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[German Version] I. Concept The term “nominalism” is primarily related to a discussion that belongs specifically to the medieval period in philosophy. In contrast with realism, the nominalist position is that what gives meaning to a concept does not consist in a “real” being antecedent to thought, but is a product of perception, and thus a “name.” The source and starting-point of this difference between nominalism and realism, which determined the universals controversy in the Middle Ages, was Boeth…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies Silence is a universal form of religious communication. As early as the Stone Age, individuals sought out recesses deep in the interior of caves, to which they retreated in absolute silence, presumably in quest of visions, as the cave paintings they left suggest. In ethnic societies, certain religious specialists withdraw from time to time to the solitude of the forest, the mountains, or the desert, to come close to the deity they worship or their tutelary spirit…