) themselves and against the standard version. This paper analyzes the basic issues involved in the case. It is argued that (a) the global anti-realist conclusion derived from it are fallacious, and (b) the encountered underdetermination shows how contingent upon the state of empirical knowledge talk about the “limits of science” actually is. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian MonasticsDavid G. HackettThe Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics. Edited by Donald W. Mitchell and James Wiseman, O.S.B. New York: Continuum, 1997. 306 pp.Ever since the landmark meeting of Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama in 1968, the Christian and Buddhist contemplative communities have been building toward the (...) kind of deeply spiritual encounter that is so ably narrated in this book. For five days in July of 1996, a pantheon of advanced spiritual practitioners, led by the Dalai Lama, met at Thomas Merton’s monastery in Kentucky to dialogue on the spiritual life. The resulting exchanges provided not only mutual aid on the spiritual journey but were themselves a spiritual path. In recounting this meeting, The Gethsemani Encounter marks a watershed in the spiritual dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism. [End Page 232]A history of interfaith contacts and the deeply spiritual character of intermonastic dialogue prepared the way for the success of this historic encounter. In 1978, ten years after the death of Thomas Merton, two dialogue commissions were created: the “Monastic Interreligious Dialogue” (MID) in North America, and the “Dialogue Inter-Monastic” (DIM) in Europe. These commissions fostered a rapid expansion in the number of nuns and monks engaged in interfaith dialogue. Christian monastics spent time living in Tibetan and Zen monasteries in the East, and Buddhist nuns and monks were guests of Christian monasteries in the West. These encounters gradually evolved into a profound discussion of the spiritual life in all its nuances and its implications for humankind.The inspiration for the Gethsemani Encounter came from the Dalai Lama. At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993, during a morning session on “Emptiness and Kenosis,” the Tibetan leader suggested that the conversation continue in a monastic setting. His idea was to gather a small group of mature Buddhist and Christian monastics who are teachers of spirituality. They would dialogue about the practice of spirituality and its value for the world in a setting where they could also live, meditate, and celebrate together.A variety of Buddhists reflecting the diversity of contemporary Buddhist practices were invited to Gethsemani. These included Theravadin, Zen, and Tibetan monks from Asia and lay leaders from the emerging American Buddhist communities. Efforts were made to include women’s voices from each tradition. Most of the Buddhists who came to Gethsemani were living in Buddhist communities in the United States. The hope was that this meeting would catalyze future local encounters between Buddhist and Christian spiritual communities.The Christian monastics were primarily drawn from Benedictine and Trappist MID board members or advisors from Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. Invited as well were the abbot general of the Trappist Order, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and Bishop Joseph Gerry, O.S.B., to represent the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The MID advisors also included some priests and lay practitioners—Catholic and Protestant—with experience in Buddhist dialogue. In the end, twenty-five Christian and twenty-five Buddhist spiritual leaders were invited to the Gethsemani Encounter by MID and the Dalai Lama.Reading through the talks and dialogues that compose this book provides an opportunity to enter into the spiritual adventure of discovery experienced by the participants. The first part presents the twenty-five short talks that were given during morning, afternoon, and evening sessions over the four full days of the encounter. Each of these talks was intended to provide a short and insightful glimpse into the dynamics of Buddhist and Christian spirituality. For students of the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, much of this material is familiar. But two elements are new: first, the variety of Buddhist and Christian perspectives that are brought to bear on such topics as “prayer and meditation” (where three different Buddhist and two Christian approaches are considered), and second, the organization of this material into six chapters that move outward from prayer to community to spirituality and society. As [End Page 233] the book progresses, there is a palpable movement away from comparative analysis for the sake... (shrink)

This abridged and revised edition of the original book (Springer-Wien-New York: 2001) offers the only comprehensive history and documentation of the Vienna Circle based on new sources with an innovative historiographical approach to the study of science. With reference to previously unpublished archival material and more recent literature, it refutes a number of widespread clichés about "neo-positivism" or "logical positivism". Following some insights on the relation between the history of science and the philosophy of science, the book offers an accessible (...) introduction to the complex subject of "the rise of scientific philosophy” in its socio-cultural background and European philosophical networks till the forced migration in the Anglo-Saxon world. The first part of the book focuses on the origins of Logical Empiricism before World War I and the development of the Vienna Circle in "Red Vienna" (with the "Verein Ernst Mach"), its fate during Austro-Fascism (Schlick's murder 1936) and its final expulsion by National-Socialism beginning with the "Anschluß" in 1938. It analyses the dynamics of the Schlick-Circle in the intellectual context of "late enlightenment" including the minutes of the meetings from 1930 on for the first time published and presents an extensive description of the meetings and international Unity of Science conferences between 1929 and 1941. The chapters introduce the leading philosophers of the Schlick Circle (e.g., Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Felix Kaufmann, Edgar Zilsel) and describe the conflicting interaction between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the long term communication between Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as between the Vienna Circle with Heinrich Gomperz and Karl Popper. In addition, Karl Menger's "Mathematical Colloquium" with Kurt Gödel is presented as a parallel movement. The final chapter of this section describes the demise of the Vienna Circle and the forced exodus of scientists and intellectuals from Austria. The second part of the book includes a bio-bibliographical documentation of the Vienna Circle members and for the first time of the assassination of Moritz Schlick in 1936, followed by an appendix comprising an extensive list of sources and literature. (shrink)

