sirIn a scholarly and thought-provoking paper, Clarke sets out to debunk the concept of “rational suicide” as nonsensical.1 His motivation in this is to undermine any support that the notion of rational suicide might give to a “categorical right to suicide”. If his enterprise were successful, however, it would go far beyond the “rights issue” and would have a profound impact on all arguments raised in support of euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.Clarke's major thrust might be termed the argument from posthumous (...) ignorance. He begins with a claim that the process of making a rational decision involves the process of “gaining all possible facts and `imagining' all possible consequences”. He goes on to say that making a rational decision “in the consideration of life or death . . . would seem to be impossible”. It is “impossible” …. (shrink)

Background: Funding organisations and research ethics committees should play a part in strengthening attention to gender equality in clinical research. In the research policy of European Union , funding measures have been taken to realise this, but such measures are lacking in the EU policy regarding RECs.Objective: To explore how RECs in Austria, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden deal with gender equality issues by asking two questions: Do existing procedures promote representation of women and gender expertise in the committee? (...) How are sex and gender issues dealt with in protocol evaluation?Methods: Two RECs were selected from each country. Data were obtained through interviews with key informants and content analysis of relevant documents .Results: All countries have rules to ensure the presence of women on RECs; gender expertise is not required. Drug study protocols are carefully evaluated, sometimes on a formal basis, as regards the inclusion of women of childbearing age. The reason for excluding either one of the sexes or including specific groups of women or making a gender-specific risk–benefit analysis are investigated by some RECs. Such measures are, however, neither defined in the regulations nor integrated in review tools.Conclusions: The RECs investigated in five European member states are found to pay limited attention to gender equality in their working methods and, in particular in protocol evaluation. Policy and regulations of EU are needed to strengthen attention to gender equality in the work of RECs. (shrink)

This volume, which contains the 1962 lecture "Zeit und Sein," is the most important publication by Heidegger since Unterwegs zur Sprache appeared in 1959. Bearing the same title as the much discussed missing part of the first half of Sein und Zeit, "Zeit und Sein" is the best demonstration we have of how the later Heidegger carries out the program which was outlined in Sein und Zeit, i.e., how the clue which the analytic of Dasein provides--that Being is to be (...) understood in terms of time--is followed out in the later works. Heidegger explicates the temporality of Being in terms of its character as a "gift" and an epochal sending which "is" both as having been and as to come. Being as time is thus the "event of appropriation". In addition to "Zeit und Sein," Zur Sache des Denkens also contains: The notes of a seminar which Heidegger conducted at Todtnauberg in 1962 upon the "Zeit und Sein" lecture. As Professor Alfredo Guzzoni, the editor of these notes, indicates this is the only time that Heidegger has conducted a seminar on a text of his own composition. A lecture entitled "The End of Philosophy and the Problem of Thought," which was delivered at a Kierkegaard colloquium in 1964. An autobiographical description of Heidegger's growing interest in and attraction to Husserl's phenomenological method in the pre-Sein und Zeit period; this was prepared in 1963 for a Festschrift in honor of Hermann Niemeyer.--J. D. C. (shrink)

As Gelven points out in his Preface, this is the only section-by-section commentary on the full text of Being and Time. Being and Time is divided not only into two "divisions" of six chapters each but also into eighty-three numbered "sections". As such it provides an efficient and useful handbook for those who try to make their way through the rugged terrain of Heidegger's text, especially for the beginner. Gelven's prose is crisp and clean and uncluttered by Germanicisms. He often (...) uses uncomplicated and helpful illustrations. The interpretation stresses the importance of the analysis of "understanding" taking § 31 as "the key to Being and Time". In fact, Gelven groups §§ 25-38 as a whole under the single heading "Understanding". Such an emphasis seems entirely legitimate. He treats the historical sources of Being and Time but often leaves them undeveloped. He is content, for example, to devote a single paragraph to Dilthey whose influence upon Heidegger is so decisive, with the comment that not much is ever said about Dilthey in English philosophical literature. One also finds it a bit hard to swallow the author's argument that "Dasein" means literally "to be here" and, in sentence form: "Here I am, open to possibilities". In all, however, Gelven's work is a distinctive contribution and not a mere reworking of already familiar themes.--J. D. C. (shrink)

