La derni re dition des Lettres sur les animaux, ouvrage de l'encyclop diste mineur Charles-George Le Roy, date de 1896. Cette nouvelle dition propose une pr sentation tr s respecteuse de la pens e originale de l'auteur, elle pr cise dans quelles circonstances les divers l ments du livre furent successivement publi s et retrace son volution depuis les articles HOMME (Morale) et INSTINCT de l'Encyclop die jusqu' l' dition compl te de 1802. L'introduction situe les Lettresdans l'uvre (...) de Le Roy qui, comptant l' criture parmi ses activit s, fut d'autant plus m l aux conflits d'id es de l' poque. Des documents in dits permettent d' tablir avec exactitude combien Le Roy a su mettre profit ses fonctions de lieutenant des chasses des Parcs de Versailles pour exercer ses talents d'auteur. A la lumi re de divers autres documents, et parmi eux des in dits, il appara t que Le Roy fr quentait quelques-uns des penseurs les plus connus de l' poque (Condillac, Buffon, Diderot, Helv tius, d'Holbach), ainsi que des personnalit s de la haute soci t (en particulier Mme de Marchais), deux mondes don't l'influence est perceptible dans les Lettres sur les animaux. Celles-ci font cho non seulement aux crivains que leur auteur connaissit personnellement, mais aussi aux nombreux autres qu'il avait lus, notamment Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau. Inspir et nourri de ces contacts scientifiques, litt raires et philosophiques, Le Roy a su s'en d gager pour d velopper sa propre pens e et, l'image de l'excellent accueil que les contemporains et la post rit ont r serv l'ouvrage, ses id es ne peuvent qu' veiller un vif int r t. (shrink)

Introduction.--Biographical notes.--General analysis of knowledge and the act.--Perceptual and manipulatory phases of the act.--Cosmology.--Value and the act.--Supplementary essays.

This essay proposes African-based ethical solutions to profound human problems and a working African model to address those problems. The model promotes sustainability through advanced agroecological and information communication technologies. The essay’s first section reviews the ethical ground of that model in the work of the Senegalese scholar, Cheikh Anta Diop. The essay’s second section examines an applied African model for translating African ethical speculation into practice. Deeply immersed in European and African ethics, Godfrey Nzamujo developed the Songhaï Centers to (...) solve the problem of rural poverty in seventeen African countries. Harnessing advanced technologies within a holistic agroecological ecosystem, Nzamujo’s villages furnish education spanning the fields of ethics, information communication technology, microbiology, international development, and mechanical, electrical, civil and biological engineering in a community-based and centered development enterprise. The essay proposes a global consortium of ecovillages based on Nzamujo’s model. The final section explores funding methods for the consortium. The conclusion contemplates a return to Africa to supplement environmental ethics that enhance life’s future on earth. (shrink)

A biogenetic structural explanation is offered for the cross‐culturally common mystical experience called portalling, the experience of moving from one reality to another via a tunnel, door, aperture, hole, or the like. The experience may be evoked in shamanistic and meditative practice by concentration upon a portalling device (mirror, mandala, labyrinth, skrying bowl, pool of water, etc.). Realization of the portalling experience is shown to be fundamental to the phenomenology underlying multiple reality cosmologies in traditional cultures and is explained in (...) terms of radical re‐entrainment of the neurological systems mediating experience in the brain. Phenomenological experiments with mirror portalling devices from both the Tibetan and the Tsimshian religious traditions are reported. (shrink)

We discuss how academically-based interdisciplinary teams can address the extreme challenges of the world’s poorest by increasing access to the basic necessities of life. The essay’s first part illustrates the evolving commitment of research universities to develop ethical solutions for populations whose survival is at risk and whose quality of life is deeply impaired. The second part proposes a rationale for university responsibility to solve the problems of impoverished populations at a geographical remove. It also presents a framework for integrating (...) science, engineering and ethics in the efforts of multidisciplinary teams dedicated to this task. The essay’s third part illustrates the efforts of Howard University researchers to join forces with African university colleagues in fleshing out a model for sustainable and ethical global development. (shrink)

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has shed more light on the difficulty of making health care decisions integrating scientific knowledge and values associated to life and death issues, human suffering, quality of life, economic losses, liberty of movement, etc. But the difficulties related to health care decisions and the use of innovative drugs or technologies are not new, and many countries have created agencies that have the mandate to evaluate new technologies in health care. Health Technological Assessment (HTA) reports’ aim is (...) to guide the decision makers in these difficult matters. There are two ethical components in HTA. The first is the report’s presentation of an ethical evaluation of the technology. The second is the value-ladenness of the HTA decision-making process itself. When implicit value judgments are not elicited, the justification of the final decision cannot be transparent. The present paper aims to identify and elicit the implicit value-judgments related to each step of the HTA process. This research is grounded on an applied ethics decision-making paradigm based on the role of value judgments in the decision-making process. The first part discusses two different approaches to values and value judgments in HTA. In the second part, citations mentioning value judgments extracted from a systematic review on the integration of ethics into HTA were categorized to elicit the value judgments and their criteria for each different HTA decision-making steps. The results show that there are 18 decision-making steps in the HTA process where 23 implicit value-judgments can be recognized. The range of these value judgments encompasses the whole HTA process: from the initial request, the presenting of the principal issues, to the final report’s dissemination. Since stakeholders need to understand which value judgments the conclusion of a report relies on, eliciting the implicit value judgments in the HTA decision-making process should yield more transparency. (shrink)