On the Phenomenon of the Oblivion of the Person
Stephen Schwarz: Die verratene Menschenwürde. Abtreibung als philosophisches Problem (Communio, 1992; with a preface by Robert Spaemann). Original English edition: The Moral Question of Abortion.
In clear, argumentative language, Schwarz shows that the common objections to the personhood of the embryo do not hold up. The book is not a polemic but a sober philosophical investigation that builds its arguments step by step. Spaemann’s preface sets the discussion in a broader context.
Robert Spaemann: Das unsterbliche Gerücht. Die Frage nach Gott und die Täuschung der Moderne (Klett-Cotta, 2007) (The Undying Rumor: The Question of God and the Delusion of Modernity).
In this book Spaemann pursues the question of what happens when a society forgets the foundations of its image of the human being. It is not a book about personhood in the narrower sense, but it reveals the larger context: whoever loses the sense of the reality of the person in the end loses the sense of reality altogether.
Full bibliographic details in the Bibliography.
Further reading: A Word in Closing →