A Humanistic Interpretation of the Qur'an?

The presence of great numbers of Muslims in Europe, including The Netherlands, makes it no longer appropriate to view Islam as a non-Western religion. Naturally, Muslims, too, are people who adapt their identity and culture – including their religion – to their circumstances, and simultaneously try to turn these circumstances to their advantage. The fact that Muslims have become ever more visible in The Netherlands has led to public debate on a variety of topics: on forms of cremation and burial, ritual slaughter, honour killing, headscarves, marriage migration and, at the same time, on more abstract questions in the background, for instance the separation of church and state, cultural relativism and the multicultural society

Engineering Substantially Prolonged Human Lifespans: Biotechnological Enhancement and Ethics

Substantial extension of the human lifespan has recently become a subject of lively debate. One reason for this is the completion in 2001 of the Human Genome Project and the experimental avenues for biogerontological research it has opened. Another is recent theoretical progress in biogerontology. We had better investigate the ethical aspects of considerable human lifespan extension now, before this extension has become genuinely practicable, or before large sums of money have been spent on it. We shall see, first, that these apparently technical, biomedical questions cannot be discussed without considering ethics and values, and, second, that this investigation inevitably demands that we try to conceptualise something of what ageing itself and being human is about

Peter Derkx aan Desiderius Erasmus in antwoord op diens brief van 6 oktober 1516, oorspronkelijk gericht aan Pieter Gillis

Rekening houdend met historische gegevens heb ik een antwoord geschreven op een brief van Erasmus uit 1516 aan zijn vriend Pieter Gillis. Thema's die in de brief aan de orde komen zijn de volgende (in trefwoorden): Erasmus; zingeving; publiek debat; privacy; huwelijk; intimiteit; gevoelens; Aristoteles; Stoa; vrouwen; feminisme

Inclusief humanisme

Peter Derkx, hoogleraar humanisme en levensbeschouwing, doordenkt in deze bewerkte versie van zijn lezing bij de opening van het academisch jaar, het humanisme in zijn exclusieve en inclusieve vorm. Doet een levensbeschouwing als het humanisme er goed aan zich af te grenzen? Of juist eerder haar waarden ook in andere levensbeschouwingen en godsdiensten te vinden?Welke consequenties heeft dit voor studenten en docenten aan de Universiteit voor Humanistiek