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[German Version] I. Philosophy – II. Religious Studies – III. Fundamental Theology – IV. Ethics – V. Practical Theology I. Philosophy In the 20th century, philosophical issues were primarily treated as issues of language and communication. While Rorty spoke of a “linguistic turn,” and thereby focused on methodological innovations in theoretical philosophy, Apel and Habermas postulated an objective shift of paradigm from consciousness to communication that is meant to have revolutioni…

[German Version] I. Definition Sociology is an empirical social science; its field of study encompasses the relatively enduring forms and structures of social action (Action, Science of ) and the resultant social units, from entities like the family and kinship group and social groups to large-scale organizations and states. The word itself is an artificial combination of Latin socius (“companion, fellow”) and Greek logos (“word, truth,” in an extended sense “knowledge”). It appears for the first time in vol. IV of the Cours de philosophie positive of A. Comte (1838). As a scie…

[German Version] (Dec 13, 1902, Colorado Springs, CO – May 8, 1979, Munich). After graduating from Amherst College, Parsons studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Heidelberg; he taught at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was one of the most important and influential sociologists of the 20th century. Initially a champion of a voluntaristic theory of action, he pioneered structural functionalism and later sociological systems theory (III). His structural fu…

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[German Version] I. Terminology …