This book is a philosophical discussion of moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. One of its aims is to decide whether and when it might make sense to not resist or bring about the end of one's life. To answer this question it considers views about meaning in life and what makes life worth living. It also evaluates recent attempts to help the general public plan in advance for the end of life. It also considers (...) whether or not physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible and if it should be legalized. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Ontology, Reality and Construction in Niklas Luhmann’s Theory” by Krzysztof C. Matuszek. Upshot: The question of whether contingency can be limited concerns the foundations of sociological systems theory as a theory of cognition. This commentary argues that while such limits may seem plausible and apparent at first, they would consequentially give rise to an ontological notion of society within society. Rather, the commentary proposes to understand the limits identified in the target article as social (...) functions structuring expectations in situations of double contingency. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Learning How to Innovate as a Socio-epistemological Process of Co-creation: Towards a Constructivist Teaching Strategy for Innovation” by Markus F. Peschl, Gloria Bottaro, Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler & Katharina Rötzer. Upshot: I introduce and discuss an advancement of the idea of “learning from the future,” called “interacting with the envisioned future.” Further, this approach is put into the context of the target article and the perspective of radical constructivism.

Upshot: In this response, I address the points raised in the commentaries, in particular those related to the scalability and robustness of the mechanism CALM, to its relation with the CAES architecture, and to the transition from sensorimotor to symbolic.

I critically analyze Edward Feser's rendition of Aquinas's intellectus essentiae argument for the real distinction between essence and esse.