ABOUT THE BOOK:A new systematization of the main philosophical tenets of Hinayana Buddhism as derived from the Four Noble Truths. The work is divided in three parts: (1) Suffering and the Nature of Existence; (2) Origin of Suffering and the Notion.

Hilden and Gammelgaard's comments on the evaluation and application of statistical trials and on informed consent lead to the same conclusion that there are special circumstances when clinical trials are performed in emergency situations.The decision to comment on the work that H&G responded to was motivated by the wish to manifest the need to reach a consensus on modifying the conditions in which clinical trials should be performed in special circumstances.One unquestionable fact must first be addressed: clinical trials are necessary (...) for acquiring new knowledge and consequent improvements in health care services. At the same time, patient participation should be encouraged under conditions that respect patients' decision making capability.Are these conditions being met at present? An answer to this is given below. (shrink)

The problem of non-compliance with treatment and its repercussions on the clinical evolution of different conditions has been widely investigated.1–4 Non-compliance has also been shown to have significant economic implications, not only as a result of product loss but also indirectly through the complication of disease management and its subsequent healthcare and social costs.5–7Non-compliance as a health problemThe term “non-compliance” might be taken to refer both to the failure to follow a drug regimen and to the failure to adopt other (...) measures that contribute to improvement in health—for example, changes in lifestyle or diet. This letter focuses on the former.Non-compliance with a drug regimen can be the result of a number of different factors9–11 and a variety of techniques have been developed in an attempt to control it.12,13 Of these, the few techniques that have been shown to be effective have only managed to solve the problem in specific situations over short periods of time. The use of such techniques to control non-compliance, particularly where these are effective, raises interesting ethical questions about the extent to which their application constitutes an infringement of the patient’s right to decide on how to manage their own health.8 Here we suggest that in some cases one factor that leads to non-compliance is the tendency to provide extensive and exhaustive information on side effects in …. (shrink)

Advances in medicine are closely linked to clinical research, but certain study procedures may be in conflict with the fundamental principles of ethics and codes of conduct in medicine. Following an analysis of two studies involving treatments for acute myocardial infarction (AMI), the admissibility of continuing a study was questioned after the initial results for two types of treatment showed that one was significantly better than the other. Also considered doubtful was the information provided to patients with the object of (...) obtaining their informed consent. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the 1986 Amendments to the False Claims Act of 1863, which offers whistle-blowers financial rewards for disclosing fraud committed against the U.S. government. This law provides an opportunity to examine underlying assumptions about the morality of whistle-blowing and to consider the merits of increased reliance on whistle-blowing to protect the public interest. The law seems open to a number of moral objections, most notably that it exerts a morally corrupting influence on whistle-blowers. We answer these objections (...) and argue that the law is not objectionable on these grounds. Since there are no compelling moral objections to the law, it is appropriate and acceptable to judge the law in terms of its economic costs and benefits. We assess the most salient of these and conclude that the benefits outweigh the costs. We suggest that a mechanism similar to the Act should be considered for protecting stockholders’ interests in the private sector. We conclude by making several proposals for improving the existing legislation. (shrink)

What ethical framework should be used as a basis for teaching business ethics? Should business ethics be taught by ethicists in a separate course, by business faculty in business courses, or perhaps by both? These are some of the issues this paper will address. The paper begins with a review of the literature concerning approaches to teaching business ethics. Next, some ethical frameworks for teaching business ethics are considered. Finally, the paper proposes that students should apply their own personal values (...) to business ethical issues in the classroom, thus providing future business leaders with a process for resolving ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

El presente artículo es una propuesta de una nueva lectura del capítulo quinto del libro tercero del De anima de Aristóteles. Por lectura se entiende no una interpretación, sino una cuidadosa atención al momento filológico: qué dice literalmente el texto, antes de las interpretaciones filosóficas. Para esto, se atiende minuciosamente a la semántica de los términos, al modo de adjetivación de la lengua griega, y al contexto general, gramatical y semántico de este capítulo quinto. El resultado de este análisis filológico (...) es una es una nueva comprensión del texto, que permite una nueva traducción, que se ofrece al final. (shrink)

Tras la caída del positivismo -- Mitología, cristianismo y ciencia moderna.

In this paper we prove the equivalence between the Gentzen system G LJ*\c , obtained by deleting the contraction rule from the sequent calculus LJ* (which is a redundant version of LJ), the deductive system IPC*\c and the equational system associated with the variety RL of residuated lattices. This means that the variety RL is the equivalent algebraic semantics for both systems G LJ*\c in the sense of [18] and [4], respectively. The equivalence between G LJ*\c and IPC*\c is a (...) strengthening of a result obtained by H. Ono and Y. Komori [14, Corollary 2.8.1] and the equivalence between G LJ*\c and the equational system associated with the variety RL of residuated lattices is a strengthening of a result obtained by P.M. Idziak [13, Theorem 1].An axiomatization of the restriction of IPC*\c to the formulas whose main connective is the implication connective is obtained by using an interpretation of G LJ*\c in IPC*\c. (shrink)

In this paper we obtain a finite Hilbert-style axiomatization of the implicationless fragment of the intuitionistic propositional calculus. As a consequence we obtain finite axiomatizations of all structural closure operators on the algebra of {–}-formulas containing this fragment.

Una aproximación a la concepción viquiana del Derecho Romano que, desde la "soledad" vivida por el filósofo napolitano, asume como modo original de afrontar el derecho una poética jurídica y la búsqueda de una lengua articulada universal .An approach to Vico's conception of Roman Law that, from the "loneliness" of the napolitan philosopher, assumes juridical poetics as an original way of facing law, and the search of an articulated universal language.