This book attempts to collect Heidegger’s scattered and often very puzzling observations about the holy, divinity, God, and the gods in order to make them a coherent statement. The first three chapters present clearly and soundly the by now familiar material of Heidegger’s attempt, first, to lay the foundation of metaphysics, then, to overcome metaphysics altogether. Chapter 4 draws the conclusion that Heidegger stands in opposition to any metaphysical account of God and that theology, if it is possible at all, (...) must be nonmetaphysical. Chapter 5 argues that Heidegger’s approach to God, centered primarily in the account of the Geviert, is mythical rather than metaphysical, though it does not recommend that we in the twentieth century simply adopt the Homeric or Hesiodic myths. The heart of the book is Chapter 6, in which Perotti analyzes the Hölderlin commentaries. On this basis he claims that, for Heidegger, any word about God’s coming—for we live after the flight of the gods-must come from the poets. Thinking dwells in subordination to poetry, and its role is to cultivate and preserve the poet’s words. On the question of God for Heidegger, according to Perotti, there is nothing to do but wait—for the poets to speak. Perotti’s text is quite brief and, in the opening chapters, covers familiar ground. He makes no use of Phaenomenologie und Theologie. Unfortunately, he often quotes the Lohner translation of the Letter on Humanism, although he always supplies the German. On p. 27, 1934 is mentioned where 1943 is intended. There is ample footnoting, a bibliography, and an index.—J.D.C. (shrink)

Miss Stambaugh's new translation of Identität und Differenz is a welcome addition to the growing body of English translations of Heidegger. The special merit of Miss Stambaugh's work is that the translator was a student of Heidegger's and was able to prepare this translation in consultation with him. Her work should be particularly well received in view of the very poor quality of the previous translation of the same work, published for some reason under the title Essays in Metaphysics. The (...) "Introduction" is well done but regrettably short as the work stands in need of further explication. There certainly is room for an expanded introduction, as the lectures--even in both languages--barely fill their 146 pages. Miss Stambaugh's linguistic decisions are usually sound. For example, faced with the Heideggerian ambiguity of "Er-eignis," she simply combines the dual meanings into "the event of appropriation," which is as much as one can do with this critically important word in Heidegger's vocabulary.--J. D. C. (shrink)

"Neuroscience and Philosophy" begins with an excerpt from "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience," in which Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker question the ...

In this paper we try to answer the question whether diffusion is a possible mechanism to explain mesoderm induction in Amphibians. First the embryological data are discussed and a hypothesis for mesoderm formation is set forth. The blastula being essentially a hollow sphere, we assume that the induction mechanism in an embryo at the blastula stage can be simulated by diffusion-reaction processes on spherical surfaces. A model is constructed for the simple case when the source is held constant with respect (...) to time, the decay proportional to the concentration and the diffusion coefficient a constant, From simulation we find a (best) value for the decay constant to be 6 × 10–5/sec and for the diffusion constant to be 0.24 × 10– 6 cm2/sec. The relation between the parameters is derived from an analytic solution for the diffusion process on a spherical surface with a continuously producing point source and the concentration proportional to the decay. The form and regulative properties of the steady concentration gradient are discussed. (shrink)

Through discourse with international groups of physicians, we conducted a cross-cultural analysis of the types of ethical dilemmas physicians face. Qualitative analysis was used to categorise the dilemmas into seven themes, which we compared among the physicians by country of practice. These themes were a-theoretically-driven and grounded heavily within the text. We then subjected the dilemmas to an analysis of moral intensity, which represents an important theoretical perspective of ethical decision making. These constructs represent salient determinants of ethical behaviour and (...) our cross-cultural sample afforded us the opportunity to consider both the pragmatic aspects of culture, as they are perceived by physicians, as well as the theory-driven concept of moral intensity. By examining both culture and moral intensity, we hope to better elucidate the complexities of ethical decision-making determinants among physicians in their daily practice. Doing so may potentially have practical implications for ethics training of medical students and foreign physicians. (shrink)

This volume, dedicated to Rudolph Bultmann, contains the text of a lecture held in 1927 and that of a letter addressed to the participants in a colloquium held at Drew University in 1964. Separated by thirty-seven years and the workings of the "turn" in Heidegger's thought, the texts are profoundly different. In "Phenomenology and Theology", seeking to delineate the notion of Theology as a science, Heidegger says that Theology is a "positive" science in the somewhat Wolffian sense that its subject (...) matter is a "posit," an "existent" being: God. Christian theology is centered on the positing of Christ and concerns "Christianliness", which is the existentiell posture of belief in the "Crucifixion." As such, Christian Theology concerns a specific "Way of Being" and to this extent is subordinate to Philosophy, which deals with the more radical realm of Being itself. Theology seeks to explicate "believing existence" but Philosophy provides the categories with which Existenz itself is to be understood. Philosophy is ontological-existential; Theology is ontico-existentiell. The whole discussion is determined by the terms of Being and Time, § 3. The second text, "The Problem of a Non-Objectifying Thought and Language in Contemporary Theology," holds out to Theology the ideal of a thinking which is neither ontic nor ontological, neither existentiell nor existential, but altogether beyond the realm of concepts. Once again Theology is directed to follow the lead of a more radical undertaking now no longer called Philosophy but simply Thought.--J. D. C. (shrink)

