Vania Barraza y Carl Fischer, eds. Chilean Cinema in the Twenty-First-Century World Detroit, EE. UU., Wayne State University Press, 2020.

Este artículo expone algunas actualizaciones del cronotopo bajtiniano del camino en tres filmes del “novísimo cine chileno”. En primer lugar, se estudiarán las modalidades viajeras que las tres obras proponen, gracias a nociones de la filosofía y la teoría del turismo.2 Se identificará, luego, una serie de submotivos cronotópicos, verdaderos momentos afectivos, que desembocarán en nuestra hipótesis de trabajo; a saber, que las protagonistas de cada filme recorren un “espacio liso”, genérico, hecho de intensidades, un “medio” donde lo que prima (...) es la “experiencia”, el aprendizaje y el encuentro con sí mismas. (shrink)

La ontologia social desarrollada por Searle nos permite entender los fenomenos sociales desde la teoria de los actos de habla El presente articulo expone la teoria de Searle y analiza la concepcion de Conflicto Social desde esta perspectiva sosteniendo que éste puede ser entendido como la disputa entre diferentes comunidades por la legitimidad de alguna función de estatus Para lograrlo se revisara la teoria de los actos de habla para mostrar que el conflicto social podria ser analizado desde esta perspectiva (...) identificando la intencionalidad de las comunidades en conflicto a traves de enunciados linguisticos. (shrink)

El propósito de esta investigación es tratar de hacer una aproximación al pensamiento metafísico de Nicolás de Cusa partiendo de su libro La caza de la sabiduría, en las siguientes fases: 1. En primer lugar, pretendo contextualizar al autor, principalmente aquellos aspectos que han marcado notoriamente su pensamiento, como son por ejemplo el comienzo del renacimiento, su papel en la defensa de la unidad de la iglesia, la presencia del pensamiento aristotélico y platónico en la época en que vivió, (...) etc. Trato de destacar lo que considera las claves hermenéuticas para la comprensión de su pensamiento filosófico. 2. A continuación, analizo los temas tratados en esta obra, remarcando las grandes cuestiones Cusanas, a medida que van siendo incoadas. Cito algunas de las discusiones planteadas en la bibliografía referentes a la interpretación que diferentes autores han ido haciendo, y trato de aportar luces tras la lectura e interpretación del libro La caza de la sabiduría. 3. Finalmente presento una serie de conclusiones con mi parecer personal acerca de algunas de las cuestiones más debatidas en la bibliografía consultada. (shrink)

El desafío conceptual de pensar lo político se refiere al intento – siempre, por definición, precario, frágil y destinado al fracaso- de asir un objeto intrínsecamente polisémico y que escapa a toda acción de encorsetamiento o limitación.Este artículo propondrá un código deliberado de lectura; un marco interpretativo específico para pensar lo político; entendiendo al conflicto como su categoría irremediablemente constitutiva. Con dicha finalidad, acudiremos a la obra de Nicolás Maquiavelo. Pensamiento que goza de fecundidad para pensar esta especificidad conflictiva (...) de lo político.El abordaje metodológico se desarrollará en base a una aproximación netamente teórica, a través de un ejercicio de exégesis de los textos maquiavelianos y el realce de su contemporaneidad para pensar lo político. (shrink)

The book Maquiavelo en la Argentina. Usos y Lecturas, 1830-1940 invites us to delve into the receptions, circulations and readings in Argentina of one of the political thinkers who, thanks to a certain halo of enigma and discomfort and the open nature of his texts, has been the subject of a profuse ambivalence and divergence in his readings and evaluations: Nicolás Machiavelli. This depth and intensity is directly proportional to the shock that its irruption has caused in Western political (...) thought and that, without any doubt, has given birth to political modernity. (shrink)

El artículo que sigue fue publicado originalmente con el título “Fatalism” en The Philosophical Review, Vol. 71, No.1 : pp. 56–66. El artículo original es de dominio público. Agradezco a Nicolás Alarcón y Paul Sargent que leyeron una versión previa de esta traducción que permitió corregir errores. Los que quedan son de mi responsabilidad.

