Category Archives: Principal Concepts
PETER Y. WINDT
(1938 – )
What Counts as Suicide? It’s Not So Easy to Say
Peter Y. Windt, formerly associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah and former chairman of the department, has worked on many problems in bioethics, especially the ethics of (re)designing human nature; philosophical method and problems of informal … Continue reading
DANIEL CALLAHAN
(1930– )
from Reason, Self-determination, and Physician-Assisted Suicide
Educated at Yale, Georgetown, and Harvard, Daniel Callahan was a cofounder of The Hastings Center, the first institute for bioethics, in 1969, and served as its president from 1969–1996. Callahan’s interests in bioethics range from the beginning to the … Continue reading
JAPANESE NAVAL SPECIAL ATTACK FORCE (KAMIKAZE CORPS)
(b. 1920s, d. 1944-1945)
Kamikaze Diaries
Last Letters Home
In October 1944, toward the end of World War II, as it was becoming clear to the Japanese command that American aircraft carriers massing at the mouth of Leyte Gulf represented a serious threat, the new commander of Japanese … Continue reading
ALBERT CAMUS
(1913–1960)
from The Myth of Sisyphus
from Notebooks 1935–1951
The central philosophical concern probed by Albert Camus, novelist, essayist, and playwright, was the problem of finding meaning and value in an absurd world, the basic human issue of the philosophical school known as Existentialism. Camus was born into … Continue reading
Filed under Camus, Albert, Europe, Existentialism, Selections, The Modern Era
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
(1906–1945)
from Ethics: The Last Things and the Things Before the Last
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran theologian, was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), the son of a famous psychiatrist. From 1923 to 1927, Bonhoeffer studied theology at the universities of Berlin and Tübingen. He also studied under Reinhold … Continue reading
Filed under Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Christianity, Europe, Selections, Sin, The Modern Era
PAUL-LOUIS LANDSBERG
(1901-1944)
from The Moral Problem of Suicide
Paul-Louis (also known as Paul-Ludwig) Landsberg was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1901 to a prominent family. Landsberg became a professor of philosophy at the University of Bonn in 1928. He wrote several works on anthropology and German philosophy, … Continue reading
Filed under Christianity, Europe, Landsberg, Paul-Louis, Martyrdom, Selections, Sin, Stoicism, The Modern Era
MAO ZEDONG
(1893-1976)
The Suicide of Miss Zhao
Mao Zedong (or Mao Tse-tung), the revolutionary who was to become the leading force in the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, was born to the family of a small landowner. As was the custom among the peasantry, … Continue reading
Filed under Asia, Communism, Mao Zedong, Selections, The Modern Era
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN
(1889-1951)
from Notebooks 1914-1916
from Letters
Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most original and influential philosophers of the 20th century, was born in Vienna, the youngest of eight children in a wealthy family headed by a stern steel tycoon who attempted to train his sons … Continue reading
Filed under Europe, Selections, Sin, The Modern Era, Wittgenstein, Ludwig
PAUL TILLICH
(1886-1965)
from The Courage to Be
Paul Tillich was a German-American theologian whose work helped to revolutionize Protestant theology in light of a philosophical analysis of existence. Born in a small Prussian town, the son of an authoritarian Lutheran minister, Tillich attended universities in Berlin, … Continue reading
Filed under Americas, Europe, Existentialism, Protestantism, Selections, The Modern Era, Tillich, Paul