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[German Version] is now the traditional name for the philosophical discipline that studies the most elementary conditions and forms of being, praxis, and cognition (Epistemology). The epoch-making transition to metaphysics as an elementary philosophical discipline was made possible by the brilliant scholarly rigor with which Aristotle transformed the treatment of such topics into far-reaching and profound conceptual ¶ as well as argumentative and analytical investigations and case studies. In the post-Socratic history of philosophy, however, Plato too already ga…

[German Version] In book XI of the Confessiones, Augustine asks what time is and how we measure (the duration of) motion. The temporal contrast between beginning and ending he connects with the question whether a human being – or only God – can begin and/or end a motion or action on earth or in the heavens. Through counterfactual hypotheses concerning the forms of …

[German Version] has been the traditional name of a special philosophical discipline since the time of Rudolf Glocenius, in the 17th century. However, its systematic status as well as its main scope had already been assigned to it much earlier by Aristotle under the heading of “first philosophy” (ἡ πρώτη ϕιλοσοϕία/ hē prōtē philosophía), with the question as to how things that exist are characterized as such (ὄν ἥ ὄν/ ón hḗ ón; cf. Metaph. 1026 a 30–31). In the dialogue Sophista, however, Plato already presents a critical discussion of the subject, continuing lines of th…

[German Version] is one of the most important topics in philosophical epistemology. Both in everyday life and in scientific research, knowledge is the most broadly reliable but also most ambitious cognitive and epistemic format that a person can acquire with respect to a single concrete object or situation or a whole field of objects or situations. It constitutes the most reliable format because it guarantees to those who know that all the assertions by which they can give an account of their part…

[German Version] I. is a technical term introduced by Aristotle from the border area between grammar, semantics and ontology; it refers to a key aspect under which something that exists can be meaningfully discussed by means of a predicative statement. In textbook form, Aristotle distinguished the category of substance from, at most, nine other categories, linked with explanatory exemplifications: the what, the how large, the kind of nature, t…

[German Version] Science is one of the most complex and successful enterprises of sociocultural evolution. Even at the stage of “emergent science” (van der Waerden) – i.e. the 5th and 4th centuries bce –, the need to distinguish science from other, similarly complex activities such as politics had led to extraordinarily ambitious philosophical reflection and formal analysis, with the goal of elucidating the structure of science – in other words, the conditions for success and the conditions of possibility of scientific activit…

[German Version] The relationships between the general and the particular are primarily examined from the perspectives of (formal) logic, epistemology, and the methodology of scholarly research. The interest of formal logic lies in the clarification of the deductive relationships between general statements and statements of particulars. With respect to general statements, logic draws a clearer distinction between universal statements such as “ all humans are mortal” and general statements such as “ some people are blond,” while in turn distinguishing the form of suc…

[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Systematic Theology I. Philosophy Intuition is a term used in epistemology and refers to a special, successful cognitive act. Accordingly, and following the typology of G. Ryle, “intuition” is thus a (cognitive) success word, but it also designates a special cognitive faculty. In many contexts, a performative quality is reserved for the intuitive act, as expressed by the characteristic feature that was probably first noted in Epicurean circles: its instantaneousness (ἀϑρόα/ athróa). Inasmuch as this instantaneousness is understood i…

[German Version] I. Philosophy Until the late Middle Ages, transcendentals ( transcendentalia, also known as transcendentia) belong to a type of attributes which go beyond the attributes of what has being (Being) that Aristotle fixed with his ten categories. What has being ( das Seiende) itself was taken as the first of the transcendentals because, together with the One, the True and the Good, it forms the most general attributes that any Something (can) have and which therefore include all categorical attributes. The extension of research into the categories is motivated by …