El agnosticismo desarrollado por Huxley hacia mediados del siglo XIX constituye una teoría del conocimiento, que tiene como fundamentos la epistemología de la ilustración y la teoría darwinista de la evolución. Analizamos aquí la influencia de Hume, de Kant y de Darwin en la epistemología agnóstica; y señalamos las diferencias del agnosticismo con el positivismo, el materialismo y el supernaturalismo.

Los requisitos son los constituyentes de la definición real. Leibniz subraya la función epistemológica de las definiciones reales, y busca la aplicabilidad del método definicional no sólo en el ámbito de las esencias, sino también en el ámbito de las existencias, en donde el análisis a priori de las nociones queda sustituido por el recurso a la experiencia, la cual nos permite aproximarnos progresivamente a la verificación de nuestras inferencias racionales. Analizamos aquí la teoría de los requisitos elaborada por Leibniz (...) en los dos períodos: 1669-1679; y 1679-1689. En el primero, la noción de requisito va ligada a las nociones de razón y causa. En el segundo período, Leibniz reformula su teoría de los requisitos para encajarla en su teoría de la definición real, con vistas a distanciarse del método cartesiano de las ideas y del nominalismo de Hobbes. (shrink)

Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the greatest writers and German philosophers of the nineteenth century. His work influenced figures as diverse as Wagner, Freud and Nietzsche. Best known as a pessimist, he was one of the few philosophers read and admired by Wittgenstein. In this comprehensive introduction, Julian Young covers all the main aspects of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Beginning with an overview of Schopenhauer's life and work, he introduces the central aspects of his metaphysics fundamental to understanding his work as a (...) whole: his philosophical idealism and debt to the philosophy of Kant; his attempt to answer the question of what the world is; his account of science; and in particular his idea that 'will' is the essence of all things. Julian Young then introduces and assesses Schopenhauer's aesthetics, which occupy a central place in his philosophy. He carefully examines Schopenhauer's theories of the sublime, artistic genius and music, before assessing his ethics of compassion, his arguments for pessimism and his account of 'salvation'. In the final chapter, he considers Schopenhauer's legacy and his influence on the thought of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, making this an ideal starting point for those coming to Schopenhauer for the first time. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is one of the key principles of conducting research involving humans. When research participants give consent, they perform an act in which they utter, write or otherwise provide an authorisation to somebody to do something. This paper proposes a new understanding of the informed consent as a compositional act. This conceptualisation departs from a modular conceptualisation of informed consent procedures. Methods This paper is a conceptual analysis that explores what consent is and what it does or does (...) not do. It presents a framework that explores the basic elements of consent and breaks it down into its component parts. It analyses the consent act by first identifying its basic elements, namely: a) data subjects or legal representative that provides the authorisation of consent; b) a specific thing that is being consented to; and c) specific agent(s) to whom the consent is given. Results This paper presents a framework that explores the basic elements of consent and breaks it down into its component parts. It goes beyond only providing choices to potential research participants; it explains the rationale of those choices or consenting acts that are taking place when speaking or writing an authorisation to do something to somebody. Conclusions We argue that by clearly differentiating the goals, the procedures of implementation, and what is being done or undone when one consent, one can better face the challenges of contemporary data-intensive biomedical research, particularly regarding the retention and use of data. Conceptualising consent as a compositional act enhances more efficient communication and accountability and, therefore, could enable more trustworthy acts of consent in biomedical science. (shrink)

un diálogo entre “Ante la Ley” de Kafka y La leyenda del santo bebedor de Roth, dos relatos cuya datación casi coinciden literalmente con el periodo de entreguerras, propicia una comparación de interpretaciones en las que participan nombres tan eximios como Benjamin, Arendt, Mann, Scholem, Adorno, Steiner, Magris... En el contexto de los años veinte y treinta del siglo XX, ambos autores plantean una pregunta por la justicia que en manos de autores como Hugo Bergmann, Frank Rosenzweig y Martin Buber (...) dio pie a un replanteamiento del judaísmo centroeuropeo, hoy casi olvidado, y a una revisión de la crisis de la modernidad europea en su conjunto. (shrink)