This paper focuses on the 1986 Amendments to the False Claims Act of 1863, which offers whistle-blowers financial rewards for disclosing fraud committed against the U.S. government. This law provides an opportunity to examine underlying assumptions about the morality of whistle-blowing and to consider the merits of increased reliance on whistle-blowing to protect the public interest. The law seems open to a number of moral objections, most notably that it exerts a morally corrupting influence on whistle-blowers. We answer these objections (...) and argue that the law is not objectionable on these grounds. Since there are no compelling moral objections to the law, it is appropriate and acceptable to judge the law in terms of its economic costs and benefits. We assess the most salient of these and conclude that the benefits outweigh the costs. We suggest that a mechanism similar to the Act should be considered for protecting stockholders' interests in the private sector. We conclude by making several proposals for improving the existing legislation. (shrink)

RESUMEN: Objetivo. En este trabajo se plantea como objetivo examinar y comparar las diferentes concepciones de responsabilidad y relación con “el Otro” en dos diferentes autores representativos que han tratado de forma notable estos conceptos, profundizando en la subjetividad, libertad y la experiencia del mundo y de la propia existencia. Diseño. Se trata de un Estudio en forma de breve ensayo con un análisis crítico de la temática analizada. Originalidad /valor. Se trata de un análisis comparativo entre dos grandes filósofos (...) enmarcados en la fenomenología de la existencia en aspectos concretos de su pensamiento. Hallazgos. Los dos autores que analizaremos han conocido la fenomenología de Husserl y Heidegger, que fue para ellos un punto de partida con gran influencia en su pensamiento, no obstante, ambos autores tuvieron un posicionamiento y desarrollo propio y en parte divergente entre ellos en gran parte de su pensamiento, llegando a constituirse como auténticas referencias de su tiempo y que actualmente mantienen un gran interés e influencia en la filosofía contemporánea. Analizaré comparativamente dos grandes autores como son, Emmanuel Lévinas y Jean Paul Sartre. Conclusiones. En ellos veremos formas diferentes y hasta cierto punto complementarias de abordar la libertad, responsabilidad y la relación con el otro, en uno de forma más ontológica y en el otro con una visión desde la ética. (shrink)

Dear readers, perhaps you have not realized it, but your lives so far have been spent in a period called ‘postmodern’.The word is well-known to you. It has been around for many years. It almost always occurs unexpectedly, half way through an article, in the middle of a conversation, in the course of an argument on radio or television. Something, when all is said and done, is postmodern, someone is what he or she is because he or she is postmodern; (...) a strange and inexplicable phenomenon can be explained as postmodern. This changeable, suggestive, authoritative term, which seems to allude to something precise and technical and which, at the same time, suggests the epoch-making, says all that is good and all that is bad of something. Postmodern is an accusation. Postmodern is praise. What is postmodern is degenerate, has got worse, is hardly serious, of low quality, a poor imitation, irresponsible, frivolous. Nevertheless, what is postmodern is also still more topical, even more modern, forward-looking, amusing and light, cultured without being boring, sophisticated without being elitist, complex without being obscure. (shrink)

It has never been easy to understand what intellectuals are, whether they still exist, or whether they are vanishing into a huge ‘cultural middle class’ where high culture and mass culture meld into one another. With particular reference to Italy, Alfonso Berardinelli looks back at the undisputed intellectuals of the past, suggesting that they were their own critics and most determined detractors at the same time, yet full of confidence in their capacity to lay down laws for organizing and (...) developing society. In contrast, today’s intellectuals seem to embrace anonymity, and in a context defined as postmodern, they have given up being an elite that judges, whose duty is not only to produce knowledge but also to propose values and social models. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Berger and Nanay consider, and reject, three ways of addressing the phenomenon of unconscious perception within a naïve realist framework. Since these three approaches seem to exhaust the options open to naïve realists, and since there is said to be excellent evidence that perception of the same fundamental kind can occur, both consciously and unconsciously, this is seen to present a problem for the view. We take this opportunity to show that all three approaches considered remain (...) perfectly plausible ways of addressing unconscious perception within a naïve realist framework. So far from undermining the credibility of naïve realism, Berger and Nanay simply draw our attention to an important question to be considered by naïve realists in future work. Namely, which of the approaches considered is most likely to provide an accurate account of unconscious perception in each of its purported incarnations? (shrink)

(2013). Complexity and Transdisciplinarity: Reflections on Theory and Practice. World Futures: Vol. 69, The Complexity of Life and Lives of Complexity, pp. 200-230.

In this paper we study the relations between the fragment L of classical logic having just conjunction and disjunction and the variety D of distributive lattices, within the context of Algebraic Logic. We prove that these relations cannot be fully expressed either with the tools of Blok and Pigozzi's theory of algebraizable logics or with the use of reduced matrices for L. However, these relations can be naturally formulated when we introduce a new notion of model of a sequent calculus. (...) When applied to a certain natural calculus for L, the resulting models are equivalent to a class of abstract logics (in the sense of Brown and Suszko) which we call distributive. Among other results, we prove that D is exactly the class of the algebraic reducts of the reduced models of L, that there is an embedding of the theories of L into the theories of the equational consequence (in the sense of Blok and Pigozzi) relative to D, and that for any algebra A of type (2,2) there is an isomorphism between the D-congruences of A and the models of L over A. In the second part of this paper (which will be published separately) we will also apply some results to give proofs with a logical flavour for several new or well-known lattice-theoretical properties. (shrink)