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[German Version] is a fundamental concept in epistemology (cf. Stegmüller). Explanations make the implausible plausible by tracing them back to causes or situating them in a regularly describable context. As a rule, this process occurs in an argument, so explanations are special cases of arguments. What requires explanation depends on the background information. Both singular ¶ events as well as regular occurrences can require explanation. Examples: The fact that a tile fell from the roof and struck a m…

[German Version] In monadological metaphysics (G.W. Leibniz, A.N. Whitehead), the internal structures of the fundamental entities are seen as expressions of the entire world, the order of the world; alternatively, as an expression of the internal complexity of the entities that constitute the world (Whitehead). Leibniz, who made the term important in philosophy, defined expression as a “constant and regular relation between… what can be said of the one and of the other” ( Hauptschriften, vol. II, 425). According to B. Sp…

[German Version] I. Philosophy Vision or intuition (Ger. Anschauung) is a fundamental concept of epistemology, denoting immediate access to an object of knowledge instead of knowledge mediated through concepts or deductions. For Plato, for example, ideas are grasped through such intuition or intellectual “vision” ( noein). Through the concept of visio intellectualis of Nicholas of Cusa (“Trialogus,” 38) and I. Kant’s concept of non-sensory intuition, which nevertheless “lies outside our cognitive faculty” ( KrV, B 307), intellectual intuition became a fundamental con…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Fundamental Theology I. Philosophy Epistemology is a basic philosophical discipline, and is today closely associated with the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. It deals with such concepts as “knowledge,” “opinion,” “truth,” “perception,” “justification,” “doubt,” and the like. It asks whether generally valid conditions for the justification of knowledge exist, and what these conditions are. Though the concept of epistemology was already current in 1819, it only …

[German Version] I. Terminology – II. Philosophy of Religion – III. Psychology and Psychology of Religion I. Terminology The Latin terms explicatio and evolutio originally referred to the unfolding or evolvement of something already existing (including the sense of maturation), later also to the origination of something new, growth and differentiation, i.e. mostly to all forms of orderly change that is regarded positively …

[German Version] I. Religious Studies – II. Natural Sciences – III. Philosophy – IV. Philosophy of Religion and Fundamental Theology I. Religious Studies The modern development of the concept of consciousness, in conjunction with the simultaneous concern for data in religious studies, has led to the question of the locus and understanding of consciousness in non-European systems of thought and religion. The underlying reality of the basic Western understanding of consciousness, which was rathe…