The function of local research ethics committees is to consider the ethics of research proposals using human participants. After approval has been given, there is no comprehensive system in place to monitor research and ensure that recommendations are carried out. Some suggest that research ethics committees are ideally placed to fulfil this function by carrying out random monitoring of research they have reviewed. The health service guideline creating local research ethics committees is under review.1 This paper suggests that increasing the (...) monitoring role of ethics committees in the present climate would be inappropriate. This is due to the large workload of the committees, their voluntary nature and the change a monitoring role might cause to the relationship between researcher and ethics committee, which might herald an increasing recourse to judicial review. A radical overhaul of the system would be necessary in order for ethics committees adequately to fulfil a monitoring function. (shrink)

Upshot: In view of Kenny’s clinical insights, Hug’s notes on the intricacies of rational vs. a-rational “knowing” in the design sciences, and Chronaki & Kynigos’s notice of mathematics teachers’ meta-communication on experiences of change, this response reframes the heuristic power of bisociation and suspension of disbelief in the light of Kelly’s notion of “as-if-ism” (constructive alternativism. Doing as-if and playing what-if, I reiterate, are critical to mitigating intra-and inter-personal relations, or meta-communicating. Their epistemic status within the radical constructivist framework is (...) cast in the context of mutually enriching conversational techniques, or language-games, inspired by Maturana’s concepts of “objectivity in parenthesis” and the multiverse. (shrink)

Encore un livre sur saint Thomas, dira-t-on. Que pourrait ajouter celui-ci à tout ce qui existe déjà? Nous voudrions d'abord dans cet ouvrage répondre simplement mais en vérité, et en lisant les textes eux-mêmes de saint Thomas et d'Aristote, à certaines objections ou lieux communs entendus ou lus plus ou moins régulièrement, qui empêchent de commencer à vouloir connaître la pensée de frère Thomas. Il s'agit de mettre en évidence la grande richesse, pour l'intelligence et le coeur humains, de sa (...) pensée philosophique, de ses analyses, de ses manières de poser les questions et d'interroger le réel. Un préambule pour une introduction à la philosophie de Thomas, telle est essentiellement l'intention de ces quatre études et non pas une introduction à la philosophie thomasienne purement et simplement. Elles cherchent ainsi à définir l'esprit d'un apprentissage philosophique qui a aussi en lui tout ce qui convient pour aider à un apprentissage théologique et spirituel, mystique même. (shrink)

L'ed. delle Obligationes si basa su quattro mss.: Praha, Knihovni Metropolitni Kapituly, M.CXLV ; Oxford, New College, E 289 ; Praha, Státní Knihóvna CSR, VIII E 11 ; Salamanca, Biblioteca de la Universidad, 2358 . Nell'introduzione l'A. prende in esame la tradizione manoscritta delle opere di Giovanni Tarteys, fornendo anche una breve notizia biografica di questo magister artium attivo ad Oxford tra la fine del Trecento e gli inizi del Quattrocento. Segue un'analisi comparata del De Obligationibus di Giovanni con le (...) trattazioni analoghe di altri maestri, tra i quali Rodolfo Strode, Gualterio Burley, Paolo da Venezia e Giovanni Wyclif. Discussi infine i criteri di edizione. (shrink)

