In "Evangelium Vitae" Pope John Paul II calls for a renewal of culture to combat the culture of death. He criticizes various aspects of a pluralistic, liberal society--a type of society that he claims is based on moral relativism and a view of democracy that becomes a substitute for moral law. He maintains that such a view trivializes moral choice. In this essay I argue that John Rawls's notion of a liberal society as an overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines can (...) avoid relativism while allowing for reasonable debate among opposed positions. While Rawls maintains that comprehensive doctrines, including religions, should employ a form of public reason that is not a unique feature of any one comprehensive doctrine, I argue that this requirement is too strong. One is often justified in appealing to features of comprehensive doctrines other than one's own, features that are unique to the doctrines themselves. Such an appeal does not pretend to be neutral as public reason would seem to be. In the final section of the paper I discuss some suggestions made by the Pope regarding actions in civil society that are independent of debates about legal change and suggest some ways in which they might contribute to desired cultural transformation. (shrink)

This article discusses the effects of the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, which was signed in 1997 and is due to be implemented by the signatory nation‐states this year. The Convention represents the expansion of legal measures to combat the bribery of foreign public officials by individuals or corporations, and it has been accompanied by the Organisation of American States’ Convention Against Corruption. Previously the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act , which applied only to United States (...) individuals or corporations, ‘stood alone in the world as a legal barrier to transnational bribery’ . This article proceeds in stages to evaluate implications of the Convention. Firstly the Convention is placed in the context of the increased focus on transnational business bribery in recent years. Second, the main points of the Convention are outlined. Third, the issues and problems posed by the Convention for business are discussed. Finally some themes regarding enforcement by the relevant authorities are outlined. (shrink)

Texto de la conferencia presentada en la mesa “Lecturas argentinas de Proust” en el marco del Coloquio Internacional Montevideana IV “A la recherche du temps perdu y Ulysses en ámbitos rioplatenses: lecturas, traducciones, traslaciones, diálogos”, organizado por Instituto de Letras de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación. Universidad de la República (Uruguay) - Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales (Uruguay) - Universidad de Picardie (Francia). Montevideo, 6 de julio de 2006. Las referencias bibliográficas fueron agregadas para la presente (...) publicación. (shrink)

This book explores Dostoevsky as a political thinker from his religious and philosophical foundation to nineteenth-century European politics and how themes that he had examined are still relevant for us today.

This article explores the way that senile dementia is represented in contemporary culture, with particular reference to texts which narrate the experience of caring for a parent or spouse with one form of the illness. These narratives raise problematic issues about the materiality of the body and its relation to individual identity, and the unstable relationship between memory and identity in postmodern culture, by drawing on the actual experience of bodily dependency and disorientating memory loss in dementia patients. These speculations (...) about the body, memory and the self are ultimately related in narratives of dementia to the inevitable process of aging and dying and the cultural meanings attached to it. The article places the representation of dementing illnesses within a Foucauldian narrative of surveillance and control in the discourse of aging and death in modern Western societies, redemptive views of illness in western culture and arguments about death in contemporary theory. (shrink)

La filosofía pragmatista norteamericana ha adquirido en estos últimos tiempos una gran relevancia. En ese contexto destaca particularmente la figura de John Dewey. A partir de la reciente publicación en lengua española de dos de sus obras de filosofía social y política más significativas —Viejo y nuevo individualismo y La opinión pública y sus problemas—, este trabajo repasa sus ideas sobre el individualismo, el liberalismo, la comunidad, la opinión pública y la democracia, sin perder nunca de vista su pertinencia para (...) los problemas y desafíos de nuestros días. (shrink)

El pensamiento filosófico de Sõren Kierkegaard se construye desde problemáticas existenciales del sujeto, como la angustia, la desesperación y el ensimismamiento. La literatura de Ernesto Sábato se desenvuelve entre aquellas problemáticas. El presente artículo propone la lectura del Informe sobre Ciegos como una forma de acceder, desde una perspectiva vivencial, a la complejidad del pensamiento existencial kierkegaardiano.

The author studies the theory of "first principles" at Leonardo Polo's philosophy (at the book El conocimiento habitual de los primeros principios) and Aristotle thought. He critics Polo's theory of first principles in using aristotelian concepts from Metafísica, III, IV and IX.

The Solution of the Fist: Dostoevsky and the Roots of Modern Terrorism addresses the political and psychological aspects of terrorism as seen through the eyes of a first-generation observer of terrorism, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Through an in-depth analysis of the first novel ever written about terrorism,The Demons, this book explains Dostoevsky's uniquely privileged position in observing this modern political phenomenon.

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the effects of complex training on sprint, jump, and change of direction ability among soccer players. After an electronic search, 10 peer-reviewed articles were considered in the meta-analysis. The athletes included in this meta-analysis were amateur to professional level male soccer players. These studies incorporated CT in soccer players who were compared to a control group. Significant moderate to large improvements were observed in the CT group [sprint: standard mean difference = 0.92–1.91; (...) jump: SMD = 0.96–1.58; COD: SMD = 0.97–1.49] when compared to control groups. Subgroup analysis were also conducted based on age, duration, and competitive level. The beneficial effects of CT were greater in players <18 vs. ≥18 years, after ≥8 vs. <8 weeks and among professional vs. amateur players. In conclusion, regular soccer training programs may be supplemented with CT to improve sprint, jump, and COD performance. A longer duration of CT seems to be optimal in improving the physical abilities of soccer players. Professional players and <18 years players may benefit more from CT program. (shrink)