The aim of this report is to present an example of a multidisciplinary Indian-Swedish co-operation on ethics in health care. It is based on a conference held in Asia Plateau, Panchgani, Maharasthra, India in 1998. The emphasis is on ethical values that are important for consumers of health care and professionals, and also for different cultures in developed and developing countries. The importance of human dignity is stressed. Sixteen recommendations are given in an appendix.

African researchers and their collaborators have been making significant contributions to useful research findings and discoveries in Africa. Despite evidence of scientific misconduct even in heavily regulated research environments, there is little documented information that supports prevalence of research misconduct in Africa. Available literature on research misconduct has focused on the developed world, where credible research integrity systems are already in place. Public attention to research misconduct has lately increased, calling for attention to weaknesses in current research policies and regulatory (...) frameworks. Africa needs policies, structural and governance systems that promote responsible conduct of research. To begin to offset this relative lack of documented evidence of research misconduct, contributors working in various research institutions from nine African countries agreed to share their experiences to highlight problems and explore the need to identify strategies to promote research integrity in the African continent. The experiences shared include anecdotal but reliable accounts of previously undocumented research misconduct, including some ‘normal misbehavior’ of frontline staff in those countries. Two broad approaches to foster greater research integrity are proposed including promotion of institutional and individual capacity building to instil a culture of responsible research conduct in existing and upcoming research scientist and developing deterrent and corrective policies to minimize research misconduct and other questionable research practices. By sharing these experiences and through the strategies proposed, the authors hope to limit the level of research misconduct and promote research integrity in Africa. (shrink)

This volume gathers together for the first time are all the key texts in a crucial debate in modern philosophy, centered on Leibniz's famous 1695 essay, the "New System of the Nature of Substances and their Communication," in which he introduced his strikingly original theory of metaphysics. His "system" became increasingly famous and drew him into discussion and development of these ideas, both in public and in private, with a variety of thinkers, most notably the great French philosopher Pierre Bayle. (...) Woolhouse's and Francks's new English edition gives the only full representation of this debate, and will therefore be essential reading for anyone who wishes to gain a proper understanding of Leibniz's philosophy and its intelletual context. All the texts are newly translated and extensively annotated; many appear in English for the first time. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 10, October 2020, Page 1-4.

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the limits of (...) knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Meditation refers to a family of self-regulation practices that focuses on training attention and awareness to foster psycho-emotional well-being and to develop specific capacities such as calmness, clarity, and concentration. We report a prospective convenience-controlled study in which we analyzed the effect of two components of Preksha Dhyāna – buzzing bee sound meditation and color meditation on healthy college students. Mahapran and leśya dhyāna are two Preksha Dhyāna practices that are based on sound and green color, respectively. The study population (...) represents a suitable target as college students experience different stress factors during the school year. This study measures the individual and combined effects of two techniques, on short-term memory, attention, and affect, in novice meditators. We used a battery of cognitive, performance, and compared results with baseline and control values. We found improved cognition, especially attention, short-term memory, and affect in terms of positivity and reduced negativity. Overall, the two techniques produced variable benefits and subjects showed improved scores over baseline for short-term memory, cognitive function, and overall wellbeing. Further studies are required to understand underlying mechanisms for the observed differences between the two techniques and to elucidate mechanisms underlying the more pronounced and global benefits observed with the combined techniques. These results underscore a need to examine individual components of meditation practices in order to individualize treatment approaches for attention disorders in young adults.Clinical Trail Registration:ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03779269. (shrink)

t. 1. Apo ton prōto skeptomeno anthrōpo mechri ton 6. aiōna M.Ch. -- t. 2. Apo ton 7. aiōna M.Ch. mechri to sēmera.

Ariès traces Western man's attitudes toward mortality from the early medieval conception of death as the familiar collective destiny of the human race to the modern tendency, so pronounced in industrial societies, to hide death as if it were an embarrassing family secret.

The foundation of the Christian counselling movement -- Christian counselling in the UK -- The aims of Christian counselling -- Integrating psychological and biblical truth -- Sigmund Freud--the founding father of psychotherapy -- The individual psychology of Alfred Adler -- Abraham Maslow--the man with new age tendencies -- Carl Rogers--a man who believed in himself -- Albert Ellis--the aggressive atheist -- The Bible's verdict on psychological 'truth' -- The case against Larry Crabb -- Self-esteem: the secular foundation -- Self-esteem and (...) the Christian counselling movement -- Self-esteem dogma in the light of scripture. (shrink)

Capital punishment—the legally authorized killing of a criminal offender by an agent of the state for the commission of a crime—stands in special need of moral justification. This is because execution is a particularly severe punishment. Execution is different in kind from monetary and custodial penalties in an obvious way: execution causes the death of an offender. While fines and incarceration set back some of one’s interests, death eliminates the possibility of setting and pursuing ends. While fines and incarceration narrow (...) one’s routes to happiness, death eliminates its possibility. Not surprisingly, there is much debate about the moral permissibility of capital punishment. This entry maps the terrain of this debate. The first section discusses justifications of the death penalty as they appear in major theories of punishment. The second section surveys moral objections to execution that apply to most justifications. The third addresses procedural criticisms, which do not target the morality of execution so much as the justice of its implementation. (shrink)