Il «nuovo» pensiero non è più cronologicamente nuovo ad oltre ottant’anni dalla sua nascita e, tuttavia, forse oggi manifesta un carattere di novità e di urgenza maggiore di allora, come si suol dire una «rinascita» che giustifica l’interrogativo sul suo «futuro». La particolare situazione in cui ci troviamo a pensare e soprattutto a vivere, le nuove domande che le mutate condizioni storico-culturali pongono alla filosofia, possono trovare un modello di risposta se ci si volge indietro a quella particolare stagione della (...) filosofia tedesca che abbraccia i primi tre decenni del Novecento e che fu tragicamente strozzata e azzittita dal nazionalsocialismo. Non si tratta di affermare un ysteron-proteron, sarebbe troppo semplicistico, decisamente acritico e storicamente e filosoficamente inaccettabile. Accade però, nella storia, che dei fermenti non riescano a produrre frutti perché la temperie del tempo non lo permette oppure perché «inattuali», non pienamente adeguati al tempo, e rimangono quindi latenti finché non si verificano le condizioni ottimali per il loro sviluppo, divenendo in tal modo «adeguati » al tempo. È appunto quanto si è verificato con tutti gli autori che si ritrovano accomunati da un «dialogisches Prinzip», se vogliamo riprendere l’espressione di Martin Buber e che si è concretizzato nelle varie figure rappresentative e nei vari pensatori a cui lo stesso Rosenzweig farà riferimento nel suo breve excursus storico, come, neues Denken, Begegnungsphilosophie, Beziehungsphilosophie, Sprachdenken. (shrink)

Existe-t-il une chose de tel qu'une conception herméneutique du langage? C'est à cette question que cet ouvrage se propose de répondre, de façon positive, en opérant une mise en dialogue des herméneutiques de Hans-Georg Gadamer et Paul Ricoeur. Malgré les différences indéniables entre les oeuvres de ces deux philosophes, l'auteur montre qu'elles ont en commun de penser le langage comme étant un principe fondamental de notre expérience du monde et de tout événement de compréhension. Une articulation entre les deux oeuvres, (...) qui mise sur une dialectique entre les notions d'appartenance et de distanciation, est possible à partir de cet accord de fond sur notre appartenance essentielle au langage. De ce point de vue, tout effort pour mettre à distance le langage afin d'en faire un objet d'étude doit tenir compte du caractère premier et irréductible de cette appartenance, s'il veut éviter de n'offrir qu'une vision réductrice du langage. Comme le révèlent les analyses de ce livre, les recherches de Gadamer et Ricoeur se caractérisent par la prise en compte de ce fait dans leurs réflexions sur le dialogue, le texte et la traduction, ainsi que dans leurs travaux sur la puissance créatrice du langage qui se manifeste dans la métaphore, le dire poétique et le récit. Cependant, le plus important pour l'herméneutique est que cette appartenance fondamentale ne soit pas synonyme d'un enfermement dans le langage, mais que le langage offre au contraire une ouverture sur l'être et permette à ce qui est de se dire et de se penser. (shrink)

