<p>I Logische Untersuchungen formulerade Edmund Husserl sin fenomenologi – ”en filosofi som sträng vetenskap”. Fenomenologin med dess metod, epochén, skall utövas under parollen ”Till sakerna själva!” Genom att ifrågasätta invanda tankesätt skall vi sätta världen inom parentes och därigenom nå objektiv kunskap.</p><p>Denna uppsats behandlar intersubjektivitetsproblemet hos fenomenologin. Genom en studie av Husserls Cartesianische Meditationen, Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit och Maurice Merleau-Pontys Phénoménologie de la perception närmar jag mig frågan om ”De andra hos Merleau-Ponty”. Hur kan vi förstå den andre och annanheten när fenomenologins epoché är en metodisk solipsism som berövar subjektet dess värld?</p><p>Merleau-Ponty gör oförnuftet, tvetydigheten och slumpen till tema för sitt tänkande. Genom perceptionen varseblir vi världen och subjektet är (i) sin värld genom den levda kroppen. Det finns inget ”inre” utan det är genom världen, och vår verksamhet däri, som vi känner oss själva. Merleau-Pontys subjekt är ”vikt åt världen”.</p> / <p>In Logische Untersuchungen Edmund Husserl defined his phenomenology as a science for finding objectivity. The method of phenomenology, the phenomenological reduction, would provide knowledge on indubitable grounds by going back “to the things themselves”. We must put the world aside if we want to find objective knowledge.</p><p>This essay is a reading of Edmund Husserls Cartesianische Meditationen, Martin Heideggers Sein und Zeit and Maurice Merleau-Pontys Phénoménologie de la perception, and their theories of the others. How can we understand other in our mind when phenomenology in the course of its methodological solipsism, thought the phenomenological reduction, would seem to deprive the subject from the world?</p><p>Merleau-Ponty makes ambiguity and accidental existence a theme for his philosophy. Through perception we apprehend the world, as lived through with our bodies. There is no “inner man”. With some else’s words: ”Your abode is your act itself. Your act is you.”</p>

<p>Inspired by Kitaro Nishida’s concept of pure experience this thesis analyses Bergson’s concept of experience with the intention of showing how experience is related to duration and how this in turn destabilizes certain tendencies towards subjectivism that can be found in Bergson’s work. This is accomplished through a reading of Matter and memory, Creative Evolution and Introduction to metaphysics that tries to desintegrate both subject and object in favor of duration. The thesis arrives at describing the combination of duration and non-subjective and supra-individual experience as a polyrhythmic movement.</p>

<p>What are the basic thoughts formulated in the Heraclitean fragments? A cosmology, a philosophy of nature, the idea that all can be reduced to a single substance? There is always a risk that Heraclitus is fitted into a thought pattern he doesn’t belong to, if we – from our present horizon – focus on continuity in an attempt to frame his thinking as part of an overall progress, running from the so-called pre-Socratics to Aristotle, in the history of philosophy. If we picture the dawn of Western civilization as an early development of scientific thinking, built on a gradual and continuous growth of knowledge, we will easily go astray as we try to discover the Greek origins of philosophy. Assuming, for example, that the readings of Heraclitus as a natural philosopher have come to a dead end, can we approach the fragments from a different angle?</p><p>The aim of this paper is not to give a systematized reading of all the remaining fragments of Heraclitus, but neither to necessarily contradict the various interpretations that emphasise how these shattered remains reflect a coherent philosophy. The focal point is the role of the sun in the fragments, but every chapter presents different perspectives, thematically possible to connect to (Diels-Kranz) Fragm 94: “The sun will not transgress his measures. If he does, The Furies, ministers of Justice (<em>Dikê</em>), will find him out.” (transl. C.H. Kahn)  This is the centre of the text, the hub that thematically will intertwine the Heraclitean sun with philosophical questions of measure, necessity, law, violence and destiny.</p><p>It is argued that a tragic structure is discernable in Fragm 94, a structure distinguished and displayed as three oscillating layers: myth, tragedy and philosophy. The archaeological approach shows remains of an archaic (Homeric) heritage, a mythological framework crucial for the expression of a tragic experience. The mytopoetical background of the fragment indicates a series of tragic markers – <em>helios</em>, <em>metra</em>, <em>furies</em> etc. – a layer revealing possible resemblances to early Greek tragedy. The third layer shows how this experience, from a philosophical perspective, in the first phase of philosophy, before the consolidation of philosophical concepts, is staged as the tragic harmony we find in Heraclitus Fragm 94.</p>

