Full Description
This Festschrift is presented to Professor Hans Jonas on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, as affirmation of the contributors' respect and admiration. As a volume in the series 'Philosophy and Medicine' the contributions not only reflect certain interests and pursuits of the scholar to whom it is dedi cated, but also serve to bring to convergence the interests of the contributors in the history of humanity and medicine, the theory of organism, medicine in the service of the patient's autonomy, and the metaphysical, i.e., phenome nological foundations of medicine. Notwithstanding the nature of such personal gifts as the authors' contributions (which, with the exception of the late Hannah Arendt's, appear here for the first time), the essays also transcend the personal and serve to elaborate specific themes and theses disclosed in the numerous writings of Hans Jonas. The editor owes a personal debt of gratitude to many, including Hannah Arendt, who offered their assistance during the preparation of the volume.
Contents
Prometheus Unbound? A New World in the Making.- Section I / Humanity, History, and Medicine.- The System of Anthropina.- Philosophy and Medicine in Medieval and Renaissance Italy.- Care of the Healthy and the Sick from the Attending Physician's Perspective: Envisioned and Actual (1977).- The Conflict Between the Desire to Know and the Need to Care for the Patient.- The Execution of Euthanasia: The Right of the Dying to a Re-Formed Health Care Context.- Section II / Philosophy of Organism.- Teleology and Darwin's The Origin of Species: Beyond Chance and Necessity?.- Individuals and Their Kinds: Aristotelian Foundations of Biology.- The Organism According to Process Philosophy.- Whitehead and Jonas: On Biological Organisms and Real Individuals.- The Redefinition of Death.- Section III/ Science, Infirmity, and Metaphysics.- Descartes and Mastery of Nature.- The Philosopher and the Scientist: Comments on the Perception of the Exact Sciences in the Work of Hans Jonas.- Life, Disease, and Death: A Metaphysical Viewpoint.- Ontology and the Body: A Reflection.- Intentionality and the Mind/Body Problem.- Epilogue.- Metaphor and the Ineffable: Illumination on "The Nobility of Sight".- Bibliography of the Works of Hans Jonas.- Notes on Contributors.