Otto Pöggeler is among the most distinguished living German scholars. He is the coeditor of the new critical edition of the works of Hegel published by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. In addition he is the author of what many regard as the book on Heidegger. He has access to documents that Heidegger makes available to only a few and is considered to have an acquaintance with the pre-Sein und Zeit period that is matched by none. This latest volume--a collection of important (...) articles that have appeared in European periodicals on Heidegger, and offered on the occasion of his 80th birthday--is exactly what one would expect of Pöggeler. The contributions are most distinguished. To name a few: Löwith on Heidegger and Protestant theology; Schulz's famous article on the place of Heidegger in the history of Philosophy; Gadamer on Heidegger and Marburg theology; Beda Allemann on Heidegger's engagement with the National Socialists; Tugendhat on Heidegger's idea of truth; and finally an article by Pöggeler on Heidegger's hermeneutics. Pöggeler also provides a 38-page introduction entitled "Heidegger Today." In addition to a helpful index, there is a tripartite bibliography including not only Heidegger's works and the important secondary literature but also the works of independent thinkers who think out of the context and under the influence of Heidegger--such as Binswanger, Bultmann, Fink, Löwith et al.--J. D. C. (shrink)

This is a lengthy study which, appearing as it does contemporaneously with Sherover's Heidegger, Kant and Time, underlines the importance not only of Kant's influence on Heidegger but also of Heidegger's unorthodox but intriguing interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason. In his Introduction Declève discusses at some length Heidegger's involvement with the National Socialists, pointing out in particular Heidegger's tendency at that time to fuse the technical language of philosophy with the jargon of the Nazi ideology. It is of (...) some importance, Declève holds, that Heidegger saw for a time the historical and political consequences of his thought in the Nazi's, whereas the political applications of Kant's thought are considerably more praiseworthy. Where Heidegger approves of Hitler's decision to withdraw--from the League of Nations, for example, Kant's thought lays the theoretical foundations of a world society. Accordingly Declève sees a radical shortcoming in Heidegger's whole approach to Kant: if it is true that Kant is laying the foundations of metaphysics, this must be understood to include the foundations of the metaphysics of morals. Heidegger ignores the second Critique. Nonetheless, Declève's treatment of his topic is, on the whole, sympathetic to Heidegger's approach to Kant, and he regards the confrontation of Heidegger and Kant as a dialogue of the greatest importance between philosophical geniuses of the highest order. The book is richly documented and very carefully executed. It is certain to become standard fare for anyone interested in Heidegger's challenging "retrieve" of Kant.--J. D. C. (shrink)

The importance of this book, which appeared in the original German in 1969 under the title Zur Sache des Denkens, 743), is attested to by the rapidity with which it has been translated into English. The title of the English translation is that of the lead essay, the highly celebrated lecture which Heidegger gave in 1962 and which bears the same title as the never published "third division" of the "first half" of Being and Time. This lecture is perhaps the (...) most significant document to be added to the Heideggerian corpus since the Letter on Humanism. It is of course dramatically different from Being and Time and so cannot be regarded as a "continuation of the text of Being and Time." "Time and Being" thematizes the central notion of Heidegger’s later work, "Das Eregignis," [[sic]] translated happily by Miss Stambaugh as "Event of Appropriation". The "Event of Appropriation" is the "It" which "gives" Being and time in the sequence of epochs which constitute the history of Western metaphysics. The lecture is followed by an instructive "seminar" conducted by Heidegger on the text of "Time and Being." There is found here also a penetrating essay entitled "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking," as well as a fascinating piece of autobiography entitled "My Way in Phenomenology." Miss Stambaugh’s translation is superb, something readers of the "Heidegger, Works" series which she edits with J. Glenn Garay have become accustomed to.—J. D. C. (shrink)

