BackgroundAn increasing number of studies utilize intracranial electrophysiology in human subjects to advance basic neuroscience knowledge. However, the use of neurosurgical patients as human research subjects raises important ethical considerations, particularly regarding informed consent and undue influence, as well as subjects’ motivations for participation. Yet a thorough empirical examination of these issues in a participant population has been lacking. The present study therefore aimed to empirically investigate ethical concerns regarding informed consent and voluntariness in Parkinson’s disease patients undergoing deep brain (...) stimulator (DBS) placement who participated in an intraoperative neuroscience study.MethodsTwo semi-structured 30-minute interviews were conducted preoperatively and postoperatively via telephone. Interviews assessed participants’ motivations for participation in the parent intraoperative study, recall of information presented during the informed consent process, and participants’ postoperative reflections on the research study.ResultsTwenty-two participants (mean age = 60.9) completed preoperative interviews at a mean of 7.8 days following informed consent and a mean of 5.2 days prior to DBS surgery. Twenty participants completed postoperative interviews at a mean of 5 weeks following surgery. All participants cited altruism or advancing medical science as “very important” or “important” in their decision to participate in the study. Only 22.7% (n = 5) correctly recalled one of the two risks of the study. Correct recall of other aspects of the informed consent was poor (36.4% for study purpose; 50.0% for study protocol; 36.4% for study benefits). All correctly understood that the study would not confer a direct therapeutic benefit to them.ConclusionEven though research coordinators were properly trained and the informed consent was administered according to protocol, participants demonstrated poor retention of study information. While intraoperative studies that aim to advance neuroscience knowledge represent a unique opportunity to gain fundamental scientific knowledge, improved standards for the informed consent process can help facilitate their ethical implementation. (shrink)

Wathāʾiq madīnat al-Qaṣr bi-l-wāḥāt al-Dakhla: Maṣdarān li-taʾrīkh Miṣr fī l-ʿaṣr al-ʿuthmānī. Silsilat Dirāsāt Wathāʾiqiyya. By Rudolph Peters. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿĀmma li-Dār al-Kutub wa-l-Wathāʾiq al-Qawmiyya, 2011. Pp. 610.

Commentary on Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, based on Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy.

An English language translation accompanies the original Greek text of Aristotle's book about the nature of the state, constitutions, revolutions, democracy, and oligarchy.

[D. H. Mellor] Kant's claim that our knowledge of time is transcendental in his sense, while false of time itself, is true of tenses, i.e. of the locations of events and other temporal entities in McTaggart's A series. This fact can easily, and I think only, be explained by taking time itself to be real but tenseless. /// [J. R. Lucas] Mellor's argument from Kant fails. The difficulties in his first Antinomy are due to topological confusions, not the tensed nature (...) of time. Nor are McTaggart' s difficulties due to the tensed nature of time. The ego-centricity of tensed discourse is an essential feature of communication between selves, each of whom refers himself as 'I', and is required for talking about time as well as experience and agency. Arguments based on the Special Theory are misconceived. Some rest on a confused notion of 'topological simultaneity'. In the General Theory a cosmic time is defined, as also in quantum mechanics, where a natural present is defined by a unique hyperplane of collapse into eigen-ness. (shrink)

Man (Islam); Islamic philosophy; Islamic ethics.

Philosophy; philosophical theology; philosophical anthropology; history.

En "Die Aktualität des Schönen. Kunst als Spiel, Symbol und Fest", H.-G. Gadamer recordaba que en la modernidad la progresiva ruptura con el consolidado repertorio humanista y cristiano con contenidos susceptibles de recreación artística, da lugar a una nueva situación: «El artista ya no pronuncia el lenguaje de la comunidad, sino que se construye su propia comunidad al proferirse en lo más íntimo de sí mismo» (Gesammelte Werke 8, pág. 94 y ss.). Este proceso dará lugar a la inevitable conformación (...) de una nueva comunidad potencial que habrá de extenderse a todo el mundo habitado, es decir, a toda oikumene. Es interesante notar que Gadamer sostenga que esto sea así, necesariamente, y en virtud de dos razones, a saber: o bien porque toda obra de arte trasluce una visión del mundo (ora presente, ora futurible), o bien porque, para quien la contempla, y si la tal visión es ajena a uno o incomprensible o incluso inconmensurable, se presenta ésta, al cabo, como una confrontación que puede conducir al aprendizaje de la desconocida lengua de aquel y aquello que nos está hablando. Dos procesos estos complejos, enfrentados y de honda raigambre política (no sólo estética) sobre los que podría, en efecto, decirse mucho, y que aquí se resaltan para hacer ver que el arte —o bien porque trasluce una visión del mundo compartida, o bien porque nos confronta, por mediación del lenguaje, con una comprensión del mundo enteramente desconocida— es una experiencia comunitaria. Sobre esto versa la obra gadameriana antedicha, a saber: acerca de las experiencias comunitarias como instantes de actualización de lo bello. De alguna manera, es a la luz de esta problemática profusamente aquilatada en las obras del arte no figurativo del siglo XX como cabe entender la tradición estética y política en la que —según se lee en el prólogo que Gianni Vattimo ha dedicado a esta obra— se orienta cada vez más la finalidad estética de crear «acontecimientos en lugar de “objetos”» (pág. 20). (shrink)

According to familiar accounts, Rousseau held that humans are actuated by two distinct kinds of self love: amour de soi, a benign concern for one's self-preservation and well-being; and amour-propre, a malign concern to stand above other people, delighting in their despite. I argue that although amour-propre can (and often does) assume this malign form, this is not intrinsic to its character. The first and best rank among men that amour-propre directs us to claim for ourselves is that of occupying (...) 'man's estate'. This does not require, indeed it precludes, subjection of others. Amour-propre does not need suppression or circumscription if we are to live good lives; it rather requires direction to its proper end, not a delusive one. (shrink)

The book called 'The Consolation of Philosophy' was throughout the Middle Ages, and down to the beginnings of the modern epoch in the sixteenth century, the scholar's familiar companion. Few books have exercised a wider influence in their time. It has been translated into every European tongue, and into English nearly a dozen times, from King Alfred's paraphrase to the translations of Lord Preston, Causton, Ridpath, and Duncan, in the eighteenth century.

Healing Emotions is the record of an extraordinary series of encounters between the Dalai Lama and prominent Western psychologists, physicians, and meditation teachers that sheds new light on the mind-body connection. Edited by Pulitzer Prize nominee and best-selling author Daniel Goleman.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Collected sayings of Muslim Caliphs and saints.