After the United States Congress passed the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948, biologists played an increasingly significant role in scientific studies of water pollution. Biologists interacted with other experts, notably engineers, who managed the public agencies devoted to water pollution control. Although biologists were at first marginalized within these agencies, the situation began to change by the early 1960s. Biological data became an integral part of water pollution control. While changing societal values, stimulated by an emerging ecological awareness, (...) may explain broader shifts in expert opinion during the 1960s, this article explores how graphs changed experts’ perceptions of water pollution. Experts communicated with each other via reports, journal articles, and conference speeches. Those sources reveal that biologists began experimenting with new graphical methods to simplify the complex ecological data they collected from the field. Biologists, I argue, followed the engineers’ lead by developing graphical methods that were concise and quantitative. Their need to collaborate with engineers forced them to communicate, negotiate, and overcome conflicts and misunderstandings. By meeting engineers’ expectations and promoting the value of their data through images as much as words, biologists asserted their authority within water pollution control by the early 1960s. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 214-217 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism: Creating a Shin Buddhist Theology in a Religiously Plural World Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism: Creating a Shin Buddhist Theology in a Religiously Plural World. Edited by Dennis Hirota. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 257 pp. One of the lessons I learned from Martin (...) Luther is about "vocation." Basically, one's "vocation" is to express love and compassion toward all through engagement with the structures of existence that hinder justice through whatever social or occupational role (one's "calling") one occupies. In Luther's theology, there is no privileged ecclesiastical institution, no privileged theological class, and in his better moments, no privileged doctrinal system that mediates God's grace—meaning God's love and compassion. Instead, grace meets us where we are in the midst of whatever our "calling" might be; our "vocation" is to serve others in community through our callings: teacher, pastor, parent, physician, farmer, clerk, politician, or any other honest occupations by which persons make their way in the world. Luther's ideas of vocation—part of his doctrine of the "priesthood of all believers"—functioned as part of his critique of received medieval Christian tradition; it remains a defining theological principle of Protestant thought that Paul Tillich called the "Protestant principle."Being critical of Christian tradition is still widely practiced in mainline Protestant circles, even though Protestantism since Luther has produced absolutized forms of Luther's original critique of Christian tradition. My own Lutheran tradition is as guilty of this sort of idolatry as other Christian traditions. But the best of Protestant thought and practice has always generated critical attitudes in many theologians. So each generation of mainline Protestant theological reflection since Luther rejects, even as it builds upon, the work of previous generations, sometimes even retrieving elements of earlier tradition that their predecessors had rejected—as Luther retrieved Pauline-Augustinian notions of grace as a means of critiquing the sale of indulgences and the entire sacramental system of medieval Catholicism. [End Page 214]So as a Lutheran who believes that the process of personal and corporate self-criticism is an expression of faith, and that every attempt to absolutize any given form of tradition or religious practice is idolatry and constitutes nonfaith, I am always interested in learning how other religious traditions encourage personal and corporate self-criticism. As a Lutheran who happens to be a historian of religions engaged in interreligious dialogue, especially with Buddhists, and who has also thought and written about Pure Land Buddhism, I am especially intrigued when I encounter self-criticism similar to the Protestant principle at work in a form of Buddhism I deeply admire.Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhismis a collection of essays that evolved from a 1989 symposium planned by Dennis Hirota and sponsored by the Institute for Buddhist Studies that was held in Berkeley on campuses affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union. The focus of the conference—and of this volume—was constructive criticism of Jodo Shinshu Buddhist tradition. The essayists—three Buddhists and two Christians—share the conference's two convictions: (1) Pure Land Buddhism has a significant contribution to make to life in the contemporary world, and (2) Pure Land teachings and practices in the forms in which they are commonly communicated appear alien to contemporary persons both East and West. The structure of this collection flows from these convictions: first, three Pure Land authors (Dennis Hirota, John S. Yokota, and Musashi Tachikawa) offer three distinct proposals for deconstructing and reconstructing Pure Land Buddhism so that practitioners can more adequately reflect on contemporary intellectual and social circumstances as the context for faithful practice in a global context of religious and secularism pluralism, followed by critical comments on the Pure Land Buddhist proposals by two Christian theologians (Gordon D. Kaufman and John B. Cobb Jr.), and concluding with reconsiderations of their original proposals by the three Pure Land... (shrink)

