With the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), global researchers were confronted with major challenges. The German National Pandemic Cohort Network (NAPKON) was launched in fall 2020 to effectively leverage resources and bundle research activities in the fight against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We analyzed the setup phase of NAPKON as an example for multicenter studies in Germany, highlighting challenges and optimization potential in connecting 59 university and nonuniversity study sites. We examined the ethics application (...) process of 121 ethics submissions considering durations, annotations, and outcomes. Study site activation and recruitment processes were investigated and related to the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections. For all initial ethics applications, the median time to a positive ethics vote was less than two weeks and 30 of these study sites (65%) joined NAPKON within less than three weeks each. Electronic instead of postal ethics submission (9.5 days (Q1: 5.75, Q3: 17) vs. 14 days (Q1: 11, Q3: 26), p value = 0.01) and adoption of the primary ethics vote significantly accelerated the ethics application process. Each study center enrolled a median of 37 patients during the 14-month observation period, with large differences depending on the health sector. We found a positive correlation between recruitment performance and COVID-19 incidence as well as hospitalization incidence. Our analysis highlighted the challenges and opportunities of the federated system in Germany. Digital ethics application tools, adoption of a primary ethics vote and standardized formal requirements lead to harmonized and thus faster study initiation processes during a pandemic. (shrink)

Horace C. 2.4 is an ironical address to Xanthias , who, it appears, is rather ashamed of his love for Phyllis, a slave-girl. It has long been held that ‘Xanthias’ is a pseudonym, but so far there has been no convincing explanation of why Horace chose that appellation rather than any other. Of course, there is no way of telling if the situation of the ode is real or imaginary, but, whether ‘Xanthias’ is the pseudonym of an actual person or (...) a name given to an invented character, I believe that it does have particular point. (shrink)

Selon un lieu commun, la géographie médiévale se réduirait à une vaste parenthèse ouverte entre la fin du siècle d'or de l'Empire romain et la renaissance des grandes découvertes du XV° siècle. Mais quelle réalité s'agit-il de représenter ? Car toute représentation est tributaire, non seulement de conceptions particulières, mais aussi de moyens techniques qui ont présidé à son élaboration. Dans cet article, le lien entre la réalité et ses images, qui organise habituellement l'histoire de la cartographie, sera relâché au (...) bénéfice des représentations comme un système de signes appelé à prendre sens dans une production et une réception . L'enquête médiévale révèle l'attention des contemporains à la complexité de ces relations et représentations.According to common understanding, medieval geography would be reduced to a vast parenthesis, open between the end of the golden century of the Roman Empire and the renaissance of the great discoveries of the 15th century. But what is the reality being represented ?For every representation is tributary, not only of particular conceptions, but also of the technical capacities that preceded its elaboration. In this article, the connection between reality and its images, which habitually organized the history of cartography, will be set aside for the benefit of representations as a system, of signs called to have meaning in a production and a reception . This medieval inquiry reveals the attention that contemporaries have given to the complexity of its relations and representations. (shrink)

Fille de l’Encyclopédie (1751-1772, 28 vol.) de Diderot et d’Alembert, l’Encyclopédie méthodique (1782-1832, 212 vol.) de Panckoucke conserve la palme du gigantisme. Si la Révolution Française pendant laquelle est publié le Dictionnaire de Théologie, n’a rien changé ni aboli dans le domaine de la pensée, elle a changé les conditions d’exercice pour les directeurs scientifiques. De surcroit en synthétisant ce moment particulier des savoirs liant mots et choses, la Méthodique représente un chainon incontournable entre l’épistémé des Lumières et celle du (...) xixè siècle. Alors que l’Encyclopédie dans un Système figuré des connaissances humaines construisait un ordre encyclopédique à partir des trois facultés de l’entendement humain (mémoire, raison, imagination), Panckoucke, qui craint la polémique sur les renvois, réoriente cet ordre. Il découpe chaque article et organise des listes de matières à partir de l’Encyclopédie. L’ordre des matières ne vise que les choses de la science qui, dans chaque Dictionnaire, seront détaillées au mieux. Enfin pour conduire le lecteur dans la connaissance, une table analytique propose un ordre de lecture transformant le dictionnaire en traité didactique. Le Dictionnaire de Théologie relève un autre aspect de la pensée philosophique du Système figuré, à savoir, une séparation de la Théologie ou Science de Dieu, des deux autres sciences que sont la Science de l’homme et la Science de la nature. Le progrès va se faire avec ces deux Sciences, sans la Théologie. Bergier revient sur cette séparation traduite par l’évincement des théologiens de l’entreprise encyclopédique des Lumières. Il remplit alors parfaitement le rôle demandé par Panckoucke de corriger et de compléter celle que ce dernier appelle la « première Encyclopédie» voulant être le directeur de la seconde Encyclopédie. (shrink)