El presente trabajo se propone analizar el problema del lenguaje en dos pensadores de la _nouvelle phénoménologie_ francesa: Jean-Luc Marion y Claude Romano. Intentamos mostrar que la novedad de esta tradición consiste en mostrar que el lenguaje propio de la fenomenología puede ser explorado desde una dimensión no-predicativa. Para esto, proponemos agrupar estas propuestas bajo la noción de “lenguajes del exceso”. En relación a Marion, agruparemos sus diversas formulaciones sobre este tema bajo la idea de lo que denominaremos como “lenguaje (...) de la saturación”. El elemento central aquí será su recepción del neoplatonismo cristiano (Dionisio Areopagita y Nicolás de Cusa), la cual le permite formular un lenguaje para nombrar los fenómenos saturados. En cuanto a Claude Romano, aunque ajeno a la tradición del neoplatonismo cristiano, sostendremos que su propuesta fenomenológico-hermenéutica está al servicio de la búsqueda de un lenguaje que pueda denominar el acontecimiento. En ambos casos, los autores pretenden describir fenómenos que exceden el ámbito de los objetos. (shrink)

The concept of vital force – the immanent energy that promotes the processes of life in the body and in nature – has proved a source of endless fascination and controversy. Indeed, the question of what vitalizes the body has haunted humanity since antiquity, and became even more pressing during the Scientific Revolution and beyond. Examining the complexities and theories about vital force in Spanish modernity, Nicolás Fernández-Medina's Life Embodied offers a novel and provocative assessment of the question of (...) bodily life in Spain. Starting with Juan de Cabriada's landmark Carta filosófica, médico-chymica of 1687 and ending with Ramón Gómez de la Serna's avant-gardism of the 1910s, Fernández-Medina incorporates discussions of anatomy, philosophy, science, critical theory, history of medicine, and literary studies to argue that concepts of vital force served as powerful vehicles to interrogate the possibilities and limits of corporeality. Paying close attention to how the body's capabilities were conceived and strategically woven into critiques of modernity, Fernández-Medina engages the work of Miguel Boix y Moliner, Martín Martínez, Diego de Torres Villarroel, Sebastián Guerrero Herreros, Ignacio María Ruiz de Luzuriaga, Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, Pedro Mata y Fontanet, Ángela Grassi, Julián Sanz del Río, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pío Baroja, among others. Drawing on extensive research and analysis, Life Embodied breaks new ground as the first book to address the question of vital force in Spanish modernity. (shrink)

The presence of Neoplatonism in contemporary french phenomenology has a pregnance that crosses its most relevant points. Jean-Luc Marion's work does not escape this. In this work we approach the marionian appropriation of Nicholas of Cusa's thought, in the light of his writing Certitudes négatives, with the intention of understanding the cusanu´s ignorant doctrine as a way of negative certainty. La presencia del neoplatonismo en la fenomenología francesa contemporánea posee una pregnancia que atraviesa sus puntos más relevantes. La obra de (...) Jean-Luc Marion no escapa a esto. En este trabajo abordamos la apropiación marioniana del pensamiento de Nicolás de Cusa, a la luz de su escrito Certitudes négatives, con la intención de comprender la doctrina ignorante del Cusano como un modo de certeza negativa. (shrink)

RESUMEN El artículo responde algunas críticas planteadas por Ignacio Ávila a mi interpretación de la epistemología davidsoniana. Presento argumentos en contra de: a) que sea necesario distinguir entre representaciones epistemológicamente “peligrosas”e “inofensivas”; b) que el empirismo mínimo sea un tipo de realismo directo; c) que mi uso de la expresión “evidencia distal” y el interés por la teoría de la correspondencia sean asuntos ajenos a Davidson. Finalmente, sostengo que la triangulación es un elemento fundamental de la epistemología davidsoniana, pues (...) permite sortear la ansiedad realista manteniéndose en una postura no representacionalista. ABSTRACT In this article, I respond to some of Ignacio Ávila's criticisms of my interpretation of Davidson’s epistemology. I argue against: a) the need to distinguish between epistemologically “dangerous” and “harmless” representations; b) the idea that minimal empiricism is a kind of direct realism; and c) the claim that my usage of the expression “distal evidence” and interest in the theory of correspondence are issues that do not pertain to Davidson. Finally, I claim that triangulation is a key element in Davidsonian epistemology since it allows us to deal with the realist anxiety while maintaining a non-representationalist viewpoint. (shrink)

