Background. The increased number of clinical trials taking place in developing countries and the complexity of trial protocols mandate that local ethics review committees reviewing them have the capacity to ensure that they are conducted to the highest ethical standards.Methods. The Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative Institute of Clinical Research and the Kenyan National Council for Science and Technology embarked on an exercise to enhance the capacity of ERCs in Kenya to review such protocols. This process involved conducting an audit of (...) all ERCs in the country, and performing training needs assessments to identify knowledge and capacity gaps. Information obtained was used to develop training materials for ERC members at workshops conducted in different parts of the country.Results. Five accredited and 13 non-accredited ERCs were identified. Four of the accredited ERCs were located in the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi. The most common challenges cited by participants during the needs assessments were excess workload, and a lack of co-ordination and/or communication between the ERCs. Subsequently, 140 ERC members from 17 institutions across the country were trained as follows: 36 from institutions in the western part of Kenya, 38 from institutions in the south-eastern coastal region, 38 from the eastern region and 44 from Nairobi.Conclusion. The KAVI-ICR and the NCST have developed training modules for training ERC members in Kenya and are in the process of developing a manual to train members. The Kenyan experience may be used to enhance the capacity of ERCs in the East African region. (shrink)

By exploring the significance of Wittgenstein’s later texts relating to the philosophy of language, _Wittgenstein’s Later Theory of Meaning_ offers insights that will transform our understanding of the influential 20th-century philosopher. Explores the significance of Wittgenstein’s later texts relating to the philosophy of language, and offers new insights that transform our understanding of the influential 20th-century philosopher Provides original interpretations of the _systematic_ points about language in Wittgenstein’s later writings that reveal his theory of meaning Engages in close readings of (...) a variety of Wittgenstein’s later texts to explore what the philosopher really had to say about ‘kinds of words’ and ‘parts of speech’ Frees Wittgenstein from his reputation as an unsystematic thinker with nothing to offer but ‘therapy’ for individual cases of philosophical confusion. (shrink)

In an increasingly globalized world, empathy has been identified as a core competency of future global citizens and thus as an important skill to be fostered in global citizenship education (GCE). Despite this, however, what empathy is, and how it can play the pivotal role often claimed for it in the literature, have not been adequately explored. Here, Eirik Risberg argues that, pace the common conception of empathy, empathy should not be construed narrowly, as an affective concept, but broadly, as (...) a cognitive and epistemic concept. Drawing on recent work in philosophy and psychology, Risberg explores a suggestion that construes empathy as a complex self-directed perspective-taking of the situation of another. While this may constitute a conception of empathy that is more modest than the most ardent proponents of empathy would like, it has the benefit of avoiding the objections that have been leveled against empathy as a moral concept and thus allows us to maintain that empathy is a valuable skill to be cultivated in educating global citizens for the twenty-first century. (shrink)

We must begin by distinguishing between sciences and empirical fields. The empirical fields are the elementary divisions of the natural world into levels for purposes of examination. The sciences consist in the method of examining those fields, together with the presuppositions and findings of such a method. Throughout this essay, we shall consider only the empirical fields as the subject-matter of the sciences, and the way in which the sciences describe their subject-matter, but not the sciences themselves. Thus the adjective (...) “physical” will be employed, for instance, to describe the physical empirical field, and not “physics” to describe the science. (shrink)

An attempt to present a classification under which all the law can be brought into scientific arrangement.

Name der Zeitschrift: Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 1 Seiten: 219-236.