RésuméExposé du point de vue théologique sur les deux rapports ou dimensions du fait religieux: le rapport de l'homme à la divinité, rapport que l'auteur appelle mystique et le rapport ou les liens qui unissent les hommes entre eux en tant qu'ils sont en relation avec la divinite et le mondé sacré, rapport que l'auteur appelle communautaire.SummaryFrom a theological point of view, an exposition on the two relationships or dimensions of the “religious fact”. The relationship between man and the Divinity, (...) which the author calls “mystical”; and the relationship or ties which bind men together in so far as they are in communication with the Divinity and the sacred world, and which the author calls “community” relationship.ZusammenfassungEin Referat zum theologischen Standpunkt über die zwei Beziehungen oder Dimensionen des Religiösen: die Beziehung des Menschen zur Gottheit, die der Verfasser mystisch nennt, und die Beziehung oder Bindungen der Menschen untereinander, insofern sie mit der Gottheit und der heiligen Welt in Verbindung sind, die der Verfasser als gemeinschaftlich bezeichnet. (shrink)

The study provides an insight into the structural features of the famous VIII century Buddhist treatise Tattvasaṅgrāha by Śāntarakṣita with regard to the text’s main purpose ( prayojana ) as it is treated in Kamalaśīla’s commentary Pañjikā. Any text along with its referential (representational) function of conveying message - meaning to the addressee, or its expressive function, reflecting the author's attitude to what is communicated, also performs the ‘appellative’ function, encouraging the recipient of the message to act. This function which (...) could also be called praxiological was always significant in Indian text culture, since from the times of Veda-s it was embedded in its very core. This function is of paramount importance in the case of Indian religious and philosophical texts, whose main aim is to convince and transform the consciousness of their percipients. Along with linear models of message transfer, Sanskrit texts could demonstrate non-linear semantic structures, transmitting the main idea of the text indirectly. It is exactly how one should perceive the message of Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṅgrāha according to the suggested by Śāntarakṣita’s prominent student Kamalaśīla in his Pañjikā -commentary to the treatise. He proposes to consider Tattvasaṅgrāha not as a thematically heterogeneous encyclopaedic or doxographic work, whose main objective is to refute different non-Buddhist views (as it is often treated by scholars now), but as a text, which by its very design exposes one of the most important Buddhist principles - the law of the dependent origination ( pratītyasamutpāda ). The themes, discussed in a number of the chapters of Tattvasaṅgrāha, indeed, appear to have direct correlation with the characteristics of pratītyasamutpāda given to it in Śālistamba-sūtra - an early Mahāyāna text, which explains this universal law. Kamalaśīla suggests looking at Tattvasaṅgrāha as at one big unit-sentence - mahāvākya, with the exposition of pratītyasamutpāda as its unitary purpose-meaning ( abhidheya ). In this context, the treatise functions as a praxiological tool for the ‘installing’ into the consciousness of the text’s addressee the knowledge of ‘true principles’ (tattva-s) of pratītyasamutpāda. This interpretation of the main message of the text raises also a question of the adequate translation of the name of the treatise into other languages, because, according to Kamalaśīla, ‘ Tattvasaṅgrāha’ means the ‘Assembly of Principles-(tattva’-s)’ which specify precisely pratītyasamutpāda (pratītyasamutpāda-viśeṣaṇāni tattvāni). (shrink)

Est ici publiée une délimitation de frontière entre deux cités phocidiennes, Phanoteus et Stiris, datant vraisemblablement du me s. av. J.-C. Résultant d'un arbitrage de juges venus d'une cité tierce, elle est sans doute l'un des plus anciens témoignages de cette pratique. Le terme par lequel les arbitres sont désignés dans cette inscription, gaodikai, est l'occasion de se demander s'il existait en Grèce des spécialistes des litiges territoriaux. Quant à la délimitation elle-même, elle énumère des points de repère dont les (...) noms ne manquent pas d'intérêt : le lieu de départ, appelé Phokion, a un statut territorial et politique qui pose problème, tout comme son éventuelle identité avec un sanctuaire fédéral phocidien connu par Pausanias, le Phoki- kon. S'il est impossible de retrouver sur le terrain la frontière décrite dans cette inscription, l'existence même de la délimitation a pour intérêt de révéler la possibilité d'un litige frontalier, en dépit du massif d'Hélikon qui paraîtrait a priori constituer une frontière naturelle entre Phanoteus et Stiris. (shrink)

