Die Tradition der Metaphysik, auf die sich die Neuzeit bezieht verdankt ihre Physiognomie den systematischen Ansätzen, die den nach Aristoteles „zweiten“ Anfang der Metaphysik im 13. Jhd. Bestimmen. Der Zusammenhang, der die mittelalterliche Metaphysik mit der neuzeitlichen Metaphysik und Metaphysikkritik verbindet, ist jedoch immer noch zu wenig erforscht. Die vorliegende Untersuchung greift den einflußreichsten der mittelalterlichen Ansätze, den des Johannes Duns Scotus, auf und verfolgt seine Rezeption und Transformation über Francisco Suárez und Christian Wolff zu Immanuel Kant und Charles Sanders (...) Peirce. Nach Duns Scotus ist Metaphysik als Wissenschaft vom Seienden als Seienden nur dann möglich, wenn man sie nicht als Wissenschaft vom ersten ausgezeichneten Seienden, sondern als Wissenschaft vom ersterkannten Begriff des Seienden versteht. Da dieser Begriff nur im Rückgang auf die Voraussetzungen unserer kategorialen Prädikate erfaßt und nur im Durchgang durch seine modalen Bestimmungen entfaltet werden kann, faßt Scotus Metaphysik strikt als „Transzendentalwissenschaft“ (scientia transcendens) und ordnet ihr als Inhalt die formalmodale Bestimmung und Explikation der „ratio entis“ zu. Die Erkenntnis des unendlichen Seienden ist Teil dieser Explikation und nur als solche möglich. Die neuzeitliche Gestalt der Metaphysik, die sich auf der bisher meist herangezogenen Folie der Metaphysik des Thomas von Aquin als Traditionsbruch darstellt, erweist sich im Blick auf das Konzept des Scotus als Resultat einer kritischen Transformation. (shrink)

The availability of embryonic stem (ES) cells isolated from human blastocysts may open novel avenues for medical treatment of otherwise incurable diseases. Yet the generation of human ES cells requires the destruction of early human embryos. This confronts us with the moral problem of whether it is justifiable to sacrifice human life in order to treat other human life. This article outlines the development of the German debate about research with ES cells and explicates the arguments that are central to (...) that debate with respect to the aims and means of research with ES cells. With regard to the means, the isolation of ES cells from human embryos raises the question of the moral status of the human embryo. A restrictive position acknowledges the human dignity of the embryo in its very early stage of development and claims that the embryo’s life must be protected accordingly. In contrast, a gradualist position acknowledges human dignity, and therefore the full level of protection, only when the embryo has reached a certain stage of development. In addition, the intentions behind the generation of human embryos, i.e. exclusively for research purposes, and the mode of generating them, i.e. by nuclear transfer technology, have strong ethical relevance in the German debate. Based on these results, the ethical reasoning underlying the draft of a Stem Cell Act recently passed by the German Parliament is outlined. (shrink)

In this volume, the world's foremost Scotus scholars collaborate to present the latest research on his work.

The contributions to this collection deal with the fundamental problem of unity, which plays a decisive role in many contemporary debates (even when this role ...

Mankind is nowadays faced with many different challenges brought about by the exploration of the molecular basis of heredity. Many entwined questions arise: is genetic knowledge relevant to the comprehension of nature in general and of man’s vision of himself in particular? Faced with the new possibilities of insight and intervention in human genom, how should we conceive nature ? Modern molecular biology has demonstrated that our genetic patrimony must not be considered throughly and completely determined; on the contrary it (...) constitutes an aray of possible dispositions, on which we have the possibility to intervene, therefore changing our destiny. The insight in man’s genom has therefore on one side made our personal and hereditary dispositions accessible and comprehensible to us ; on the other side human genetics makes it possible for everyone to change his/her personal genetic constitution or that of his/her descendants, and therefore indicates a previously unknown way of autonomous behaviour. The ethical judgement of the above mentioned possibilities on one side questions the legitimacy of the aims and on the other analyses whether a justification of the tools used for these purposes is possible. The difference between therapeutic and non-therapeutic interventions or between somatic interventions on individuals and interventions on the germinal line are to be considered part of the aim’s question, whereas the moral analysis of the means is oriented towards the unconditional respect of the autonomy of those involved and towards a manifold evaluation of benefits, drawbacks and risks. (shrink)

in English is not available for this article.

Der Band widmet sich der aktuellen Entwicklung in der Humangenomforschung und der Biomedizin. Die neuen Einsichts- und Eingriffsmöglichkeiten nach der Entschlüsselung der menschlichen Gene konfrontieren Forscher und Gesellschaft mit ethischen, rechtlichen und soziokulturellen Fragen in der Genforschung am Menschen. Das Buch bietet einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der Forschung und ist zugleich eine hilfreiche Einführung in die gegenwärtige Diskussion. Daneben werden ausgewählte Bereiche vertieft behandelt: genetische Diagnostik, funktionelle Forschung mit therapeutischem Ziel, Pharmakogenetik und die individualisierte Medizin der Zukunft.

Se olharmos para Alberto Magno apartir de nossa época, provavelmente não perce-beremos sua importância como filósofo, poismuito do que ele realizou pode parecer comoalgo natural, que sempre foi assim. Entretanto,seus textos sobre a teologia como ciência, sobrea separação entre filosofia e teologia e sobre aética como ciência prática, por exemplo, sobrevi-vem até hoje.

