Most discussions on animal experimentation refer to domesticated animals and regulations are tailored to this class of animals. However, wild animals are also used for research, e.g., in biological field research that is often directed to fundamental ecological-evolutionary questions or to conservation goals. There are several differences between domesticated and wild animals that are relevant for evaluation of the acceptability of animal experiments. Biological features of wild animals are often more critical as compared with domesticated animals because of their survival (...) effects. An important issue is what is called here ``natural suffering'''': the suffering from natural circumstances. Should this type of suffering be taken into account when suffering from experimentation is evaluated? As an answer, it is suggested that ``natural functioning'''' should be considered as an additional standard in the evaluation of wild animal experimentation. Finally, two topics related to the ecological context are considered. Firstly, the often inevitable involvement of non-research animals in wild animal experimentation, and secondly, the eco-centric approach to nature conservation. According to the latter position, animals are subordinated to ecosystems. All these aspects make the evaluation of wild animal experiments much more complex than experiments with domesticated animals. Preliminary scores are proposed to deal with these aspects. It is argued that this should not lead to a more complex governmental regulation, since an effective maintenance and control are hard to realize and one may loose the cooperation of researchers themselves. In addition, non-governmental professional organizations such as research societies and funding organizations play a pivotal role. (shrink)

Articles, on metaphysics, originally published in Siḷumiṇa, weekly Sinhalese newspaper and written by Ven. Baḷangoḍa Ānandamaitreya.

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly dominated by humans. Consequently, the human dimensions of sustainability science have become an integral part of emerging coastal governance and management practices. But if we are to avoid the harsh lessons of land management, coastal decision makers must recognize that humans are one of the more coastally dependent species in the biosphere. Management responses must therefore confront both the temporal urgency and the very real compromises and sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve a sustainable coastal (...) ecosystem, one that is economically feasible, socially just, and ecologically sound. (shrink)

Aktualnejshaya problema segodnyashnego dnya - vyhod iz sistemy globalnyh krizisov, s kotorymi stolknulos naselenie Zemli, i perehod k "obschestvu razumnogo potrebleniya," obschestvu znaniya. Ogromnuyu rol v etom protsesse igraet obrazovanie - sotsialnyj institut, odnoj iz zadach kotorogo yavlyaetsya sohranenie i translyatsiya znaniya v sotsialnyh sistemah. A chto takoe informatsiya? Iznachalno ee teoriya voznikla dlya nuzhd tehniki. Iz-za etogo mnogie ee aspekty ostalis ne razvitymi, potomu chto oni prosto ne byli vazhnymi dlya tehnicheskih sistem. Primenenie teorii informatsii k biologicheskim sistemam uzhe (...) zastavilo zanyatsya voprosom vozniknoveniya novoj informatsii. A rabota s sotsialnymi sistemami vydvinula takie ponyatiya, kak tsennost, effektivnost, slozhnost informatsii i t. d. Bolee polnyj podhod k teorii informatsii, v svoyu ochered, pozvolyaet najti resheniya ryada problem v teorii sotsialnyh sistem, v chastnosti v obrazovanii, i pokazat puti optimizatsii etih protsessov. (shrink)

Filosofii︠a︡ svobodnogo dukha : problematika i apologii︠a︡ khristianstva (p. 13-[228]) -- I︠A︡ i mir obʹektov : opyt filosofii odinochestva i obshchenii︠a︡ -- Sudʹba cheloveka v sovremennom mire : k ponimanii︠u︡ nasheĭ ėpokhi -- Dukh i realʹnostʹ : osnovy bogochelovecheskoĭ dukhovnosti.

Replete with summary introductions, cross-references, bibliographies, biographies, and study aids, this volume is mainly intended as a textbook. The first half explores the nature and warrant of the metaphysical enterprise. A broad selection is presented, most of the authors maintaining that metaphysics is not deductive, nor finally provable, nor scientific, but probably self-reflexive in some way. The second half deals with metaphysical issues. Here the Catholic point of view comes through clearly--the majority of the articles are by contemporary Catholic thinkers. (...) Obviously a devoted and thorough attempt to present metaphysics with particular modern reference, the excerpts and editor's prose, bold both in sweep and claim, unfortunately fail to show why metaphysics is either systematic or interesting.--J. A. W. (shrink)

An attempt by one of the leading political scientists to "extricate from the total political reality those aspects that can be considered the fundamental processes or activities without which no political life in society could continue." The conceptual framework for a "more complex structure of a theory" is developed around the concepts of demand, support, stress, and input-output. Easton explicitly rejects the discussion of political theory in terms of what he calls political philosophy, but the work is nevertheless of interest (...) to philosophers who have the stamina and interest to wade through a long and over-drawn discussion of the nature of political life.—K. A. M. (shrink)

Selected chapters from the first half of Reality, translated into Hebrew. Includes an introduction, especially written for this edition, which was also published in this Review, VII, pp. 558-62.--A. R.

There have been many fine studies of Galileo in recent past, but practically all of these have been the work of historians of science who are not professionally trained as philosophers and yet who, by the very nature of the subject they are treating, get themselves involved in philosophical tangles. Shapere takes off from a number of these works and subjects them to close philosophical scrutiny; his resulting analyses are clever and incisive, and offer a prime example of how the (...) philosopher can come to the assistance of the historian, even though the latter may be unaware of his need for help. The burden of Shapere’s work consists in a critical examination of the preconceptions and presuppositions that underlie three common interpretations of Galileo’s contribution. (shrink)

The author believes that it is impossible to resolve the crucial theological issues of our time without an appreciation of the historical roots of the development of theology itself. Congar does not attempt in this volume a systematic analysis of the content of theology, as it is expressed in history. He limits himself to the meaning of the discipline of theology as it expresses itself in six periods in the life of the church, The Patristic Age and St. Augustine, From (...) the Sixth Century to the Twelfth Century, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, The Golden Age of Scholasticism, The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, From the Seventeenth Century to the Present. The work begins with a definition of the word 'theology' from its early pre-Christian usage to its adoption by the Greek and Latin Christians. 'Theology', according to Congar, in its Christian and catholic sense, means a reasoned account about God; it is a "body of knowledge which rationally interprets, elaborates, and ordains the truths of revelation." Unlike the pagan philosophers who thought of theology in a speculative sense, the Christians who had received a revelation, conceived of God in concrete terms, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But the discipline of theology took many forms and shapes over the years of Christian history. The twelfth century seems to be a critical century, at least for the author, because it is in St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa that theology becomes "a defined discipline exposing a rational explanation of revelation." Theology in the sixteenth century is characterized by the growth of intellectual problems and new intellectual needs, the collapse of the synthesis and unity of the Middle Ages, the birth of new forms of intellectual activity and research. Luther's theological position is then characterized as "an enraged Augustinianism shorn of its Catholic ties." Luther interprets Christian theology as salvation, i.e., man's conversion to God through Christ. Luther is anti-ecclesiastical and anti-institutional, anti-scholastic, and anti-rational. But what permits Congar such a simplistic reductionism is that he begins the theological task at the wrong place. I do not think it is an adequate notion of the theological enterprise to ask the theologian what he considers to be the task of theology. Rather I think the theologian looks at the whole of the Christian faith and attempts some rapprochement between it and modern categories of thought. The theological enterprise is the dogmatic enterprise, but it is dogmatic as theology responds to the thought-forms of the modern world. Congar is too restrictive in his understanding of what theology ought to be doing--and what it actually does. This error becomes clear when we observe again and again a parodying of various theological positions.--W. A. J. (shrink)