Throughout his authorship, Kierkegaard appears remarkably uninterested in the tradition of Christian mysticism. Indeed, in the only two places in the authorship where he broaches the topic directly, the discussion is disclaimed in such a way as to suggest that Kierkegaard really has nothing to say about it at all. However, attending to the successive incarnations of the character(s) named “Ludvig” throughout the authorship – an appellation that harbors an especially self-referential dimension for Kierkegaard – the present paper attempts to (...) elucidate what may, with due reservation, be referred to as the mystical element in Kierkegaard’s thought. The ultimate yield of this endeavor is a vision of “mysticism” that is more act than thought oriented, and a vision of the author “Kierkegaard” that is more delightful than melancholy. (shrink)

L’exhortation à la soumission des esclaves en 1 P 2,18-25 peut-elle être porteuse de sens pour les lecteurs d’aujourd’hui? Une approche narratologique permettra de constater que l’énonciation, par l’agencement de divers indices narratifs, tels les changements d’énonciataires, la spatialisation, la temporalité et l’intertextualité, provoque une identification du lecteur avec les esclaves qui deviennent le paradigme de toute personne souffrant des situations d’injustice et stimule tout lecteur à accepter l’exhortation proposée.

L'humanisme scientifique, par André George.--L'homme nietzschéen, par Henri Mandiney.--L'homme marxiste, par Pierre Hervé.--L'existence et la liberté humaine chez Jean-Paul Sartre, par Gabriel Marcel.--L'humanisme laïque: Gide, Valéry, Alain, Duhamel, par Paul Archambault.--L'homme chrétien, par le r. p. Boisselot.

Artiklen vil diskutere det pædagogiske paradoks primært ud fra D. Benner. Artiklen hævder, at det pædagogiske paradoks hviler på en forståelse af frihed, der hos Benner er underbelyst, og en idé om autenticitet, der ender i det isolerede Selv. Jeg foreslår her over for at studere appellens fænomen m.h.p. at indkredse en idé om frihed, der ikke udelukker enhver ydre indflydelse.

RésuméĽétude du développement?on;un organisme fait appel à diverses approches choisies en fonction des objectifs fixés par ľexpérimentateur. Ainsi, la mise en évidence?on;une corrélation entre deux paramétres, par exemple biochimique et morphologique, permet de les considérer comme associés, sans nécessairement dégager entre eux un lien direct de causalité. Ce dernier peut être explicité par une autre approche, comme ľillustre une étude portant sur la relation entre une enzyme ‐glycohydrolase) et la différentiation sporale chez Neurospora crassa.SummaryThe study of the development of an (...) organism requires diverse approaches selected on the basis of experimental objectives. For instance, the finding of a correlation between two parameters, i.e. biochemical and morphological, allows them to be considered as associated without necessarily pointing to a direct causal relationship. This latter may be brought out by another approach, as illustrated by this study bearing on the relation between an enzyme ‐gly‐cohydrolase) and differentiation of spores in Neurospora crassa.ZusammenfassungDas Studium der Entwicklung eines Organismus erfordert verschiedenartige Annäherungen, je nach den vom Experimendierenden gestellten Ziele. Daher erlaubt der Nachweis einer Korrela‐tion zwischen zwei Parametern, zum Beispiel einem biochemischen und einem morphologischen, sie als verbunden zu betrachten ohne notwendigerweise eine Kausalbeziehung zwischen Ihnen zu beweisen. Eine solche kann von einer anderen Seite geklärt werden, wie es eine Studie der Beziehung zwischen einem Enzym ‐glycohydrolase) und der Sporendifferenzierung bei Neurospora crassa zeigt. (shrink)

Neurocognitive enhancement, or cosmetic neurology, offers the prospect of improving the learning, memory and attention skills of healthy individuals well beyond the normal human range. Much has been written about the ethics of such enhancement, but policy-makers in the USA, the UK and Europe have been reluctant to legislate in this rapidly developing field. However, the possibility of discrimination by employers and insurers against individuals who choose not to engage in such enhancement is a serious threat worthy of legislative intervention. (...) While lawmakers should not prevent individuals from freely pursuing neurocognitive enhancement, they should act to ensure that such enhancement is not coerced. This paper offers one model for such legislation, based upon a proposed US law, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, to address precisely this particular pitfall of the impending neuroscience revolution. (shrink)

