St. Thomas is usually thought to have rejected abortion and euthanasia as murder (viz, the statement of The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "On Procured Abortion"). By going back to Aquinas' own words I show that this is mistaken: that he explicitly states abortion prior to a certain point of fetal development to be non-murderous and that his position, when consistently developed, allows for euthanasia under analogous circumstances. These claims are argued by presenting an analytical expose of (...) Aquinas’ metaphysics of man and of human ontogenesis. The implications of this for current bioethical concerns are sketched briefly. (shrink)

St. Thomas is usually thought to have rejected abortion and euthanasia as murder (viz, the statement of The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "On Procured Abortion"). By going back to Aquinas' own words I show that this is mistaken: that he explicitly states abortion prior to a certain point of fetal development to be non-murderous and that his position, when consistently developed, allows for euthanasia under analogous circumstances. These claims are argued by presenting an analytical expose of (...) Aquinas’ metaphysics of man and of human ontogenesis. The implications of this for current bioethical concerns are sketched briefly. (shrink)

Frege: Philosophy of Language has been heralded as Michael Dummett's long-awaited magnum opus on Frege. Actually, however, as the author himself tells us, it is only the first of a two-volume series devoted to Frege's philosophy of language and his philosophy of mathematics respectively.The book itself has been long in preparation, the writing of it having been interrupted for several years. This fact could not help but leave some marks on the organization and content of the various chapters. Still, all (...) in all, it presents a remarkably interesting and provocative whole. It is topical, rather than purely genetic in approach, dealing with various fundamental features of Frege's philosophy of language in some 19 chapters; e.g., with his sense-reference distinction, his theory of assertions, his conception of the nature and place of truth-values, propositions and thoughts, his views on quantification and identity, the nature of proper names, his polemic about explicit vs. implicit definitions, his theory of incomplete expressions, and the like. However, the historical needs of the reader are also well-served. (shrink)