Consideramos de utilidad el análisis de la expresión "Historia de la Lógica" apelando a la teoría semántica de Frege, según la cual toda expresión lingüística dotada de sentido puede ser concebida como descompuesta en dos partes, una de las cuales está completa en sí misma (el argumento), mientras que la otra precisa de complemento; es no saturada (la función). A la Historia de la Lógica compete determinar la constitución-desaparación de categorías e ideas que en un proceso de desarrollo e influencia (...) mutua han configurado la lógica y la symploké entre esas categorías e ideas constituyen su cuerpo. Para recomponerlo, hemos procurado actuar, según aconseja Platón, como un dialéctico: cortar por las juntas naturales. El resultado ahí está. (shrink)

Criminal behaviour is but one behavioural tendency for which a genetic influence has been suggested. Whilst this research certainly raises difficult ethical questions and is subject to scientific criticism, one recent research project suggests that for some families, criminal tendency might be predicted by genetics. In this paper, supposing this research is valid, we consider whether intervening in the criminal tendency of future children is ethically justifiable. We argue that, if avoidance of harm is a paramount consideration, such an intervention (...) is acceptable when genetic selection is employed instead of genetic enhancement. Moreover, other moral problems in avoiding having children with a tendency to criminal behaviour, such as the prospect of social discrimination, can also be overcome. (shrink)

What happens when management consultants enter the academic arena and offer their services to universities? In the following article, we examine this question by drawing on findings from a qualitative study based on a series of 30 interviews with senior management consultants and academic managers in Germany. The aim of this explorative study is, first of all, to provide theoretically informed observations about the working mechanisms of management consulting in academia. A second, and related objective, is to contribute to the (...) ongoing debate on the changing nature, role, and implications of managerial expertise and authority in higher education institutions. We begin our study by providing an overview of the literature on the changing nature of university management. Although these studies show a shift in the power constellation of universities from professional to managerial authority, we argue that they remain suspiciously vague as concerns the way academics and managers actually deal with this conflicting situation. By drawing on the insights of consulting studies, we then explore the stakes of consultancy in academic change projects and determine the analytical factors that will guide our qualitative analysis. Finally, we present and discuss the findings before concluding with more general remarks on the nature of academic management in German universities. (shrink)

European quality assurance has a complicated history that must be viewed as taking place on two levels: first, in a national effort to deregulate the public sector and to make universities accountable for their teaching performance; and second, a supranational endeavor to accomplish European integration in the field of higher education. Similarly, the web of institutional constraints and opportunity structures in which accreditation agencies are embedded spans two policy levels, the national and the European. In this paper, we examine how (...) German accreditation agencies achieve some level of autonomy in a highly entrenched institutional environment. The paper is based on a qualitative study comprising archival data and over 70 semi-structured interviews. Drawing on the insights of neo-institutional theory, we argue that quality assurance agencies seek political leverage at the European level in order to strengthen their standing in the higher education systems of their own countries. (shrink)

This book, the first comprehensive study in English of Heidegger's philosophy of art, starts in the mid-1930s with Heidegger's discussion of the Greek temple and his Hegelian declaration that a great artwork gathers together an entire culture in affirmative celebration of its foundational 'truth', and that, by this criterion, art in modernity is 'dead'. His subsequent work on Hölderlin, whom he later identified as the decisive influence on his mature philosophy, led him into a passionate engagement with the art of (...) Rilke, Ce;zanne, Klee and Zen Buddhism, liberating him not only from the overly restrictive conception of art of the mid-1930s but also from the disastrous politics of the period. Drawing on material hitherto unknown in the anglophone world, Young establishes a new account of Heidegger's philosophy of art and shows that his famous essay 'The Origin of the Work of Art' is its beginning, not its end. (shrink)