Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es, einige relevante Sachverhalte aus der Philosophie Descartes' hervorzuheben, welche die Entwicklung der Leib-Seele-Problem-Debatte maßgeblich geprägt haben. Aus der Sicht gegenwärtiger philosophischer Debatte wird die Fundierung des ontologischen Dualismus Descartes' aufgewiesen, um schließlich diesen Standpunkt einer kritischen Würdigung zu unterziehen—mit dem Blick auf eine Zukunftsperspektive. Das methodische Verfahren nimmt Rücksicht sowohl auf den Bereich a priori als auch den a posteriori.

The fundamental question I consider is the following: What is it that makes one thing a person and another thing not? I do not provide a complete answer; rather I begin to develop a framework for answering the question. In this essay I do the following: (1) distinguish between the powers possessed by persons and the constitutions of persons, and propose some metaphysical conjectures concerning the relationship between persons' powers and their constitutions; (2) propose for Christians, as well as for (...) others, an hylomorphic soul-body alternative to Cartesianism; (3) highlight some prominent differences between the nature of human persons and the natures of brute animals; and (4) apply this framework for understanding human persons to problems in biomedical ethics concerning the ontological and moral status of human embryos and of the comatose. (shrink)

In this paper two concepts of the self are presented and contrasted, namely a narrative and a substantial self. The discussed concepts have been variously assessed in contemporary philosophy. It seems, however, that the substantial concept is nowadays an object of severe criticism, whereas the narrative notion celebrates its genuine triumph. In the paper, the author argues that this asymmetry is exaggerated and disproportionate, and opposition between them is not so obvious and clear-cut. The author argues that those two concepts (...) in fact need each other and can, to a certain degree, complement one another. In the article, an example of such complementarity is sketched. (shrink)