This study explores the application of the dialogue seminar method within a doctoral programme KTH Advanced Programme in Reflective Practice of the research area of Skill and technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. In order to understand distinctive features of the dialogue seminar method the study starts with a survey of how the method and its spirit were affected by the history of ideas related to the research area, of which many were generated within the intellectual milieu gathered around the Dialogue seminar of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm and cultural journal Dialoger. The dialogue seminar method stands for a well thought out idea about what the link between skills, literature, philosophy, history of ideas, art and science is made up of. This idea is expressed in the way the dialogue is conducted; various topics are explored through associations, digressions and deviations form the subject. This indirect approach to reflection is called analogical thinking in contrast to the thinking based on deduction or induction. Analogical thinking prevails in judgement and action. It is also of great significance in e.g. development projects, in arts, all sorts of problem-solving, and those phases of research that call for inventiveness and imagination. The Dialogue Seminar’s Research Milieu brings up new questions about the possibilities of pursuing scientific or methodological reflection by means of analogical thinking and about the status of classical humanistic readings within the post graduate education. / QC 20100629

The purpose of the present thesis is to apply philosophical methods to the ongoing debate of the precautionary principle, in order to illuminate this debate. The thesis consists of an Introduction and five papers. Paper I con-cerns an objection to the method of conceptual analysis, the Charge from Psychology. After a brief characterisation of conceptual analysis, I argue that the Charge from Psychology is misdirected. In Paper II, the method of conceptual analysis is applied to the concept of precaution which is ana-lysed in terms of precautionary actions. The purpose is explicatory. A definition involving three necessary and jointly sufficient conditions is proposed, and the implications of this analysis for the debate on the pre-cautionary principle are discussed. Paper III attempts to provide an ana-lytical apparatus which may be used for finding improved formulations of the precautionary principle. The approach is lexicographical. Several exist-ing and possible formulations of the precautionary principle are examined, and four common elements and a common structure of the precautionary principle are identified. It is suggested that the analytical apparatus pre-sented can be used in negotiations of the precautionary principle. Paper IV questions the soundness of some arguments against the precautionary prin-ciple. Five common arguments are discussed and rejected. In Paper V, two of these arguments are further discussed. I argue that an attempt at rejec-tion of the precautionary principle delivered by John Harris and Søren Holm is unwarranted, because their arguments against it are based on in-terpretations of the precautionary principle that ignore context. Paper VI deals with the idea of de minimis risk. After a discussion of the distinction between disregarding a risk and accepting it, I examine one way of deter-mining how small a risk ought to be in order to be disregarded, namely the use of natural risk levels as benchmarks. I argue that this approach fails, even if the distinction between what is natural and what is not natural can be upheld.

The health care formulation of the principle of autonomy can be expressed as follows; ‘you shall not treat a patient without the informed consent of the patient, or his or her lawfulsurrogate, except in narrowly defined emergencies’. The principle of beneficence refers to a moral obligation to act for the benefit of others. In heath care, the good or benefit in question is the restoration of the health of the patient. In fulfilling this obligation of beneficence, the physician sometimes intentionally overrides the patient’s preferences or actions for the purpose of benefiting the patient. This is called paternalism. It therefore amounts to a violation of the principle of autonomy and hence there arises a tension or conflict between autonomy and beneficence. The principle of autonomy claims to be pre-eminent to the principle of beneficence and vice versa. Both have their arguments as well as their limitations. However, there is the need for at least weak paternalism for the mentally ill patients because of their diminished autonomy. But in the case of the temporarily mentally ill patient whose autonomy is both restored and diminished following the periodic and intermittent occurrence of his or her mental illness, there is a need to go deeper to find justification for paternalistic intervention. Both act and rule utilitarianism will find justification for paternalism in this case because the consequence of the action will be greater good for both the patient and the society. Kantianism will give it support from the point of view that the intention is to restore the autonomy of the patient by not using him or her as a means but as and end in himself or herself. Beauchamp and Childress will equally throw their weight behind the justification since prima facie obligations could be overridden in a conflict situation and since restricting a short term autonomy to protect and advance long term autonomy will appeal to common morality.

