In the UK in October 1992, Mrs S was forced to have a caesarean section despite her objections to such a procedure on religious grounds. The case once again called into question the obligations of women to the unborn, and also whether one person can be forced to undergo a medical procedure for the benefit of someone else. Re S, like the case of Angela Carder, is often discussed in terms of the conflict between maternal and fetal rights. This paper (...) looks instead at our obligations to save life in general-whether or not we are pregnant- and at the obligations of mothers to their children-whether they are born or unborn. Drawing on Judith Jarvis Thomson's distinction, it argues that minimal decency informs the duties which are owed to strangers, but that parents can be expected to behave as Good Samaritans towards their children. Finally, it is argued that even if mothers are ethically obliged to consent to caesarean sections which will save the lives of their babies, this does not necessarily mean that others are at liberty, or even obliged, to proceed with such operations without their consent. (shrink)

Perhaps no technological innovation has so dominated the second half of the twentieth century as has the introduction of the programmable computer. It is quite difficult if not impossible to imagine how contemporary affairs—in business and science, communications and transportation, governmental and military activities, for example—could be conducted without the use of computing machines, whose principal contribution has been to relieve us of the necessity for certain kinds of mental exertion. The computer revolution has reduced our mental labors by means (...) of these machines, just as the Industrial Revolution reduced our physical labor by means of other machines. (shrink)

This essay argues that schooling in Israel is tied too closely to ideology. This results in an indoctrinary orientation that contributes to divisiveness and imperils Israeli democracy. After reviewing and critiquing the roots of this orientation, I advance an alternative that understands education as an agent of the good rather than ideology. Israeli schooling requires a vision of goodness broad enough to encompass competing conceptions of Jewish life espoused by the majority as well as non-Jewish orientations affirmed by various minorities. (...) Such a vision can be grounded, I contend, in a democratic Jewish theology that emphasizes God as teacher rather than tyrant. (shrink)

Geleitwort von Prof. P. Nicki -- Dr. Hermann Freund im Gespräch mit Prof. Dr. Dr. Hinderk M. Emrich -- Die Angst und der existentielle Sprung -- Die neue Zeit -- Der gedachte Gott -- Wie kommt das Ich zum Du? - Hysterie als Lebensform -- Was heisst, sich entscheiden? - Zur Theologie der Freiheit -- Re-formation der Reformation -- Das metaphysische und zugleich dämonische Wesen des Schlosses in Franz Kafkas Schloss-Roman -- Nachwort von Wolfgang Teichert: Epiphanie oder wo sprechende Philosophie (...) und Theologie aufhören müssen -- Literatur -- Verzeichnis der Mitwirkenden -- Abbildungsverzeichnis. (shrink)

Even well after his lifetime, Ibn Sina was renowned, not just in medicine or philosophy, but in other areas, especially in the Islamic world. In brief, he was an authority in the Islamic East, or an “auctoritas”. However, in the west, his work was massively influential in not only the medical education curricula, but also in the important, innovative doctrines in philosophy. The most fundamental sections of his major encyclopedia, al-Shifâ being translated into Latin as early as the 12th and (...) 13th centuries and spreading throughout universities dispersed this impact rapidly. Known as "the prince of physicians", Ibn Sina is the writer of the Canon of Medicine (al-Qānūn fi 'al-Tibb), which became a medical standard in the Christian west as well as the Islamic world. (shrink)

Articles; chiefly on Islamic ethics and conveying non Muslims for Islam.

v. 1. De principiis -- v. 2. De praeceptis -- v. 3. De sacramentis.

Plutarch's Timoleon has received little attention from scholars who in recent years have studied the sources of his Lives and sought to determine the methods which he followed in their composition. The reasons for this neglect are obvious: the Timoleon is a simple Life, contains few citations, and is universally and justifiably believed to be founded, together with the Timoleon of Cornelius Nepos, upon the tradition established by Timaeus. Scholars of the nineteenth century agreed in further concluding that both authors (...) derived their material directly and almost exclusively from Timaeus. This conclusion does not appear to have been challenged in spite of the well-known contention of Eduard Meyer, which has won considerable approval, that neither biographer was accustomed to use primary historical authorities, each relying mainly upon biographies of the Hellenistic period which have not survived. The validity of Meyer's theory as a general principle of source-criticism will not be expressly discussed in this paper. My purpose is rather to examine the Timoleon only, especially in relation to the Timoleon of Nepos, and to suggest a method of composition here adopted by Plutarch, who, I believe, based his Life upon a secondary biography and supplemented this from a primary historical authority. (shrink)

I summarize Jaegwon Kim's (2001/5) paper on the detrimental affect 'mental causation' has on physicalism.