Although considerable attention has been devoted to the concepts of “visible” and “invisible” victims in general medical practice, especially in relation to resource allocation, far less consideration has been devoted to these concepts in behavioral health. Distinctive features of mental health care in the United States help explain this gap. This essay explores three specific ways in which the American mental health care system protects potentially “visible” individuals at the expense of “invisible victims” and otherwise fails to meet the needs (...) of great numbers of people with serious psychiatric conditions: prioritization of the wrong patients, incentivization of excessive caution among providers, and a narrow definition of psychiatry's purview. While each of these practices has been discussed elsewhere in the literature, they are rarely considered as part of an interrelated and systemic problem. Reconceptualizing these three issues as aspects of the larger conflict between the interests of “visible” and “invisible” victims may prove a path toward reform. (shrink)

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

Substituted judgment has increasingly become the accepted standard for rendering decisions for incapacitated adults in the USA. A broad exception exists with regard to patients with diminished capacity secondary to depressive disorders, as such patients’ previous wishes are generally not honoured when seeking to turn down life-preserving care or pursue aid-in-dying. The result is that physicians often force involuntary treatment on patients with poor medical prognoses and/or low quality of life as a result of their depressive symptoms when similarly situated (...) incapacitated patients without such depressive symptoms would have their previous wishes honoured via substituted judgment. This commentary argues for reconsidering this approach and for using a substituted judgment standard for a subset of EMP/LQL patients seeking death. (shrink)

The public discourse surrounding sex and severe disability over the past 40 years has largely focused on protecting vulnerable populations from abuse. However, health professionals and activists are increasingly recognising the inherent sexuality of disabled persons and attempting to find ways to accommodate their intimacy needs. This essay explores several ethical issues arising from such efforts.

Between inventing the concept of a universal computer in 1936 and breaking the German Enigma code during World War II, Alan Turing, the British founder of computer science and artificial intelligence, came to Princeton University to study mathematical logic. Some of the greatest logicians in the world--including Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann, and Stephen Kleene--were at Princeton in the 1930s, and they were working on ideas that would lay the groundwork for what would become known as computer science. (...) Though less well known than his other work, Turing's 1938 Princeton PhD thesis, "Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals," which includes his notion of an oracle machine, has had a lasting influence on computer science and mathematics. This book presents a facsimile of the original typescript of the thesis along with essays by Andrew Appel and Solomon Feferman that explain its still-unfolding significance. A work of philosophy as well as mathematics, Turing's thesis envisions a practical goal--a logical system to formalize mathematical proofs so they can be checked mechanically. If every step of a theorem could be verified mechanically, the burden on intuition would be limited to the axioms. Turing's point, as Appel writes, is that "mathematical reasoning can be done, and should be done, in mechanizable formal logic." Turing's vision of "constructive systems of logic for practical use" has become reality: in the twenty-first century, automated "formal methods" are now routine. Presented here in its original form, this fascinating thesis is one of the key documents in the history of mathematics and computer science. (shrink)

Revised habilitation - Universitèat, Wien.

Apolitical, amoral, an aesthete whose writings point toward some form of liberation: this is the figure who emerges from most recent scholarship on Friedrich ...

Priority for solid organ transplant generally does not consider the underlying cause of the need for transplantation. This paper argues that a distinctive set of factors justify assigning lower priority to willfully unvaccinated individuals who require transplant as a result of suffering from COVID‐19. These factors include the personal responsibility of the patients for their own condition and the public outrage likely to ensue if willfully unvaccinated patients receive organs at the expense of vaccinated ones. The paper then proposes a (...) three‐prong test for similar deviations from the current allocation standard that incorporates patient responsibility, foreseeability and avoidability, and the frequency of the occurrence. (shrink)

The integrity of the patient–physician relationship depends on maintaining professional boundaries. While ethicists and professional organisations have devoted significant consideration to the subject of sexual boundary transgressions, the subject of non-sexual boundaries, especially outside the mental health setting, has been largely neglected. While professional organisations may offer guidance on specific subjects, such as accepting gifts or treating relatives, as well as general guidance on transparency and conflict of interest, what is missing is a principle-based method that providers can use to (...) assess non-sexual interactions with patients that transcend norms of practice. This paper attempts to offer an operational model for such assessment that considers not only the traditional emphasis on beneficence, but also incorporates concerns over entanglement and concordance. (shrink)