Heidegger's Unterwegs zur Sprache is one of his most important books and this English translation is a timely addition to the English edition of his "Works." No other single topic is of more interest to the current commentators on Heidegger than that of language. There is a growing sense of a kinship between Heidegger and Wittgenstein and an increasing number of efforts to link continental and Anglo-American thought more closely together--all of which should be stimulated by the appearance of this (...) translation. The work is also interesting from another perspective. The central document in the attempt to relate Heidegger to the East is found in this work in the opening dialogue between Heidegger and Professor Tezuka of the Imperial University of Tokyo about the nature of the experience of language in the East and in Western "metaphysical" Europe. The other essays, particularly "The Way to Language," offer an excellent presentation of the later Heidegger's general view of language. Original language itself, according to Heidegger, is Being and it is this which stirs man into speaking. Human utterance is the revelation or expression of Being rather than, as in the traditional view, a representation or "picture" of "objects" symbolized by sounds or words. If man is "open" to Being then Being will find in language its "house"--implying thereby that the dimensions of the house are the limits of the revealability [[sic]] of Being. Human utterance is "closed off" from "original language" insofar as "Logos" is reduced to "logistics," that is, insofar as all other talk than the mathematico-logical talk of the age of Technik is dismissed as belonging to "unreason." The translation itself is well-done. The Editors of the "Works," in consultation with Heidegger, have chosen to omit the first essay in the 1959 German original in order to publish it in another volume yet to appear. The translators have supplied us with no index, only a few footnotes, explaining their decisions, no "Introduction," no bibliography--all of which can only be regretted.--J. D. C. (shrink)

This volume is a translation of the last three essays of Nietzsche, Vol. II and of the essay "Overcoming Metaphysics" from Vorträge and Aufsätze. There is a brief introduction to the volume, the most interesting feature of which is a translation of Heidegger’s response to three questions put to him by the translator concerning the subject matter of this volume. In the first two studies, "Metaphysics as the History of Being" and "Sketches for a History of Being as Metaphysics," Heidegger (...) develops his interpretation of metaphysics as the history of Being itself. He traces the way that Being is first understood by the Greeks as ousia, and shows how in Plato and Aristotle, ousia is determined in such a way as to give rise to the later notions of essentia and existentia. The history of these terms is then followed all the way up to Schelling, Kierkegaard, and Being and Time itself. The third essay, "Recollection in Metaphysics" is a very penetrating and sharp formulation of Heidegger’s attempt to think upon that from which metaphysics originates but from which it is also essentially closed off, viz., the truth of Being itself. The last essay, included at Heidegger’s own request, deals with the same theme in terms of "overcoming" metaphysics. Stambaugh’s translation goes as far as can be hoped in providing a readable English text. There is no index.—J.D.C. (shrink)

After Being and Time itself, A Letter on Humanism is perhaps Heidegger’s most important work. It is a comparatively clear statement of the "later Heidegger" which focuses on the possibility of a "humanism" and the meaning of "ethics" for the thinking-committed-to-being. It is also Heidegger’s own retrieval of Being and Time twenty years later, giving a decisive self-interpretation of the main lines of this so-called "early work." Cousineau aims at providing the reader with a "handy, scholarly tool" for interpreting the (...) Letter. He does this in three ways. 1) He provides a running commentary on selected but important passages from the Letter, with a generous use of the original German followed by a translation or paraphrase. 2) He takes a great deal of pain with Heidegger’s German and does not hesitate to call the only currently available translation of the Letter in English "deplorable", a judgment this translation frequently merits. 3) Finally, he presents us with an extensive annotated bibliography of works in seven languages which has the unusual feature of being coded by the letters A, B, and C which he defines as follows: anti-humanism, i.e., the interpretation of the relation between Being and Dasein advanced by the author sees Heidegger as devaluing man’s essence; metahumanism, the relationship is seen as unrealistic and mythical, and man’s essence is absent; authentic humanism, the interpretor [[sic]] sees in Heidegger’s view a representation of man’s true possibility for being human. Cousineau wisely reserves a category "D" for those whose position does not accommodate itself to these classifications. There are 95 entries in this bibliography which ranges over most of the important literature.—J.D.C. (shrink)

