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[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Fundamental Theology I. Philosophy After roughly two and a half thousand years of the varied history of argumentative speech (Wohlrapp, Introduction), the concept of argumentation has acquired new relevance for philosophy and science in the last 40 years. Currently, the concept of argumentative reasoning is in the process of superseding or reinterpreting the concept of truth (esp. in the normative sense). An argument is a preserved specimen of human speech suited for demon…

[German Version] I. Dogmatics – II. Ethics I. Dogmatics In Protestant dogmatics, the debate on the term “heteronomy” (etymology, see II below) is characterized by the fact that “heteronomy” is not only defined as the opposite of “autonomy” but also of “theonomy” (cf. also Graf). P. Tillich regards heteronomy and auton-¶ omy as being essentially rooted in a theonomy that is unattainable under the conditions of existence. In the dialectical course of the history of theonomy, autonomy, and heteronomy, heteronomy represents a reaction to the domin…

[German Version] I. Natural Sciences Neopragmatism is the name given to a philosophical movement that emerged in the United States in the 1950s, usually associated with such thinkers as W.V.O. Quine, Wilfried Sellars, D. Davidson, Thomas Kuhn (see also Paradigms), Hilary Putnam, and R. Rorty, who based their work on classical Pragmatism but developed it in their own independent direction. The movement began as a critical reaction to the dominance of analytic philosophy and logical positivism in Ameri…

[German Version] I. Philosophy of Religion and Fundamental Theology In modern philosophy, the term pragmatics (from Gk τὸ πρᾶγμα/ tó prágma, “action, act, thing”) denotes both purposive and object-oriented cognition and action. Departing from the usage of I. Kant, who understood the adjective pragmatisch instrumentally (e.g. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781, B 834f.; ET: Critique of Pure Reason, 1881), semiotics follows in the footsteps of C.S. Peirce’s triadic theory of signs, relating it to the interpretation of signs (interpretant). Peirce’s point…

[German Version] I. Philosophy The term validity was already used by I. Kant ( Akademie-Ausgabe IV, 460f.), but it did not play a prominent role in philosophy until the late 19th century. Validity is an actuality, not further explicable, that is understood primarily in contrast to existence. In this sense, R.H. Lotze distinguished between things, which exist, events, which take place, and propositions, which are valid ( Grundzüge der Logik und Encyklopädie der Philosophie, 1902; ET: Outlines of Logic and of Encyclopædia of Philosophy, 1892). To say that a proposition is valid …

[German Version] I. Systematic Theology – II. Ethics – III. Practical Theology I. Systematic Theology The term “indifference” is used particularly in classical Catholic theology, where it has a positive meaning, applied to a distancing from the world motivated by the coming of the kingdom of God (see also II). This indifference is sharply distinguished from the negative concept of “indifferentism,” denoting indifference regarding claims to transcendent knowledge, and as such was officially condemned (DH 291…

[German Version] I. The Term and Its Impact Though there was scattered use of the term in German historiography (Ernst Bernheim) and 19th-century German and French philosophy (Conrad Herrmann, M. Blondel), the concept and term go back to C.S. Peirce (see also II below), who introduced the concept in How to Make Our Ideas Clear (1878), the term in 1902 in J. Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, and both orally between 1871 and 1873 ¶ in the Metaphysical Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He used the term for a logical maxim that the meaning of concepts must…