1. El acto humano, deber y derecho -- 2. Derechos individuales, familia y sociedad.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Augustine's Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to ChristianityTravis E. AblesBrian Dobell. Augustine's Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to Christianity. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xvii + 250. Cloth, $82.00.The question of Augustine's Platonism is famously vexed. Since Peter Brown, the standard reading holds that Augustine did not move beyond the Neoplatonism of his early dialogues until he studied the writings of the apostle Paul (...) in the mid-390s CE, after which his distinctive theology begins to emerge. In this book, Brian Dobell's basic claim is that, whatever the validity of the "volitional conversion" of book 8, Augustine is not truly converted to orthodox Christianity until he discards the Photinian (adoptionist) Christology he admits to in Confessions [hereafter conf.] 7.19.25, and discards the Platonic ascent as a means to contemplative union with God, both of which take place with the reading of Paul. But the book is equally motivated by a concern to defend the historicity of conf.; Dobell claims it is perfectly reliable, once we understand the latter half of book 7 not as a few months in 386, but as a compressed narrative spanning Augustine's entire development until his true conversion to Christianity around 395. [End Page 137]Dobell develops this argument by isolating Augustine's twofold way of salvation in the writings of the late 380s. First is the "way of authority," in which Augustine's putative Photinian Christology portrays Christ as a kind of "poor man's Plato, sent to provide a path to salvation for the uneducated masses" (96). The human Jesus is "assumed" by God and is as "a man of outstanding wisdom" (73) but is not the incarnate Son. Dobell analyzes the homo assumptus/susceptus language of the early writings, arguing that Augustine does not truly hold an orthodox Christology until 396, concordant with the development of his theology of operative grace. The second, much longer section of the book concerns the "way of reason," the intellectualist path of salvation expressed in Augustine's early obsession with the liberal disciplines. Dobell dissects the Platonic ascents of conf. 7, adducing verbal and conceptual parallels from texts ca. 387–390 (De immortalitate animae, De ordine, De libero arbitrio, De vera religione) showing how Augustine's métaphysique des degrés d'être, a concept Dobell borrows from Olivier Du Roy, provides both a means of articulating these ascents and an answer to the problem of evil. But by De doctrina christiana, Augustine has decisively rejected the Platonic ascent and the liberal disciplines, and it simply remains for his Christology to come in line for the "intellectual conversion" to be complete.Dobell's book is a significant addition to the current debate. His knowledge of the first decade or so of Augustine's literary output is impressive, and his familiarity with the secondary literature is considerable, though not encyclopedic—he misses the work of J. Patout Burns, which complicates the Pauline thesis through consideration of the anti-Donatist literature. Dobell offers magisterial and invaluable discussions of famously fraught topics such as Augustine's indecisiveness about the preexistence of the soul, or the volitional solution to the problem of evil. There are some problems with Dobell's argument, though. While his main thesis that conf. 7.9.13ff. is a kind of précis of almost a decade of intellectual development deserves serious consideration, and is an elegant solution to debates about the historicity of Augustine's narrative in conf., the supporting arguments Dobell employs are less persuasive. A major portion of his book revolves around the contention that Augustine's early, heretical Photinian Christology extends much longer than modern scholarship has realized, that Augustine rectifies this Christology in conjunction with a Pauline soteriology of grace, and that all of this has to happen before Augustine's conversion is complete. If we suspend the question of normativity inherent in deciding Augustine's "orthodoxy" (particularly prior to Chalcedon), Dobell still does not succeed in showing that the early "pedagogical" homo assumptus Christology is, in fact, adoptionist; indeed, his evidence is often rather weak (for a tacit admission, see 73). On the flip... (shrink)

Linguistic study of Mongolian traditional classical translation.

This book intends to introduce readers to the work of Charles E. Butterworth, and thereby to introduce students to Medieval islamic political philosophy, of which Butterworth is one of the world's most prominent scholars. In a wider sense, the Festschrift introduces its readers to the current debates on Medieval islamic political philosophy, related as they are to the questions of the relationship between islam and Christianity, the Medieval to the Modern world, and reason and revelation. Butterworth's scholarship spans six decades, (...) primarily translating, editing, and interpreting the works of the Muslim political philosopher Alfarabi (d. 950) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198). He began his studies of Muslim political philosophy at a time when the Middle East and islam did not have the political salience they have acquired in more recent years. instead, Butterworth's reason for engaging with islam was rooted in the question of the relationship between reason and revelation. While one possible answer was pursued in the Christian, latin West, the islamic borderlands of Greek, Roman, and Muslim civilization offered another. By exploring Averroes, who provides the possibility of an Aristotelian-Islamic political philosophy, and Alfarabi, who pursues a Platonic-islamic political philosophy, Butterworth showed how islamic civilization provided a viable alternative to the theologico-political question reason v revelation, as well as serving as an inspiration to the latin West. (shrink)

BY OVEREMPHASIZING MATERIALISTIC VALUES, we have perverted the culture and set modern Western civilization on a self-destructive course. Some critics have said that the economy, science, and technology are the only healthy aspects of our society. We have what I have called a saber-toothed tiger civilization. In the evolutionary process, the saber-toothed tiger developed great tusks as effective weapons in combat, but perished because they obstructed its eating. We have developed a culture that is highly successful in advancing science and (...) technology and producing wealth and power, but in doing so we have undermined and subjectivized the sectors of the culture that underwrite our identity, the meaning of our existence, and the norms and values by which we live our lives, organize our society, and run our institutions, including even science and the economy. But unlike the saber-toothed tiger, we can discover our error and correct our course. (shrink)