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Moral rights feature prominently and are relied on substantially in debates in bioethics. Conceptually, however, duties can perform the logical work of rights, but not vice versa, and reference to rights is therefore inessential. Normatively, rights, like duties, depend on more basic moral values or principles, and attempts to establish the logical priority of rights over duties or the reverse are misguided. In practical decision making, however, an analysis in terms of duties is more fruitful than one based on rights. (...) A right may function as a proxy term for a consequentialist rule, or for a deontological constraint, but does not thereby enrich these concepts. Rights may also help in a purely expressive sense and may assist an initial focusing on a moral conflict. However, their role in bioethics discourse is more one of convenience than of necessity. Moreover, unless rights are firmly founded on fundamental moral values, their use encourages rhetoric rather than argument. (shrink)

Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Bedeutung der Juden im Mittelalter.--John Spencer's Erklärung der biblischen Gesetze in ihrer Beziehung zu Maimonides.--Max Webers Soziologie des antiken Judentums.--Zu Gabirols allegorischer Deutung der Erzählung vom Paradies.--Das Problem der Willensfreiheit bei Ḥasdai Crescas und den islamschen Aristotelikern.--Religion und Wissenschaft im mittelalterlichen und im modernen Denken.--Zur Kritik der Offenbarungsreligion in der islamischen und jüdischen Philosophie.--[Le-ḥeḳer ha-meḳorot shel Sefer ha-ʻiḳarim].--Die Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums.--Die religiösen Motive in der Philosophie des Maimonides.--Das Problem der Kontingenz in der Philosophie (...) des Maimonides.--Die Normierung des Glaubensinhalts im Judentum.--Hermann Cohens Ethik. (shrink)

Liebe Grete Herrmann, besten Dank für Ihren Brief vom 19.5! Auch ich freue mich, Sie auf dem Pariser Kongreß zu sehen; wahrscheinlich werde ich auch an der vorangehenden Positivistentagung teilnehmen, also schon am 29.7. in Paris sein. Es interessiert mich, diese antimetaphysischen Metaphysiker einmal aus der Nähe zu beobachten. Ich werde sehen, es so einzurichten, daß ich eventuell auch nach dem Hauptkongreß noch einige Tage in Paris sein kann, um die von Ihnen angeregten Diskussionen mitzuführen. Jedenfalls hoffe ich auf einige (...) gründliche Gespräche mit Ihnen. (shrink)

This paper suggests, against a comparative horizon and in broadly philosophical context, a fresh approach to the study of Hinduism. After indicating how religion in general and ‘Hinduism’ in particular are plural phenomena both internally and externally, the paper goes on to define a distinguishing property of Hinduness in terms of an approach that is based on a re-centring system of equilibrating and interactive polarities called ‘polycentrism’. This is described further as a calculated paradoxicality, which is articulated in the light (...) of possible objections. (shrink)

Morality is often thought of as non-rational or sub-rational. In Moral Notions, first published in 1967, Julius Kovesi argues that the rationality of morality is built into the way we construct moral concepts. In showing this he also resolves the old Humean conundrum of the relation between 'facts' and 'values'. And he puts forward a method of reasoning that might make 'applied ethics' (at present largely a hodge-podge of opinions) into a constructive discipline. Kovesi's general theory of concepts - (...) important in its own right - is indebted to his interpretation of Plato, and his three papers on Plato, first published here, explain this debt. This new edition of Moral Notions also includes a foreward by Philippa Foot, a biography of the author, and a substantial afterword in which the editors, Robert Ewin and Alan Tapper, explain the signficance of Kovesi's work. (shrink)

In this sketch of medieval philosophy I hope to show, more by illustration than by explicit argument, that philosophy did exist in the period from the first ...

Silver medalist for the IPPY award for Current Events in 2016! _Racial Realities and Post-Racial Dreams_ is a moral call, a harkening and quickening of the spirit, a demand for recognition for those whose voices are whispered. Julius Bailey straddles the fence of social-science research and philosophy, using empirical data and current affairs to direct his empathy-laced discourse. He turns his eye to President Obama and his critics, racism, income inequality, poverty, and xenophobia, guided by a prophetic thread that (...) calls like-minded visionaries and progressives to action. The book is an honest look at the current state of our professed city on a hill and the destruction left on the darker sides of town. (shrink)