En esta investigación se presenta el estudio de cinco perspectivas de análisis de la obra filosófica de Ignacio Ellacuría, con la finalidad de ofrecer un panorama general, que permita profundizar en su pensamiento. Se parte de la perspectiva ofrecida por Antonio González, como uno de los primeros sistematizadores del corpus ellacuriano, para dar paso a la interpretación elaborada por Héctor Samour, caracterizada por su visión de continuidad en cada una de las etapas filosóficas de Ellacuría. Luego, se ahonda en (...) la lectura metafísica propuesta por Marcela Brito; para posteriormente estudiar la perspectiva hecha por José M. Romero-Cuevas, la cual se encuentra en relación directa con la teoría crítica y las ideas de Juan A. Nicolás, en cuyo enfoque sobresale el papel de la verdad y la experiencia en la filosofía madura de Ellacuría. Para finalizar, se presentan las propuestas que analizan a este autor desde la óptica de los derechos humanos, tomando en cuenta los aportes de Juan A. Senent y Alejandro Rosillo. (shrink)

In this article, I identify “spontaneity” as a significant but poorly-analyzed term in social theory and description through an overview of tensions between varying technical accounts of spontaneity in research literature. In contrast to conceptually-slippery “realist” accounts of spontaneity, I argue for viewing spontaneity ethnomethodologically, i.e., as a contextually-emergent social practice. I suggest two directions for future applications of this approach: first, an ethnomethodological approach to rhetorical analysis of unanalyzed use of the term “spontaneity” in research literature, and second, observational (...) studies of improvisational theatre, a social practice in which orientation toward the production of spontaneity by participants is criterial to the identity of the practice. (shrink)

I wish to express, first of all, my profound gratitude to Professor J. M. Bochenski, without whose assistance the present work would have not been possible. To be concise, I would like to state that his contribution to this book may be viewed at three levels: (1) that of the general spirit, (2) that of the specific ideas, theses or approaches which are expressed in its pages, (3) that of this work qua doctoral dissertation. The general spirit which has guided (...) my research coincides with that underlying Professor :Oochenski's own works, in particular his Formale Logik (Munchen 1956). Moreover, the particular occasion which suggested my investigation was a statement included in that book according to which the literature in the field still lacked a detailed work on Frege (p. 317). I wish, likewise, to express my gratitude to other professors of the University of Fribourg for their generous help. I mention especially Professors P. Wyser, M. D. Philippe, N. Luyten, and V. Kuiper. I have also benefited from Professor E. Specker's lectures at the Eidge nossische Technische Hochschule (ZUrich) and from Professor Olof Gigon's lectures at the University of Bern. From an earlier period I wish to express my gratitude to the professors of the philosophy department of the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, especially the late Professor Francisco Romero. The Swiss National Library (Bern) has greatly facilitated access to bibliographical sources, and the library of the University of Munster (Westphalien) has kindly provided microfilms of Frege's Nachlap. (shrink)