Von einem Enhancement der verschiedenen Fähigkeiten des Menschen zu sprechen, ist der Sache nach nichts Neues. Denn als ein seine Vermögen entwickelndes Lebewesen strebt der Mensch seiner Natur gemäß nach Vervollkommnung und Erweiterung seiner physischen, psychischen, mentalen, geistigen und spirituellen Anlagen. Aktuelle Bedeutung hat dieses Streben unter dem Titel des »Enhancement« erst durch den wissenschaftlich-technischen Fortschritt der letzten Jahrzehnte und vor allem durch die Entwicklung in den modernen Lebenswissenschaften und deren Anwendung in Biotechnologie und Medizin gewonnen.

Under the heading of “images of man” or “human images”, this chapter deals with those paradigms of being human which describe the goal or destiny to what a human being could or should develop realizing his or her potentials during their lifetime. Because human nature has a specific “world openness” and is characterized by a significant expressivity there is not only one “image of man” or “human image” in the history of culture, but a significant number of such “images.” Each (...) one is rich in content and normative in function. This chapter analyzes the roots of such “images of man” or “human images,” their character as “comprehensive doctrines” and various significant types that occur. (shrink)

Metaphysik = Metaphysics -- Epistemologie = Epistemology -- Wille und Freiheit = Will and freedom.

Is the meaning of “human dignity” dependent on metaphysical and theological premisses? The author′s answer to this question is based on the thesis that metaphysics and theology are not primary sources of the idea of human dignity, but that they have additional relevance in understanding and promoting human dignity. For the world wide consensus that fundamental human rights have to be protected is based – at a first level – on the practical evidence that human life cannot be lived if (...) some basic claims are not safeguarded. This practical evidence which is implied in the self-experience of the subject – acting and suffering in the first person singular – has at its core the ultimate practical judgment that human life as a self-related and self-determined practice has to be considered as an end in itself. Based on this practical evidence – at a second level – an ethical reflexion shows that every human being as a human being has not only a value which can be replaced by other values, but an unretrievable dignity because of this form of life, i. e. with the nature of a moral agent. From this practical evidence and its ethical evaluation – at a third level – metaphysical conclusions can be drawn, e. g. that human beings have a nature to which the faculty of reason belongs substantially or that human beings as subjects are part of an intelligible word . The viewpoint of a faith-based theology presupposes the practical evidence with which human beings experience themselves as subjects, but gives to the recognition of the human dignity an additional critical, hermeneutical and motivational force. (shrink)

The backdrop for this thesis is provided by Troeltsch's far more detailed and extensive studies of the social doctrines of various Christian churches and groups. According to Troeltsch's interpretation, the reception of the Stoic concept of natural law is as crucial to Christian ethics as the reception of the concept of logos is to Christian dogmatics. Just as the concept of logos mediates between the truth of revelation and the truth of reason, so the concept of natural law mediates between (...) the moral demands of the gospel and the principles of a worldly ethos. Since there is a distinction between an absolute natural law, which is identical with the radical ideal of the Sermon on the Mount, and a relative natural law, substantially corresponding to the Ten Commandments and to political and social reality, such a mediation--which must be oriented on the relative natural law--must qualify the original radical Christian claim. Whereas the old church allowed both forms of the natural law to stand alongside each other without mediation and was therefore unable to overcome their estrangement within the surrounding social reality, the Christian Middle Ages succeeded in uniting both forms by replacing the distinction between the gospel and the world with a distinction between the natural and the supernatural, interpreting each as a level of a metaphysical whole. When this idea of a metaphysical hierarchy of reality, attached to the concept of natural law, became linked to the notion of society as a structured organism, as taught by Aristotle and Paul, the concept of natural law assumed a virtually fundamental status: it grounded both moral and social philosophy and enabled the rise of the "unified culture" characteristic of the Christian Middle Ages, from which the Reformation later departed in order to regain the radicalism of the gospel. By linking the concept of natural law to the organic interpretation of-the social, the Christian Middle Ages could also assign a central role to the church: just as the divine law is the bracket that binds together the levels of moral laws, so the church is the bracket that holds together the members of the social organism. Its interpretation as the "boundless, comprehensive, and guiding institution of salvation," together with the strong attachment of natural law to eternal and immutable principles, must, in the last consequence, lead to a "conservative, organically patriarchal natural law." Consequently, those elements that were already contained in the medieval form of the natural law but not in the Platonic interpretation of the social order, and which in its later secular form gave it its progressive, even revolutionary, power, remain repressed: the idea of the dignity of the person, the associated freedom and autonomy of individual reason, the-resulting responsibility of personal conscience, and the significance of one's vocation, which stems from the place of the individual within the whole. (shrink)

Max Weber· e Troeltsch perceberam a importância que o conceito de direito natural, tal como o entenderam os medievais, teve para a formação e desenvolvimento da civilização Ocidental. Não se pode negar esta importância, mas os estudos posteriores mostram claramente que a leitura feita por aqueles dois cientistas necessita de diversas correções, principalmente quando se toma como para digmática a obra de Tomás de Aquino.

In what follows, I argue that the thinkers of the twelfth to thirteenth century rediscovered and passed on the questions of metaphysics; in what I call the second beginning of metaphysics they also developed those questions in such a way that they could be received into the thinking of the modern era in the first place. It was precisely the theological context which forced this development and lead the theologians of the Latin West, inspired by their Arabic predecessors, to redesign (...) metaphysics according to the rules of Aristotle’s logic and philosophy of science. Put differently, through the challenge of theology medieval metaphysics was forced to become what it had claimed to be from the onset: first philosophy. (shrink)