The two most controversial ends of life decisions are those in which physicians help patients take their lives and when the physician deliberately and directly intervenes to end the patients’ life upon his request. These are often referred to as voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. Voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide have continued to be controversial public issues. This controversy has agitated the minds of great thinkers including ethicians, physicians, psychologists, moralists, philosophers even the patient himself. Hence the physician, patient, the public and policy makers have recently had to face several difficult questions. Is it morally right to end the life of the patients? Is there any moral difference at all between Voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide? Should a terminally ill patient be allowed to take his life and should the medical profession have the option of helping the patient die. Should voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide be legalised at all? And what actually will be the legal and moral implications if they are allowed. In a bid to find a lasting solution to these moral problems and questions has led to two different strong positions viz opponents and proponents of voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. The centre of my argument in this work is not to develop new general arguments for or against voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide but to make a critical ethical comparative analysis of voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. This is the focus of my work. The sole aim of this work is neither to solely condemn nor to support voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide but to critically analyze the two since we live in a world of pluralism.

Science and technology has been the bedrock of human growth and dynamism. Man has over the years distinguished his existence from all other beings by his ability to champion and fashion his existence. Among his tools is biotechnology which actually attenuates the fears of aging and death. Human reproductive cloning stands out as one of the means through which biotechnology plans to achieve this perfect existence for man. Technological advancements in the field of biotechnology are now in the threshold of human procreation. Human reproductive cloning is seen as an assisted method of reproduction which creates a newborn that is genetically identical to another human being.Human reproductive cloning as a technology and as a means of reproduction is not without its pros and cons. In as much as the technology promises to mention but a few, hope for the infertile couples and single parents, as well as the hope of reproduction without passing on hereditary diseases; it at the same time beeps some flashes of worry. Hence, the inherent threat to the notion of parenthood which does not smack of compromise, coupled with other ethical implications are reasons one may proffer not to have this technology. Technologised parenthood stands out as an implication of human reproductive cloning and as such it considers issues in human sexuality i.e. the place of human sexuality in reproduction and then the nature of the family which is the playground of human existence. This thesis focuses on this implication of human reproductive cloning while making a critical exposition of the concept of human reproductive cloning.

The question of euthanasia has kept pre-occupying and agitating the minds of thinkers, sweeping the globe, pummelling pedagogy, assailing assumptions, and bludgeoning biases. Both the moralist, ethicist, theologian, psychologist, educationist, anthropologist, politician, physician, patient as well as the common man in the street are interested in it. This pervading interest simply arises out of the fact that euthanasia involves the question of life, and life is something that is a common denominator to all men. The controversy hinges on the fact that, there are divergent views on the moral question of euthanasia. While some would unflinchingly opt for euthanasia others would prefer to oppose it to the best of their strength, yet others will remain agnostic about it. But the issue here remains: is euthanasia in any way morally justified? Has human life an intrinsic value? Or is human life valuable only when it is healthy? Are we the ones who decide when to die? Has the physician any right to either assist or terminate the life of the patient simply on account of suffering? Has the patient any right to end his/her life? Are there some conditions in which euthanasia could be allowed? Is suffering meaningless? The topic of my project is: THE MORALITY OF EUTHANASIA IN THE LIGHT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S TEACHING. In this work, I shall present the official Catholic Church’s teaching and position on euthanasia, and also, avow the different arguments proposed by the proponents of euthanasia. I will use the church’s stand, as a foundation for a critical analysis of those who support Euthanasia. And finally a will make a critique of the church’s stand in my evaluation and conclusion.

In this modern period, societal and religious groups are strongly divided regarding the acceptability of abortion. Despite so many attempts by various groups to find a middle ground, the debate on abortion still remains largely polarized, at its most dramatic point with the extreme conservatives claiming abortion to be the moral equivalent of murder and the extreme liberals see it as devoid of moral import. And this polarization is due to the legal battle that continues to shadow moral discussions. An acceptance of an ethical nuance will here play as a concession on the deeply contested question of whether abortion should be a legally protected option for a woman, and to an extent blame for the continued crudeness which can be laid at the doorstep of a moral theory itself. Apparently, the ethical literature on abortion has focused almost exclusively on the tiniest moral assessment on whether and when abortion is morally permissible. This question is a crucial one indeed and its answer is desperately sought in this thesis by exposing the position of the Catholic Church.