The empirical study of belief is emerging at a rapid clip, uniting work from all corners of cognitive science. Reliance on belief in understanding and predicting behavior is widespread. Examples can be found, inter alia, in the placebo, attribution theory, theory of mind, and comparative psychological literatures. Research on belief also provides evidence for robust generalizations, including about how we fix, store, and change our beliefs. Evidence supports the existence of a Spinozan system of belief fixation: one that is automatic (...) and independent of belief rejection. Independent research supports the existence of a system of fragmented belief storage: one that relies on large numbers of causally isolated, context-sensitive stores of belief in memory. Finally, empirical and observational data support at least two systems of belief change. One system adheres, mostly, to epistemological norms of updating; the other, the psychological immune system, functions to guard our most centrally held beliefs from potential inconsistency with newly formed beliefs. Refining our under- standing of these systems can shed light on pressing real-world issues, such as how fake news, propaganda, and brainwashing exploit our psychology of belief, and how best to construct our modern informational world. (shrink)

In a 1993 paper, I argued that empirical treatments of the epistemologyused by scientists in experimental work are too abstract in practice tocounter relativist efforts to explain the outcome of scientificcontroversies by reference to sociological forces. This was because, atthe rarefied level at which the methodology of scientists is treated byphilosophers, multiple mutually inconsistent instantiations of theprinciples described by philosophers are employed by contestingscientists. These multiple construals change within a scientificcommunity over short time frames, and these different versions ofscientific methodology (...) can determine the outcome of a controversy. Iillustrated with a comparatively detailed analysis of the methodologyused by biologists debating the existence of an entity called thebacterial mesosome between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s. This 1993piece has drawn several critiques in the philosophical literature. Inthis present piece I respond to these critiques and argue that they failto address the core argument of the original paper, and I reflectfurther on the methodologies of philosophers of science pursuingempirical or `naturalistic' epistemology. (shrink)

Resumen La argumentación es una forma de discurso en la que un hablante defiende una postura en una discusión. El presente trabajo se enfoca en la complejidad argumentativa y los recursos evaluativos y evidenciales que caracterizan las disputas de niños de diverso nivel socioeconómico. Se analizaron 94 disputas entre niños de 4 años y otros niños (5 a 10 años) en situaciones de juego espontáneo registradas en hogares de sectores socioeconómicos medio y bajo. El análisis identificó diferencias marginales en la (...) complejidad argumentativa entre los grupos. Por su parte se hallaron diferencias significativas en recursos de evaluativos de emocionalidad y en los evidenciales deónticos y exclamativos a favor de los sectores de nivel socioeconómico bajo. Los sectores medios registraron un mayor empleo de expresiones de causalidad y conectores. Los resultados se discuten a la luz de los hallazgos de investigaciones previas. Abstract Argumentation is a type of discourse in which a speaker defends a claim in a discussion. The present work focuses on the argumentative complexity and the evaluative and evidential resources that characterize the disputes of children of different socioeconomic levels. We analyzed 94 disputes between 4-year-old children and other children (5 to 10 years old) in situations of spontaneous play registered in homes of middle and low socioeconomic status (SES). The analysis identified marginal differences in argumentative complexity between the groups. On the other hand, significant differences were found in evaluative expressions of emotion and in deontic and exclamatory evidential markers, more frequently used by the low SES group. The mid SES group tends to use a higher number of expressions of causality and connectors. The results are discussed with reference to the findings of previous research. (shrink)

En este artículo defiendo que la distinción entre “filosofía” y “espiritualidad” puede ser una clave de lectura de la obra foucaultiana si asumimos que hay una “dimensión espiritual” en su filosofía y reflexión histórica. Para ello, analizo las figuras de la transgresión y el pensamiento del afuera del periodo arqueológico, las de la resistencia y la crítica como indocilidad reflexiva del periodo genealógico, y el pliegue del periodo ético. Determino si se puede considerar en ellas una dimensión espiritual que llame (...) a être autrement. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es problematizar la lectura que Alexandra von Teuffenbach ha hecho sobre el actuar del sacerdote alemán Joseph Kentenich, a quien denuncia por haber cometido abuso de poder, abuso espiritual y emocional contra un grupo de Hermanas de María en los años 50. De acuerdo con la investigadora, una revisión de los expedientes vaticanos daría cuenta de que la razón por la que Kentenich habría sufrido un exilio durante 14 años fuera de Schönstatt, correspondería a una (...) medida del visitador pontificio, el jesuita neerlandés Sebastian Tromp, para proteger a la comunidad de mujeres consagradas contra su abusador. El propósito de este artículo es mostrar que la cuestión juzgada por el Santo Oficio se mueve en otro plano, el que se debiese abordar desde una hermenéutica más objetiva que haga justicia a las palabras utilizadas en los documentos oficiales, así como a las mismas expresiones emitidas por el encargado de la visitación. En esa línea, se analiza en este trabajo la crítica dirigida por Tromp a la espiritualidad de Schoenstatt y de su fundador por falso misticismo, falso culto personal y falsa dirección espiritual. Para este trabajo se ha utilizado la reciente edición de los informes apostólicos publicados por Patris Verlag, archivos sobre los que sólo recientemente se ha levantado su embargo como parte de los documentos del pontificado de Pío XII. (shrink)