The Second World War offered an excellent opportunity for some U.S. think tanks to influence foreign-policy-making processes and get involved in transatlantic diplomacy. This study seeks to demonstrate that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) challenged the stalemate between the U.S. and French authorities by gathering together U.S. experts and non-collaborationist French leaders. A first-hand reconstruction of this informal network is based on the unreleased Peace Aims Group’s records. This was a unique CFR exchange programme for European governments-in-exile’s representatives. In (...) the first part, a general reconstruction of Council on Foreign Relations’ planning introduces an original assessment of the meetings with some prominent French intellectuals and politicians. It is argued that these conferences can be interpreted as rare examples of wartime public diplomacy. The second part discloses new historical evidence demonstrating the participation of Jean Monnet in a Peace Aims session. This discovery proves the existence of a long-term partnership between one of the key protagonists of the European integration process and the most authoritative foreign-policy think tank working for the Roosevelt administration. Overall, the analysis of Peace Aims Group’s off-the-record discussions sheds new light on the WWII transatlantic debate on postwar Europe and France. (shrink)

: Islamic communities play a pivotal role in today’s Sicily. Islamis relevantnow,as it was in the Middle Ages. During Arabic occupation (827- 1060), this Islandwas partofIslamic world as en emirate. Muslims continued to be influential even in subsequent timesunder Norman (1060- 1094) and Hohenstaufen rulers (1194-1266). After this multiculturalperiod of toleration, Aragonese and Spanish occupation lead to oblivion of theIslamicpast. The repressed memory of Muslim Sicily dissimulated the absence of otherness since14th and 15th century. In the second half of the (...) 20th century, Islamic presenceinSicilynoticeably increased. Apart from individual conversions, we must consider migrationfrom North Africa and Middle East. Subsequently, well-established communities arenowespecially active in many Sicilian towns. They play an important part in cooperationwithRoman Catholic Church and other religious groups. It is noteworthy to valueinitiativesaimed at promoting interreligious dialogue. At this respect, there are remarkableactivities under the patronage of the Islamic Centre in Messina with the support ofthelocal Archbishopric. I focus on a conference held in the city mosque in October 2019inthe presence of the President of Islamic Community and local Catholic Archbishop. Atthe occasion, the presenters discussed the encounter between Saint Francis of Assisi andSultan Malik al-Kāmil height hundred years before. This historical example is seentodayas an antecedent of interreligious meetings that equally applies for the present times. Thistopic offered the way of better considering religious dialogue in Mediterraneanspaceaccording to transcultural perspectives which emerge in a globalized world. (shrink)

Response to Don Baxter, Don Garrett and Jennifer Marusic regarding my book Imagined Causes: Hume's Conception of Objects; initially delivered at the 2016 Hume Conference in Sydney, Australia as part of the Author Meets Critics session.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 214-217 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism: Creating a Shin Buddhist Theology in a Religiously Plural World Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhism: Creating a Shin Buddhist Theology in a Religiously Plural World. Edited by Dennis Hirota. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. 257 pp. One of the lessons I learned from Martin (...) Luther is about "vocation." Basically, one's "vocation" is to express love and compassion toward all through engagement with the structures of existence that hinder justice through whatever social or occupational role (one's "calling") one occupies. In Luther's theology, there is no privileged ecclesiastical institution, no privileged theological class, and in his better moments, no privileged doctrinal system that mediates God's grace—meaning God's love and compassion. Instead, grace meets us where we are in the midst of whatever our "calling" might be; our "vocation" is to serve others in community through our callings: teacher, pastor, parent, physician, farmer, clerk, politician, or any other honest occupations by which persons make their way in the world. Luther's ideas of vocation—part of his doctrine of the "priesthood of all believers"—functioned as part of his critique of received medieval Christian tradition; it remains a defining theological principle of Protestant thought that Paul Tillich called the "Protestant principle."Being critical of Christian tradition is still widely practiced in mainline Protestant circles, even though Protestantism since Luther has produced absolutized forms of Luther's original critique of Christian tradition. My own Lutheran tradition is as guilty of this sort of idolatry as other Christian traditions. But the best of Protestant thought and practice has always generated critical attitudes in many theologians. So each generation of mainline Protestant theological reflection since Luther rejects, even as it builds upon, the work of previous generations, sometimes even retrieving elements of earlier tradition that their predecessors had rejected—as Luther retrieved Pauline-Augustinian notions of grace as a means of critiquing the sale of indulgences and the entire sacramental system of medieval Catholicism. [End Page 214]So as a Lutheran who believes that the process of personal and corporate self-criticism is an expression of faith, and that every attempt to absolutize any given form of tradition or religious practice is idolatry and constitutes nonfaith, I am always interested in learning how other religious traditions encourage personal and corporate self-criticism. As a Lutheran who happens to be a historian of religions engaged in interreligious dialogue, especially with Buddhists, and who has also thought and written about Pure Land Buddhism, I am especially intrigued when I encounter self-criticism similar to the Protestant principle at work in a form of Buddhism I deeply admire.Toward a Contemporary Understanding of Pure Land Buddhismis a collection of essays that evolved from a 1989 symposium planned by Dennis Hirota and sponsored by the Institute for Buddhist Studies that was held in Berkeley on campuses affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union. The focus of the conference—and of this volume—was constructive criticism of Jodo Shinshu Buddhist tradition. The essayists—three Buddhists and two Christians—share the conference's two convictions: (1) Pure Land Buddhism has a significant contribution to make to life in the contemporary world, and (2) Pure Land teachings and practices in the forms in which they are commonly communicated appear alien to contemporary persons both East and West. The structure of this collection flows from these convictions: first, three Pure Land authors (Dennis Hirota, John S. Yokota, and Musashi Tachikawa) offer three distinct proposals for deconstructing and reconstructing Pure Land Buddhism so that practitioners can more adequately reflect on contemporary intellectual and social circumstances as the context for faithful practice in a global context of religious and secularism pluralism, followed by critical comments on the Pure Land Buddhist proposals by two Christian theologians (Gordon D. Kaufman and John B. Cobb Jr.), and concluding with reconsiderations of their original proposals by the three Pure Land... (shrink)

