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[German Version] I. Philosophy Historically, the term phenomenology has been used in various different ways. It is first found in the Novum Organon (1764) of Johann Heinrich Lambert. Here phenomenology studies appearance, in order to clarify its influence on the correctness or falsehood of human cognition, and to overcome this influence in the interests of truth. The term phenomenology was passed on in this sense by J.G. Herder, I. Kant, and J.G. Fichte, among others. The term became widely known only through G.W.F. Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807; ET: Phenomenology of Mind).…

[German Version] The expression conditio humana can best be understood against the background of the philosophical anthropology that developed into an independent discipline in the course of the 20th century. It appears already in a non-technical sense in Cicero ( Tusc. I, 8, 15). B. Pascal describes the condition de l'homme as inconstancy, boredom, and anxiety ( Pensées [Lafuma] 20). The expression refers to human life or the human condition as such, its general character, raising the fundamental anthropological question: what makes hum…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Dogmatics I. Philosophy In philosophy, finitude refers basically to that which has bounds or is limited and already R. Descartes considered it a defining essence of human being and knowing. This idea was adopted by I. Kant and extensively dealt with in the discussion of the human ability of cognition. In German idealism, especially in F.W.J. Schelling and G.F.W. Hegel, the interdependence or dialectics of finitude and infinity was the focus of philosophical concern. Schelling initially understood finitude ( Fernere…

[German Version] I. Old Testament – II. New Testament – III. Early Judaism – IV. Church History – V. Philosophy – VI. Philosophy of Religion – VII. Dogmatics – VIII. Ethics – IX. Sociology, Politics, and Law I. Old Testament 1. The concept of political freedom, which originated in the Greek polis (City cult), first appeared in Hellenistic Jewish historiography. The Stoics' concept of freedom, which contrasts inner freedom and outward constraint, has no counterpart in the OT. The OT is rooted in an internal mythological cultur…