La viabilidad del modelo de la sociedad de bienestar se encuentra en entredicho. El argumento de la insostenibilidad económica de su realización ha propiciado una versión muy limitada de su efecto redistributivo y transformador que limita su radio de acción a la satisfacción de las necesidades más perentorias del individuo. La rehabilitación del modelo reclama la ponderación razonada de la densidad normativa de los bienes en juego que en ningún caso pudiera derivar en la discriminación en el disfrute de los (...) derechos concernidos. Se impone al respecto el cumplimiento irrestricto de los deberes generales positivos enderezados a la eliminación de los condicionamientos de las voluntades individuales que conforman el consenso definiendo el sentido democrático de las políticas de bienestar. (shrink)

Diego de Pantoja (1571-1618), jesuita español, contribuyó decisivamente al desarrollo del _pinyin_, un método clave para el aprendizaje del chino. Su original contribución reside en el uso que hizo de partituras musicales para facilitar el correcto aprendizaje de los tonos chinos. A pesar de la importancia de su invención, este aspecto de la obra de Pantoja no ha podido ser claramente dilucidado hasta la fecha, tal vez debido a la escasez de fuentes históricas y a su deficiente interpretación. Nuestro estudio (...) analiza meticulosamente fuentes primarias de los periodos Ming y Qing para explorar e interpretar los perfiles básicos del método del _pinyin_ musical creado por Pantoja, y de su relevancia en la historia del diálogo intercultural Oriente-Occidente. (shrink)

Los objetivos de nuestro estudio se basarán en ahondar en que el verdadero prosumer ha conformado la personificación de la interactividad absoluta en la generación de mensajes, historias o cualquier otro tipo de contenidos. Por tanto, se subraya que no solo es trascendental para la eficacia de una narración la estructura y los ingredientes de ésta, sino también la manera en que se cuenta, el medio utilizado y la plataforma de visualización. También resulta relevante el sentido de la fragmentación de (...) la propia narración para el éxito de su hiperconectividad argumental y emocional. (shrink)

Reseña a García Figueroa, Alfonso. Moral de victoria. Terrasa: Hexis, 2021, 368 pp.

La investigación que aquí se presenta es una reflexión en torno a la idea de cultura constitucional. Para ello se parte primero de una serie de conceptos constitucionales basilares, para posteriormente desgranar cuál es el concepto y caracteres de la noción, sus principales desarrollos para posteriormente fijar la vista en España y su peculiar idiosincrasia constitucional, de ayer, hoy y siempre.

El presente trabajo es un estudio sobre la enseñanza de la historia reciente (HR) que parte del testimonio de un conjunto de profesores de Historia de la localidad de Merlo, Buenos Aires. En las entrevistas, se buscó indagar en las concepciones que tienen los profesores sobre la HR, su enseñanza en las aulas y las conmemoraciones en las escuelas. De esta forma, en una primera parte se analiza el interés por la HR y cómo esta es concebida por los profesores. (...) En la segunda, el examen se centra en las formas de generar interés en los alumnos y los resultados que ello produce en las prácticas educativas. El último apartado corre el eje al espacio escolar en el que se desempeñan los docentes y cómo estos viven, desde su óptica, el desarrollo de las conmemoraciones y sus actividades en torno a la HR. Se ha podido constatar que los profesores comparten una narrativa política que involucra una forma de entender la HR como una herramienta de lucha para el presente y que esta podría tener características originales desarrolladas en torno al contexto sociopolítico de los entrevistados. (shrink)

