Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 18 (2000)

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Browsing Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 18 (2000) by Title

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    After/words: Rhetorics, Narrativity, and Complicit German Christians
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
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    Interdisciplinary Practices in Primary Education in Quebec: Results from Ten Years of Research
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
    The authors present a typology of the interdisciplinary representations and practices of primary teachers in Quebec based on the results of research carried out over the last ten years. The poles of two crossed continua illustrate four principal tendencies. These tendencies show representations and practices that are far from the idealized conception of reciprocity among scholarly disciplines promoting the establishment of effective complementary methods and constructive linkages.
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    Peter Singer and the Lessons of the German Euthanasia Program
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
    If the German euthanasia program developed from that nation's intellectual culture, then the Nazi extension of it was not a unique horror and might be a relevant analogy for modern euthanasia debates. In this context, the case of Peter Singer (an advocate of euthanasia) and his criticisms of the Nazi analogy are particularly worthy of consideration. This article argues that Singer's criticisms fail, and that the analogy does in fact have contemporary relevance.
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    Stories of Euthanasia in Germany
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
    The lived context of euthanasia under the Nazis is established through four brief narratives. The first two tell of the author's experience with a German farm family which hid a deaf mute during the war and with a silent building which turned out to have housed Joseph Mengele and his staff. The third narrative concerns Mengele's fascination with a Gypsy boy at Auschwitz and the fourth a film used to accustom German audiences to mercy-killing. A survey of key developments in the history of eugenics theory in Germany and the United States follows, and a thesis is developed that the same racial-purification impulses that drove German science during the 1930s and 1940s were present in American documents and legal proceedings.
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    The Logic of Christian Theology and the "Right to Die"
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
    The logic of Christian faith challenges most of the claims made by those who affirm a right to die, including Nazi claims. Whereas right-to-die proponents view life as a possession with which we can do whatever we like, the Christian tradition treats life as a trust held on behalf of God. The purpose of life is not to serve our desires but to serve God. While the Christian tradition challenges the claim that all suffering is meaningless and needs to be ended, it urges compassion for those afflicted with undeserved and unexplainable sufferings, using Christ's participation in the human condition as its model.
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    The Moral and Legal Status of Physician-Assisted Death: Quality of Life and the Patient-Physician Relationship
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
    The historical analogy of Nazi Germany is quite misguided and forestalls useful debate on euthanasia. Rightly practiced, passive euthanasia can be seen as a medical duty in certain cases. Indeed, even the use of active forms of aid in dying can be recommended. One can properly appeal both to the traditional goals of medicine (especially the relief of pain and suffering) and to the ethos of trust, comfort, and protection that naturally grows between patients and physicians. In advancing its dissenting argument, the article reviews the legal and historical backgrounds that guide recent discussions of euthanasia in the United States.
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    Toward a Unified Human Science
    (Association for Interdisciplinary Studies, 2000)
    An organizing schema for human science is constructed, which consists of a hierarchical list of the phenomena of interest to human scientists, and the causal links (influences) among these phenomena. Such a schema has been suggested by previous scholars but never constructed. The schema can be justified in terms of both realist philosophy and (much) postmodern thought. It serves the task of interdisciplinarity much better than grand theory. The schema can encourage a broader world view among scholars and a more balanced scholarly effort, improve public policy advice, aid both integration and skill acquisition by students, provide answers to many modern critiques of liberal arts education, and facilitate curricular change.