This study confronts the current crisis of churches. In critical and creative conversation with the German theologian Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), Ulrich Schmiedel argues that churches need to be "elasticized" in order to engage the "other." Examining contested concepts of religiosity, community, and identity, Schmiedel explores how the closure of church against the sociological "other" corresponds to the closure of church against the theological "other." Taking trust as a central category, he advocates for a turn in the interpretation (...) of Christianity-from "propositional possession" to "performative project," so that the identity of Christianity is "done" rather than "described." Through explorations of classical and contemporary scholarship in philosophy, sociology, and theology, Schmiedel retrieves Troeltsch's interdisciplinary thinking for use in relation to the controversies that encircle the construction of community today. The study opens up innovative and instructive approaches to the investigation of the practices of Christianity, past and present. Eventually, church emerges as a "work in movement," continually constituted through encounters with the sociological and the theological "other.". (shrink)

This compilation explores the significance of religion for the controversies stirred up by populist politics in European and American contexts, engaging Jewish, Christian, and Islamic political thought. Moving beyond essentialist definitions of religion, the contributions offer critical interpretations and constructive interventions for political theology today.

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 56 Heft: 3 Seiten: 379-392.

This article assesses the tension between cosmopolitan and communitarian approaches to the ethics of migration by analysing how the Protestant Church in Germany has responded to the current so-called migration crisis in Europe. I argue that the statements of the EKD frame people on the move either as migrants or as Muslims. These frames come with competing ethical consequences. Whereas migrants are presented as passive victims in need of some form of support by Christians, Muslims are presented as active victimisers (...) in need of some form of suppression by Christians. However, when the then chairman of the EKD shook hands with people on the move who were arriving at Munich station in the summer of 2015, the surplus of meaning communicated in this encounter demonstrated that these people cannot be reduced to their respective framing, thus resisting the construction of both the cosmopolitan migrant frame and the communitarian Muslim frame. Accordingly, I advocate for a re-conceptualisation of the theological ethics of migration which takes multi-faith practices, such as these handshakes, as a point of departure. (shrink)

This Festschrift in honour of Werner G. Jeanrond, currently Master of St Benet's Hall, University of Oxford, UK, investigates the challenge of alterity for Christianity, exploring and elaborating on this core concern in Jeanrond's hermeneutical theology. Blurring disciplinary boundaries, more than thirty of Jeanrond's colleagues and companions from ten countries track the dynamics of difference driven by the encounter with the self as other, the other as other, and God as the radical other. Who is my other? What do I (...) encounter when I encounter my other? And what responses and responsibilities does the encounter with my other evoke? Grappling with questions like these, the contributions to this compilation analyse alterity in the Bible, alterity in philosophy, alterity in theology, alterity in interreligious dialogues, and the radical alterity of God. Tying in with Jeanrond's explorations of the many faces and facets of the other, this Festschrift ultimately aims to advocate openness to the other as a necessity for both religion and reflections on religion. (shrink)

Morality and economic rationality: integrative economic ethics as the rational ethics of economic activity; Part II. Reflections on the Foundations of Economic ...

Das Buch weist die Fruchtbarkeit einer strukturgenetisch fundierten Rekonstruktionsperspektive für die Analyse der historisch und kulturell differenten Weltbilder nach. Anhand der für die Geschichte der Denksysteme zentralen Vorstellungen über die Natur-Kultur-Differenz und die physikalische Kausalität werden Reichweite und Grenzen der These einer universalen Entwicklungslogik kritische geprüft. Die historischen Studien bieten dabei einen neuartigen Blick auf die Aristotelische Physik und ihre mittelalterlichen Fortentwicklungen. Schließlich werden die materialen Ergebnisse in Richtung einer differenztheoretisch orientierten Theorie der Entstehung des Neuen in der Entwicklung ausgedeutet.

This article investigates the prospect of giving de dicto- and de re-necessity a uniform treatment. The historical starting point is a puzzle raised by Aristotle's claim, advanced in one of the modal chapters of his Prior Analytics, that universally privative apodeictic premises simply convert. As regards the Prior and the Posterior Analytics, the data suggest a representation of propositions of the type in question by doubly modally qualified formulae of modal predicate logic that display a necessity operator in two distinct (...) positions. Can the N-operator occurring in these positions be given a unified semantical treatment (which would justify dispensing with a notational differentiation)? A positive answer, based on a suitably shaped truth condition for N-formulae, is given, and is supported in the final section with an alternative proof theoretically based conception of a property's essential belonging to an individual. (shrink)