The basic question of this article is whether Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of divine providence through his understanding of primary and secondary causation can be understood as a theological causal or non-causal explanation. To answer this question, I will consider some contemporary discussions about the nature of causal and non-causal explanations in philosophy of science and metaphysics, in order to integrate them into a theological discourse that appeals to the classical distinction between God as first cause and creatures as secondary causes (...) to explain God's presence and providence in the created universe. My main argument will hold that, even if there are some philosophical models of explanation that seem to allow one to suggest that, at least partially, this doctrine could be seen as a non-causal theological explanation, there are other models that offer seemingly stronger reasons to see this doctrine in full as a causal theological explanation. (shrink)

Florentino Ameghino was probably the most important naturalist in nineteenth-century Argentina, being a self-taught palaeontologist, whose theories rivalled the most advanced of the time in Europe and the United States. On top of his vast palaeontological discoveries, Ameghino’s fame came from his theory of the origin of the human species in the Argentine Pampas, published in 1880. The idea of Ameghino’s followers was to create a place of secular pilgrimage for the new Argentine nation to honour their own secular hero (...) or saint, as Ingenieros had called him. A few accusations by the local Catholic Church were posed with Ameghino’s followers denying them. The education of the nation was one of the greatest concerns that Catholics had, and some saw in the positivist liberal position a rejection of the education on the virtues required for the building of a nationally educated society in Argentina for the twentieth century. -/- . (shrink)

What semantics should we attribute to mass expressions like "wisdom" and "love", which are derived from gradable expressions? We first examine how these expressions are used, then how they are interpreted in their various uses. We then propose a model to account for these data, in which derived mass nouns denote instances of properties.

What semantics should we attribute to nouns like "wisdom" and "generosity", which are derived from gradable adjectives? We show that, from a morphosyntactic standpoint, these nouns are mass nouns. This leads us to consider and answer the following questions. How are these nouns interpreted in their various uses? What formal representations may one associate with their interpretations? How do these depend on the semantics of the adjective? And where lies the semantic unity of nouns like wisdom and generosity with the (...) more familiar concrete mass nouns, like wine and furniture? (shrink)

This article is the introduction to the special issue ‘Sociology and psychology: what intersections?’ In addition to presenting the articles included in this issue, the present text outlines the general stakes of interdisciplinarity between psychology and sociology. It argues that interdisciplinarity requires a specific conversion work between disciplines and that, in the particular case of sociology and psychology, importations and exportations of concepts and ideas have existed since the beginning of these disciplines.

After 100+ years of studying syllogistic reasoning, what have we learned? Well, Riesterer and colleagues suggest that we have learned to throw away most of the data! If that seems like a bad idea to you then, be assured, that the authors agree with you. The sad fact is that the conclusion of “No Valid Conclusion” (NVC) is one of the most frequently selected responses in syllogistic reasoning but these “majority data” have been ignored by most researchers. Riesterer and colleagues (...) introduce heuristic rules for predicting NVC and provide directions to modelers on how to up their game. (shrink)