As Ihde points out, he has undertaken the perilous task of writing a book about a philosopher who is still actively at work and developing his thought. Yet he has succeeded in providing the reader with an access to Ricoeur’s work which makes it plain to those who are not familiar with Ricoeur why he has achieved such prominence. After an illuminating introduction, Ihde devotes the opening chapters of his book to Ricoeur’s "structural phenomenology," a more or less orthodox Husserlian (...) employment of the phenomenological method. This is exemplified by Ricoeur’s "eidetic" analysis of the will in Freedom and Nature and in a modified way in Fallible Man. Ihde then passes on to Ricoeur’s later "hermeneutic phenomenology," a phenomenology of interpretation which is to be found in his analysis of myth and symbol in The Symbolism of Evil. The growing interest in hermeneutics explains Ricoeur’s concern with the problem of language, which is Ricoeur’s current line of interest. The study translated under the title Freud and Philosophy is discussed in this context. There is much to recommend Ricoeur to the English reader, not the least of which is his open admission of the limits of the phenomenological method and his attempt to complement it with the "objectivistic" approaches, and particularly in recent years with linguistic analysis and the various linguistic sciences. For Ricoeur, no one philosophical method is exclusively valid; the true method is a dialectic between various and even opposed methods. There is an extensive bibliography of Ricoeur’s works and a helpful index of names and topics.—J.D.C. (shrink)

Wood's book argues for the integral place of the "moral arguments"--the arguments for freedom, immortality, and the existence of God--in Kant's total philosophical work. These arguments have always been the object of some suspicion not only as regards their internal plausibility but also because it has been maintained that they constitute a surreptitious reintroduction of the speculative way of arguing clearly banned by the first Critique. This suspicion was reinforced by Adickes' edition of the Opus Postumum in which the editor (...) contended that Kant had therein repudiated the moral arguments in favor of a personal experience of God through the Categorical Imperative. Wood's argument to the contrary is vigorous and extremely interesting. He holds that Kant's notion of "rational faith" is a profound religious insight, one whose importance Wood does not hesitate to say is directly proportionate to that of the critical theory itself.--J. D. C. (shrink)

The present contribution to the continuing translation of the works of Heidegger into English under the editorship of J. Glenn Gray is one of the most valuable. The first-rate translation, preceded by an excellent Introduction, is by Albert Hofstadter, whose popular anthology, Philosophies of Art and Beauty, had included his translation of Heidegger's 1935 essay, "The Origin of the Work of Art." That essay, along with six other pieces, hitherto untranslated, make up the present volume--including the first essay of Unterwegs (...) zur Sprache, which was not included in the English translation, On the Way to Language. The volume also contains a translation of Heidegger's poem "Aus der Erfahrung des Denkens," under the title "The Thinker as Poet." Found here too are the two important essays "Building, Dwelling and Thinking," and "The Thing," which together represent the most important of Heidegger's all too brief but very suggestive treatments of the "world" as the "Foursome". Readers of Being and Time who consult these later essays will be surprised to discover what has come of the "world" in Heidegger's later thought, and in particular of the relationship of God to the world, a theme which was bracketed in Being and Time. As a whole this very valuable collection deals with the later Heidegger's highly aesthetic, highly poetic, view of Being and of Dasein's relationship to Being. These essays represent the final outcome of his use of the phenomenological method to approach Being; and they contain, if anything does, what Heidegger means by "overcoming metaphysics." If Heidegger's later thought is, as has been suggested, a Seinsmystik, it is no less a Seinsdichtung.--J. D. C. (shrink)

In Being and Time and What is Metaphysics? Heidegger made a revolutionary use of the "mood". He said that the mood, and in particular the mood of Anxiety, had ontological significance. Not only is the mood nothing merely "subjective," but it has significance for the understanding of universal being itself. Anxiety is a "moodful experience of Being," a mood in which not one thing or a few things, but the very Being of beings itself, is illuminated and brought into view (...) for "Dasein." In a 1960 review of the third edition of Otto Bollnow's Das Wesen der Stimmungen, Otto Poeggeler reprimanded Bollnow for misunderstanding the genuinely ontological character of Heidegger's investigation, and thus for having reduced it to something anthropological; at the same time Poeggeler called for a recognition of the important place that such an ontological analysis has in the Western tradition. In 1958 Karl Rahner had suggested that the ontological analysis of mood in Heidegger had been anticipated in Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, in the latter's discussion of a "consolation without a preceding cause." De Mendoza's book is an attempt to confirm Poeggeler's criticism of Bollnow and to work out, expand upon, and justify Rahner's thesis. He does this in an elaborately argued work filled with careful textual analyses of the writings of both Loyola and the early Heidegger. The thesis, as De Mendoza points out, is especially provocative in view of the three years which Heidegger spent in Jesuit training, during which time he was thoroughly exposed to Ignatian spirituality. Ignatius may represent another of the long line of religious figures--Augustine, Luther, Kierkegaard--who have influenced Heidegger's thinking in Being and Time.--J. D. C. (shrink)