Recent discussions of religious, cultural, and/or moral diversity raise questions relevant to the descriptive and normative aims of students of religious ethics. In conversation with several illustrative works, the author takes up issues of terminology, explanations or classifications of types and origins of plurality and pluralism, the relations between pluralism as a normative theory and the aims of a liberal state, and the import of an emphasis on plurality or pluralism for the comparative study of religious ethics.

This volume contains the invited lectures and a selection of the contributed papers and posters of the workshop on "Fluctuations and Sensitivity in Nonequil ibrium Systems", held at the Joe C. Thompson Conference Center, Un i vers ity of Texas at Austin, March 12-16, 1984. The workshop dealt with stochastic phenomena and sensi­ tivity in nonequilibrium systems from a macroscopic point of view. Durin9 the last few years it has been realized that the role of fluctuations is far less trivial (...) in systems far from equilibrium than in systems under thermodynamic equilibrium condi­ tions. It was found that random fluctuations often are a determining factor for the state adopted by macroscopic systems and cannot be regarded as secondary effects of minor importance. Further, nonequilibrium systems are also very sensitive to small systematic changes in their environment. The main aims of the workshop were: i) to provide scientists with an occasion to acquaint themselves with the state of the art in fluctuation theory and sensitivity analysis; ii) to provide a forum for the presentation of recent advances in theory and experiment; iii) to bring toge­ ther theoreticians and experimentalists in order to delineate the major open problems and to formulate strategies to tackle these problems. The organizing committee of the workshop consisted of W. Horsthemke, O. K. Konde­ pudi, G. Dewel, G. Nicolis, I. Prigogine and L. Reichl. (shrink)

Sur la toile de fond de la theologie negative, tissee par la discussion des apories que soulevent les notions de l'ineffable et de l'un, Damascius, le dernier diadoque de l'Ecole d'Athenes, elaboreson systeme metaphysique, sans se departir de la rigueur de sa methode aporetique, qui est une critique radicale du langage a l'interieur des coordonnees fixees par le Parmenide de Platon et par les Oracles Chaldaiques. Damascius, dans une enquete unique par son ampleur et son originalite questionne tour a tour (...) Porphyre, Jamblique, Syrianus et Proclus sur les principes; il examine les problemes que pose, en derivation de l'un, la formation de la trinite; de l'un-tout (la limite), du tout-un (l'infini) et de l'unifie (le mixte ou l'etre). Lien a priori entre l'un-tout et le tout-un, l'unifie est le principe de constitution de tout ordre et de toute realite. Damascius etudie sa nature de mixte originaire et autoconstituant, d'etre exemplaire et de premier intelligible. Cette notion lui permet de pas au crible, pour la mieux fonder, la problematique neoplatonicienne de la manence, de la procession et de la conversion. Les divers niveaux d'unification de la pluralite intelligible l'amenent a construire une theorie generale des elements, des parties et des formes Au passage, de nombreux textes, capitaux du point de vue de l'ontologie et de la doctrine de la connaissance, font regretter qu'ils aient ete inconnus du Moyen Age et qu'ils le demeurent pour beaucoup de nos contemporains. (shrink)

1. Sae sidae rŭl yŏrŏ gan saramdŭl -- 2. Ŏdum ŭi sidae.

An extension of the hypothetical experiment of Szilard, which involved the action of a one-molecule gas in an isolated isothermal system, is developed to illustrate how irreversibility may arise out of Brownian motion. As this development requires a consideration of nonmolecular components such as wheels and pistons, the thought-experiment is remodeled in molecular terms and appears to function as a perpetuum mobile.

These essays use particular issues, thinkers and texts to engage the question of God in early Christianity.

An attempt to reveal the linguistic and cultural potential of education in the process of learning Russian as a means of communication, of cognition of the linguistic picture of the world and the phenomenon of culture is made in the article. The stages of development of linguocultural concept of teaching Russian language in the Republic of Bashkortostan are presented. New approaches to teaching Russian language are considered. The author shows that in the process of education, elementary literacy of students should (...) be achieved while they are dealing with communicative and socially important tasks contributing to the development and formation of students as linguistic personalities. The author concludes that the actual task of the modern school, which is a successful preparation for the unified state examination, should also be achieved not by increased training before the exam, but provided by the total system of education aimed at the formation of personality with a wide range of language capabilities: a cultural person, well-speaking, correct writing, able to understand and interpret the text, to express their thoughts and feelings in their own texts. Such training involves the ascent of a language personality from basic literacy to formed linguistic, communicative and cultural competences. Theoretical basis and methodological support of the concept are presented in the list of publications. (shrink)

The ethical pre-condition of randomised controlled trials is, at present, the presence of equipoise. This refers to an opinion of the investigator that there is uncertainty as to the merits of the treatments being compared. It is argued that since the decision to enrol is the potential subject’s, the investigator’s opinion is not ethically relevant. It is proposed instead that equipoise be patient-centred, and that a trial is in equipoise for a patient when enrolling gives them the same chance of (...) a good outcome as not enrolling. It is shown that trial enrolment is normally easily the best strategy for achieving a good outcome, and that trials currently thought to be unethical may be in patient-centred equipoise. This is so for three reasons: (1) patients in trials receive superior care, (2) trial enrolment minimises the risk of being a victim of a therapeutic disaster and (3) health professionals make mistakes, and a 50% chance of receiving the worse treatment until a trial reports is always better than any chance of receiving the worse treatment indefinitely. It is concluded that so long as the standard of professional conduct is the furtherance of patients’ objective interests randomised controlled trials are ethical. (shrink)