Cet article est consacré au problème du rapport entre l’entrelacement des genres (συμπλοκὴ τῶν εἰδῶν) et le logos dans le Sophiste. Après avoir brièvement présenté le problème, je discute, dans la première partie, différentes solutions proposées par les commentateurs. Je cherche à montrer qu’aucune de ces solutions n’est pleinement satisfaisante. Dans la deuxième partie, je propose une nouvelle solution au problème de la συμπλοκὴ τῶν εἰδῶν fondée sur une distinction entre deux types de logos, le logos dialectique et le logos (...) doxique. Dans la troisième partie, je cherche à justifier textuellement cette solution en recourant à la fois au texte du Sophiste lui-même et à la dernière partie du Théétète. Dans ma conclusion, je suggère que la distinction entre logos dialectique et logos doxique correspond à une différence qui traverse toute l’œuvre de Platon, à savoir la différence entre connaissance et opinion. / This paper deals with the problem of the συμπλοκὴ τῶν εἰδῶν in the Sophist. In the first part, after a brief presentation of this problem, I discuss different solutions which have been proposed in the recent literature. I try to show that none of them is entirely satisfying. In the second part, I propose and explain a new solution based on a distinction between two types of logos : dialectical logos and doxastic logos. In the third part, I try to justify this solution on the basis of some passages of the Sophist and of the final part of the Theaetetus. To conclude, I suggest that the distinction between dialectical logos and doxasticlogos matches the difference between knowledge and belief made by Plato in his dialogues. (shrink)

In English, some common nouns, like "cat", can be used in the singular and in the plural, while others, like "wate"r, are invariable. Moreover, nouns like "cat" can be employed with numerals like "one" and "two" and determiners like "a", "many" and "few", but neither with "much" nor "little". On the contrary, nouns like "milk" can be used with determiners like "much" and "little", but neither with "a", "one" nor "many". These two types of nouns constitute two morphosyntactic sub-classes of (...) English common nouns; cf. for instance Gillon (1992). They have been respectively called count nouns and mass nouns. In many languages, notably Romance and Germanic languages, one can similarly identify two morphosyntactic subclasses of common nouns, nouns of one class admitting singular and plural number, and nouns of the other being invariable in grammatical number. The question we want to address in this paper is one in lexical semantics: Is there anything characteristic about the meaning of a count noun? (shrink)

Responses to outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics involves a heterogeneous set of activities that aim to address threats to public health. In addition to research, non-research activities, such as prevention and control interventions, and surveillance, are conducted. The boundaries between research and non-research responses can rapidly blur during a public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be common elements between these types of activities, and they may draw on the same resources and infrastructure. Non-research activities, such as surveillance (...) and emergency non-research use of unproven interventions, and research activities must all be undertaken in an ethical manner as components of emergency response. However, care is needed to distinguish between non-research public health activities and research, because research often has considerations and requirements for its ethical conduct which are distinct from non-research public health activities. Research aims to produce generalizable knowledge, and mechanisms such as participant consent and independent ethics review aim to ensure that the rights and interests of research participants are respected. Ensuring that research and non-research activities are appropriately distinguished can additionally promote proper coordination of such activities, and increase trust and social accountability in pandemic responses. Consequently, it is important to distinguish between these different activities on the basis of their primary aim, and to consider whether their implementation is justifiable, based on their aims and the relevant ethical framework for each type of activity, and how they are coordinated as part of the larger collective activity of emergency response and management. Complex questions arise about how the different stakeholders involved in decision-making should make valid and justifiable decisions about whether the response activity is research or non-research. The cases in this chapter invite consideration about how such decisions should be made, and their implications, in the context of applications to conduct retrospective research into the outcomes of emergency uses of unproven interventions outside clinical trials, and of characterising antibody-testing initiatives and systematic data collection activities as surveillance or research. (shrink)

After presenting the ordinary and the Fregean formulations of the ancestral, I raise the question of what is their relationship, the natural candidate being that the Fregean version is an analysans intended to improve upon, and replace, the common notion of ancestral (the analysandum). Next, two types of circles that arise in connection with the Fregean ancestral are presented, and it is claimed that one of the circles makes it impossible to maintain the just described (“replacement”) interpretation. A reference is (...) made to Kerry, who was the first to point out a circularity in Frege’s ancestral. Some of Frege’s remarks are examined in order to tentatively sketch, an answer to the issue of the relationship between ordinary and Fregean ancestral; the latter, if not as an analysans replacing the common notion, can still be seen as a profound enrichment of the former. (shrink)

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 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. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)