Outstanding among the social problems facing urban centers of the world in general and Nigeria is the problem of crime. The increasing rate of criminal activities has become a major concern across the globe. Today, lives and properties are no longer safe for both the rich and the poor. All seem to live one day at a time. Content Analysis is used as the method of data analysis. The method adopted was more of an exposition, critical analysis and evaluation. More (...) specifically, this paper gave a general background about violence, urban violence and the question of self-defense. Furthermore, a philosophical answer was given in the light of the medieval thinker St. Thomas Aquinas. It was concluded that there is a need for social living. A good citizen is one who has an unselfish love for the common good of his state; a love issuing forth in an efficacious desire to see that good is procured and furthered. Thus, a good citizen realizes that he is part of a social and political society. Thus, his personal goodness, and the goodness of his actions contributes to the good of all. KEYWORDS: Sociology, Urban Violence, Self-defense, Thomas Aquinas, Qualitative Research,Nigeria. (shrink)

This essay examines the nature of man within the scope of situational philosophy. It explores the writing of William Golding to subvert intellectual error on racism. Besides, it challenges any claim to absolute moral refinement since existential situation set the stage for the unfolding of man. The radical transformation of Jack Merridew and the situational response of Ralph are used as philosophical base to explain the dynamism of man in the face of changing situation. However, the analysis of some scholars (...) on the black race reveals a fundamental philosophy that misses many fundamental points. This paper therefore advocates an incursion into appropriate political framework and dismissal of race based supremacist philosophy. (shrink)

Francis Bacon, lawyer, statesman, and philosopher, remains one of the most effectual thinkers in European intellectual history. We can trace his influence from Kant in the 1700s to Darwin a century later. The Advancement of Learning , first published in 1605, contains an unprecedented and thorough systematization of the whole range of human knowledge. Bacon’s argument that the sciences should move away from divine philosophy and embrace empirical observation would forever change the way philosophers and natural scientists interpret their (...) world. (shrink)

F. H. Bradley was the foremost philosopher of the British Idealist school, which came to prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bradley, who was a life fellow of Merton College, Oxford, was influenced by Hegel, and also reacted against utilitarianism. He was recognised during his lifetime as one of the greatest intellectuals of his generation and was the first philosopher to receive the Order of Merit, in 1924. His work is considered to have been important to the (...) formation of analytic philosophy. In metaphysics, he rejected pluralism and realism, and believed that English philosophy needed to deal systematically with first principles. This work, first published in 1893, is divided into two parts: 'Appearance' deals with exposing the contradictions that Bradley believed are hidden in our everyday conceptions of the world; and in 'Reality', he builds his positive account of reality and considers possible objections to it. (shrink)

This volume belongs to the first new critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to have been produced since the nineteenth century. The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and according to the best principles of modern textual scholarship. The seven works in the present volume belong to the final completed stages (Parts III-V) of Bacon's hugely ambitious six-part sequence of philosophical works, collectively entitled Instauratio magna (1620-6). All are presented in the original Latin with (...) new facing-page translations. Three of the seven texts (substantial works in two cases, and all sharing a startlingly improbable textual history) are published and translated here for the first time: these are an early version of the Historia densi, the 'lost' Abecedarium, and the Historia de animato & inanimato. Another--the Prodromi sive anticipationes philosphiae secundae--has likewise never been translated before. Together with their commentaries and the introduction they open the way to important new understandings of Bacon's mature philosophical thought. (shrink)

[opening paragraph] -- Clark: The `astonishing hypothesis' which you put forward in your book, and which you obviously feel is very controversial, is that `You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: `You're nothing but a pack of neurons'.' But it seems to me that this is not so (...) astonishing a statement for a scientist to make. Isn't this what reductionist science has always believed? (shrink)

Bradley's metaphysical views, akin to those of Hegel, with a special emphasis on the internal relations of the Absolute are developed at length in Appearance ...