The papers collected here comprise the proceedings of a Workshop in honor ofMerrilee and Wes Salmon, held in Florence on May 17-18, 1996. The aim of the meeting was to pay homage to these two American scholars, whose contact with Italian and European Universities and Institutes had a major influence on "Continental" thought in the field of epistemology and probability. In fact, Merrilee and Wes spent various periods lecturing at the Universities of Bologna, Florence, Rome, Trieste, Catania and Pisa, (...) as well as in the University of Constance, where they helped to build a strong cultural "bridge" with the Pittsburgh Center for the Philosophy of Science. The Florence Center for the History and Philosophy of Science is particularly thankful to the Salmons for their ongoing cooperation and frequent visits. We must not forget that Wes Salmon was in the Florence Center and at the Philosophy Department of Florence, as visiting scholar, on many occasions, and that he made important contributions which have later appeared in Italian journals, such as Iride and Rivista di jilosojia. Merrilee was a speaker at the Conference on "Genetics, Linguistics, and Archaeology" (May 20-24,1991), organized by the Florence Center. Both Wes and Merrilee often enlivened the arguments of the initiatives they took part in. (shrink)

This question raised emotions in Poland in 2010-2012. They began with the statement by the Prime Minister in March 2010 that Poland was ready to participate in a program of assistance to Greece. It evoked very strong reactions – not only in debates in conferences halls and in professional journals, but also in the tabloids and on TV and the radio. It was not only politicians and academic experts in economics who took part in those debates, but also the (...) editors of the popular newspapers. The arguments “for” and “against” of different character were raised. Those “for” advocated on the grounds of the principle of solidarity, but also on the grounds of the principle of subsidiarity – arguing that the burden of the problem is beyond the possibilities of Greece to solve herself. They also raised the necessity to defend the endangered common good – the European Union, and argued that prudence advises earning reciprocation in case Poland meets problems in the future. Those “against” pointed out that it was immoral to expect that a much poorer society was expected to assist one that was better off. Another point raised in the debate was that it was the Greeks themselves, both the political elites and the society as such, who were guilty of creating Greece’s problems. The main problem was the institutions of the welfare state, developed beyond the capacities of the country. But there were also some more shocking reasons of the Greek economic problems – and among them massive tax-avoidance, unauthorized social benefits payments, and transfers of incomes to foreign bank accounts. There was also the manipulation of statistical data or even their falsification, by (or with the approval of) the government. Some participants in the debate raised the problem Greek frauds and social dysfunctions being very well known to the EU authorities, the partners of Greece in EMU and by the German and French commercial banks. So – following from the above – Poland should not participate in any programs of assistance to Greece, and the burden of the problem should rest on those who had been responsible for it or who had tolerated its growth because of expected profits. In other words: Greek society, its political elites and the banks and those countries that had tolerated the developments. The debate ended in Poland when the member-states of the EMU decided that they would take decisions concerning Greece within their own group. And it was decided that “troika” – representatives of the European Commission, ECB and IMF – would decide on the size of the assistance and of the conditions. Poland, as a member of the IMF, does in fact participate in the costs of the assistance programs, but this fact does not evoke great emotions. (shrink)