Werner Heisenberg zahlt zu den bedeutendsten Physikern des 20. Jahrhunderts. Internationale Anerkennung und Beruhmtheit erlangte er durch die Formulierung der Unscharferelation. Allerdings liess ihn sein reges Interesse fur die Philosophie seine naturwissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse immer wieder hinterfragen. In seinen Essays, Reden und wissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen trifft man deshalb haufig auf philosophische und theologische Aspekte. Ein Themenkreis, der ihn immer wieder beschaftigte, war der Dialog zwischen Naturwissenschaft und Theologie. Heisenbergs Bedeutung zur Forderung dieses Dialoges ist grosser als es auf den ersten Blick erscheint (...) und der zentrale Gegenstand dieser Arbeit.". (shrink)

Als eine wesentliche Schwäche des strukturalistischen Theorienkonzepts musste die Vagheit erscheinen, mit der die Unterscheidung zwischen bezüglich einer Theorie theoretischen und nichttheoretischen Funktionen bisher belastet war. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird ein formal präzises, pragmatisch nichtrelativiertes Kriterium für T-Theoretizität vorgestellt. Erste Schritte zur Klärung seiner Bedeutung für die holistische Sichtweise erfahrungswissenschaftlicher Theorien werden unternommen.

By assembling authors with a wide range of different disciplinary backgrounds, from philosophy, literature, political science, sociology to medical anthropology ...

In the following article, we propose an analytical framework for the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Standards based on the paradigmatic nexus of voice and entitlement. We follow the theory of decentration and present the concept of Transnational Norm-Building Networks (TNNs), which — as we argue — comprise a new nexus of voice and entitlement beyond the nation—state level. Furthermore, we apply the analytical framework to the ISO 26000 initiative and the Global Compact. We conclude the article with remarks (...) on the legitimacy and the effectiveness of norms generated by TNNs. Through this, we aim to contribute a new theoretical foundation to the analysis of CSR standards, which enables us to undertake a more differentiated description of TNN structures which have hitherto been ignored in academic literature. Secondly, we will contribute to the practical debate on ISO 26000 and the Global Compact by proposing new perspectives on the conditions of their legitimacy and effectiveness based on the voice-entitlement nexus. (shrink)

Ulrich Meyer defends a novel theory about the nature of time, and argues against the consensus view that time and space are fundamentally alike. He presents the first comprehensive defense of a 'modal' account, which emphasizes the similarities between times and possible worlds in modal logic, and is easily reconciled with the theory of relativity.

Eine tragfähige affektive Beziehung wird als Grundlage für reflexive kooperative Prozesse in der psychoanalytisch orientierten Therapie erachtet. Was ist die Essenz dieser affektiven Bindung (des Attachments)? Es werden zwei bildhafte Konzepte entwickelt: das affektive Feld und die Trajektorie. Letztere ist als ein Weg der affektiven Information zwischen den Protagonisten gezeichnet. Jedes Selbst hat ein affektives Feld. Die Felder zwischen zwei Selbsten werden verknüpft, jedoch nicht im Sinne der Feldtheorie, die eine eigen­ständige Entwicklung eines gemeinsamen Feldes postuliert. In einem wissenschaftstheoretischen Exkurs (...) werden die Ansätze »Feld« und »two singles« als gleichwertige Möglichkeiten diskutiert, Intersubjektivität zu verstehen. Die affektive Beziehung entwickelt sich zunächst zu den beiden Funktionen der resonanten und der responsiven Relation, um dann zunehmend durch die kognitive überlagert zu werden. Affektive Kommunikation ist nicht identisch mit der affektiven Bindung. Es werden Störungen im Bereich der Psychosen und Formen früher Störungen beschrieben. Die Ergebnisse der Bindungsforschung sind bekannt, spielen aber in dieser klinisch ausgerichteten Arbeit nur hintergründig eine Rolle. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that the structuralist approachprovides a powerful framework for the analysis of certain holistic phenomena in empirical theories.We focus on two aspects of holism. The first refers to the involvement of comprehensive complexes of hypothesesin the theoretical treatment of systems regarded in isolation. By contrast, the second refers to thecorrelation between the theoretical descriptions of different systems. It is demonstrated how these two aspectscan be analysed by making use of the structuralist notion of (...) theory-nets, and how they are reflected by a refinedversion of the Ramsey sentence. Furthermore, it is argued that there exists a tight correlation between theoccurrence of these two holistic phenomena, a specific form of underdetermination of terms which occur in thefundamental principles of an empirical theory, and the shaping of the theory's protective belt. After having dealtwith these questions in abstracto, the relevance of these considerations for a better understanding of the dynamicsof empirical theories is demonstrated in a concrete case study. It refers to the role holistic phenomenaplayed in the investigation of the anomalous advance of Mercury's perihelion and in the various attempts to eliminate this anomaly. (shrink)

In this new book, Ulrich Beck develops his now widely used concepts of second modernity, risk society and reflexive sociology into a radical new sociological ...