Euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the philosophical anthropology of Karol Wojtyla.

The lack of consensus in American society regarding the permissibility of assisted suicide and euthanasia is due in large part to a failure to address the nature of the human person involved in the ethical act itself. For Karol Wojtyla, philosopher and Pope, ethical action finds meaning only in an authentic understanding of the person; but it is through acting (actus humanus) alone that the human person reveals himself. Knowing what the person ought to be cannot be divorced from what he ought to do; for Wojtyla, the structure of the ethical "do"--the act itself--comes first. The current paper will focus on four arguments used to justify assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) the argument from autonomy, (2) the argument from compassion, (3) the argument from the evil of suffering, and (4) the argument from the loss of dignity. It will seek to answer each claim from the perspective of Karol Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology. Much of this will come from his defining work in pure philosophy, The Acting Person (1969). The final part of the paper will suggest some positive solutions to the stalemate over the euthanasia debate, again drawn from Wojtyla's idea of human fufillment through participation with the other, and with the community itself.     

思辨现象学与实践现象学--从现象学视角诠释马克思哲学

马克思哲学与康德、黑格尔、胡塞尔等的思辨现象学思想的互释表明:思辨现象学有一种自我超越和回归实践的倾向,但在现实意义上却没有实现这种指归;思辨现象学在纲领、直观、世界、实践等方面脱离了对现实问题的关注,学理式地指向哲学逻辑的根据;而马克思哲学则通过实践还原与实践直观对哲学逻辑的前提发问的根本转换而扬弃了思辨现象学的缺陷,赋予现象学以现实的存在学和历史学的纬度,确立了一种逻辑在先意义上的、具有本真“同一性”的科学实践现象学思想。     

Phenomenology of Phenomenology

I explore some interpretations of the practice of international market reliance that forms the focus of Aaron James' book, and I wonder how our actual practices help to settle what we should go on to do now.     

The life of order and the order of life: Eric Voegelin on modernity and the problem of philosophical anthropology

This paper was delivered to The Eric Voegelin Society at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, in Atlanta, Georgia, between 31 August–3 September 1989.     

Phenomenology and psychophysics

Recent philosophy of mind has tended to treat “inner” states, including both qualia and intentional states, as “theoretical posits” of either folk or scientific psychology. This article argues that phenomenology in fact plays a very different role in the most mature part of psychology, psychophysics. Methodologically, phenomenology plays a crucial role in obtaining psychophysical results. And more importantly, many psychophysical data are best interpreted as reporting relations between stimuli and phenomenological states, both qualitative and intentional. Three examples are used to argue for this thesis: the Weber–Fechner laws, the Craik-O’Brien–Cornsweet effect, and subjective contour figures. The phenomenological properties that play a role here do so in the role of data that ultimately constrain theoretical work (in this case theory of vision), and not as theoretical posits.     

德里达和现象学

该文希望通过对德里达和现象学的关系的梳理和探讨,分析德里达思想从胡塞尔现象学开始而又从一开始就与之“偏离”(或可说“延异”)的由来和发展,试图指出德里达对现象学运动是有贡献的,对于德里达从现象学出发的哲学反思和由此展开的独特的跨学科的哲学质疑的探讨和研究,有助于我们深入理解当代西方思想的诸多问题的实质和内涵,是非常有意义的事情。文章主要通过对德里达早期著作的分析,从起源问题及其解决途径入手探讨德里达与现象学的关系。现象学在德里达的著述中处处留下踪迹而又处处被“偏离”,这构成了德里达解构思想的一个重要特点,也恰恰是德里达对现象学运动本身的贡献。     

现象学与逻辑学

无论在胡塞尔思想中还是在海德格尔思想中,现象学与逻辑学的关系都构成一个核心问题。本文首先再现了胡塞尔前后期在此问题上的相关研究,并指出他的超越论逻辑学的要点在于对本质的前逻辑直观,也是最有可能为逻辑学提供哲学支撑的因素。其次,在海德格尔方面,根据律概念成为讨论现象学与逻辑学关系的切入点,由此导出他的“存在理解”、“无蔽”和“自由”的概念解释。他们的共同点在于：把形式逻辑看作陈述逻辑,并试图用前谓词判断的哲学逻辑学来为它奠基。     

Phenomenology and Fallibility

If Husserl is correct, phenomenological inquiry produces knowledge with an extremely high level of epistemic warrant or justification. However, there are several good reasons to think that we are highly fallible at carrying out phenomenological inquiries. It is extremely difficult to engage in phenomenological investigations, and there are very few substantive phenomenological claims that command a widespread consensus. In what follows, I introduce a distinction between method-fallibility and agent-fallibility, and use it to argue that the fact that we are fallible phenomenologists does not undermine Husserl’s claims concerning the epistemic value of phenomenological inquiry. I will also defend my account against both internalist and externalist objections.

---