In ”Skepticism,” Peter Klein distinguishes between the “Academic Skeptic” who proposes that we cannot have knowledge of a certain set of propositions and the “Pyrrhonian Skeptic” who refrains from opining about whether we can have knowledge. Klein argues that Academic Skepticism is plausibly supported by a “Closure Principle‐style” argument based on the claim that if x entails y and S has justification for x, then S has justification for y. He turns to contextualism to see if it can contribute to (...) the discussion between one who claims that we can have knowledge about some epistemically interesting class of propositions and the Academic Skeptic. He outlines the background of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, pointing out that the Pyrrhonist withholds assent concerning our knowledge‐bearing status because reason cannot provide an adequate basis for assent. He assesses three possible patterns of reasoning, and concludes that the Pyrrhonist view, that reason cannot resolve matters concerning the nonevident, is vindicated. (shrink)

Whether the law should permit individuals to opt out of accepted death standards is a question that must be faced and clarifiedWhile media coverage of the Terri Schiavo case in Florida has recently refocused public attention on end of life decision making, another end of life tragedy in Utah has raised equally challenging—and possibly more fundamental—questions about the roles of physicians and families in matters of death. The patient at the centre of this case was Jesse Koochin, a six year (...) old boy suffering from “inoperable and incurable” brain cancer. He had been undergoing care at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City since September 15, 2004 when “his tumor pushed his brain stem down through the skull”.1 Subsequently, two physicians independently determined that the child was “brain dead” and informed his parents that they would order life support removed within twenty four hours. Steve and Gayle Koochin overtly rejected the hospital’s definition of death. The couple, relying on traditional notions of cardiopulmonary death, obtained a restraining order to keep Jesse on a ventilator and ultimately removed the brain dead child from the hospital. The ongoing case raises the complex question of whether patients’ families should be permitted to opt out of widely accepted definitions of death in favour of their own standards.The definition of death has evolved rapidly in the United States over the past thirty five years. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the medical community, the legal system, and an overwhelming majority of the public understood death to …. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In 1233 a certain R. Joseph bar Moses of Würzburg commissioned an illuminated copy of Rashi's Bible commentary, now in Munich. After the text was finished, the task of illuminating was put into the hands of a Christian painter, apparently a man named Heinrich, who kept a lay workshop in Würzburg . Three years later a giant Bible, now in Milan, was commissioned perhaps by the same patron, but not necessarily in the same city . It, too, was illuminated; this (...) time, however, it cannot be excluded that the paintings were made by Jewish artists. Both manuscripts are richly decorated with narrative scenes involving human figures. In the following decades it became more and more customary for wealthy Jews of Germany and northern France to have their Bibles, prayer books, and other texts adorned with figural miniatures. Yet there is no evidence that during the Middle Ages human figures were painted in any form in a Jewish context before the 1230s. A few textual references from the twelfth century indicate wall paintings and stained-glass windows in synagogues with images of animals and dragons, but none have survived. Some decades after the first illuminated books made their appearance, the most outstanding authority on religious law of his time, R. Meir ben Barukh of Rothenburg , was asked his opinion of this phenomenon. R. Meir was worried, as his reply shows, but not for reasons of religious law; his concern was that images in painted books would distract believers from their pious concentration during prayer. (shrink)

Physicians expressing opinions on medical matters that run contrary to the consensus of experts pose a challenge to licensing bodies and regulatory authorities. While the right to express contrarian views feeds a robust marketplace of ideas that is essential for scientific progress, physicians advocating ineffective or dangerous cures, or actively opposing public health measures, pose a grave threat to societal welfare. Increasingly, a distinction has been made between professional speech that occurs during the physician-patient encounter and public speech that transpires (...) beyond the clinical setting, with physicians being afforded wide latitude to voice empirically false claims outside the context of patient care. This paper argues that such a bifurcated model does not sufficiently address the challenges of an age when mass communications and social media allow dissenting physicians to offer misleading medical advice to the general public on a mass scale. Instead, a three-tiered model that distinguishes between citizen speech, physician speech and clinical speech would best serve authorities when regulating physician expression. (shrink)

As a result of workplace clean air regulations and strict guidelines imposed by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations in 1993, most hospitals in the United States are now virtually smoke free. Although evidence suggests that these restrictions both cause smoking employees to consume fewer cigarettes per day and induce some employees to quit smoking entirely, the policies have also driven many healthcare providers—including physicians—onto the public sidewalks for their cigarette breaks. Patients entering many hospitals pass white-coated medical (...) students and residents puffing away at the curbside. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.