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

BackgroundConcurrent with efforts to establish national and regional biorepositories in Africa is widespread endorsement of ethics committees as stewards of the interests of individual donors and their communities. To date, ethics training programs for IRB members in Botswana have focused on ethical principles and international guidelines rather than on the ethical dimensions of specific medical technologies and research methodologies. Little is known about the knowledge and concerns of current and prospective IRB members in Botswana with respect to export, reuse, storage, (...) and benefit-sharing of biospecimens.MethodsThis qualitative study examined perspectives of IRB members in Botswana about the collection and use of biospecimens in research. Forty-one IRB members representing five committees in Botswana participated in discussions groups in March 2013. Transcriptions of audiotapes and field notes were analyzed to identify issues of concern that might be alleviated through education and capacity-building, and areas that required ongoing discussion or additional regulatory guidance.ResultsAreas of concern included lack of understanding among patients and providers about the use of biospecimens in clinical care and research; reuse of biospecimens, particularly issues of consent, ownership and decision-making; export of specimens and loss of control over reuse and potential benefits; and felt need for regulatory guidance and IRB-member training. Local belief systems about bodily integrity and strong national identity in the construct of benefits may be at odds with initiatives that involve foreign biorepositories or consider such collections to be global public goods.ConclusionEducation is needed to strengthen IRB-member capacity to review and monitor protocols calling for the collection and use of biospecimens, guided by clear national policy on priority-setting, partnerships, review, and oversight. Engagement with local stakeholders is needed to harmonize fundamentally different ways of understanding the human body and community identity with the aims of contemporary biomedicine. (shrink)

This article presents a review of the literature, summarizes current initiatives, and provides a heuristic for assessing the effectiveness of a range of institutional review board collaborative strategies that can reduce the regulatory burden of ethics review while ensuring protection of human subjects, with a particular focus on international research. Broad adoption of IRB collaborative strategies will reduce regulatory burdens posed by overlapping oversight mechanisms and has the potential to enhance human subjects protections.

First published in 1876, this forceful and vigorous classic of English moral philosophy, written in opposition to Utilitarianism by one of England's most eminent philosophers, is now available for the first time since 1977.

BackgroundEthical and regulatory guidance on the collection and use of human biospecimens for research forms an essential component of national health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, where rapid advances in genetic- and genomic-based technologies are fueling clinical trials involving HBS and the establishment of large-scale biobanks.MethodsAn extensive multi-level search for publicly available ethics regulatory guidance was conducted for each SSA country. A second review documented active trials listed in the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform as of January 2015 in which (...) HBS collection was specified in the protocol. Findings were combined to determine the extent to which countries that are study sites for HBS-related research are supported by regulatory guidance language on the collection, use, ownership and storage of biospecimens.ResultsOf the 49 SSA countries, 29 had some form of national ethics guidance, yet only 17 provided language relating to HBS-related research, with specific guidance on consent, ownership, reuse, storage, and export/import/transfer. Ten countries accounted for 84 % of the active clinical trials involving the collection of HBS in SSA. All except one of these countries were found to have some national guidance in the form of regulations, codes of ethics, and/or standard operating procedures; however, only seven of the ten offered any language specific to HBS.ConclusionsDespite the fact that the bulk of registered clinical trials in SSA involving HBS, as well as existing and proposed sites for biorepositories under the H3Africa Initiative, are currently situated in countries with the most complete ethics and regulatory guidance, variability in the regulations themselves may create challenges for planned and future pan-African collaborations and may require legislative action at the national level to revise. Countries in SSA that still lack regulatory guidance on HBS will require extensive health system strengthening in ethics governance before they can be full participants in the modern research enterprise. (shrink)

THE LIFE Of FRANCIS BACON, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. THE ancient Egyptians had a law, which ordained that the actions and characters of their dead ...

[opening paragraph] -- Clark: The `astonishing hypothesis' which you put forward in your book, and which you obviously feel is very controversial, is that `You, your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: `You're nothing but a pack of neurons'.' But it seems to me that this is not so (...) astonishing a statement for a scientist to make. Isn't this what reductionist science has always believed? (shrink)

First published in 1876, this forceful and vigorous classic of English moral philosophy, written in opposition to Utilitarianism by one of England's most eminent philosophers, is now available for the first time since 1977.

