Research that is initiated, designed or funded by sponsor agencies based in countries with relatively high social and economic development, and conducted in countries that are relatively less developed, gives rise to many important ethical challenges. Although clinical trials of HIV vaccines began ten years ago in the US and Europe, an increasing number of trials are now being conducted or planned in other countries, including several that are considered “developing” countries. Safeguarding the rights and welfare of individuals participating as (...) research subjects in developing countries is a priority. In September, 1997, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS embarked on a process of international consultation; its purpose was further to define the important ethical issues and to formulate guidance that might facilitate the ethical design and conduct of HIV vaccine trials in international contexts. This paper summarises the major outcomes of the UNAIDS consultative process. (shrink)

As Husserl already noticed, artworks themselves have a phenomenological character. This means, however, that to experience artworks as phenomena no “epoché” and no “phenomenological reduction” is necessary. The leading question of my essay is whether, and possibly how, this observation can be methodologically generalized for understanding phenomena. I discuss if, and possibly how, a phenomenological reflection on art allows and even demands a general conception of phenomenology that nevertheless does not confuse artworks with phenomena in general. My intention is to (...) show that and how phenomenality can be clarified with reference to its spatial character. Accordingly, works of architecture that are artworks will play a decisive role in my argument. (shrink)

Scientific exploration and thus our knowledge about the outside world is subject to the conditions of our experience.These conditions are condensed here into an interface model which,besides being physical,has an additional interface structure not reducible to physics. We suggest that this structure can dynamically be characterized by separate modes.Their selection and operation presupposes free will and a rudimentary concept of time and space. Based on some analogies with quantum networks it is argued that the 'observed' gets 'dressed'as a consequence of (...) the observing. Interface dynamics and system dynamics supplement each other without over- determination. (shrink)

The paper is a critical discussion of scholarship on the "Critique of Pure Reason" published during the past ten years. The emphasis is on Anglo-American authors. I identify and discuss three main trends in the field: a shift from the general discussion of transcendental arguments to the analysis and evaluation of particular proofs in Kant; a renewed interest in the doctrine of transcendental idealism and the distinction between things in themselves and appearances; and the emergence of an entire body of (...) literature on Kant's philosophy of mind, centered around the idea of a "transcendental psychology." The main body of the text is supplemented by extensive bibliographical information provided in the notes. (shrink)

This article compares Kant and Fichte from the double stand- point of identity and difference with regard to two thinkers who were at first united by a master-student relation but who later on drifted apart from each other due to mutual defamation. At the center of the present discussion stands the relationship between spirit of freedom and system’s form which binds Kant and Fichte beyond methodological divergences and doctrinal differ- ences. The critical comparison between Kant and Fichte will be developed (...) in four steps: it will start with the general positioning of Kant within German Idealism, and then move on to Kant’s double critical enterprise of grounding an aprioristic doctrine of principles of nature and freedom; it will later on address the conception championed by Fichte of having pre- sented the “first system of freedom”, and from there it will focus on the manifestations of freedom within Fichte’s philosophical system, with Kant’s position as contrast. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 64 Heft: 6 Seiten: 947-950.

In der Tugendlehre Kants findet die allgemeine ethische Orientierung, wie sie der Kategorische Imperativ ausdrückt, Anwendung auf die Bedingungen der menschlichen Existenz. Die vorliegende Untersuchung rekonstruiert den Kantischen Ansatz vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwärtigen, vor allem aristotelischen Tugendethik und löst dabei den Kantischen Tugendbegriff kritisch von seinen zeitbedingten Prägungen. Auf so erneuerter Grundlage wird eine transzendentalphilosophische Ethikkonzeption entfaltet, die den methodischen und inhaltlichen Einsichten der jüngeren Theorieentwicklung Rechnung trägt. Zu den Ergebnissen zählt die Bestimmung einzelner Tugenden, deren ethische Orientierung an (...) konkreten Strukturen unserer alltäglichen Praxis demonstriert wird. (shrink)

The role of foundation with respect to transitive closure in the Zermelo system Z has been investigated by Boffa; our aim is to explore the role of antifoundation. We start by showing the consistency of "Z antifoundation transitive closure" relative to Z (by a technique well known for ZF). Further, we introduce a "weak replacement principle" (deductible from antifoundation and transitive closure) and study the relations among these three statements in Z via interpretations. Finally, we give some adaptations for ZF (...) without infinity. (shrink)

Patt's study attempts to explain Kant's doctrine of transcendental idealism through a detailed examination of Kant's theory of sensible intuition. The center of the book is a minute textual exegesis of Kant's direct proof for the doctrine of transcendental idealism in the "Transcendental Aesthetic" of the Critique of Pure Reason, focusing on the arguments concerning the nature of space and time and the conclusions that Kant draws from them. This middle part is preceded by three smaller chapters that examine the (...) Kantian distinction between appearances and things in themselves, the relation between intuition and sensation, and the function of intuition in synthetic judgments. The study concludes with an analysis of Kant's indirect proof of the doctrine of transcendental idealism in the "Transcendental Dialectic," with an emphasis on the treatment of the first two antinomies. No detailed consideration is given to the role of intuitions in Kant's theory of categories and principles in the "Transcendental Analytic.". (shrink)

(1) It remains to be seen if in the field of Psychiatry just as in that of Psychology the verbal output of a subject can be submitted to verification. Many statements of a highly emotional character being merely symptoms of certain dispositions have no direct communicative sense at all.(2) It being one of the characteristics of the mentally ill to loose contact and exchange of ideas with other people, the question naturally suggests itself if this symptom may be at the (...) bottom of the phenomenon of these persons taking refuge in logical and ideological terminologies, their talk being a kind of verbal autism. (shrink)

The concept of autonomy was and still is one of the central notions of practical philosophy. The current discussion often identifies autonomy with free or rational self-determination of a person. But a person must always be seen as being integrated in social and institutional contexts. Therefore the concept of autonomy has to be developed from an integrative perspective which includes both perspectives: the individual and the institutional one. Moreover, this integration cannot be constituted by shared affects and feeling of individuals, (...) but has to refer to the idea of “lawfulness” and guiding norms and orientations. This essay tries to show that Hermann Cohen′s understanding of “autonomy as a task” is a theory worthy of being followed, as it develops the principles as well as the concrete conditions of an integrative concept of autonomy on the basis of a “hypothetical” method which is both: critical and dynamical. (shrink)

In this paper, we study when a set-continuous operator has a fixed-point that is the intersection of a directed family. The framework of our study is the Kelley-Morse theory KMC– and the Gödel-Bernays theory GBC–, both theories including an Axiom of Choice and excluding the Axiom of Foundation. On the one hand, we prove a result concerning monotone operators in KMC– that cannot be proved in GBC–. On the other hand, we study conditions on directed superclasses in GBC– in order (...) that their intersection is a fixed-point of a set-continuous operator. Finally, we illustrate our results with a solution to the liar paradox and a construction of maximal bisimulations. (shrink)