BackgroundCritical public health measures implemented to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic have disrupted health research worldwide, including HIV prevention research. While general guidance has been issued for the responsible conduct of research in these challenging circumstances, the contours of the dueling COVID-19 and HIV/aids pandemics raise some critical ethical issues for HIV prevention research. In this paper, we use the recently updated HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Ethics Guidance Document (EGD) to situate and analyze key (...) ethical challenges related to the conduct of HIV prevention research during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as identify potential areas for refinement of the guidance document based on this unprecedented state of affairs.Main bodyNecessary actions taken for HIV prevention research studies due to the COVID-19 pandemic involve an array of ethical issues including those related to: (1) risk mitigation; (2) behavior change; (3) compounding vulnerability; (4) community engagement; (5) trial reopening; and 6) shifting research priorities.ConclusionsIn the context of the dueling HIV and COVID-19 global pandemics, research teams and sponsors must be nimble in responding to the rapidly changing environment by being sensitive to the associated ethical issues. The HTPN EGD provides a rich set of tools to help identify, analyze and address many of these issues. At the same time, future refinements of the HPTN EGD and other research ethics guidance could be strengthened by providing explicit advice regarding the ethical issues associated with disrupted research and the reopening of studies. In addition, additional consideration should be given to appropriately balancing domains of risk (e.g., physical versus social), addressing the vulnerability of research staff and community partners, and responding to un-anticipatable ancillary care needs of participants and communities. Appropriately addressing these issues will necessitate conceptual work, which would benefit from the careful documentation of the actual ethical issues encountered in research, the strategies implemented to overcome them, and their success in doing so. Throughout all of these efforts, it is critical to remember that the HIV pandemic not be forgotten in the rush to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

First published in 1956 The Language of Modern Physics gives a complete account of the concepts both of classical and quantum physics. It deals with themes like logic and semantics; basic ideas of physics and the methods scientists use for confirming their hypotheses.

It is argued that knowledge is a form of action. It is a kind of successful attempt to attain the truth. The success must avoid a particular sort of “epistemic luck”. It must derive from competence rather than luck. Knowledge, then, is a judgment or belief that aims at truth and attains accuracy not by luck but through the agent’s cognitive adroitness, so that the attainment is apt. A higher grade of knowledge then requires that the agent attain aptly not (...) only the accuracy (truth) but even the aptness of that first-order success. This more fully apt success is on a higher level of epistemic achievement, and in this respect is a special case of a general truth of performance normativity that applies across domains of human performance, whether in the arts, in sports, in the professions, and so on. An attempt in general reaches that higher level of achievement by being not only apt but fully apt. (shrink)

Heralded as "the crowning work of a great career," Logic: The Theory of Inquiry was widely reviewed. To Evander Bradley McGilvary, the work assured Dewey "a place among the world's great logicians." William Gruen thought "No treatise on logic ever written has had as direct and vital an impact on social life as Dewey's will have." Paul Weiss called it "the source and inspiration of a new and powerful movement." Irwin Edman said of it, "Most philosophers write postscripts; Dewey has (...) made a program. His Logic is a new charter for liberal intelligence." Ernest Nagel called the Logic an impressive work. Its unique virtue is to bring fresh illumination to its subject by stressing the roles logical principles and concepts have in achieving the objectives of scientific inquiry.". (shrink)

Excerpt from Nietzsche and Treitschke: The Worship of Power in Modern Germany The State is the highest thing in the external society of man; above it there is nothing at all in the history of the world. This once assumed, its self-preservation, and to that end its power, become imperative. To care for its power is the highest moral duty of the State. Of all litiosl weaknesses that of feeble most a minable and despicable it is the sin against the (...) Holy Spirit of politics. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This thoughtful and penetrating book, addressed to political scientists, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. Professor Gellner asserts here that a society's affluence and economic growth depend on innovation, occupational mobility, the effectiveness of the mass media, universal literacy, and an all-embracing educational system based on a shared, standard idiom. These factors, taken together, govern the relationship between culture and the state. Political units that do not conform (...) to the principle, "one state, one culture" feel the strain in the form of nationalistic activity. (shrink)

Baptism is a sacrament that Christ established before His ascension. It symbolizes His death and resurrection, representing the unity of the baptized person with Christ and their acceptance into the body of Christ. This paper explores baptism in the New Testament (NT) by focusing on some specific personalities. The study shows that water baptism, as an outward act, serves as a reminder and symbol of God’s redeeming work through Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. Consequently, baptism unites us with (...) Christ and invites us to be part of the Christian community. The study concludes that baptism is not an optional extra, but a command from our Lord Jesus Christ to all generations of believers, regardless of denomination, tribe, race, culture, or ethnicity. The study uses published textbooks, electronic books, and journal articles as secondary sources to examine baptism in the NT. (shrink)

Throughout the work the author pursues one objective: to show that intentionality belongs to the fabric of reality, hence it is also the source of the intelligibility of this reality. As such, it has an ontological status and a causality of its own which enables it to play its role as intermediary between the knowing subject and the object of thought. This interdependence is responsible for its nature and the two-way movement expressed by intentio intellectus and intentio rei whose efficacy (...) widens or reduces the scope of what is considered as intelligible by a philosophical doctrine. (shrink)

This chapter explores the possibilities for rapprochement between reliabilism and evidentialism. It argues that the prospects for any such rapprochement between reliabilism and evidentialism are dim, and that the appearance to the contrary is mostly an illusion. The chapter draws on a paper by Jack Lyons, “Perception and virtue reliabilism”, so as to focus on the prospects for rapprochement through virtue reliabilism more specifically. Goldman's paper stops short of a full bipartisan theory of epistemic justification. The chapter includes a subtle (...) and detailed critique of evidentialism. The positive contribution of the chapter is divided into two parts. First it offers a way to think of “inferential” justification, and next it offers a way to understand “experiential” justification. According to process reliabilism, the epistemic justification of a belief derives from the reliability of the causal process that produces it. An attractive bipartisan avenue opens with a bi‐level epistemology. (shrink)

How do hearers manage to understand speakers? And how do speakers manage to shape hearers' understanding? Lepore and Stone show that standard views about the workings of semantics and pragmatics are unsatisfactory. They advance an alternative view which better captures what is going on in linguistic communication.

The two sermons edited and translated here for the first time are primary material from the years before the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate in 297/909. The authors have been identified as Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'i and Abu'l-'Abbas Muhammad, two brothers who were central to the success of the Ismaili da'wa in North Africa. Da'wa, a term used to describe how Muslims teach others about the beliefs and practices of their Islamic faith, therefore provide a unique view of the nature (...) and development of Islam throughout history. In this case, the primary texts shed light on the development of Islam among the Berbers of the Maghreb. The first text by Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'i shows how the arguments for belief in the 'imamate' of the family of the Prophet, that is, the Shi'a belief that all imams should be spiritual descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and his household, were developed and presented to bring new adherents to the cause. The Book of the Keys to Grace by his elder brother Abu'l-'Abbas, too, concerns not only the centrality of the imam in the faith but also sheds light on the hierarchy of the da'wa in this early period and its organisational sophistication. Both texts also reveal the contemporary theology propagated by the Ismaili da'wa, including for instance, the powerful analogy of Moses/Aaron and Muhammad/'Ali, the awareness of a variety of religious traditions and the use of detailed Qur'anic quotations and a wide range of hadith. As such they constitute primary source material of interest not only for Ismaili history but for this early period of Islam in general.". (shrink)