Rooted in the field of cathedral studies, this paper draws into dialogue three bodies of knowledge: Edward Bailey’s notion of implicit religion that, among other things, highlights the continuing traction of the Christian tradition and Christian practice within secular societies; David Walker’s notion of the multiple ways through which in secular societies people may relate to the Christian tradition as embodied within the Anglican Church and John Fisher’s notion of spiritual wellbeing as conceptualised in relational terms. Against this conceptual background, (...) this paper draws on data provided by 1234 participants attending one of the Christmas Eve carol services in Liverpool Cathedral to explore the perceived impact of attendance on the spiritual health of people who do not believe in God and yet feel that Liverpool Cathedral is their cathedral, and it is this sense of belonging that brings them back at Christmas time.Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this paper links in an original way three fields of discourse: Edward Bailey’s notion of implicit religion, David Walker’s notion of the four ways of belonging to God facilitated by the Anglican Church and John Fisher’s conceptualisation and operationalisation of the notion of spiritual wellbeing. The hypothesis developed from this original integration of theoretical perspectives is then tested empirically on data provided by 404 participants at carol services who do not believe in God. (shrink)

Ce livre retrace le cheminement du chercheur: le journal de ses intuitions, ses espoirs, ses doutes, ses certitudes, - jusqu'au silence d'avril 1908. Il replace la quete dans l'activite d'ensemble du savant: monographies, cours de linguistique generale, travaux de mythographie. Il la situe dans un paysage intellectuel scrupuleusement balise. Par dela des considerations d'une technicite souvent rebutante, et non exemptes de contradictions (parfois flagrantes), il s'attache a suivre le fil d'une quete autant mystique que linguistique. Par surcroit il donne a (...) lire le texte de Lucrece (accompagne de sa traduction), et la facon dont le transfigurent les Cahiers (dont une part importante est reproduite en fac simile). Il en soumet la lecture a certaines epreuves (dont un test informatique), qui demontrent que le phenomene echappe a la prison binaire qu'evoquait R. Barthes (son/graphie, demontre/indemontrable...), et reste d'une implacable actualite: qu'il pose dans toute son acuite la problematique d'une ecriture. Reste largement meconnu, Saussure le sera-t-il moins apres ce livre? Une chose est sure: on ne pourra, une fois ces pages refermees, conserver le meme regard sur celui qui fut en linguistique, selon le mot de Benveniste, une 'autre facon de commencer'. (shrink)

Résumé éditeur : "Nous avons perdu les deux repères qui permettaient autrefois de nous définir entre les dieux et les bêtes. Nous ne savons plus qui nous sommes, nous autres humains. De nouvelles utopies en naissent. D'un côté, le post-humanisme prétend nier notre animalité et faire de nous des dieux promis à l'immortalité par les vertus de la technique. D'un autre côté, l'animalisme veut faire de nous des animaux comme les autres et inviter les autres animaux à faire partie de (...) notre communauté morale. Alors forgeons une nouvelle utopie à notre mesure. Ne cherchons plus à nier les frontières naturelles - celles qui nous séparent des dieux ou des animaux - et défendons un humanisme conséquent, c'est-à-dire un cosmopolitisme sans frontières.". (shrink)

Defending Life is arguably the most comprehensive defense of the pro-life position on abortion - morally, legally, and politically - that has ever been published in an academic monograph. It offers a detailed and critical analysis of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey as well as arguments by those who defend a Rawlsian case for abortion-choice, such as J. J. Thomson. The author defends the substance view of persons as the view with the most explanatory power. The substance (...) view entails that the unborn is a subject of moral rights from conception. While defending this view, the author responds to the arguments of thinkers such as Boonin, Dworkin, Stretton, Ford and Brody. He also critiques Thomson's famous violinist argument and its revisions by Boonin and McDonagh. Defending Life includes chapters critiquing arguments found in popular politics and the controversy over cloning and stem cell research. (shrink)

The ascendancy of Christian activism in bioethical policy debates has elicited a number of responses by critics of this activism. These critics typically argue that the public square ought to embrace Secular Liberalism, a perspective that its proponents maintain is the most just arrangement in a pluralist society, even though SL places restraints on Christian activists that are not placed on similarly situated citizens who hold more liberal views on bioethical questions. The author critiques three arguments that are offered to (...) defend SL: the golden rule contract argument, the secular reason argument, and the err-on-the-side-of-liberty argument. The author concludes that each of these arguments fail to support SL. (shrink)

This is the first critical edition since the nineteenth century of Bacon's principal philosophical work in English, The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and advancement of Learning, divine and humane - traditionally known as The Advancement of Learning.

