Risks and burdens in the study participation, as well as an adequate risk-benefit balance, are key concepts for the evaluation of clinical studies by research ethics committees. An adequate assessment and continuous monitoring to ensure compliance of risks and burdens in clinical trials have long been described as a central task in research ethics. However, there is currently no uniform and solid theoretical approach to risk assessment by RECs. Regulatory standards of research ethics such as the Declaration of Helsinki provide (...) only minimal guidance on how risk decisions are considered. Due to discrepancies in the existing literature and guidance documents, adequate risk assessment by RECs remains to be elusive. In this article, we address current definitions of risk and present our own concept of aggregate risk definition. Moreover, we highlight the concept of benefit, the standard of reasonableness with respect to ethics literature and different approaches of risk-benefit assessment. In order to present a comprehensive theoretical approach of risk assessment by RECs, further understanding of the definitions of risk may improve adequate decision-making tasks by RECs. To improve the process of risk assessment by RECs, a dynamic framework will be illustrated, showing step-by-step risk assessment functions. This approach may be a promising tool to ensure adequacy in risk assessment by RECs. (shrink)

Spitale, Germani, and Biller-Andorno (2024) have proposed a comprehensive framework for navigating the ethical dilemmas associated with risk and crisis communication (RCC) during public health emer...

Illustrations: 1 B/w Illustration Description: Pranab Kumar Sen, Professor Emeritus, Jadavpur University in whose honour this volume has been prepared was one of the leading philosophers of our country and a highly respected teacher. It carries thirty-five articles which deal with different branches of philosophy,viz., philosophical logic, philosophy of language, ontology, theory of knowledge, Kant exegesis, moral philosophy, social philosophy, philosophy of art. As Sen's philosophical interests and expertise were wide the authors had ample freedom in their choice of (...) topics. This volume will be of interest to those who are acquainted with sophisticated literature in analytic philosophy, scholars working in different branches of philosophy and also general readers of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Aphoristic work on the fundamentals of Nyaya philosophy with classical Sanskrit commentaries; critical edition with exhaustive introduction.

How are social protections evolving in the developing world, particularly as those nations confront the challenges of globalization? Scholars in this special issue examine the challenges, continuity, and changes in social protections across the developing world over the last few decades. The common theme that emerges from this informative group of papers is that developing nations are confronting unique politico-economic difficulties as well as opportunities for the development of their welfare programs. This is a vastly understudied topic. The studies in (...) this issue tackle some of the unanswered questions of the globalization–social protection debate in developing economies, with a particular focus on how politics plays into the relationship. These articles hope to initiate a dialogue and offer suggestions for further research in this critical area of study. (shrink)

Description: Knowledge, Truth and Realism is a collection of essays written by Pranab Kumar Sen over a period of ten years (from 1989 to 1998). The essays deal mainly with issues in Philosophy of Language and Theory of Knowledge from the standpoint of analytical philosophy. They bring forth Sen's realist philosophical position and his attempt to weave together specific questions concerning meaning, reference, truth, knowledge and objectivity in this realistic framework. By responding to and by making use of the (...) ideas of Philosophers like, Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, Peter Strawson, H.P. Grice, Michael Dummett, John McDowell, Sen develops his distinctive theory of meaning and understanding along with his theory of knowledge/knowing. In doing so he also addresses the larger issue regarding the nature of philosophical analysis. The essays are a testimony to the painstaking and lifelong engagement of the Philosopher with some of the central and contemporary debates in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Festschrift honoring P.F. Strawson; includes contributed articles on his contributions in logic and on logic.

A collection of specially commissioned papers which apply new analytical methods to the dtudy of the institutions, their origin, maintenance, and adaptation, which play such an important role in agrarian relations and rural development.

In the case of living beings – the very concept of “level” of organization becomes obscure: it suggests a value-based assessment, assigning notions like “lower” and “higher” with rather vague criteria for constructing the ladder of perfection, complexity, importance, etc. We prefer therefore the term “domain”, entities ranking equal. Domains may represent natural entities as well as purely human constructs developed in order to gain understanding of some facets of living things; living, evolved beings as well as those abstract constructs, (...) such as genotype and ‘niche’ which have been developed in the search for better understanding of such living things. Delimitation of such domains is sometimes a question of the dexterity of the researcher, and sometimes draws from the tradition in a given field. Such domains are not completely translatable to each other. Rather, they interact by a process that we call here reciprocal formation. Life is unique among multi-domain systems. In contrast to purely physical systems, life is a semiotic system driven by the historical experience of lineages, interpreted and re-interpreted by the incessant turnover of both individuals and their communities. This paper provides cases of domain interrelations, and addresses two questions: How do new qualities of inter-domain interaction emerge historically? How do new domains emerge in evolution. Two approaches, physical and biosemiotic, are discussed as we seek to get a better understanding of the overarching tasks. (shrink)

Contributed articles on the life and works of Āraja Ālī Matubbara, Muslim philosopher and social activist from Bangladesh.

On Rudra (Hindu deity) in Kashmir Shaivism philosophy.

Thanks to the Inlaks Foundation in India, I was able to do my doctoral research on Our Talk About Nonexistents at Oxford in the early eighties. The two greatest philosophers of that heaven of analytical philosophy - Peter Strawson and Michael Dummett - supervised my work, reading and criticising all the fledgling philosophy that I wrote during those three years. At Sir Peter's request, Gareth Evans, shortly before his death, lent me an unpublished transcript of Kripke's John Locke Lectures. Work (...) on the Appendix about Indian Philosophy was supervised by the late Professor Bimal Krishna Matilal with whom informal but intense philosophical conversations used to spill over into dinner at his place almost every other day. It was Professor Matilal who sent me, over a summer, to study a tough Navya-Nyaya text under his own Nyaya teacher Pandit Visvabandhu Tarkatirtha at Calcutta. All four of these teachers were as kind to me as my life-long mentor in philosophy Professor Pranab Kumar Sen, whose clarity and depth remain the unreachable regu lative ideal of my intellect. When I came back to India, my life became blissfully free of the agonising anxiety to publish, until, after a conference at Jadavpur University where I gave an impromptu paper, ironically enough, on Non-doings, I met Derek Parfit. He had a six-hour conversation with me, explicitly planning my life. Five years had already elapsed since I had finished my D. Phil, but Derek read my thesis and liked it. (shrink)

This is a draft on the Shvetashvatara Upanishad. This is just the author's internal scribblings...the references can all be Googled. If the ideas here are to be referred; they need appropriate citations. This is being made available for fair use during this ongoing COVID 19 pandemic.