Digest Week 8 Michaelmas Term 2026

Avicenna Reading Group

Convenor: Ibrahim Safri

Date: Tuesday, 1 December, 2–3:30pm

Venue: Magdalen College, McFarlane Library 

The theory of time remains one of the most complex and significant subjects of inquiry, central to both philosophical and physical discourse globally. Throughout the history of world philosophy, this concept has been continually refined, spanning Late Antiquity and Neoplatonism through to Islamic, Medieval, and Early Modern philosophical traditions. Within the global corpus of Arabic philosophy, diverse interpretations of time have emerged, shaped by three primary perspectives that influenced Islamic medieval conceptions of this theory. This reading class will focus on Avicenna’s The Physics of The Healing, in which he presents various notions of time before establishing his own account.

This MT26, and following a comprehensive introduction to the concept of time in global Arabic philosophy, we will continue with Chapter 11, on the Essence of Time.

Text: Avicenna, The Physics of The Healing; a Parallel English-Arabic Text. Translated by: Jon McGinnis. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2009.

Joseph Butler Society

Hope, Faith and Optimism

Speaker: Christoph Jäger (University of Innsbruck) 

Date: Tuesday, 1 December, 8:30-10 pm

Venue: Large SCR, Oriel College

Further details will be available here:

https://josephbutlersociety.weebly.com/

Please check this site for any changes to venue or schedule.

Should Space Medicine Protect Fertility?

Reproductive Health, Reproductive Capacity, and the Goals of Medicine Beyond Earth

Space Ethics Seminar #4

Convenor: Koji Tachibana (Chiba University)

Speakers: Konrad Szocik (UITM)

Date: Wednesday, 2 December, 12:45–1:45pm

Venue: Suite 1 (1st floor), Uehiro Oxford Institute, 16-17 Saint Ebbe's St, Oxford OX1 1PT

Abstract: Human spaceflight increasingly treats reproductive health and fertility as medical concerns. Radiation, altered gravity, isolation, and other features of the space environment may affect reproductive organs, gametes, pregnancy, and embryonic development. As long-duration missions and future space settlements become more plausible, protecting fertility may therefore appear to be an obvious goal of space medicine. This paper asks whether that assumption is justified. I argue that reproductive health, reproductive capacity, and reproduction itself should be kept conceptually distinct. Space medicine has strong reasons to prevent damage to reproductive organs, treat reproductive disease, and protect the reproductive autonomy of individual patients. It does not follow, however, that preserving the capacity to reproduce is itself a medical obligation, particularly when fertility is valued because future missions or settlements are expected to depend on demographic continuity. This distinction becomes especially important in small and isolated populations. In such settings, fertility may cease to be understood primarily as an individual capacity and instead become a resource required for the survival of the settlement. Medicine may then shift from protecting patients to protecting reproduction as a collective objective. An antinatalist perspective helps expose the normative assumption behind this move: that the creation of future people, and the continuation of the population through them, is itself a good that medicine should help secure. The argument does not require the conclusion that reproduction in space is always wrong. Rather, it challenges the idea that reproductive capacity should automatically be treated as a health good. I argue that space medicine should protect reproductive health and reproductive autonomy, but should not treat fertility or population continuity as medical ends in themselves. This distinction has implications for fertility preservation, radiation standards, reproductive technologies, mission planning, and the governance of future space settlements. 

In-person at UOI. Lunch is provided from 12:00. Please register and indicate any dietary requirements: Space Ethics Seminar #4 – Fill in form