The inspiration for this collective writing project began with a digital conference entitled ‘Knowledge Socialism, COVID-19 and the New Reality of Education’ held at Beijing Normal University. In this conference and through this article, multiple researchers spread across six continents have engaged in the collaborative task of outlining emerging innovations and alternative contingencies towards education, international collaboration, and digital reform in this time of global crisis. Trends associated with digital education, knowledge openness, peer production, and collective intelligence as articulated by (...) Michael A. Peters’ conception of Knowledge Socialism are given careful analysis and exploration. Some of the members of this collective endeavor to identify problems, others, begin to draw boxes around potential solutions. Overall, this article engages with real world challenges and innovations that look beyond dominant neoliberal trends in the knowledge economy to build bridges toward novel possibilities in this era of rapid digital change. (shrink)

"In his third lecture Crick anticipates events and trends that have in fact come to pass in the past four decades, including the increasing use of computer technology and robotics in mind-brain research, explorations into right-side versus left-side uses of the brain, and controversies surrounding the existence of the soul."--BOOK JACKET.

This is the first critical edition since the nineteenth century of Bacon's principal philosophical work in English, The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and advancement of Learning, divine and humane - traditionally known as The Advancement of Learning.

A reprint of the Routledge edition of 1935.

L'anthropologie scientifique est plurielle. L'identification des gênes par le généticien grâce au séquençage du génome ne problématise pas l'humain de la même façon que l'ethnologue qui cherche à penser ensemble la mondialisation de la culture et le respect des différences. Comme ses principes explicatifs reposent sur la réduction du complexe au simple, une première alternative se fait jour : faut-il disjoindre la nature et l'homme qui deviennent étrangers. Ou bien réduire l'humain au biologique et de là au physique? Dans les (...) deux cas, il devient impossible de poser la question du sens sauf à dire que cette question, qui n'est pas un problème, relève de l'arriération ou de la débilité mentale. Qu'est-ce que l'homme comme objet de science? Cette formulation est dénoncée par l'anthropologie philosophique comme l'amnésie à combattre, celle qui fait toujours oublier qu'il y a un sujet de toute objectivation : " si l'on suppose un air de flûte, dit Socrate, il faut également supposer un musicien " Mais encore, demande l'anthropologie théologique, qu'est-ce que l'homme en tant que créé, eu égard à son origine divine, haute puissance de primitivité? Seconde alternative : la division entre anthropologies est-elle une survivance historique en passe de résorption ou une diffraction productive? Penser l'homme, à quelle instance cela revient-il? Cette question préalable est à la clef de ces Écrits. C'est la différence de leur modalité interrogative qui fait le sérieux du pluriel des anthropologies. Une philosophie de la nature fait retour aujourd'hui, qui rétablit la légitimité de l'analyse causale des processus naturels. Elle suppose que l'on peut interroger la nature même, y compris sur les opérations de l'esprit en restituant ce qu'il en est. Mais l'homme est tel qu'il est dans son être question de son être. Troisième alternative. Va-t-on reconnaître ou effacer la spécificité anthropologique au sein des grandes régions de la réalité? Ces trois alternatives sous-tendent le questionnement sur l'homme aujourd'hui. La vie et la mort de l'homme ne sont pas que des problèmes, car leur phénomène premier est de nous trouver sans réponse à leur question. Pour l'heure il appelle des reprises critiques et des reformulations consenties. Ainsi la recherche de la personne - ce que l'humain a à être - est à la jonction de trois anthropologies. L'enjeu de ces Écrits d'allure dialogique apparaît : un rapport multiple à la vérité, dont on ne peut ni affirmer (ni souhaiter) qu'il s'uniformise... (shrink)