In Seeing Things as They Are (Searle 2015), Searle developed a direct realist’s theory of perception. According to direct realism, physical objects are directly and immediately perceived. Searle claims that Berkeley’s theory of perception goes against direct realism. For Searle, Berkeley’s theory suggests that only subjective experiences (ideas) are directly and immediately perceived, not physical objects. Contrary to Searle, G. S. Pappas claims that Berkeley’s theory of perception is consistent with the view that physical objects are immediately perceivable (Pappas 1982; (...) Pappas 1987). Given the conflicting interpretations of Berkeley’s theory of perception, this paper attempts to defend Searle’s position on Berkeley’s theory of perception. It refutes Pappas’ interpretation by arguing that he is inconsistent with Berkeley’s theses of ontological phenomenalism and heterogeneity thesis. (shrink)

From the concrete experience of war, Michael S. Yandell constructs a phenomenology of “negative revelation” in which false or distorted claims of goodness and justice disintegrate and become meaningless, adding depth to the term moral injury.

Purpose. To examine the existential anthropology of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in order to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing the universal-spiritual, as human in human being, apart from the individual-existential in him, and to reveal the hierarchical correlation of biosocial, existential and spiritual spheres in personality. Theoretical basis. Within existential philosophy the author differentiates two separate traditions and proceeds from the insufficiency of the distinction of existential sphere, proposed by phenomenological tradition, showing the necessity of its correlation with the (...) spiritual sphere as a sphere of humanity, proposed by non-phenomenological tradition of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski. Originality. The author presents the anthropological conception of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in which human personality is understood as unity of individual-existential and universal-spiritual, which requires a special trans-empirical field of culture, which contains senses, images and symbols of humanity. Also, the author presents the recent developments of existential thinkers in distinguishing existential and spiritual dimensions, both not reducible to the physical and social dimensions. Conclusions. In both existential traditions, the specifically human was founded as a trans-biological and trans-social phenomenon, which appears as indefinable and non-predetermined. But in first tradition, humanity is understood as an existence, as a unique individuality, "project", variant of humanity, equivalent to other variants, and universal is understood as a community of human condition in the world. While in the second tradition, the universal is understood as spiritual. Thus, horizontal level of our private existence, as the process of movement from birth to death, is supplemented by vertical of human, universal ideals and images. Humanity appears as a task, on the way to which human being transcends beyond the limits of his individual "self" to the "super-individual", through inclusion into spiritual community, into universal culture. (shrink)

Critics of the computational connectionism of the last decade suggest that it shares undesirable features with earlier empiricist or associationist approaches, and with behaviourist theories of learning. To assess the accuracy of this charge the works of earlier writers are examined for the presence of such features, and brief accounts of those found are given for Herbert Spencer, William James and the learning theorists Thorndike, Pavlov and Hull. The idea that cognition depends on associative connections among large networks of neurons (...) is indeed one with precedents, although the implications of this for psychological issues have been interpreted variously — not all versions of connectionism are alike. (shrink)

In this original work of cultural criticism, Allen S. Weiss explores the meaning of radio to the modern imagination.

In 'Een handvol filosofen' staan de filosofen centraal die sinds de oprichting van de Vrije Universiteit in 1880 aan deze instelling verbonden zijn geweest. Het gaat hierbij niet alleen om de inhoud van hun werk, maar ook om de personen zelf. Er waren filosofiedocenten die zich met de universiteit identificeerden en zich volledig konden ontplooien. Er waren er echter ook voor wie dit niet gold, die geïsoleerd of in gewetensnood raakten. Veel filosofiestudenten waren actief betrokken bij wat er in hun (...) faculteit gebeurde. Zij namen initiatieven, protesteerden soms tegen de gang van zaken en kozen partij in conflictsituaties. Sinds het eind van de jaren zestig van de twintigste eeuw verloor de Vrije Universiteit geleidelijk haar christelijk karakter. Tegenwoordig werken alle stafleden vanuit hun eigen motivatie mee aan een hoofdzakelijk seculier geworden universiteit, die ruimte biedt voor religieuze en levensbeschouwelijke diversiteit. (shrink)

Many books explain what is known about the universe. This book investigates what cannot be known. Rather than exploring the amazing facts that science, mathematics, and reason have revealed to us, this work studies what science, mathematics, and reason tell us cannot be revealed. In The Outer Limits of Reason, Noson Yanofsky considers what cannot be predicted, described, or known, and what will never be understood. He discusses the limitations of computers, physics, logic, and our own thought processes. Yanofsky describes (...) simple tasks that would take computers trillions of centuries to complete and other problems that computers can never solve; perfectly formed English sentences that make no sense; different levels of infinity; the bizarre world of the quantum; the relevance of relativity theory; the causes of chaos theory; math problems that cannot be solved by normal means; and statements that are true but cannot be proven. He explains the limitations of our intuitions about the world -- our ideas about space, time, and motion, and the complex relationship between the knower and the known. Moving from the concrete to the abstract, from problems of everyday language to straightforward philosophical questions to the formalities of physics and mathematics, Yanofsky demonstrates a myriad of unsolvable problems and paradoxes. Exploring the various limitations of our knowledge, he shows that many of these limitations have a similar pattern and that by investigating these patterns, we can better understand the structure and limitations of reason itself. Yanofsky even attempts to look beyond the borders of reason to see what, if anything, is out there. (shrink)